Side Pony Express Music Festival - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, but mostly Good

I had planned on doing an awesome blog post about the Sidepony Music Festival. However, not only did I forget my camera to document all the coolness, but I forgot my phone charger too. So, I think I got only about 5 pics, before my battery died. Bummer. Big Bummer. I was going to scrap the blog post from lack of pics, but I decided against it. Instead, I "borrowed" a couple of pics from some of my awesome friends. Thanks, friends!

Even though I didn't get my own pics, the beautiful images and wonderful people are all emblazoned in my memory. No matter how drunk I got, I will always remember the great time I had there. I'm excited to go back! And soon!

The town is charming, to say the least. In fact, that word doesn't even do Bisbee enough justice. Bisbee is filled with eclectic souls, historical buildings, interesting shops, unique hotels and art is everywhere you look! It was a perfect getaway spot for one of the coolest music festivals, that I am so honored to have been a part of.

Anamieke and Michael Quinn seriously knew what they were doing when they planned all this. It's clear that they had a vision and it came to fruition in a remarkable way. The dynamic duo of Anamieke and her husband, organized the entire thing with a well thought out plan and for that I give them big kudos. It is clear that a lot of hard work went into it and it left me very impressed. Good job, you two!

One of the most important aspects of the festival was the diversity of the bands. Let's not play dumb here; Phoenix has an amazing array of talented musical acts, but it is clearly broken up into many little "cliques." I hate to use that word, but that is exactly what it is. I don't think that it's always broken up into groups on purpose, but that is what it has come to. How many times do you go out to see a show and on the bill is the same 3 bands playing together... again.... just like they did two weeks ago? It happens more often than not. Even the New Times is guilty of keeping the music community separated. Sorry to call you out, New Times, but the "Top 5 Must See ShowsThis Weekend" series is usually a predictable combination of 2 touring acts that are playing at The New Time's "favorite" or potentially "funded" venues and 3 local acts that are picked from the same small lot of bands that are featured over and over again in the publication. Get your shit together, New Times, and branch out a little to show some love to some different local acts once in awhile. You have a HUGE lot of amazing talent to choose from here in the valley and I can only read articles about the same fucking band so many damn times.

My band is guilty of playing with a lot of the same bands again and again, too. We're not totally innocent here. Sometimes we book shows with the same bands, because we love them and our music compliments each other. Let me add, that there is nothing wrong with this, but it's good to change the scene up from time to time. We always get put into this reggae rock genre, which isn't how I would classify our sound. A couple of our first songs had a little reggae flavor and we've been labeled "reggae rock" ever since. I've recently learned that some promoters who have never actually heard our music, have us filed under "reggae" for bands to book. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this genre at all. We do love to play these shows, because the vibe is always great. Reggae is about spreading the love and every person at these shows does just that. The problem with this, is that we aren't really reggae and I think it turns some people off at these shows. They come expecting to see a bunch of reggae bands and then we come up and do something totally different. Can I get a hip hop show once in awhile? damn! I rap on nearly every song, but the Hip Hop heads of the valley don't always go to reggae shows and so they don't know that I'm a beast on the mic. Just kidding, but sort of not kidding. It would be nice to play with some different bands once in awhile, but it's so easy to get stuck. Anyway, I digress.

The point is, that Anamieke and her husband realize that there is a separation in our music community and they carefully selected a very diverse group of bands to play together who might not normally be on the same bill. They set it up so that the walls that were sectioning off these "cliques" came tumbling down. And I think we will maybe start to see it echoing in upcoming Phoenix area shows. In fact, I've already discussed putting a show together with, The Pubes, who we've never played with before. I even got a little note from one of the members, which said she was looking forward to doing a show with us. It totally made my night! I was also very excited to finally catch a Doctor Bones show, which DID NOT disappoint and whose female member flattered me beyond words. On the first night, I was meeting other musicians that I should have already met, but hadn't before because of the division in our scene. This was part of the design for the festival; not only to bring people together for the love of music, but to expand the relationships inside our musical community and create one big group of musicians rather than a bunch of little ones.

The Pubes

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I didn't manage to get a pic of this band, The Woodworks, but I stole a pic of their lead singer from my friend. Not only did they put on a great show, but they also saved our asses, by switching time slots with us on Sunday. Thanks again for that!

It was a great weekend in Bisbee, AZ. The town itself is beautiful. The people who live there are beautiful. Even Bisbee's finest, the po-lice, were gracious enough to help us carry our gear from one gig to the next, when they saw that we were struggling with it all. That was fucking awesome! Yab Yum managed to get a pic of the officers, too. Thanks Yab Yum! Check out their review of the fest and see the pic of us with the peace officers here. Each venue we played at was great and was ran by super nice and accommodating folks. And we look forward to playing these spots again in the future. I've never felt a better sense of "community" among our local bands than I did that magical weekend in Bisbee. I'm so thankful to have been a part of it.

Now, I gave you the good (which there was a lot of), but unfortunately, there was a little bit of bad and ugly too. I'm not one to sugar coat anything, so I do have to mention that one tiny bit of negativity that I experienced. Let me pre-empt it by saying, that I've been in this band for about 6 years. In that time, I've played with tons of bands and I've never been met with anything, but courtesy and respect from these bands. In a male dominated community, I think some people expect there to be problems when more than one "girl" band is on the same bill. I've never experienced this assumed "cattiness" between any other female in other bands that we've played with before. In fact, I've made some great friends among these women. However, I met my first "band bitch" in Bisbee. I had actually met this chick before, but it was a very brief encounter. At that time, I actually felt like she was maybe brushing me off a little bit, but I chalked it up to maybe she was nervous or busy at the time and I didn't think much more about it. Forward to Bisbee, when I met her again. This time the encounter wasn't so brief. I started up a conversation with her. She acted like she had no idea who I was, even though we had met before and played a show together. No big deal; I'm certain my hair was not purple the first time we met, so it's fairly normal that she might not recognize me.
"I'm Tania, from Catfish Mustache. We played a show together at __________, remember?"
She remembered, although she admitted it was such a vague memory, because apparently I'm super forgettable. And she went on to describe her vague memory of my performance as a "little" thing in the most condescending tone.

Fuck you, bitch; is what I wanted to say. But, I kept it civil and talked to her a little bit more. I gave her the benefit of the doubt that she didn't mean to come off like such a dick and maybe it was just the alcohol and/ or the elevation. But, as the conversation went on, it was clear to me that she thought she was a fucking rock star who had already made it big and I was just a loser in a shitty band who shouldn't even have the privilege of speaking to her. Now, I don't expect everyone to like our music. Everyone has different tastes and maybe we just don't "do it" for some people. That's fine, but, what I do expect is a little respect among my fellow musicians. You don't have to buy my cd, but at least cut me a little slack for putting myself out there in such a vulnerable way. Just show me some fucking respect, is all. I've never had anyone in our musical community treat me in such a shitty way, besides this one piece of work.

I cut the conversation short and walked away before my lowered inhibitions made me say some really mean shit. Truthfully, I could care less what she thinks of me. I was just shocked to be met with such negativity in the midst of this positively wonderful music fest. I'm sure you want to know who this bitch was, but I'm not going to call her out. I'm still hoping that maybe it was just the alcohol and elevation that was making her act so rude. Some people just turn into assholes when they drink. So, I'll let is slide... this time. The lesson here is to just be nice to everyone you meet, no matter what. You never know, you might be rude to the wrong person and they will put you on blast on their blog and all of their social media sites.

Despite this one small moment of the weekend, I had an incredible time. The good of the people and music and town far out weighed the overly inflated ego of that one person. I'm looking forward to building relationships with some of the other bands we played with. I look forward to making an inevitable trip back to Bisbee in the near future. I'm also hoping that Anamieke continues the tradition next year and hope she saves a spot for us!