Grooveshark Artists

Last Halloween, we had the opportunity to meet & mingle with several artists during the Fest 9 and our first annual “Grooveshark Sessions”. Around 17 artists met up with us at Medusa Studios to record one live, acoustic track and an interview to be exclusively released via Grooveshark. After months of unwinding, editing, mixing, mastering, etc. - the tracks and interviews are here!

Next is Make Do and Mend, a punk/rock indie from West Hartford, Connecticut. Their interview was a close second for my personal favorite (coming closely behind the Sainte Catherines’ interview), mostly due to the ridiculous Fest story they had to share. It’s a bit lengthy, but definitely worth the read!

I’m here with Make Do and Mend for the Grooveshark Fest Sessions. They just finished wrapping up their recording. How did it go for you guys?

It was fun. Really fun. Dave made it really really nice.

Do you guys have an album out?

We had a record come out this past Tuesday on Paper + Plastick, it’s called A Measured Mile.

So, you guys have played the Fest before. Do you have any crazy Fest experiences you want to share?

The whole thing is kind of a humble-jumble of craziness, some you forget and some you remember. But, I think the most standout thing that happened was this year actually. We kicked it off right. We pulled into town Thursday night, around 2AM, so all the bars were getting out. Dudes from Shook Ones were also just getting into town, so we decided to meet up with them, hang out, catch up for ten or fifteen minutes, then check into our hotel and go to bed. So we pulled up, met them, gave our hellos and hugs, and uh… [Pause] Man, I don’t even know if I should tell this story. So - she’s really nice – but this girl came walking by with her dog. And we’re like – “what a cute puppy!”

But, it was sort of weird because she just wouldn’t leave. We said goodbye to her about three separate times…

She was definitely friendly and nice, and it was fine having her around. But she was just kind of there all of the sudden. So, as we were splitting up from the Shook Ones guys, she offered – “oh! If you guys give me a ride home, I’ll show you my Aerial Dancing Acrobatic ‘crouching-tiger-hidden-dragon’”… She said she does some sort of interpretive dance… I don’t know. Some people said they were picturing videos - like we were going to go to her house and watch a video of her performing – I definitely thought we were going to go to her house and she would be running on tree branches with Samurai swords. But, we ended up getting back to her house at like, 3AM and she starts setting up this crazy ropes course in her backyard.

All this for a ride home??

Yeah! As soon as we got back to her house, the dog went from cute puppy that we all wanted to pet and hang out with to vicious beast that we all wanted completely away from us. I mean – I love dogs, we all love dogs – but this dog was a fucking terror. Trashing this girls house! So, we’re all hanging outside, she’s setting up these crazy lanterns. Then she comes out of her house in this zebra leotard with these big ribbons hanging from the trees and starts wrapping herself up in these ribbons and swinging around – it was really impressive, she was really sick. I could never ever do that. It was straight up some Cirque du Soleil thing. She was hanging from these big ribbons fifteen feet in the air and the whole time her dog is biting the ribbons and thrashing around – the ribbons her life is dependent on!!

Then she kind of just ended her performance, we all looked at each other and started clapping. We were just like, “it was nice meeting you, thanks for the show.” And that’s how our Fest Weekend started. 

What band are you most excited about seeing?

Shook Ones. Cheap Girls. Touché Amoré.

Do you think you guys could name for me a collective favorite food?

Pizza is my favorite for me always, especially if it’s looking like Ninja Turtles pizza. Cheese dripping down everywhere.

Favorite city for eating out / eating food there?

Minneapolis is awesome! At the Triple Rock, when you get a tall can of PBR you get a basket of bacon. And we happened to play in town on the night of this deal. That was a really good food experience on tour.

That’s pretty much it - thanks for coming in guys! It’s been a pleasure, you guys were awesome.