FUSS FEST 2018 // Friday Aug 31st & Saturday Sept 1st!!

Fuss Fest is just around the corner (literally 4 days away as of today) and I can't begin to express how excited, honored and proud I am to be a part of something so special in my community. Fuss Fest is the brainchild of my lovely friend P VanRye. She works as hard as she's able (she is a VERY busy bee!!) to make this a special event for the Fresno/Central Valley area along with myself and two other super special friends (Samantha and Rio). With all proceeds going to a super good cause. Fresno's Girls Rock Camp in 2019 (fingers crossed)

Photo Cred: Arthur Robinson Photography

It was created in response to the lack of diversity and representation from other fests that are held in the Fresno area every year. It is an all inclusive femme music and art fest. Last year was amazing but a whole lot of work and this year will be no different. Especially because this time around it's a two day event. Day one will be held at Tioga Sequoia Brewing in Downtown Fresno. It will be FREE, all ages and full of mostly all of the local bands as well as local vendors/Artists. Day two will be held at Strummers in the Tower District. It will still be all ages but the entry fee will be $20 with Sheer Mag headlining!! Soooo EXCITING!

You can follow Fuss Fest on Instagram and Twitter: @fussfest and on Facebook for all of the extra details! You can also purchase your tickets in advance for day two!

Yeah, almost all of the bands have dudes in them, but that shouldn't nor does it invalidate the super talented women/femmes in the bands. So, come on out to both nights and show all the hard working femme artists some love!

Below I've compiled a whole bunch of videos of almost all of the bands that will be playing both day one and two. Some official music videos as well as live performances. Hope you enjoy! ^_^

DAY ONE

Calavera and the Stomp Stomps // Visalia, CA

Werebear // Orosi, CA

The Eros // Kingsburg, CA

Heavy Stench // San Jose, CA

Sci-Fi Caper // Fresno, CA

The Heartlights // Oakland, CA

Dandelion Massacre // Sacramento, CA

I wasn't able to find any videos for Chelsea Jones or Paper Roses but if you click on the names, the links will take you to their music pages.

Day Two

Oscura Luna // Los Angeles, CA

Blushh // Los Angeles, CA

Miserable // Oakland, CA

Sheer Mag // Philadelphia, PA

Suzy True (Los Angeles, CA) used to have a SUPER CUTE video for Rat Kid but I can't seem to find it anywhere :( So, please come on out and see them live, I promise you won't regret it!

I simply cannot wait to just be there and cheer on all of the bands, artists and vendors this coming weekend. It's going to be magical. (◕ ω ◕✿)

I also created a FUSS FEST playlist on Spotify. Have a listen, won't ya?

HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!!

All of the Fests!! Pt. 3

Night Three // Two Shows!

After checking out of the hotel, getting some food, coffee and parking. We headed out to the 1-2-3-4 Go! Records for the third show of the fest. Booked as a Slumberland Records Showcase, I knew this was a MUST NOT MISS show.

Slumberland Records have been keeping it foolish since 1989 and have put out some of my most loved records. Their library consists of a murders' row of indie pop. Bands like Black Tambourine, Velocity Girl, Go Sailor, Henry's Dress, The Softies and newer bands like Veronica Falls, Tony Molina, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and especially my absolute favorite (and featured in a previous post) Terry Malts. It's a dream label and I can't believe I got to stupidly dance in the same space as Mike Schulman himself!

The line up was:

Kids on a Crime Spree

Real Numbers

Sea Lions

Terry Malts headlining

This was kind of a record release show as well for Terry Malts and Kids on a Crime Spree. They currently have a split called "Our Love" and I was able to pick up a copy from Malt Phil. Of course, I highly recommend picking it up. It's got some juicy jams to please for sure! Anyway, I didn't take not any pictures except for this one just before the show began.

I did however take a video of each band! Except for Terry Malts. I was too busy bobbing up and down to bother with video or pics during their set. Sorry NOT sorry. So here are the videos I took!

It was a great show and there was still one more show to go and we had to play it!

The Golden Bull Bar was the last spot of the fest and we were super lucky to catch some parking directly in front of the venue. Got there early and had a chance to just take some time to chill with friends and make new ones. The final fest line up went as such:

The Plastic Shoelaces

Arts & Leisure

Sci-Fi Caper (us!!!)

Lunch Box

Tashaki Miyaki headlining

Here are the videos I took of each band from the night.

It was a dreamy night. It was a dreamy weekend. All the bands were great. Everyone was so nice. I can't wait to see what the Oakland Popfest will bring next year and I'm gonna be there for it all. I can't thank Claude enough for keeping my little band in mind for this. I've left links all around these posts so please follow them and support the bands. They're all truly wonderful. Thanks for reading!

And how amazing is this flyer!? The artist behind it is Kiki Petiford. She's also the guitarist for Horrible Adorable. I can't wait to play with them at some point. It HAS to happen.

Next up will be the Fresno Zine Fest, follow the link to go to the FB event page for all the details. I'll be there taking pictures and selling my zines under "Pansy Pop". If you live in Fresno, come see me! Sept 2nd//In the Yoshi!Now parking lot//Starts at 12PM. C U There!

All of the Fests!! Pt. 2

Howdy howdy!

Back at it again with a new entry. This time I'm talking about the first Oakland Popfest!

San Francisco has an annual popfest as well but this particular one was organized by a long time online friend of mine. I had met Claude somewhere online in the very early 2000's. Either on MySpace or the Indie Boards. We both had a love for indie pop and had managed to keep in touch through various social media sites. Though we've always had mutual acquaintances and friend, we'd never actually met in real life. That was until day 2 of the 3 day festival. We're talkin' FOUR shows in THREE days! Not only that but all of the bands of the first two days were fronted by women and some of the bands were all girl bands! The last day had an early show that was a Slumberland Records Showcase at 1234 Go! Records. It was a super star indie pop line up. We played at the final evening show and boy was it a weekend to remember!

We sadly had to miss the first day of the festival due to work schedules. It was truly a bummer because there were so many cool bands playing and I wanted to see them so badly. It pained us all to miss them. The line up was:

BamBam! (Oakland CA)

Rat Fancy (Los Angeles, CA)

Horrible Adorable (Oakland, CA)

Gal Pals (Los Angeles, CA) and

Colleen Green headlining!

Doesn't that sound like a magical night?! I'm certain that it was and there was a lot of fun had by all.

We headed up to Oakland on Friday and found lodging at a Motel 6 which, to our surprise, had an amazing view of the docks and boats. It was quite lovely. We left early so that we could enjoy the day exploring Lake Merritt.

The day consisted mainly of walking around the lake, quality dog spotting, people watching and lounging about in the shade on the grass. It was wonderful. We were pretty tired when we got back to the hotel so we ordered a pizza and watched Good Will Hunting on HBO.

We then headed out to The Uptown Nightclub for a night of pop magic. We sadly didn't take the lack of available street parking into account and found ourselves driving about for a little too long until we decided to shell out some money for a parking garage. We just had to be sure to be back before 1 AM. This caused us to miss the first band, Pennywhistle Park who were reuniting for this fest. So, it was definitely a bummer to miss them. Another reunion was taking place that night with Dream Bitches who hadn't played in a few years. They were dream dream dreammy. But, so were most of the bands we saw throughout the weekend. I mean, this festival was an actual dream come true for me. Being a fan of most of these bands and then being able to share a bill with them? I can die happy. Honest. The line up was:

Pennywhistle Park (Alameda, CA)

Dream Bitches (San Francisco, CA)

Try the Pie (San Jose, CA)

Summer Twins (Riverside, CA)

Dressy Bessy (Denver, CO) headlining

I spent the entire night dancing like a peanuts character at the corner of the stage. It was GREAT! We had to leave immediately after Dressy Bessy's set because the parking garage was going to close. We made it juuuust in time.

Here's a short video clip of Dressy Bessy's last song of the night.

Hang in there folks! One more part to go. TBC.....

Also, special Happy Birthday shout out to my little broskee.

All of the Fests!! Pt. 1

Ahoy hoy friends!

It's been a long five months since we've seen each other. And once again, oh so much has happened. Sci-Fi Caper has been lucky enough to play two very amazing fests!

I tried to be mindful of taking photos and video but truthfully, I wanted to live in the moment. Sometimes I'll whip my camera or phone out for some photos and video. I usually end up abandoning the idea and try to simply enjoy what is happening. More often than not, it all ends up on my snapchat or Instagram. Which sucks later, because then I'm left wanting to look back at more pictures or video of the day. It's a vicious cycle. I did however manage to take some snap shots here and there.

FUSS FEST 2017

Fuss Fest is the brainchild of my lovely friend Priscilla. She wanted to organize a fest that was truly inclusive of all femmes from all over California. Our city (Fresno) always seems to have a few fests every year but the one thing that always stands out (to us at least) is it's lack of inclusion when it came to women, trans, queer and femme artists. She, herself is an amazing artist and has organized so many cool events in Fresno. She is also responsible for creating the album art for "Star Stuff". She had asked us if we'd be interested in playing a really cool fest she wanted to organize and of course we were down! The more I began to find out about the fest, the more involved I wanted to be. Even if it was just as a volunteer greeting people at the gate, I wanted to be a part of this. I wasn't the only one, she also recruited a couple of super star friends of ours. Samantha Retton (otherXcore) has been booking shows, making zines and just being an all around good friend for years and I'm lucky to be able to call her one of my best friends. Rio is my whiskey soulmate, I love her dearly and she happens to help her family run Yoshi!Now which is where the fest was held.

Though it was an unbearably hot day, we all stuck it out. Every band, vendor and artist truly made the fest something special to enjoy. I spent most of my time hanging out by the stage and helping wherever I could. Again, I wish I had taken more pictures and video but I was having so much fun! Here are the couple of snapshots I had left on my phone.

La Sirena Cafe were my favorite food vendor of the day. They had such a lovely set up, you would have thought they had been doing this for years. So, I was very surprised to discover that this was their first time vending at an event. I can't wait to see them at this years Fresno Zine Fest in September. Vril (out of L.A.) had the most intense and enjoyable set. I think watching their set gave me a second wind and had me going strong through the rest of the day into the night. They were great. Though, ALL of the bands did a fantastic job. It was terribly hot but I never heard anyone complain about anything. Our beautiful friend Meera graced us with her presence and it was truly a treat to have her there. We shared some delicious veganized snacks, laughed and danced our way through the day. I love her so much. The night ended strong and we all went home EXHAUSTED. I can't wait to see what next year brings.

Next up is the Oakland Popfest! To be continued....

So Much

Yes, much has happened since last I posted.

At the beginning of the month we played an Art Hop show with our friends Pro Wings from Hanford. It was an overall pleasant show. If you're a fan of Real Estate, you will love Pro Wings. They're great.

We also visited the Downing Planetarium located on the Fresno State University campus. I had never been to one, so it was pretty exciting.

I happened to have a couple of days off from work so, it seemed natural to take a road trip. We decided to go to Disneyland. Sam hadn't been there since he was a toddler and it had been quite a few years since I had visited. It was so much fun! I remember visiting Disneyland with my family and always feeling an enormous amount of anxiety. I had a terrible fear of getting lost and I seemed to get lost a lot. Probably because of my short attention span. I'm easily distracted, what can I say? I remember some family members making me feel really bad about it too. I hated being put in that position. As the one who ruins it for everyone, or at least that's how I was made to feel. It wasn't always so bad, but I don't really look back at those years fondly. This was the first time Sam and I had gone to Disneyland together. We made plans to get on as many attractions as possible but ended up spending a good portion of the day in Tomorrowland. I found the most perfect Mickey ears and we got to watch little padawans in training. Towards the end of the night we had finally made our way to The Haunted Mansion and Splash Mountain. There were no lines so we were able to hop on rides with ease and little to no wait! It was wonderful. It probably wasn't such a good idea to get on Splash Mountain so late because I got to sit in the front and got fully drenched. I mean drenched. My sweater didn't completely dry until the next afternoon! We ended the night walking around Downtown Disney and spending money like we had it. Bought lightsabers and junk food. Our feet were hurting something fierce but we decided that if they didn't hurt so much in the morning, we'd try to hit up Universal Studios.

After a decent nights sleep on a fluffy hotel bed it was agreed that going to Universal Studios wouldn't be such a bad idea. It was sunny but not too hot. Again, there were hardly any lines for the rides and attractions so we were able to get through the park in no time at all. Most of our time was spent in the Springfield area. The Simpsons were life growing up so it was definitely surreal walking into Moe's and eating at Krusty Burger. The Harry Potter area was so cool too. Anyway, it was a super fun couple of days and I'm glad we went to both parks.

Then last week we went on the same hike I had gone on with the BGHK. It was a light easy hike and perfect for the warm day we seemed to be having. It's the San Joaquin River Gorge loop trail. It was even more beautiful this time around because all of the lavender had begun to bloom and the air smelled so sweet. On the ride home, there was a calf nursing with her mom on the side of the road and it was sooooo cute! A truly lovely day.

P.S.

It breaks my heart to see what is happening to my country. Please look out for each other. Keep ICE out and stay safe out there friends. <3

Brown Girls Hiking Club and A Dream Show

Sunday was expected to be a fairly nice day with a high chance of rain at around 3PM. A lovely and talented friend of mine organized a hiking club for women of color. Brown Girls Hiking Club. It's a wonderful idea and she received a lot of criticism when she announced our first hiking trip to the San Joaquin River Gorge on instagram and FB. I wasn't aware of all the flak she was getting, but I knew it was something I definitely wanted to participate in. We met up at a Starbucks at around 10 AM and since only five of us showed, we decided to carpool. We all took pictures and video. It was a wonderful trip and I loved every second. It was funny to all of us that people would be so upset about a bunch of brown girls having a good time hiking together. We all left that hike with so much joy in our hearts. Thank you Jemimah, I hope more girls decide to join the club! Here are the photos I took.

On Tuesday (last night), we decided to risk driving to San Francisco to catch what looked to be an amazing show with a killer line up. It was everything I had hoped it would be. Terry Malts played their debut record "Killing Time" in it's entirety to celebrate it's five year anniversary release on Slumberland. They had two openers. One being Tony Molina, who is from their Slumberland Records family and whom we've seen before and is SO GOOD! My favorite part of this shows lineup was the fact that Terry Malts asked one of the first bands they every played with to open. Which happened to be new lovely friends of ours. Yogurt Brain, whom we met last year when they asked me to book a show for them in Fresno (which went oh so well btw!). Here are the shots I got from the show. We had to leave right after but I asked Phil for the set list. He asked why I wanted it, it's just Killing Time. I said for the memory and he said "Right on!" and high fived me. It was great. I love Terry Malts and have waited so long to see this band. ^_^

We ate pancakes before we went home and tried to win a prize from this sci-fi ufo claw machine.