Newtown Groupe Blog!

Hey All! We enjoy spending our times in various galleries, spaces, venues, playing our music and just having a good time!!

We will report on a daily basis on our discoveries of everything that we find original and noteworthy.

We are taking requests on the radio station for new indie bands that play a really good set. You should know what I’m talking about.

I have no idea why there are spaces between the lines, but I’m excited for the pub-crawl list to be compiled, and to hear your response.

Editor-In-Chief.

Bluto

Yoyo, we’re really excited to announce the 2010 South by Southwest (SXSW) Indie Festival in Austin Texas. This year there will be hundreds of bands from around the world on over 80 stages in downtown Austin, March 12 - 21. Bands include Brooklyn’s crafty Aa, Deer

Tick, and London’s Fanfarlo. If you’re looking for big names you probably won’t find them here - most of the bands are new to the indie scene.

The festival will feature Music, Film, and Interactive Media, along with panel discussions with leading experts in the various industries. Oh yeah, and there will also be welcoming events such as BBQ and Softball (and kegs?) Tickets start at around $600. For more on the schedule, logistics, badges, etc. visit sxsw.com

How hot are those? Our gay friend Ian immediately noted that they’re 2-year-old Chanel, as though that were a bad thing.  Universal truth of the day: If you’re a chick in NY, your shoes can always be hotter…keep tryin.

After 3 months of madness, Newtown is ready to blog.  Radio is, well, coming together.  Morchia Noir is also getting there — at least we’ve got a kick ass screen printing studio made from the finest hardware you can find (for free on the streets of Bushwick).  We still have some issues to untangle..but we’re getting there.

There’s so much to tell…where to start?  How about with introductions:

Mark (aka Bossasaurus)  — That’s me.  I pay the bills around here.

Tom (aka the Skipper, aka Grandpa Evil) — Something gotta get done right…and fast? Call the skipper…

Tariq (aka…well, he doesn’t have one yet.  We’re working on that too.) — Designer, Station Administrator, DJ…if you think we look and sound good, it’s cause of Tariq.

Colin (aka Bluto) — Who does the heavy lifting?  Bluto does. Oh yeah, he’s also the editor-in-chief of the blog…

Todd (aka Liquid Todd) — You think we actually know how to build a radio statio?  Hell no…before Todd got involved, all we had was a few busted computers and some chinky old cables.

Dave (aka Silversurfer) — And you think we actually know how to screen print? not yet…. …before Dave got involved, we were just makin a mess and wondering what to sell to pay for the radio station and the whole shit? dude, we are trying to make money selling product….let’s talk about that.

There are another 20 crazy people running around this thing — thanks to everyone for all the help so far — but this is the main crew.

Now what the hell are we actually up to?  Why don’t you see any of us out drinking on the Lower East Side anymore?  Cause we’re working (and drinking) at our studio in Bushwick.  

Last night, we made some signal calls for the station…now you’ll hear some Newtown call outs mixed into the music.  Skipper, Bluto and Urkle spent the day at the screen printing press building screens (we’re pretty good at it now…well, they at least more closely resemble a rectangle than a parallelogram) and making an entirely new workbench (one that doesn’t sway back and forth like its drunk).

Today, we gotta figure out how to work Quickbooks (been putting that off for about a month) so that we can deal with out taxes and sh*t when we actually start making some money.  And we gotta start making the intro manual for the DJs who will start playing live in the next week or so.  And we gotta order a bunch of those canvas shoulder bags so we start making some Newtown Radio merch.  And we gotta go kick the sh*t out of our German web developers (yes, they’re actually in Germany, probably e’ed out of their minds in a tekno club or something) cause they still haven’t fixed the schedule on newtownradio.com.  And we gotta go back to Best Buy and return the bunk as hard drive that broke within 10 minutes of coming out of the box (I’m getting really good at breaking hard drives).

Keep checking in for more exciting updates on what we’re up to and what’s goin on in the ‘hood.  And keep listening…give us a call and let us know what you think (347-725-4163).