Euphoria Fest

Posted by ballerat | Festivals

by Melissa Hoffman

eu·pho·ri·a
noun
a feeling or state of intense excitement and happiness.
“the euphoria of success will fuel your desire to continue training”
synonyms: elation, happiness, joy, delight, glee

I’m sure there are countless things that come to mind when reading the definition above; playing with puppies, devouring an entire bowl of Funfetti cake batter, and the first sip of that free margarita to name a few. For over 50,000 music lovers it means Euphoria Music Festival.

Euphoria is a four day camping music festival taking place April 6th-9th on the beautiful 55 acre grounds of Carson Creek Ranch in Austin.  While the primary genre is electronic music this festival offers a little something for everyone by bringing in hip hop, indie, and jam band artists for your listening pleasure. The 2017 lineup is stacked as always and includes Alesso, Chromeo, Pretty Lights Live, Wiz Khalifa, Young Thug, Zeds Dead, The Disco Biscuits, The Floozies, Knife Party, and many many more.

If you aren’t sold on the music alone, Euphoria is really focusing on enhancing the all-around experience for its attendees this year. They will be partnering with Art Outside to introduce the Art Outside Village which will organize various activities such as art installations, unique workshops, and yoga. What makes these additions even more awesome is that they are opening them up to anyone who has something nifty to contribute. If you have an artistic contribution that you would like to share with your fellow festival-goers you can apply here. Life tip- don’t hesitate, just DO IT!

For those of you that lack in the creative department but want to get involved don’t fret! The Fest is bringing back its work exchange volunteer program and is currently looking for passionate folks just like you. In exchange for only 15 hours of your time (broken up into three five-hour shifts) you will receive a GA 3-day pass and a camping pass. That is of course in addition to meeting wonderful people and creating memories that will last a lifetime. Talk about ballin’ on a budget! If this sounds right up your alley you can head to this link to get your app in.

If you are sold on the festival but aren’t too keen on fully immersing yourself in the camping lifestyle, I suggest that you strongly reconsider. To each their own but in my festival experience there is nothing like waking up on the festival grounds with your adopted community and embracing that “this is life now” mentality. Euphoria offers numerous camping options so you are sure to find the perfect fit. There have also been some serious improvements made this year based on feedback from past campers. For example; additional space per campsite, option for early check-in on Wednesday, and a shuttle service to get your gear to your site. That last one is a game changer people. If you haven’t attended in the past, let’s just say it took impeccable stacking skills and balance to cart all of your shi*t up and down hills before you finally reached the camp grounds. The people struggled- Euphoria listened.

Now that was a lot to take in but I hope that it got you as excited as I am for the sixth annual Euphoria Festival! Tickets are still on sale so I suggest you rally some troops, create some bitchin play lists to get pumped up, and get ready to get down and dirty on the banks of the Colorado River.

Full line-up Here

Tickets available Here

by Melissa Hoffman

I’m all about enjoying this beautiful Austin weather by patio hopping around town from Moontower Saloon to Bangers or anywhere with a solid mimosa deal. However, if you’re looking to get in touch with your outdoorsy side and save some cash, the Colorado River is just a short drive away. In my opinion, not much beats kayaking/canoeing the river and camping on island sand bars.

Step 1) Recruit as many of your friends (and furry friends!) as possible

Step 2) Head about 30 minutes East to Webberville 

Step 3) Board your water vessel of choice

Step 4) Start paddling

If you already happen to own a canoe or kayak then your only investment for the weekend will be a cooler full of beer and some food to soak it all up (if you’re like some of my friends that means a case of Lone Star each and three 18 packs of Smucker’s Uncrustables). No worries if you don’t, there are a few different outfitters that you can rent one from for pretty cheap. We went with Cook’s Canoes (http://www.cookscanoes.com/index.html) and it was $50 per night for a canoe and $35 per night for a kayak. Technically though, if you choose to canoe with a friend you get to split that cost plus the paddling efforts. A win-win! One last perk of going through the outfitter is that it includes a shuttle from the end point of your trip back to your cars at the beginning. So for those of you who do the trip with your own gear; do not, I repeat DO NOT, forget to leave at least one car where you plan to exit the river so you can get back to the other cars. Unless you’re down for a longggggg walk back.

For our last river trip my husband and I decided to head out right after work so that we could get paddling and have camp set up by sun down. Did I mention that camping on these sand bars is also free?! We chose to start at Little Webberville Park since it was only about an hour paddle to the first potential sand bar. This one is pretty small but perfect for a small group like the two of us and our dogs. If that’s not quite what you’re looking for, you can keep going down the river and choose from a number of other first come first serve islands. We set up camp, gathered some wood for the fire, and cracked a few cold beers. Not necessarily in that order… While we were taking care of all of the manual labor like the responsible adults that we are, our two dogs were off exploring the island doing “dog stuff”. Between that and repeatedly jumping off of our kayaks to swim during the day it made for some happy, and exhausted, pups.

Saturday morning we packed everything up and moved our lawn chairs into the water while we waited for all of our friends to come down stream. From there we made our way slowly but surely with only a few tipping casualties stemming from a rowdy game of bumper tag. As peaceful and beautiful as the Colorado River is, what is a river trip without some shenanigans? Here are a few other examples to keep your float interesting: Most Absurd Hat Competition, bb gun target practice, pick-up game of whiffle ball with locals on shore, or some casual fishing. I think you get the idea.

A few more hours and a box of wine later we came across a very large island that was more than big enough for a group of any size. Both of the islands that we camped on had plenty of wood to collect for a fire but it never hurts to bring some extra if you have the space. Once the fire was roaring we cooked up all of our food only to have it left out and eaten by some animals overnight- also known as my dogs. In typical camping spirit our night was full of s’more roasting and various drinking games around the fire. In typical “I’ve been drinking copious amounts of alcohol for 15 hour” spirit our night ended with howling at the moon and a little bit of skinny dipping. Or so I’ve been told since day drinking got the best of me before any of that debauchery began.

Next thing I knew the sun was coming up and Sunday had arrived to be the buzzkill that it always is. I’m sure you get the drill but we slapped the bag a little bit to polish off the wine, packed our kayaks, and started on our way. There were only a few hours left to go between our campsite and the final dock and it was one of the most gorgeous parts of the river we had travelled down. When we got to the dock our shuttle was there waiting and we made our way back to reality.

Moral of the story, if you have a free weekend and you enjoy being one with nature you should get your @$$ out to the beautiful Colorado River.

Melissa is a staff writer for balleratx.com

As a long time ska punk fan and a fan of Colorado, I made my way to the mile-high city to rage and riot! At Riot Fest that is!

Riot Fest, originating in Chicago, is a punk rock based festival that has since expanded to a second location in the mile-high city.

Now, just because it is considered a Punk Rock Festival doesn’t mean that it is limited to just the genre; it tends to include a smattering of Ska, Indie Rock (Modest Mouse in 2015 and Death Cab for Cutie in 2016 respectively… WTF?!), Metal, etc. There is definitely something for everyone and anyone… that happens to also like Punk music. The major selling point for 2016? The MISFITS reunion!

Friday kicked off the weekend right! The weather was beautifully sunny, but not too warm (by Texas standards at least). It remained this way all weekend long. Let me say that after years of Warped Tours on asphalt and black top in the Texas heat during my youth; this was amazing. The only time you felt like finding some shade was when you had just had enough sun and never because of getting overheated.

After running into Doug Benson (we love you Doug!) outside the Festival we made our way into the grounds. We scouted the Merch Booth followed by the concession stands, which lead to the first and only real disappointment of the weekend… in a place with craft beer that regularly wins awards like Denver we were limited to Dos Equis and other equally dissatisfying libations. (Get your shit together Riot Fest!) The food choices were solid though.

Friday was filled with a number of bands I had been looking forward to seeing again (or for the first time). The Descendants showed that they still had some rage left! The Aquabats, which is always a fun and family friendly show, instructed the next generation of little rioters on how to properly circle pit by pulling them up on stage! Start them young! (I can think of plenty of older fans that have a hard time grasping the idea. It’s like they are the kid that always tried to fit the square through the circular hole. Idiots.) Fitz and the Tantrums properly lived up to their pun inspired name. NOFX was rad as fuck. Deftones rocked! Janes Addiction (performing Ritual De Lo Habitual) killed it as the closer!

Saturday may have had the least exciting line-up of the weekend for me personally. The Hold Steady (performing Boys & Girls in America) was a damn fine show! Sleater Kinney reminded us (like we needed one) that ladies can perform as good if not better than any group of guys. Ween closed the day out as only they could have.

Sunday was the day I think most everyone was psyched for. This day was really centered around the dueling stages of the Roots Stage and Riot Stage. Notably really starting off with Chevy Metal, a cover band with one sweet name and a sound to back it up. Unfortunately for them they had to compete with Me First and the Gimme Gimmes at the game of covers songs. Let me tell you, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes won hands down! Next up was a superb performance by Pepper! Think that sounds amazing? Bad Religion rocked the shit out of the audience next! Where do you go from there you may ask? The gypsy punk inspired music of Gogol Bordello! When everyone was exhausted from dancing their asses off The Original Misfits made us all remember why we were there in the first place in all of their horror punk rock glory! My Satan it was beautiful!

Thank you Riot Fest for satiating the punk rock void in my life. Until next year!!!

 

 

by Julie Darner

You know you have the best boss when they give you free wristbands for a music festival. It wasn’t even just SOME of my coworkers that got them; it was ALL of us. (That’s seven of us in all) I only got a Saturday pass, but two of my coworkers got 3-day media passes. SUPER JEALOUS, but I’ll chill.

So I ended up seeing a little of DJ Mustard, LL Cool J and his DJ ZTrip, SchoolboyQ, and then Kendrick Lamar. Def should have tried to see more, but crowds and lines and waiting were all factors that got in the way.

DJ Mustard mostly just mixed popular radio songs together for the crowd and yelled at us sometimes. Not upset that I chose him over other artists, but we left early due to a lack of interest. Haha. Also, we were not getting enough of a second-hand high to want to stay in that crowd. Oh, DISCLAIMER! I am too short for music festivals, so there may be a lot of complaining in the future of this post. Particularly, DJ Mustard had started about half an hour before my coworker and I got into the crowd, so there was a strong buildup and little space to squeeze in. That’s really the worst thing about ACL. They invite all these people to go, throw some stages onto Zilker and let the people fend for themselves. Short people never get to see what’s going on on stage. It’s a fact of the festival. It’s part of the whole experience!!!!! Bonding with other shorties is actually something that happened for me with other girls at Kendrick. At least you’re comforted in knowing you aren’t the only one.

image-1

LL Cool J was pretty great. I’m not gonna lie, I had to laugh at some parts of his performance. I had no idea he’s been around since 1985!!!! I felt like a baby. He still wears beanies while he performs, which is insane to do in Texas even though it was only like 85 yesterday (GREAT WEATHER). His shirt reminded me of those Affliction shirts all the boys wore in 2008. And he kept telling us what to do!! “Everybody say YEAAAH! Say HELLLL YEAH!!! Now SCREAM!” Excuse me. It’s fun the first 30 times, but it just gets a little repetitive after that. But I did have fun watching him! His dj was so good! Amazing! Cam and I were at an understanding that he may even be better than DJ Mustard. He was mixing right in front of us! And he was this older looking, clean cut white guy! I very much appreciated his work. I knew zero songs, but it’s the performance you go for, yes?!

So my two coworkers and I stayed at the Samsung stage to get a good spot for SchoolboyQ. We were right next to the catwalk that was blocked off from the crowd. Some people are really crazy, because they actually jumped that barrier. Mind you, it’s at least four feet tall, so you have to lift all your body weight on the narrow railing, launch yourself another four feet to the other side, and then land on a bunch of people? Not worth it to me. One guy completely ate it on the ground of the catwalk, but got right up and climbed his busted face over the other side! Pretty impressive. Another guy didn’t have such luck. Security was getting fed up later on, so when another guy took the plunge, three of the workers went after him and tried to pull him back over. I don’t know how they weren’t successful, but they didn’t escort him out. The vandal got over the barrier somehow. I guess he had good friends that didn’t let him go.

Another funny thing that happened when we were waiting for SchoolboyQ was that my coworkers and I met some actual school boys! They were across the barrier from us. They looked insanely young, and they were. Three out of the four had braces, they had baby faces that you know were virginal and were dressed like frat boys. That’s all the high-schoolers now, right? Well we got to talking to them, and being almost a decade older than them inspired us to ask them about pop culture like Hey Arnold, Doug, Lambchop, Even Stevens, CatDog. The best of the late 90s and early 2000s! I’ll have to say, the one that hurt the most was them not knowing who Lizzie McGuire was. No Gordo?! No Paulo?! Such a sad life! They were all boys, but all the boys I knew watched it, too! It’s amazing how age gaps separate culture so easily. I’m not saying everything I grew up with was monumental for all ages and should have been absorbed at some point of time, but it shows you how history and human customs change and can be forgotten. DEEP.

dirtyjewelz.

 

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Denver Beer Dinner

Posted by ballerat | Uncategorized

Denver Beer Dinner

by Stephen Kluchin

After a long day of tomfoolery, sightseeing, and partaking of the best Denver had to offer, we had the unique opportunity to attend a Beer Dinner — a collaboration between Dude’s Brews by Dad & Dude’s Breweria and the Dunbar Kitchen & Tap House — to enjoy some cuisine and CBD infused brews.

Wait! CBD infused beer?! Isn’t that illegal?! Or so you may be asking yourself. I was curious about the subject as well, as the legalization in Colorado was at the state level and alcohol is federally regulated. First off, CBD is a non-psychoactive hemp extract. Also, after some quick research it seems like the brewery already hashed this out with the proper authorities (http://www.breweria.com/events/hembree-likes-to-make-a-splash-photoarticle-courtesy-westwood/).

The restaurant was nice, but felt a bit trendy. The staff were very nice and made sure to share what knowledge they had of the beers they would be serving. We even had the chance to speak to the brewer.

Now on to the feast!

Menu

Course #1: Meat & Cheese with Sativa IPA

Meat and Cheese  IPA

Cheeses – Tillamook Extra Sharp Cheddar, Lincert Delice De Bourgogne, Cypress Grove Humboldt Fog, Wellspring Creamery Goat Brie

Meats – Applegate Farm Uncured Pepperoni, Crimenelli Calabrese, Applegate Farm Genoa Salami

I love charcuterie! However, this course was underwhelming, generic, and simple. The Sativa IPA was superb, smooth, and had a hoppiness that started strong and finished easy.

 

Course #2: Soup with Rye Ryeot Ale

Beer Cheese Soup Ale

Beer Cheese – Tilamook Cheddar, Red Rye Ale, Crispy Chicken Strips with Beer Batter

The beer cheese soup was very flavorful, but a little thin. The rye ale was a perfect contrast to the savory flavor of the soup. The chicken was tender and kept its crunch, but was tiny and served more as a garnish than a significant part of the dish.

Course #3: Pork Chop with Toffee Porter

Porkchop

Grilled Pork Chop – Apple Garlic Brine, Black Eyed Peas, Toffee Porter Jus

The pork chop was tasty but a bit dry. The black eyed peas were on point and savory. The toffee porter was tasty, salty, and sweet with a bit of coffee flavor and a hint of caramel. It contrasted well with the meal.

Course #4: Cake with Pineapple Express Honey Blonde

Cake

Pineapple “Upside Down” Cake – Cardamom Cake, Pineapple bits, Tart Cherry and Beer Syrup

The final course was the most anticipated one for me and it didn’t disappoint! The cake was light but not too sweet and paired exceptionally well with the tart cherry. The beer was light and fruity with a crisp finish.

The feast was worth the $40 price tag. Thanks for the awesome experience!

Please visit both Dude’s Brews by Dad & Dude’s Breweria and the Dunbar Kitchen & Tap House if you are ever in the Denver area.

Justin B. Good

Posted by ballerat | Artists/Musicians

DSCN0903

Breaking the boundaries of traditional hip hop, Justin B Good (Real name Justin Goodman) creates a unique sound fusing hip hop and rock music. Born in Queens, Justin B Good was halfway to a PhD in psychology when he woke up one morning and decided to drop out to pursue a life of music. Drawing on influences from a wide range of musical acts such as Nas, Eminem, Nirvana and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, to create a one of a kind sound. Currently working on his first album, One Of A Kind, with a release date of early 2016, Justin B Good has electrified crowds throughout the United States with his cocktail of hip hop and rock. Justin B Good mashes quick witted rhymes with sly guitar licks to create a musical cacophony that leaves the listener feeling inspired and wanting more.

When he’s not in the studio working on his debut album, Justin B Good plays festivals throughout the United States, most recently the 2015 Springboard South Music Festival in Houston, Texas. Justin has competed in multiple competitions and placed in the top 5 in the Breakout Artist Competition in 2014. Justin’s music is inspired by a desire to be different and do what no one has done.

Born in Queens, New York, Justin always had a knack for music and was known to run around the house playing the drums on pots and pans. When his parents divorced at a very young age, Justin needed an outlet and that outlet was music. At age 11, Justin started playing the drums but at age 15 his life changed when he picked up a guitar for the first time. By the time Justin had finished college he had played in multiple bands and recorded a few unreleased EPs. After dropping out of a PhD program, Justin B Good found a home in the New York music scene and is constantly performing throughout the city.