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
You can’t have FFF without LAX
By Elizabeth on Nov 6 Filed In Austin, Texas, Live Music 1 Comment
Ok so I know there are a million bands on the line-up for this weekend’s Fun Fun Fun festival but there is one band you cannot miss…Austin’s very own, L.A.X.
Believe it or not, I had never even heard of this band until last week. I was at a Cherrypeel Halloween party Sweet Leaf Tea sponsored at The Mohawk. I had a couple of friends say they really liked this band and the review on the party website made them sound awesome. They more than blew away my high expectations starting with their first song. By the time they played my favorite, “Pump to the Beat” I was so into the set and so was the rest of the crowd. I don’t think one person crammed in front of the tiny stage wasn’t dancing their a$$ off. I had not planned on staying out late since I had work the next day but they were worth every bit of hurt I felt in the morning.
With all six members bringing their own creativity they put out an amazing sound with something for everyone. They mix house with R&B with pop. It is truly amazing!
So put your dance pants on and meet me at the Blue Stage, Saturday at 1 o’clock. Trust me, L.A.X. will not disappoint.
The Sweet Leaf Tea Winners Circle
By Charla on Nov 6 Filed In Activities, Events, Live Music, Sweet Consumers, Sweet Contests, Uncategorized 1 Comment
One of the best parts about my job, (yes there are several best parts) is giving away cool prizes. I love surprising our fans with a call to announce that he or she is the lucky winner of “X”. Sometimes it’s tickets to an event like Lollapalooza, ACL or this weekend’s Fun Fun Fun Fest. Sometimes it’s tickets to a Texas Stars Hockey game. And sometimes, yes sometimes, it’s a shiny new Gibson guitar.
If you were out at ACL last month, you might have noticed that Granny was running a text to win Gibson guitar campaign. We had several entries over the course of the weekend and we were able to award 3 lucky winners one of 3 super sweet guitars. We had 2 Gibson Les Paul guitars and one psychedelic SG Zoot Suit. (Winning that rainbow guitar would make me start lessons—I love it!)
The day after ACL, I sent out texts to the winners and called to solidify the deal. All three winners just happened to be guitar players and were super excited to win such beautiful guitars. (Who wouldn’t, right?) I was happy to play Santie, but sad to see the guitars go. Especially because I never got to take them out of the box and give them each a strum or two. I leave the “christening” to the winner.
I do ask only one thing of these lucky guitar owners and that is to send me a picture back of them with their winnings. Lately, the pictures coming from the winners circle have been quite impressive—creative even. And it looks like the competition is getting steeper thanks to ACL guitar winner Dave Z. Check him out! His photo looks like a CD cover!
Dave—Sweet Leaf Tea Guitar Winner from ACL Contest
So, if you happen to win one of our sweet guitars from one of the many festivals Sweet Leaf Tea sponsors, know that the picture competition is on. We like to see our fans rockin’ out!
Oh, and if you’re coming out to Fun Fun Fun Fest this weekend be sure to look for the Granny head. She’ll be announcing a contest that’s triple the fun.
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