MY TOP 30: Year 3 Posts of ALL-TIME! Links – 15-1 & OUTRO

Click the pics to get to the posts.

15. Boy + Kite 101X Win	10. GOBI 5Q	5. The Blistering Speeds LOTTO
14. The Royalty 5Q	9. JADA Call & B-May pop quiz	4.The Lusitania 5Q
13. Sariah 10Q	8. Zach Paul 5Q	3. Roach Gigz pop quiz
12. SALVO LOTTO	7. Cigarettes After Sex 5Q	2. Sophie B. Hawkins 20Q Part 1
11. Day vs. Night LOTTO	6. Pop Pistol pop quiz	1. Sophie B. Hawkins 20Q Part 2

 

OUTRO

MY TOP 30: Year 3 Posts of ALL-TIME! Links – INTRO & 30-16

INTRO

30.BRAIDS pop quiz	25. Kaydean pop quiz	20. Quiet Company pop quiz
29. Girl in a Coma 5Q	24. The Shondes Call	19. She’s a Tease pop quiz
28. BB Gun Johnny pop quiz & Feedback LOTTO	23. The Jezabels pop quiz	18. Jon Sandler pop quiz
27. Larissa Ness pop quiz	22. TsuShiMaMiRe 10Q & Elephant Sky pop quiz	17. Neon Desert Music Festival El Paso Week
26. Medicine Park pop quiz	21. Peelander-Z pop quiz	16. Stefani Vara 20Q Part 1

MY TOP 30: Year 3 Posts of ALL-TIME! 4. The Lusitania 5Q

MY TOP 30: Year 3 Posts of ALL-TIME!

4. The Lusitania 5Q
 El Paso rock & roll band, the Lusitania, take the Neon Desert El Paso Week crown on this countdown with the seventh and highest Neon Desert entry.  It joins the summary post for all the Neon Desert content at  Number 17,  BB Gun Johnny’s pop quiz tied at Number 28 with Feedback’s LOTTO Interview, the the Royalty’s 5Q at Number 14, GOBI’s 5Q at Number 10, Zach Paul’s 5Q at Number 8, and Cigarettes After Sex’s 5Q at Number 7. 

See the original Thursday, April 14, 2011 post here — 5Q for The Lusitania — Neon Desert Artist.  It includes their song, “Your Existential Hero.” 

See all 7 Neon Desert interviews and more here.

MY TOP 30: Year 3 Posts of ALL-TIME! 7. Cigarettes After Sex 5Q

MY TOP 30: Year 3 Posts of ALL-TIME!

7. Cigarettes After Sex 5Q
On-off El-Paso band, Cigarettes After Sex (CAS), continue the Neon Desert El Paso Week domination of this countdown. With Number 6, this is now two back-to-back entries from this special content in addition to the other four previous entries. CAS now becomes the sixth and highest Neon Desert entry.  It joins the summary post for all the Neon Desert content at  Number 17,  BB Gun Johnny’s pop quiz tied at Number 28 with Feedback’s LOTTO Interview, the the Royalty’s 5Q at Number 14, GOBI’s 5Q at Number 10, and Zach Paul’s 5Q at Number 8.   

See the original Friday, April 15, 2011 post here — 5Q for Cigarettes After Sex — Neon Desert Artist.  It includes their song, “I Can See You.” 

See all 7 Neon Desert interviews and more here.

MY TOP 30: Year 3 Posts of ALL-TIME! 8. Zach Paul 5Q

MY TOP 30: Year 3 Posts of ALL-TIME!

8. Zach Paul 5Q
Neon Desert Music Festival co-founder and Splendid Sun Productions principle (1 of 3), Zach Paul, has now taken over the top spot of all Neon Desert El Paso Week Artists featured on this countdown.  This is now the fifth entry from that special content joining the summary post for all the Neon Desert content at  Number 17,  BB Gun Johnny’s pop quiz tied at Number 28 with Feedback’s LOTTO Interview, the the Royalty’s 5Q at Number 14, and GOBI’s 5Q at Number 10.

It’s nice that our interview with one of the creators of the festival and behind-the-scenes minds has gotten some attention.  Of course, it’s all about the artists, but artists need people to showcase them whether it be throught a festival like Neon Desert or a music blog like THE REAL popolio.  There are people who love to be on stage and there are those who love to create that “stage” (whatever form it takes) for those people who love to perform on them.

See the original Monday, April 11, 2011 post here — 5Q for Zach Paul — Neon Desert Founder.   

See all 7 Neon Desert interviews and more here.

MY TOP 30: Year 3 Posts of ALL-TIME! 10. GOBI 5Q

MY TOP 30: Year 3 Posts of ALL-TIME!

10. GOBI 5Q
Austin-based, orginally-from-El-Paso band, GOBI, has now trumped the Royalty’s entry on this countdown with this now fourth and highest entry from my special Neon Desert El Paso Week coverage.  The summary post for all the Neon Desert content took the  Number 17 spot,  BB Gun Johnny’s pop quiz tied at Number 28 with Feedback’s LOTTO Interview, and the aforementioned the Royalty’s 5Q bowed at Number 14.

Neon Desert coverage is ranking higher than SXSW content overall.  Not that there should be an El Paso vs. Austin rivalry, it’s just interesting to point out.  That said, the whole point of the Neon Desert Music Festival was to connect the musical notes between the two cities with the festival founders hailing from the Sun City and habitating in the Live Music Capital of the World.

See the original Tuesday, April 12, 2011 post here — 5Q for GOBI— Neon Desert Artist.  It includes their song, “Ain’t Gonna Die.” 

See all 7 Neon Desert interviews and more here.

MY TOP 30: Year 3 Posts of ALL-TIME! 14. The Royalty 5Q

MY TOP 30: Year 3 Posts of ALL-TIME!

14. The Royalty 5Q
This is the third and highest entry from my special Neon Desert El Paso Week coverage.  The summary post for all the Neon Desert content took the  Number 17 spot and BB Gun Johnny’s pop quiz tied at Number 28 with Feedback’s LOTTO Interview.

El Paso is my hometown and I live in Austin, so I really did try to push this content.  So, I’m happy to see that some of the Neon Desert El Paso Week coverage has made the countdown.  Seems like the Royalty is the band with the strongest following or at the least the greatest social network presence.  Either way, they make a fine showing.

See the original Tuesday, April 19, 2011 post here — 5Q for The Royalty — Neon Desert Artist.  It includes their song, “All Alone.” 

See all 7 Neon Desert interviews and more here.

MY TOP 30: Year 3 Posts of ALL-TIME! 17. Neon Desert El Paso Week

MY TOP 30: Year 3 Posts of ALL-TIME!

Courtesy of Google

17. Neon Desert El Paso Week
The Year 3 Number 3 spot goes to the post were I linked all THE REAL popolio Neon Desert Music Festival content.  Neon Desert was the first music festival of its kind to take place in El Paso on Saturday, April 30, 2011.  It was put on by Splendid Sun Productions, a group of El Pasoans living in Austin and trying to not only bridge the musical gap between the two cities, but create the pathway.

I posted a week’s worth of content dedicated to Neon Desert and I christened it Neon Desert El Paso Week.  This was the summary post with all the content linked in one place after all of the features had already gone live.

The artists that were featured were El Paso’s the Royalty, Cigarettes After Sex, the Lusitania, and BB Gun Johnny; Austin’s GOBI, formerly of El Paso; San Antonio’s Girl in a Coma; and Latin Grammy Winners, Los Amigos Invisibles, from Venezuela.

I also interviewed one of the founders, Zach Paul, as well as posted the official flyer and an introductory post kicking off Neon Desert El Paso Week.

See the original post here — 7 Neon Desert Interviews, 1 pop quiz & more for El Paso Week.

Courtesy of Google

MY TOP 30: Year 3 Posts of ALL-TIME! 22. TsuShiMaMiRe 10Q & Elephant Sky pop quiz

MY TOP 30: Year 3 Posts of ALL-TIME!

22. TsuShiMaMiRe 10Q & Elephant Sky pop quiz
This is our second Year 3 tie.  See the first here.  The Number 22 spot is shared by Japanese punk band, TsuShiMaMiRe, and Brooklyn-based folk pop artist, Elephant Sky.

This is the first Questions for post on the countdown not written by myself.  It was written by one-time freelance contributor, Deanna Fierro.  At the time, she was based in El Paso and TsuShiMaMiRe had a gig scheduled there.

She interviewed them the night of that show and even got a photographer to take pictures.  So, there is also a show pic-olio associated with this interview.  See the TsuShiMaMiRe pic-olio shot by Refractive Elements Studio here.  Deanna also reviewed the show here.

My thought with taking on Deanna was that, being from El Paso myself, I wanted to try to feature more El Paso Artists and happenings in the Sun City.  In this case, it worked.

Elephant Sky was the focus of my second June 2011 pop quiz interview.  It posted on Friday, June 24, 2011.  The focus of the first was Kaydean on Friday, June 10, 2011.  That pop quiz interview already made an appearance on this countdown at the Year 3 Number 25 spot.  Perhaps, mentioning Elephant Sky’s pop quiz in that post helped her climb to this spot.

At some point, Brooklyn-based artists became common here at THE REAL popolio.  Not sure why or how that is exactly.  Don’t know if there is just a lot of musical talent in that particular New York borough or if it’s just coincidence.

In some cases, the artists I feature are connected to one another.  I kind of work on referrals sometimes or I refer myself to a related artist.  Or they see what’s come before and they find me.  Either way, I ended up covering Austin, the rest of Texas, Boston a little bit (because I have an affinity for it), and Brooklyn through the years.

See the original Thursday, December 2, 2010 TsuShiMaMiRe post here — EXCLUSIVE 10 Questions for TsuShiMaMiRe — EP.

See all 17 Year 3 Questions for interviews here.

See the original Elephant Sky post here — Elephant Sky pop quiz interview.  It includes her song, “Good Lie,” and Monsters of Folk’s video for “Temazcal.”

See all 28 Year 3 pop quiz interviews here.

MY TOP 30: Year 3 Posts of ALL-TIME! 28. BB Gun Johnny pop quiz & Feedback LOTTO Interview

MY TOP 30: Year 3 Posts of ALL-TIME!

28. BB Gun Johnny pop quiz & Feedback LOTTO Interview
The Year 3 Number 28 spot brings us our first tie!  As part of my El Paso Week countdown to the inaugural Neon Desert Music Festival, I included BB Gun Johnny’s pop quiz interview.  They were not one of the Neon Desert Artists, but they are El Paso-based.  It was the first pop quiz of April 2011, going live on the 15th, during  the week that I was posting daily Neon Desert 5Q interviews.

In Year 3, I started adding “interview” to the pop quiz heading.  I had found that in previous years (as told by a few contacts) that the thought was that these were pop quizzes you were supposed to take and people were missing the fact that they were interviews.  Not pop quizzes for visitors to the site, but for the artists, themselves.  I didn’t think it was a such a big deal as these type of standardized interviews have appeared in magazines for decades; usually on the back page.  But, I adjusted things to clarify things.

I noted before that though I feature national and international artists, I do highlight when they are local and regional.  In Year 3, another tweak I made was to abbreviate the regional cities in the titles of such posts.  So, in BB Gun Johnny’s case it became “EP” instead of “El Paso.”  Austin became ATX, Dallas D-Town, Houston H-Town and so on and so forth.  In some cases, I don’t know the city’s nickname or whether it has one, so it stays the same.

The Feedback LOTTO Interview is a more recent post.  I volunteered to MC Room to Read’s 2nd Annual Room to Rock charity showcase fundraiser on Friday, August 26, 2011.  Along with that, I decided to feature interviews with each of the scheduled bands.  It all came together kind of fast and we were pressed for time, so I decided to use the LOTTO Interview format from a weekly music column I used to write for another site.  The Feedback LOTTO Interview went live on Wednesday, August 24, 2011.  More background info and how it all works is broken down in the original post [see below].

Interesting to note, Feedback is the official band of local company Bazaarvoice and normally do covers.  So, maybe that’s how they got all these hits to claim the Number 28 spot so quickly.  I jest. I jest.

See the original BB Gun Johnny post here — BB Gun Johnny pop quiz interview – EP.  It includes their song, “Alcohol & Chocolate,” and MSTRKRFT’s video for “Easy Love.”

See all 7 Neon Desert interviews and more here.

See the original Feedback post here — LOTTO Interview:  Feedback — Room to Rock Artist.  It includes a live performance video of their cover of Kanye West’s “Love Lockdown.”

See all 4 Room to Rock LOTTO Interviews here.