Saturday, February 17, 2001 - Hilton Trade Show - Spinebelt, No Show Ponies, Julian Fist, Gilligan, Negative Space, This Way, Idle Ride, Perforated Head, TVT guy
We arrived a bit before 10 and had a completely empty table. Except today the plastic tablecloth was ripped
and we noticed how icky the tables were under it. Well, not really icky, but not nice looking. We did the same
as on Friday and chatted together while sitting at a blank table. We looked at a Catch 22 poster and did not
see any of the guys who we assumed were in the band from yesterday. We are so stupid. They were from
Gig Records. Indian owns it. That is why they hung around there so much! One of Indian's buds, the one
who is a Thom Yorke look alike, started talking to us more. He introduced himself as Gilligan. We talked
about the stupid Gilligan's Island jokes he gets and other randomness. He and just about everyone else
offered to get us some food. Everyone felt the need to give us lollipops. We talked to the other Gig Records
guy, David, about British music some more. Indian told us about Placebo and talked some more about
British music. Liz Hale from Halestorm visited us (she had the day before too) and she was being her
nice, lovely self. Her dad, Roger also stopped by for a bit later on.
Joy from Gullifty's came by later on, and said that she was told that the stuff for the table was in the MMC
office downstairs. So we went to the lobby and asked the front desk where that was. Feeling stupid, we
were directed back to the second floor. Joy said she would look around and she came back telling us
to figure out which box had the PARocks stuff. It was in the last place we looked of course! Joy threw
some flyers out on the table and we threw the Julie Schreiber stuff back up with some CDs to look at.
We then decided to take a trip to Strawberry Square to find some lunch. Joy gave Melanie some cash and
her order for one of the restaurants that we knew was down there. We discovered Subway there and stood
in line behind a foreign man who did not know too much English. When Melanie gave her order of a turkey
and cheese sub on Italian with nothing but turkey and cheese, the guy was relieved to have such a simple
order. Melanie then told him that Shannon wanted the exact same thing! After paying, we got Joy's lunch
and headed back to the Hilton.
Some guys came over and were all chatty with Joy and we found out from her that they were the West
Virginia band, Idle Ride. They were all jolly and the one guy (Jason) commented on how he thought
Shannon's "I love dorks" shirt was cool. We munched on our Subway subs and Gilligan stopped by
some more to chat and Shannon was having difficulties eating the crumbly sub. She ended up
throwing half of it away. Melanie ate hers without too many problems, and Gilligan said Shannon
just had to dig into it and eat it.
Soon the lad from Spinebelt stopped by saying he'd gather up another bandmate and come
over for an interview. So, Melanie interviewed them and they were really nice guys. People
probably think they're all grr because of the image and music, but they're just sweet boys
who don’t like McDonald's...don’t ask.
Next, Ben and Jeff from No Show Ponies stopped by ready for an interview. They were
sort of shy and quiet, but definitely cool guys...and brothers as well! Soon after that we
were visited by yet another group with brothers, Julian Fist. Joy was all jolly about us
interviewing them because she was a big fan of theirs. We had heard about them from
PARocks and everything, but we hadn't ever seen them before. They were super cool.
Mitch, Kyle, and Scott were all down to earth and amusing, and seemed more chatty
than the other interviews. Troy (the bassist) wasn't there, but 3 out of 4 band members is good :)
After that, we sat down at the table and Shannon told Melanie she was doing a good job and then
Gilligan sat down for another visit. He said it looked like we were more busy today and we
asked him if he wanted to be interviewed. He did, so Melanie picked up the video camera
and started taping. Shannon was being all spazzy saying she couldn't think of any
questions to ask a record lad, because most of their questions were for bands. Gilligan
took a look at our list of questions and began asking himself questions and answering
them on his own. hah. He was being all nice and seemed to enjoy interviewing himself.
After he was finished we just sat around chatting again.
Tim from Perforated Head came over and asked Melanie if anyone was at the Gig Records
table. She pointed out Indian to him and he said thanks and looked around at the
Gig Records table while he waited for Indian to become available. She then asked
if he was part of Perforated Head and when he said yes, Melanie scheduled to
interview the band a bit later.
We were telling Joy how Josh and Mark from Negative Space stopped by early Friday,
asking about the interview but we couldn't interview them without a tape to record on.
We mentioned it because we saw Mark and some of the other Negative Spacers
walking around, and we told Joy we were too shy to just go up to them and ask for
an interview. She asked which one it was again, and we told her and she went on to
go ask. She came back and said they told her they would all be over soon for an
interview, so we thanked her and we were all jolly. Melanie started to outline the letters
on the PARocks sign in front of the table, and a little bit later she told Shannon to go
outline the Gig Records sign. Shannon was like "eep! I cant just outline the sign!"
so she asked Gilligan and he said sure. Shannon outlined the G in blue but she
was in the way of some people so she just went back behind the table. Melanie
was still coloring when Negative Space came up behind her. Later, Indian saw
the blue G and asked Melanie who did it and she said Shannon. He jokingly asked
where she was so he could beat her up and Melanie told him Shannon was peeing :) hehe.
Anywho, the Negative Space lads all came over and we decided to go to the arcade hall.
There was lovely furniture and it was much nicer to do an interview (more quiet). BJ, Mark,
Sean, Stu, and Josh all introduced themselves. We were very jolly to be interviewing them
because we knew about them from going to their site, but we hadn't actually seen them before.
The Eden Park lads came by and were definitely...erm..interesting. Back to Negative Space...they
were very chatty and amusing, but halfway through the interview, the tape ran out and Shannon
had to leave Melanie alone with the Negative Spacers to search for Jim to get another blank tape.
She couldn't find him, so we told them maybe we could finish the interview later.
We came back to the table, and Joy said that there was a cute guy from this band, This Way
who she talked to who would do an interview with us. We were like, oh ok! So we all went over
to the hall for yet another interview. They were very awesome. Shannon and Melanie were all
jolly because they had like the same musical taste, and loved British music. Shannon got
This Way's CD on Sunday and really enjoys it! woo! After the interview, we followed the band
out and Shannon said that we weren't stalking them or anything, but we had to go back that
way too, so the one lad from the group said he would walk behind us so it didn't look like we
were stalking them.
We came back to the table again to find Joy chatting with Idle Ride. They were ready
to go for an interview! The Perforated Headers came over around that time asking about
an interview and we said we had to interview Idle Ride and we'd be ready around 6, so
they said they'd be back. So we went back to the hall for yet another interview :) Idle Ride
were so sweet and had little West Virginia accents. They were very talkative and nice.
We'll have to see them next year at the MMC, since we missed their show when they
were here.
We went back to the table again, and a few minutes later Perforated Head stopped by
(all but Lois~the pink one hehe). Tim (dressed in green), Mitch (purple), Dre (orange),
and Dawn (blue) all followed us to the hall for an interview. They were awesome and also
very talkative. After the jolly interview, Mitch gave us their cd, "Maybe I'm Mayonnaise"
and we were all happy, and thanked them. (We have both listened to it and like it a lot.)
When we came back to the PARocks table, Jim was talking to the TVT Records guy with
the wrist injuries and said we should interview him, so we said sure. Melanie didn't really
know what to ask him, since he's a record company guy, and she asked Shannon for ideas
but she didn't know either. So she sort of just winged it and asked some of the sillier questions
we had too. After that, he talked to us a bit more and then left.
Shannon had to charge her video camera up for the showcases that were just about ready to start,
we sat on a couch waiting for it to charge up. We also tossed our belongings in the MMC office.
Radio Caroline were going on, but neither of us really cared about missing them (not to sound evil)
so we just sat and sifted through a buzz bag. After Melanie took it back to the MMC office,
she flopped on the couch and Shannon sat on the floor. Jim was on the floor with Shannon too
when Shannon's parents came. They were early. They were going out to eat with some friends
then coming back up to see the showcases. We decided on pizza for dinner and Shannon's
parents went out and brought back a whole pizza. We did not want a whole pizza.
[ed note - I enjoyed the pizza and John Harris and Scott Stenger also seemed to.]
They also brought too many bottled waters. We were setting up the cameras when they
brought it over and we ended up eating it while in the MMC office and sharing one of the waters for the night.