Hopscotch Day Parties

Day parties! Last year, they were a Hopscotch highlight, the perfect configuration of free beer, free music and a bunch of folks who are psyched to be spending the weekend in downtown Raleigh. This year, there are even more of these daytime bashes, and senior Diversions staffer Linnie Greene exchanged emails with several day party curators to get the scoop.

Be sure to stop by these shindigs:

Friday:
Arbor Ridge Studios Day Party with WKNC: Tir Na Nog, 12 pm – 5 pm
Featuring Mandolin Orange, Josh Moore, Birds & Arrows, Skylar Gudasz & the Ugly Girls, Jeff
Crawford, Brett Harris, The Tomahawks, Schooner, Luego and Wylie Hunter & the Cazadores

DiggUp Tapes Presents The Rooftop with Freaker and New Belgium: The Hive, 12 pm – 5 pm
Featuring Jeffrey Wood, T0W3RS, Woodsmen, SoftSpot and Nests

Churchkey Records, Layabout, Nice Price Books, Bull City Burger and Brewery, and Gravity
Records present Daytime Layabout 2: Slim’s, 12pm – 5:30 pm
Featuring Brainbows, Mount Eerie, Last Year’s Men, The Wigg Report, the Beloved Binge and
more.

Saturday:
Corbie Hill presents Let Feedback Ring: Sadlack’s Heroes, 12:30 pm – 5:15 pm
Featuring Effingham, The Charming Youngsters, Bitter Resolve, The Fooligans and Birds &
Arrows

Dive: How did you go about curating your day party? What was your criteria for choosing the
bands?

Craig Powell, the Layabout: I know a lot of rad local bands through booking house shows at
Layabout, and all of the local bands playing the party have played Layabout before (with the
exception of Gross Ghost, who’ll be playing there in the near future). I also wanted to have at
least one out-of-town band on the schedule and Mount Eerie has been one of my favorites since
high school, back when the band was still called the Microphones. Also, Phil Elverum (aka
Mount Eerie) is a long-time advocate for the DIY methods and culture within the broader indie
music scene that inspired me to start booking shows in the first place.

Nathan Price, DiggUp Tapes: The bands — we tried to book bands that we really love and that
we know put on amazing live shows. Plus we have some surprises coming and are giving out
30 free Freakers, which are these really cool one size fits all drink coozies made in Troy, NC, at
Friday’s show.

Jeff Crawford: The only criteria was that folks had to have recorded a song at the studio.
All of the artists on the lineup have recorded this year or have plans to. After that, it was just a
matter of mixing and matching them so that they would sound good together.

*Corbie Hill, music journalist: *I picked bands I like. Initially, I wanted to ask some out-of-

towners to play, but I have no sponsors and no budget and I would have felt bad asking them to
drive from out-of-state without a guarantee. So when I got to the point of actually approaching
bands, I’d zeroed in on only speaking with locals. Some of these guys I’ve known for years
— like The Charming Youngsters and Birds and Arrows — and some are new friends. Bitter
Resolve is a new band formed of some local music veterans. I’ve only really known them since
early summer, but they made a solid impression on me and I think what they do is pretty crucial.

Dive: What function do you think day parties serve at Hopscotch, especially since most of the
bands playing during the day also end up playing at night?

Craig Powell: Well, three of the six bands playing my party aren’t playing any other shows for
Hopscotch, official or otherwise, and they’re three of the best local bands, hands-down. Overall,
the day shows help foster the ‘constant party’ vibe that’s key to a good music festival. You wake
up around noon after an amazing night of music and pow! There’s already something to do, some
amazing band to see, and for free no less.

*Nathan Price: *We picked bands that are some of our favorite live acts around right now, but
maybe a lot of people going to hopscotch haven’t heard. Then we tried our best to put them with
locals that draw good audiences so people will come out and have fun and see some great new
music.

Jeff Crawford: First off, only three of the ten bands playing our day party will be playing the
festival. So for most everyone, it’s a unique experience to play and be heard during the festival.
For those who are playing later, I think it’s a chance to have a little fun and work together.

*Corbie Hill: *Not everyone can afford a wristband. Sure, there are some acts that are only playing
official shows, but day parties make it so no one has to miss out on the festival atmosphere just
because they don’t have that amount of money to spare. For the bands you see, the Hopscotch
wristbands are a good deal, it’s true. But that’s still a lot of money to spend all at once. I have
a one-year-old, and I promise you – a hundred bucks is a lot to spend at once on anything non-
essential. I think it would be impossible to have a Hopscotch-size festival without day shows. I
think it’s endemic to the kind of festival it is, and I respect Hopscotch for listing the day shows
on its official site. It’s not like the festival is turning a profit from these events, not as a whole.

Dive: What prompted you to form a day party, and what were the challenges that accompanied
that?

Corbie Hill: Heh. I still don’t know why I wanted to throw a day show. I’ve organized little
music festivals and one-day “megashows” with seven or more bands before, and it always takes
a lot out of me. In March of 2010, my friend Bart Tomlin and I did Let Feedback Ring as a three-
day music festival, and by the last day I could hardly even speak. This’ll probably wear me out
too. So I’m excited about it and I’m really glad I’m doing it but I can’t say why I wanted to. Every
time I organize something like this I swear it’s the last time.

Dive: Most of the day parties this year have been put together by labels or bands — do you feel
like it’s more difficult to stage something like this as an individual versus a business or a band?

Craig Powell: I should point out that Kyle from Churchkey has been a key (no pun intended)
part of this whole thing coming together. If I’m the band guy, he’s the logistics guy. So it’s not
like I was totally alone in planning the party. I suppose it’d be nice to have a promo budget,
which Layabout doesn’t have because all proceeds end up going to the bands. Most of the time I
get by fine with just minimal cash to promote though.

*Corbie Hill: *Yes and no. Organizing this on my own, I could act on ideas as I had them. I could
invite bands, set the order, speak to the venue, without having to check with anyone. As basic as
my vision was — to bring a few local bands together at a little bar where I like to play and see
shows — I could act on it freely. I have a lot of fun designing fliers, so I really didn’t mind doing
everything myself. The hardest part is always deciding who plays first. If I’d had a larger vision,
though, it would have been better to have done this as part of a label, band, whatever. There are
definite advantages to that approach, because that adds visibility and credibility when it comes to
promotion, getting sponsorships, or attracting big-name bands.

Dive: Finally, what kind of impression do you hope that your day party leaves on attendees? Is
there any ideal outcome you could think of?

Craig Powell: I hope they dig the bands and spend money with the amazing sponsors —
Churchkey Records, Nice Price Books & Records, Bull City Burger & Brewery and Gravity
Records — all of whom are local, independently owned businesses. It’d be cool if some
people get turned on to the shows I’m booking throughout the rest of the year at Layabout
and elsewhere. Info for the day party and other cool upcoming events is available at the-
layabout.com (for Layabout shows) and triangleshowlist.com (for a list of every cool upcoming
show in the area.)

Jeff Crawford: I hope that folks will see how tightly knit our community is, and be introduced
to new music they may have not heard of in association with music they know

Dive: Any additional info about the show you’d like to share?

Corbie Hill: Since I booked this the news has broken that Sadlack’s is getting demolished —
along with everything else on that block — to make room for a luxury hotel. It’s a travesty and,
with the Brewery gone, I believe it’ll leave the NC State section of Hillsborough music venue-
less. So I think it’s important that people give business to Sadlack’s, Schoolkids, and the other
stores on this block so they can afford to relocate and reopen somewhere else. I haven’t heard
when the demolition is taking place, but I hope to throw more shows at Sadlack’s up until the day
they knock it down. The ownership and the people who work there have always been really nice
to me and I hope to pay them back by bringing loud rock bands to the patio. How that pays them
back, I don’t know, but it’s what I want to do.