Cory Graves
Untapped Switches Hands, Dan Phillips Does Porn For Women and Ben Curtis' Memory Lives On.
For years now, those in the newspaper business have been trying to figure out how to attract the ever-elusive younger reader. And as many entities have struggled with this endeavor, they've had to cut staffs and, in some cases, even close their doors.
Hell, it's a big reason why we even initially chose not to put out a print product of our own.
But with its acquisition of the Untapped festival series, though, A.H. Belo Corporation's event arm, CrowdSource hopes it has found a way to tap into a younger, eager demographic.
Hey, there's something to the thousands of young folks that show up to Untapped's music and craft beer festivals in Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston, in addition to the Canned Festival in Denton.
So what does the future of those fests look like?
For one thing, CrowdSource says it intends to retain a partnership with the Untapped founders at Spune Productions and The Common Table to continue to produce the events. And per both sides, not much will change other than the fact that the new influx of capital might help expand the Untapped brand into more new markets.
“Untapped started as something selfish for its founders,” says Spune CEO Matthew Harber. “While we created the event for ourselves and based it on our personal interests, we quickly discovered it was something much more significant. Untapped was, and continues to be, cultural by nature and deeply meaningful for attendees. Partnering with CrowdSource will provide us with the resources to realize our dream of growing this event regionally and nationally. We could not be more excited.”
The next Untapped affair in Dallas is scheduled to go down on November 1 to coincide with North Texas Craft Beer Week.
Moving on: School of Seven Bells released a cover of Joey Ramone's “I Got Knocked Down (But I'll Get Up),” which the Ramones frontman originally penned about his battle with Lymphoma. This version of the song was recorded by the late SVIIB guitarist Benjamin Curtis entirely to his laptop from his hospital bed at New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering he fighting his own losing battle against the cancer. The song officially marks Curtis' final recording before his passing at age 35.
Per an official press release from the band: “It was a very spontaneous decision to record this track,” says the band's guitarist/vocalist Alejandra Deheza. “Benjamin had been talking about the song a lot, and then he just decided he was going to do it. We couldn't record vocals in the hospital, so he actually face-timed with me and his brother while we recorded vocals in the studio. He spearheaded the whole thing on face time, would even tell us which knobs to turn and listen to levels etc. We'd even see nurses in the background from time to time! It was really amazing. But that was Benjamin, and producing was what he did. It was therapeutic and took his mind off being really sick. This song was really important to him and I'm happy we were able to record it.”
The track was released digitally today, and a video directed by Toby Halbrooks and Alan Del Rio Ortiz will premiere here tomorrow.
Speaking of new releases: Sarah Jaffe announced that the hometown release show for her upcoming third full-length album, Don't Disconnect, will be held at the historic Majestic Theatre on August 23. Tickets will officially go on sale this Friday, June 27. The McKenzie Smith-produced LP will be available August 19.
Also? This Will Destroy You will release its new John Congleton-produced LP, Another Language, on September 16 via Suicide Squeeze. You can check out the album's first single, which the band debuted earlier this week via Stereogum, below ahead of the band's next Dallas show, which will come October 21 at Kessler Theater.
Ahead of either of those releases, though, Goodnight Ned will release its sophomore LP at Trees on July 24. The band's pianist, Jonas Martin, is also currently in Austin recording a solo record.
Similarly in July: State Fair Records will release a new duet from Madison King called “Feel Like Fallin' in Love,” which the Dallasite co-wrote with Old 97's frontman Rhett Miller. King, who is currently on the road with the 97's, has been performing the song with Miller on that tour. All the same, here's a clip of King doing that one solo-style last month at the Kessler.
Here's another cool video to check out: This one, featuring Fort Worth's Quaker City Night Hawks, was filmed aboard the RV of the Jam in the Van folks during this year's SXSW conference in Austin.
And as long as we're on the subject of Quaker City, we should probably mention this cover of the band's “Rattlesnake Boogie,” courtesy of its fellow Fort Worthian, ex-Neon Indian guitarist Ronnie Heart.
Elsewhere, True Widow's Dan Phillips finds himself the subject of Porn for Women's current spread. The site, according to its founder, aims to highlight “handsome, talented, and nice” men who are “the best at what they do” and features editorials that “bring out the everyday handsome guys of the world.”
To be fair, Phillips' antediluvian woodworking techniques are pretty damn sexy.
Finally this week, you can help Fort Worth DIY labels Lo-Life Records and Dreamy Soundz realize its plans of opening a physical location to sell the records they produce by contributing to this crowd-funding campaign. You can earn yourself a cameo in an upcoming War Party video or a 15 percent lifetime discount at the store in the process.
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