Official 2007 Sessions Fest Line Up

Sessions Fest is September 15th, starting early, NOON til 10pm! Karl Strauss is the official beer sponsor of Sessions Fest. A cup will be $3. Food will be available from influx, pizzeria luigi, popcorn, cotton candy.

The Prayers
Fifty On Their Heels
Atoms
MC Flow
Pizza! (aka The New Motherfuckers)
Red Pony Clock
Kite Flying Society
Habitat Sound System
Wild Weekend
The Corvinas

dj sets by
Skull Kontrol DJ's

Raymond Pettibon Poster for Fuck Yeah Fest 8/25-8/26/07

fuckweb, originally uploaded by catdirtrecords.

The Fuck Yeah Festival is coming up 8/25/07-8/26/07 in Los Angeles at the Echo, the Echoplex and rec center. And of course- I may have mentioned this- Sessions Fest on 9/15/07. What a great time for D.I.Y culture in Southern California. Don't miss either event. And make sure to check out San Diego Area bands at Fuck Yeah- Fifty on Their Heels, The Prayers, The Vultures, and I know there is one I'm forgetting. Shoot.

flyer: fifty on their heels/vultures/the scare/tower bar/saturday night

towervulturesfifty, originally uploaded by catdirtrecords.

Shows/This Week/San Diego

Thursday August 16th

Stockton House
3286 F St.(in Grant Hill)

The Endless Bummer
history of premature burial
The last slice of butter (Seattle?)

B.Y.O.B.
Show starts at 8:30 PM!!!!


Saturday August 18th

Tower Bar
Fifty on Their Heels
The Vultures
The Scare(Sydney Oz/Birmingham, UK)
Skull Kontrol DJ's
$5?/21+
Doors 9/ Show 10 PM

When I recommend a show, I'm recommending the god damn show. Don't miss Endless Bummer- fronted by Che "core member" David Barclay- you WILL want to check them out. They are, I believe the term is- a "hoot."

As for saturday- Skull Kontrol has been kind enough to import Australia/England's "The Scare". They are being kind enough to grace our fair city before doing the Spaceland/Cinespace thing in LA, which itself is before their appearance at the NME festival in merry olde England. Check the myspace tracks (link through their name above).

Cat Dirt Expeditionary Force Summary Report Las Vegas II

"Fifty on Their Wheels"???, originally uploaded by catdirtrecords.

vegas pictures

Went to Las Vegas for a SESAC/Cat Dirt Showcase as part of the Amplify! Music Conference & Festival. While I was there, I participated in a panel discussion on "The Legal Perspective for Indie Musicians." Along with a woman who works at the firm who represents Metallica, AFI and whatnot and the manager of The Bravery (!) and Andrew WK ( About Andrew WK: "He is such a nice guy. The japanese have a name for him that translates into "big brother who gives helpful advice"".)

The Showcase featured Fifty on Their Heels, The New Motherfuckers AKA Pizza!, The Atoms and two fifths of the Swedish models. It has held at the Beauty Bar Las Vegas on Thursday. My panel discussion was held the next day, at a little Dave and Buster's type joint called "Jillians", which is itself located inside the "Neonopolis" on Fremont Street. Edgartronic and CDW came along to dj.

In my mind, Las Vegas represents the post- global warming future. To whit: It is hot as balls, no one ever goes outside if they can help it and residents expend even more energy on air conditioning and suv's then we expended to turn our planet into a desert in the first place. It's hard to drive the I15 from Barstow to Vegas and not have some thoughts about the potential for that climate region to um... expand. Think about it- two thousand years ago, North Africa was a farming region- then the Sahara swallowed that all up due to over farming.

Suffice it to say- I walked to work today.

Driving out to Vegas with a show to play that night is, at best, a difficult proposition. Lucky for us, we didn't hit any traffic and rolled into town at about 5 PM, with plenty of time to check in at the Golden Nugget (our vegas home away from home), and to check the Atoms in at the Fremont. I don't know why anyone would stay on the Strip- the prices are outlandish. If you want to pay that much for a nice hotel room, go to New York or London or someplace like that. I am much more comfortable with the scale of the Fremont St.- the way Vegas SHOULD be. Not to mention, the douche factor- which is always, always, off the chart in Vegas, is at its lowest reading in the Fremont East Entertainment district.


We arrived at the Beauty Bar Las Vegas at about 9 PM. The staff there were dicks. I can see why, since it was about 90+ on the outside patio where the stage was (see photoset for Beauty Bar Las Vegas lay out details). We had to haggle to get the sound guy to stay till the end of the night, and pizza! and Swedish Models were both a little late.

Attendance was stronger during the earlier part of the night. Maybe 150 passed through during the course of the evening, but that was for the whole night. Saw but did not speak to the DJ for Beauty Bar Las Vegas friday night. He goes by the name "Morpheus" and looks like a member of AFI. As did many of the emo style kids that I saw at the Beauty Bar Las Vegas. They looked nothing like the hipsters I saw at the Art Bar last year for Ratatat/Fifty on Their Heels, so that would posit the existence of at least two sub scenes.

Beauty Bar Las Vegas is akin to the Beauty Bar San Diego, except people smoke inside and it's a wee bit bigger. Unlike the Beauty Bar San Diego, Beauty Bar Las Vegas is surrounded by a million casinos, so people would swing by for a drink or two and then leave. It's not hard to see why indie music might have a hard time getting a toe hold in vegas, and judging from the monthly schedule I saw, it looks like Beauty Bar Las Vegas lacks the regular local music line up that Beauty Bar San Diego features.

After the show, all of the bands went next door to the Griifin, which is a new bar that opened up it's second branch in Vegas (first is in LA). It is right next to BBLV, and was quite a find. Long story short, we all hung out till 5 AM, which was fun. Thank you to all the bands for making the trek, and to Josh Feingold and Jamie Dominguez, for setting up the showcase and sprining for drinks. SESAC 4 eva.

CMJ was very much on my mind, and it looks like (fingers crossed) that Fifty may very well be making their East Coast debut this October in New York City- so watch for more announcements.

On Friday I participated on a panel about "the legal perspective" for indie musicians. To summarize "YOU...ARE...FUCKED." Here is how fucked you are:
1. go to wal mart
2. look a their cd selection
3. do you sound like any of the bands you see? if yes: great! if no: major labels don't want to sign you.

That is the panel in a nut shell.

Saturday we drove back to San Diego, stopping at Calico Ghost Town- ten miles outside Barstow on the I15- that was a blast. Check out the pictures for more Calico related hi jinks.

So that is the Las Vegas Cat Dirt Expedition II. Thanks again to Josh Feingold & Jamie Dominguez of SESAC- to Dustin and Andrew from Swedish Models, to Pizza!, to Atoms and to Fifty...

John D. Rockefeller

John D. Rockefeller, originally uploaded by dolby_mighty.

I'm really, really enjoying reading "Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller". Ascribe it to my penchant for monomania or whatever. But Rockefeller was, indeed, a Titan of American Business.