What a Year 2009 Was!
By April on Dec 30 Filed In ACL, Austin, Texas, Events, Live Music, SXSW, Social Media Add a Comment
Sometimes there are events in our lives that are so gut-wrenching and ugly that they over-power the smaller, AWESOME things that have happened in a year. This theory basically sums 2009 up for me.
As opposed to reliving the not-so-cool-parts of 2009, I’d love to share some of my favorite things about the last year with all of you.
1. My 1st ACL Fest-Complete w/crew passes to better see Lorin from Bassnectar throw down the sickest beats and tracks this side of the Mississippi! Did I mention that he seriously rocks my world? I even got a response from him on Twitter. (Pitter-patter goes my music-loving heart!)
2. MS 150-This was THE event that helped clue me in that I belong @ SLT. A free entry for a bike ride that exceeded my expectations in every way possible. Is there anything better than doing something you love (riding bikes) while helping others?
Ashley Montgomery, Me, & Todd Bamberg post MS 150 2009
3. HiMA Interactive Strategies Conference-True validation that Sweet Leaf Tea is on the right track in the social media realm. I was proud and excited to have been asked to represent and enjoyed every moment at this event!
4. Shiner Gasp-I had a calf injury that still didn’t stop me from riding my first century ride! It only took 12 (painful) hours to ride 103 miles and I hope to be ready for it again this year!
5. Fun Fun Fun Fest-I loved winning PIP status for this festival, but even if I hadn’t been given the golden ticket, it would have still rocked. So many great bands played, both old and new. Secret highlight? Seeing Danzig perform “Twist of Cain” and my husband saying, “I had NO idea you liked Danzig that much!” I let him know that there were several things he didn’t know about the 15 year old April. There’s more to me than The Cure, that’s for sure…
6. SXSW-Roller skating, legendary bands (Echo & The Bunnymen, Peter Murphy, Primal Scream to name a few..) partying till 4am, free booze, good friends, new music, and plenty of Sweet Leaf Tea to round things out.
7. Improved Blogging Skillz-Have you re-read my first blog post for SLT? Oh my! I have come a long way and I think I can speak for our whole Marketing Tea’m here that all of us have really grown our writing skills!
The highlights here are only a “taste” of the coolness that came with the rest of the 2009 shenanigans. The good and the bad all equal one thing: I’m looking forward to a new start and all that 2010 A Tea Odyssey may bring!!
**I’d like to dedicate this post to Happy who forced me to remember the bad-ass things that 2009 offered me this year. You’re totally right Happy, thank you!
I also wanna thank Home Slice Pizza for the lunch-time blogging inspiration today. I needed it!
What are YOU looking most forward to in 2010?
Will Work for Tea
By Guest on Nov 19 Filed In Austin, Texas, Intern Add a Comment
The past couple of months have been the cherry on top of my college experience. I decided to get an internship because I wanted to gain valuable insight into the real world of marketing; the local aspect of Sweet Leaf naturally drew me to this internship. A fellow classmate of mine, Jeff Dobecka, completed the internship and shared his experience with me – it sounded too good to be true!
To my surprise, it actually exceeded my expectations! This internship has been chock-full of fun and exciting experiences, such as the Austin City Limits music festival, Fun Fun Fun Fest, blitzing (handing out cases upon cases of Sweet Leaf) all over town, demoing at store grand openings. We have also attended the Austin Triathlon, the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, and many University of Texas tailgating parties. It’s allowed me to meet and hang out with all the local Austin weirdos, which makes me love my “weird” city even more!
In the office we’ve helped create multiple media contact lists; we’ve designed the upcoming college brand ambassador program; we’ve created numerous contests giving away guitars, cases of tea, and many other prizes.
As the “sweetest internship” is swiftly coming to an end, it’s all becoming bittersweet. I’ve gained knowledge on how a small business has become successful through hard work, innovation, creativity, and having a good time. Every person that works in this office genuinely loves what he/she does and is completely dedicated to the brand. They each show up at the events that Sweet Leaf sponsors, and the community has the perception that the office is full of cool people – a perception which has proven to be true.
I am going to miss this place more than I can express, and I am so thankful that I was able to meet all of these great people (and dogs). I’m also addicted to Sweet Leaf Tea for life, but who can blame me? Yum.
Slangin’ Tea is Fun Fun Fun
By Guest on Nov 12 Filed In Austin, Texas, Live Music Add a Comment
By, Jonathan Edwards
Sup y’all! I just got done slangin’ some tea at Fun Fun Fun Fest this weekend and I thought I’d drop an update.
Super duper fun fun fun.
That sums up the whole weekend. An appropriately named festival if you ask me. Yes, even on Sunday when it was raining cows and chickens… I was still drinking beers and hanging out with people while we all enjoyed some delicious Sweet Leaf Tea.
Our tent was also in an ideal spot next to the stage where I saw Crystal Castles and Ratatat. I had just enough alcohol to think I was a good dancer too. Our tent was also in a good spot because there was a muddy slope where adventurers traveling off the beaten path would slide down on their backs and butts. Pretty entertaining to watch.
Jackie Gilles & Jon (Author) Slangin' Tea
I guess no music festival blog would be complete without giving a list of favorite bands. So here are my top three (in reverse order):
- The Cool Kids- They know how to work the crowd. They know how to flow. Whoa so do I!
- MC Chris- Another rapper, but for nerdy white kids sort of like myself. For those of you who don’t know he is also MC Pee Pants on Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
- NEON INDIAN- Maybe its their throwback sound to the 80’s that I love or their ability to put together good melodies. I dunno what it is. Ever since ACL I’ve liked them a lot. So does my fellow intern Jackie. Just ask her, she knows them on a first named basis, and she’ll let you know that… a couple times.
Alright thanks for listening to my rambling. Check back for more updates and maybe I’ll have something interesting to say!
Fun Fun Fun Fest Artist Signed Gee-tar
By Charla on Nov 11 Filed In Austin, Texas, Events, Live Music, Sweet Contests 2 Comments
If you spent your weekend out at Fun Fun Fun Fest last weekend, hopefully you noticed that Sweet Leaf Tea was out at the festival, too. We had a great time listening to some new bands (new to me, anyways) and slingin’ tea—especially in the gorgeous Saturday sunshine. Unfortunately, Sunday was a bit of an ACL repeat with all the rain, only sans Dillo Dirt.
Throughout the festival, I was scoping out artists (no I’m not a stalker) who were gracious enough to sign our Sweet Leaf Tea Gibson guitar. As soon as I mentioned that we were giving it away to one lucky fan from the festival, they were all over it. Literally, they pretty much covered every inch of it.
For a fact, I know that Crystal Antlers, Beta Player, SSion, Les Savy Fav, LAX, Foot Patrol, Of Montreal, James Husband, Danzig, Health, Red Sparowes, The Roller, Barron, and some other very fancy John Hancock’s (to be identified) have made their mark upon this black gee-tar.
So, who might be the lucky winner of this festival treasure? Congratulations to Cory Brown! Cory entered in our text campaign at the festival having never won anything in his life. Well, Cory, those days are over my friend. You are forever a winner in our book! We hope you rock it out like the rockers that signed it.
For those who didn’t win this time, be sure to check out our contest page from time to time and find out how you can join the ranks of these lucky ones.
Ramblings on Fun Fun Fun Fest
By April on Nov 10 Filed In Austin, Texas, Live Music 4 Comments
Thanks to my mad-blogging skills and the fact that only 1 other SLT employee wrote a blog post about Fun Fun Fun Fest, I won the coveted PIP (pretty important person) passes for the festival!
Band-wise, FFF Fest is always chock full of hipster (read: indie/new fangled) bands sprinkled with a bit of old-schoolers to help make everyone feel welcome. This year was no different! Since D.R.I. and Danzig were on the Black Stage, Dylan (husband) was excited to share my passes with me. I enjoyed some hipster music and I enjoyed the mosh down memory lane with the hard-core bands I used to listen to. The way the fest was set-up, you could literally move from stage to stage and check out a few songs per band. I loved it! Without the awesome set-up, I would have never been able to see that much music in 2 days, especially since Dylan and I are slow and didn’t get out to the fest until around 3PM both days.
Based on my experience during ACL and Fun Fun Fun Fest, I have devised 3 easy-to-follow rules and would love to share them with you.
New rules for festival-going:
1) Have a 2nd set of socks stashed somewhere dry in case of inclement weather. There is a rule about keeping your feet dry in the military and I think this goes for festivals where it might rain too.
2) Have somewhere cool and close-by to get to when the weather changes and you don’t want to give up the festival fun, but need a break to help adjust your attitude. Our interlude was at Sagra Austin for their Fennel Fest FREE meal. It was wonderful food, shared with wonderful friends during the worst of the rain storm. After dessert Ashley was nice enough to drive Dylan and I back to the fest for round 2 of the last day and just in time for the rain to stop and the hard-core to begin!!
3) Appreciate that we have all of our flavors in plastic bottles now! If Sweet Leaf Tea is sponsoring a festival, I can now drink all of the Lemon & Lime Unsweet tea that I can get my hands on. That way I can save all the calories for ice cream sandwiches made from snickderdoodle cookies by Tiff’s Treats and goodies like that.
Here’s a list of the cool bands that I watched during the festival, (if there is a star next to their name, then they rocked my face off!):
Saturday
1. MC Chris (Had me literally laughing my arse off!)
2. Russian Circles *
3. Shonen Knife (didn’t actually watch, just listened when I walked by, these girls have made me smile since the 90’s!)
4. 7 Seconds
5. Neon Indian *
6. Shearwater
7. Jesus Lizard
8. Ratatat ****
-I was sad that I missed the Pharcyde but couldn’t bear to leave Ratatat, that’s how awesome their show was!
Sunday
1. Atlas Sound (ohmygod-the lead singer’s voice made my knees weak.) **
2. Alaska in Winter
3. DRI *
4. Crystal Castles (Like some of their studio recordings, did not like them live. At all.)
5. Gorilla Biscuits *
6. Of Montreal (while waiting for Danzig to come on since they were 30 min late)
7. Danzig *
Who were YOUR faves?
Cute boys of Ratatat
