@ZackTeibloom Guest post by Sam, a freshman at IU with dreams of the Festival Crasher lifestyle and Gonzo Journalism. We welcome him and hope he finds Lipshutz, takes a ton of Gass and Hollinden classes and keeps the spirit alive in Bloomington. This is his first Phish show. Remember- we were all Noobz once and most of us couldn’t write half this well.

@Sam Last night, I went to see Phish for the first time and I can say with near certainty that it changed me forever.  My first big festival-type concert. It felt like home. Throngs of Phish heads flooded Miami, growing more and more as we passed one phan after another until we finally reached the venue, American Airlines Arena. Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom It’s all led up to this. Miley. Gaga. The teen queen (Destiny Hope Cyrus) and the “Lady” (Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta*) take their bizarre made-up names and over-produced pop sensations into the finals. I’m proud to say I predicted this finals, but wish I could swap out my choice after seeing Gaga steamroll her way through the bracket. I think it’s going to come down to which of our contest entrants hypes up their song best. As we said in the wrap-up, Abby N. wins if Miley does and Zelin and J.Ho will have a tie-breaker if Gaga wins. Let’s get it on. Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom We’re  down to two. The two #1 overall seeds (Miley Cyrus “Party in the USA” and Lady Gaga “Pokerface”) made it all the way to the finals. The selection committee is pretty proud of themselves. A lot of you had the right final two, but it’s down to just three finalists. Zelin has a chance to repeat and we’ve got two newcomers to the contest.

If “Party in the USA” wins, Abby “Some people knit, we talk shit” Nickerson wins it all. We may not have known her before the contest, but the girl with the hilarious Emilio Estevez gmail address is poised to take this thing if Gaga proves to be the behemoth she’s shown to be. On the other hand, we’ve got J. Ho and Zelin the Felon poised to take one for the SIT’S of ’02 if Miley Cyrus keeps her Party in the USA going. I have no shot, since I had Miley winning it all and Abby has one more point than me, but I poached The Dead Weather Horehound vinyl from the prize package and get to pay for shipping. So…I win too? Read the rest of this entry »

@AndyShore In the real Final Four,* they play both games back-to-back in one stadium.  All that excitement bottled up in one major event. Can you feel it, Crasher Nation? We’re putting both final four match-ups in one post and giving you guys until Tuesday at 3 p.m. to vote. Game one is overall number one seed “Party in the USA” going up against the George Mason of this year in “Birthday Sex.” Game two is the all Lady G(onz)aga match-up that pits “Poker Face” against “Paparazzi.” It was Gaga’s year, and it’s only fitting that she comprises half of the final four. Can Jeremih pull the upset special and show Miley how a real party in the USA goes down? Which Gaga song is moving on? (Cue the CBS update music…) Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom At least we have best-of lists to get us through December. As great as it is to find out about all the music I didn’t get the rest of the year, I wish we could come to a consensus and make it like the all-star game and do lists at the halfway point. It gets to be overwhelming to see all these lists at once. Maybe these aren’t your favorites yet, but if you see an album on a list a few times, get yourself a copy of it. I advise that you take the lists as a to-do list. It’s really not about rankings (though I guess I do get obsessed with them the rest of the year.) Hopefully we’ll all have different lists of ’09 in a few months. We may be through with the past, but the past ain’t through with us.

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@AndyShore Festival season began and ended as a team effort for Festival Crashers in ’09, but took a couple of individual efforts to pull it all together. Whatever doesn’t kill us will only make us stronger. It was nice to be able to come together for ACL and show all Zack’s new friends in Austin how we do. Zack got one last taste of festival season for his birthday, but I got mine for Halloween at Festival 8. It made me sad to read Zack’s list, knowing that I was not there for many of his favorite shows of the year. It also made me realize many of my favorite festival shows of 2009 are not on his list. Who doesn’t love them some more year end lists? Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom It was a wild year two on the festival circuit. Year one was a midwest-focused year where we learned as we went and laughed (Unlike the film of the same name, which couldn’t have been less funny if it tried.) Year two I headed to Austin to kick off Festival Season for SXSW, met Andy in NOLA for Yazz fest, stayed an extra week and ran right out of money, but forged on to Bonnaroo anyway (sorry dad and Jason.)

Andy had to take on Rothbury, Pitchfork and 10KLF on without me on a busted ankle because this happened. We met up again for Lolla as I made an uninspired trip back to Chicago for two days with $7 in my pocket. Andy came down to Austin two months later and we found ourselves saying “We’ve done this before” as we did the festival the way only we can. I capped the season off with a whirlwind Fun Fun Fun fest that didn’t have any entries in the top 10. So here’s my top 10 of ’09. You can click on any write-up and it’ll show you my full review in a new tab/window. 2009 may have been Lady Gaga’s in pop, but it was the year of Phish 3.0. Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom It’s Lady Gaga’s world. We’re just living in it. Did that make anyone else nauseous? Sorry, but it’s true. If this contest proved nothing else, it’s that we’ll remember ’09 as the year we lost MJ and found Gaga. Before @Mattsilver got mad that his bracket was about to go down in flames and generated a handful of votes, Lady G was shutting “Right Round” completely out with “Pokerface.” And that was just a day after taking Jay-Z and his “Empire State of Mind” out.

We’re down to four. Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA” takes on “Birthday Sex,” who somehow snuck into the final four. The winner gets to take on Gaga in one form or another. Let’s be honest, you care more about how you’re doing. Since my fantasy season’s over,* I poured over the brackets and analyzed what would happen with every potential outcome from here on out. We’re down to four songs and four of you fighting it out for best bracket. Curious who it is? Read the rest of this entry »

@AndyShore I saw some Twitter buzz earlier from Zack about the Coachella 2010 line-up. I remember reading some rumors last week, but didn’t realize that anything had been confirmed. MCA did an interview recently discussing his triumph over throat cancer and saying the Beastie Boys were weighing Coachella 2010 as their return. There are some stellar acts already confirmed, with some even more excited bands that are rumored. Zack and I were really hoping to get press passes last year to see Paul McCartney, but all will be forgiven for passes this time around. I’m officially out here on the west coast, and they better recognize. Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom Going to a Neiliyo show on my day off at the venue I’ve crashed the most was a given. I’ve crashed The Mohawk twice using the backdoor slider method and once when I pretended I was Neiliyo. The idea there is to go in the side door which is rarely guarded. This would have been a perfect technique during that all-girl cover band when the indoor stage was packed, but in between the LCD Soundsystem cover band and Octopus Project’s sets, the room was empty and it would have been painfully obvious if I tried to walk in. I got in line w/ $10 in my hand. Yeah, I was that close to paying. Read the rest of this entry »