fire destroys The Georgia Theatre (Saturday's ATHFEST show moved to The Morton Theatre)

well, this sucks.

as you probably know by now, fire destroyed the legendary Georgia Theatre yesterday. i'd like to say that the Theatre was more than an Athens venue, it was an institution around here with a storied past dating back to the 19th century. it's importance to this city and the role it played in music history can not be overstated.

unfortunately, it was also our next destination (we were scheduled to play there one week from today for Athfest). our hearts go out to Wilmot, Scott and the rest of the crew there that always treated us so well. personally, i guess i'm just glad that we got to get in there and play the place a couple of weeks ago (5.29.09) before it was destroyed. they were just as professional and good to us then as they have ever been, and the show sounded great. have a listen to a very good recording of that show from Southern Shelter. view the photo gallery of our last Georgia Theatre show on Deadly Designs.

as for our Athfest show, it looks like it is going to be moved right down Washington St. to The Morton Theatre. the Morton is also the site of the Flagpole Music Awards ceremony that kicks off Athfest every year on Thursday night. we are very happy to be attending the ceremony as nominees for the Upstart of the Year award (thanks if you voted for us!) and we are still looking forward to Athfest.

despite this huge loss for Athens music, we would love to see you at the Morton Saturday night.

here's the lineup:

Saturday, June 27

What's Our Name - 9:30 PM

Gift Horse - 10:00 PM

Kuroma - 10:45 PM

Velveteen Pink - 12:00 AM

Immuzikation - 1:00 AM

R.I.P. Georgia Theatre and thanks for everything. you will be missed. thankfully no one was hurt and the place is insured. LET THE REBUILDING BEGIN.

live recording of 5/29/09 Georgia Theatre show on Southern Shelter

go to Sloan Simpson's Southern Shelter and check out the live recording of our Georgia Theatre show from May 29. big thanks to Sloan for coming, getting a great sounding recording and for providing Athens with killer recordings of lots of worthwhile shows. video footage of the show should be soon to follow. 

that's it for now

live Friday, May 29 at The Georgia Theatre (stream it online thanks to our new spy gear)

come see us play Friday, May 29 at The Georgia Theatre right here in good ol' Athens, GA. rounding out the stellar bill are The Arcs, Ham 1, DJ Kurt Wood, and DJ Other Voices Other Rooms. we are gonna kick things off with the dj sets starting around 9 pm, and it's only $5, so come on out if you can. follow this link to buy yourself some tickets.

if you are unable to attend the show, we are happy to announce that Gift Horse will now be streaming most of our shows online so that you may enjoy them from the comfortable confines of your own home. the idea is to have a link up on our myspace page that you may follow in order to see and hear the shows. gotta thank Athens, Georgia's own TSAV for providing us with some pretty impressive spy-quality technology to record and stream our shows. stay tuned and check the myspace page for more info.

satan!

Crystal Antlers on Pitchfork TV's "Don't Look Down"

If you haven't seen this yet, check out Crystal Antlers performing Until The Sun Dies Part 2 on Pitchfork TV's Don't Look Down installment. Basically they play on a New York City rooftop to no one but the skyline stretched out before them. Pretty cool stuff. I almost soiled myself at about 3/4 of the way through the video lead singer Johnny Bell goes out and teeter-totters on the ledge of the skyscraper.



Go tonight if you can:

Monotonix, Crystal Antlers, Dark Meat, One Man Machine. Georgia Theatre. 9:30 p.m. $8. http://www.georgiatheatre.com/.

A note from the editor's desk:

After I put this post up I found this flyer:



So it looks like there will be an after party kicking of at 2 a.m. at The Secret Squirrel with Crystal Antlers, Aunt Dracula (from Philly) and some secret guests. Sweet meat!

ATHFEST 2008 WRAP-UP

Athfest was much different for me this year than it was last year. In 2007 I spent most of the festival in a drunken stupor, trying not to go to either the hospital or jail. But coming very close to going to both. Twice. See here for more details if you like. This year was sober (relatively) and I payed more attention. I missed a few of the bands that I wanted to see (Twin Tigers, A.Armada, Cinemechanica) but also saw some really great acts like Ninja Gaiden Band at the Georgia Theatre, Pegasuses-XL at the 40 Watt, and Blue Flashing Light and Dark Meat on the outdoor stage. Don't know if I'm starting to come around on Dark Meat or not, but I think they were remarkably better than they were the last time I saw them. The set we (Gift Horse) played was a very fun one, and we were immediately informed after the show that we would never play the venue again due to our wrecking the stage, being too loud, and committing other sins and acts of debauchery. So, that's a good sign.
I liked this year's festival much better than last year's, and although it would have been nice to have some acts like Dead Confederate and The Whigs playing the festival again, they both missed it because they are touring the globe extensively so one can't be too upset. By the way, heard Dead Confederate played a helluva set at Bonnaroo this year and were called back out to play an encore. Anyhow, there were no injuries, no cops coming to my house, no babies at keg parties, and no looking at B Scar's asscrack (all things that happened last year). So I guess I could say that things are looking up for ol' Miguel.

ATHFEST 2008 BY THE NUMBERS:
miles i walked from my house to downtown: 5
temperature Saturday afternoon: 750
people in the 40 watt for Cinemechanica Saturday night: too damn many
times i puked: 0
times i almost puked: 1
tubas in the horn section for Dark Meat: 1
guys playing guitar solos on the shoulders of another guy: 1 (pegasuses)
minutes it took the kid to beat ninja gaiden: about 25 or so
tv's full of lights kicked over: 2

So that's my take. I encourage anybody else to include their own experiences. As always, check out all of the bands mentioned above over here <--.