sessions fests posts/reviews

great coverage of sessions fest:

SD Dialed In

Blog San Diego

Its Too Sunny Out Here

Union-Tribune

the end.

Cat Dirt Expeditionary Force Ohio/Kentucky: "On the Bourbon Trail"

Bottle Room, originally uploaded by Paul Pellerito.

Looks like our saturday is shaping up to be a tour "on the bourbon trail." It's kind of like going wine tasting except it's bourbon, not wine.

Cat Dirt Expeditionary Force: Southern Ohio, Kentucky

So CDW and I are leaving on a flight for Columbus tomorrow. We'll be spending a couple days there, a couple days in Cincinnati maybe a day trip to Louisville. Not sure if we'll have time to get to Louisville. We want to hit a creepy, run down Amusement parks annndddd Xenia Ohio (featured prominently in a little movie you might have heard of called "GUMMO"! OH! YEAH! and if you don't get the reference, you probably shouldn' be reading this blog in the long term.

Lot of people are like "Why Columbus?" 1: Our non stop flight leaves at 11 AM. Yeah. That is a big factor- and you'd know this if you've travelled anywhere. 2. I want to see new places, not go to old places. So I'll tell you what- you stay here and do the same old thing, and I will got to Ohio and um... eat fried chicken? shop at malls? visit the state capitol?

And, in honor of the trip, I'd like to share a video of a band that makes me think "OHIO":

(video) Silverchair- Straight Line



I hear this song about 15 times a week about fifteen times a week on 94/9, and every time I close my eyes and rock bank and forth, and think of Ohio. So thanks, 94/9- you are bringing me closer to an "Ohio State of Mind" then anyone else in San Diego! Just a great track.

Thoughts on NY Times Essay "Revisiting the Canon Wars"

New York Times Book Review Essay: Reviewing the Canon Wars by Rachael Donadio

It's been twenty years since Allan Bloom wrote his mash note to liberal academia "The Closing of The American Mind." In CLOSING, Bloom took universities across the nation to task for replacing the "classics" of western literature with books written by women and minorities. Bloom joined an ongoing debate over what to teach college undergraduates that was commonly referred to as "the Canon Wars".

As is often the case in these sorts of debates, 20 years has raised the inevitable question "Does anyone even care about the humanities anymore?" Donadio's article cites authority that while 20% of american undergraduates major in business, and 9% major in computer science, only 1% major in english and only 1% major in history.

It seems perfectly acceptable to be an urban professional with a post graduate degree who's never even taken a history class beyond the required minimum for graduation- let alone a class on english poetry or greek philosophy- two favorite subjects for the anti-p.c. crowd.

It seems to me that it is best to interpret the expansion of the canon, not as an attack on the great western tradition of humantities, but as a move to expand interest in these subjects among a student body that is no longer heavily weighted towards straight white males (women outnumber men among american undergraduates).

After all, if no one is reading literature, it hardly mattters if they books they AREN'T READING are dead white males or chinua achebe.

Sessions Fest Photo Gallery

IMG_7704, originally uploaded by catdirtrecords.

Please- if you have Sessions Fest photos of your own, please drop me an email- it's on the column to the right there- AFTER you've uploaded them to flickr or photobucket or whatever.

Hope everyone had a good time, because this event is never happening again, nor is the Golden Hill Block Party. Thanks for coming out!!!

Thank you!

Thank you to all the bands who played yesterday at Sessions Fest. The bands played for free, showed up on time and ran that stage themselves! They were awesome! It was exciting to see Wild Weekend again after their triumphant first and second shows at the CHOB and the Casbah. We also liked hearing new material from The Atoms, The Prayers, Fifty on their Heels, MC Flow and Pizza! Sddialedin and Catdirt will have more extensive reviews with pictures but I wanted to thank everyone for coming out and supporting the bands and sessions fest! Thanks to Karl Strauss for donating the beer (even if we couldn't figure out the co2/beer ratio and it poured foam all night). SESAC, our artist right's organization of choice, not only enthusiastically stepped to the plate to donate to the festival but they provided free peanuts, which was pretty cool. I can't remember ever going to an event and getting free peanuts to eat with my beer, most festivals try to charge you for every little thing so I hope people enjoyed the free peanuts thanks to SESAC. Also, a million thanks to our volunteers, Sddialed Rosey (who needs no link to her blog, because we all read it) poured beers for hours and dealt gracefully with the major beer foam issues. Rosey, you are our hero and I think we owe you at least new shoes and a new t-shirt. Thanks also to Tim Pyles for having me on air on Sunday to promote Sessions Fest, promoting the event all week and showing up last night before running off to support another local music benefit event. No-one in San Diego radio does more to promote local music. My cotton candy and popcorn ladies, Katie, Lisa and Jen bravely faced the cotton candy machine of death that I rented, thanks girls! I'm exhausted. Will there be another sessions fest? no. but I hope everyone had a good time and were inspired to plan their own festivals at golden hill park!!