I‘m psychologically preparing myself for the inaugural Desdemona Festival here in Cincinnati this weekend - a festival which features some pretty fucking good bands in my opinion: Apples In Stereo, Saturday Looks Good To Me, Annie, Mates of State, Enon, The Walkmen, the Fiery Furnaces, Rogue Wave, and We Are Scientists, to name a few.
BUT, there’s always a big butt. When I performed my monthly MySpace check last week, I found the following message in my inbox:
Also… we need everyone to BUY TICKETS NOW. If you haven’t already, PLEASE go to desdemonafestival.com or hit Shake It!/Everybody’s and PURCHASE THEM IMMEDIATELY. With the city failing to show its support for Desdemona, we need an additional 1000 people to show up to break even. THAT MEANS YOU!! With all the bills we have to pay, the earlier you buy tickets the better.
So understandably, I’m worried. I’m not a big MySpacer, but maybe the organizer of the festival, Nick Spencer (owner of Alchemize) assumes all possible attendees are. Tiff with the city or not, it would have been nice to have received an email, after all I bought my tickets online and they know where I am.
Anywho, the inaugural Desdemona festival could also be the last hurrah.
Here are a few tracks from the above to get you excited. So you just can’t hide it. I’m about to bite my arm off and I think I like it.
Listen to:
- We Are Scientists - The Creeper
- Saturday Looks Good To Me - When The Party Ends
- Enon - Sold!
- Annie - Me Plus One
- The Walkmen - Thinking of a Dream I Had
- The Fiery Furnaces - My Dog Was Lost But Now He’s Found
- Rogue Wave - Publish My Love
- Mates of State - La’hov
I’d go. If I lived near enough. $12 a day?! The above bands will be there?! And Stellastarr* and Radio 4?! Have fun, you lucky bastard.
Back from the first night and it was fun, albeit a little disappointing from a crowd and staffing perspective.
I went to the inaugural Intonation festival last year, and granted, it\’s a different city and different people, but it was so much better organized. Staff at Desdemona, however, have no idea what band is playing where or when and the turnout tonight between 8-10 was probably around 500 people. Good for a club atmosphere, somewhat daunting if you are Apples in Stereo and looking out over and open field.
That said, there are some nice spots - VHS or Beta was DJ\\\’ing under the Purple People Bridge, which was pretty cool.