Best Of Year One: Mixes, Giveaways & Events
In addition to our birthday shows, we’re celebrating our one year anniversary by looking back over our favorite news, reviews, features, and mixes, as Joseph, Kristen, Mariana, and Sonam make their picks for Best of Year One. And to show how far we’ve come, we’re also switching back to our original look for the week. It’s been an amazing twelve months, and we look forward to what the next twelve will bring. Thanks for reading.
There’s something intensely special about giving someone music, in any form. It could be via mix, gifting a record or tape, through making your friend listen to a song you love. Over the past year, we’ve shared music in every way we know how. Besides writing about it, we’ve made you seventy-six mixes—whether it’s compiled by the staff, a themed videogram, or put together by your favorite band. We’ve given away over a hundred records, tapes and concert tickets. Here’s to another another year of giving as much as I can to the people who’ve given me the best thing I could’ve asked for—a reason to get out of bed every morning.
Compiled below is a list of some of our favorite giveaways, events and mixes. If you want to contribute, contact me. - Sonam Parikh, Managing Editor
Staff Mix: Year One Stories - Getting to GET BENT
In addition to our birthday shows, we’re celebrating our one year anniversary by looking back over our favorite news, reviews, features, and mixes, as Joseph, Kristen, Mariana, and Sonam make their picks for Best of Year One. And to show how far we’ve come, we’re also switching back to our original look for the week. It’s been an amazing twelve months, and we look forward to what the next twelve will bring. Thanks for reading.
For this month’s staff mix, we’ve decided to choose songs to tell our own stories of how we got here and why we love it. What’s the song that changed your life? Tell us your story in the comments below!
Best Of Year One: Reviews
In addition to our birthday shows, we’re celebrating our one year anniversary by looking back over our favorite news, reviews, features, and mixes, as Joseph, Kristen, Mariana, and Sonam make their picks for Best of Year One. And to show how far we’ve come, we’re also switching back to our original look for the week. It’s been an amazing twelve months, and we look forward to what the next twelve will bring. Thanks for reading.
We’ve generally tried to stick with concise, as-objective-as-possible reviews, more as a way of going “hey, check out this record!”, rather than drawn-out novellas with too many irrelevant factoids and a much-loathed rating system. We set out to write about and promote the music we dig. Most of us don’t really have much in the way of previous writing experience, but there has been some definite improvement over the past year, especially with the continual addition of knowledgeable music-obsessed folks from all over the place. In celebration of GET BENT’s birthday, the staff selected their favorite, most memorable reviews to date. Without further ado, here’s a recap. - Kristen Berry, Reviews Editor
Best Of Year One: Features
In addition to our birthday shows, we’re celebrating our one year anniversary by looking back over our favorite news, reviews, features, and mixes, as Joseph, Kristen, Mariana, and Sonam make their picks for Best of Year One. And to show how far we’ve come, we’re also switching back to our original look for the week. It’s been an amazing twelve months, and we look forward to what the next twelve will bring. Thanks for reading.
GET BENT is fortunate to have enjoyed the support of a true community and I think our features section really reflects how much that support has helped us grow. We can’t tell you how much we appreciate the willingness of so many busy and talented folk to take time out of their day to answer questions about such a personal subject as music. Our staff voted on our favorite features of the past year and the selection is diverse to say the least. There’s our in-depth interview with Burger Records, Tiffany Minton’s thoughtful column on the early days of file-sharing, “the most accurate review of Gonerfest that will ever exist” (to quote a commentator), and an awesome video of Shannon and the Clams playing at staff member Drew’s former garage, among others. Speaking solely for myself, I couldn’t be more proud.
But don’t stop here! Once you’ve read our faves, go back into the archives and check out all the rest. And if you’re inspired to contribute, just send me an e-mail with your pitch. I’d love to hear from you. - Mariana Timony, Features Editor
Editor’s Note: Who, What, Where, When, Why
In addition to our birthday shows, we’re celebrating our one year anniversary by looking back over our favorite news, reviews, features, and mixes, as Joseph, Kristen, Mariana, and Sonam make their picks for Best of Year One. And to show how far we’ve come, we’re also switching back to our original look for the week. It’s been an amazing twelve months, and we look forward to what the next twelve will bring. Thanks for reading.
One of the first questions people ask me is, “How did GET BENT start?” It’s a complicated thing to answer because GET BENT is the sum of so many people. Every single person on staff contributes something unique—a different voice, a fresh perspective—and if GET BENT is good, it is only because there are so many good people working here. They each have their own story of how they got here, some of which will be told later this week, but for now, this is mine.
Recap: Atlanta Mess-Around
Shotgunning beers in the parking lot
The Atlanta Mess-Around isn’t the kind of fest you want to read a detailed play-by-play of. What you want is an excellent collection of photos that captures the eagerness of the fans, the desperation of the players and the bewildering extent to which everyone partied—you know, literal displays of the excuses as to why a writer who’s actually enjoying themselves absolutely cannot report back every minute detail. We’ve got that gallery for you, plus some tidbits from the lineup in chronological order—but no in-depth critique of anything. That’s not what the Mess-Around is about. It’s about watching the bands you love and the ones you just found out you love, hanging with out-of-town friends and getting good and smashed in the process.
Column: Pouring the Red Whine - The Hives Return!
In this latest edition of Pouring the Red Whine, Eric gets the low down from Swedish garage warhorses the Hives on their latest record Lex Hives and how to achieve total Hives-ness in the year 2012.
The Hives. The name alone conjures up images of spatz and suits, of high kicks and heaving hooks, Sweden’s secret savage sides and sweat, sweet sweat… Dispense, then, with lingering hoity-toity notions that the masters of digtastic latter-generation garage pounce pop were some novelty for you to fumble with, ala a Slinky, only to leave it to your kid brother. The fact is, The Hives gnawed into your craw, have filled arenas in Europe up to just weeks ago, even wowed ‘em at Coachella last week. And – when they weren’t heard in the background of NFL telecasts a couple years ago and shit – a few of them went and had kids too. And all the while, the suits got nicer, the tunes bigger, and just when you thought The Hives would reappear with a “new look” (as weaker entertainers of this pathologically insecure modern era often do), they confound you and your heedless expectations once more by referencing… ELO?!… on their latest single “Go Right Ahead,” in anticipation of the otherwise vaguely barebones revamp of their upcoming album, Lex Hives (out June 5, on Disques Hives). Yours untruly caught up with guitarist Nicholas Arson while he was floating over the United States…
Stories: Records and Record Stores, Part 2
Record stores have played an important role in many people’s lives. Whether finding your new favorite band, meeting your new best friend, or just having a great time, record stores shape us in a way that clicking “Buy” simply can’t replicate. Collected below are the second part in a series of stories from some of our favorite bands and labels around. Read along as they tell their tales, and remember that your next trip to the record store could be something special. Improve your odds by going more.
Read part one here, and check out more of our Record Store Day content here. Share your own record store story in the comments!
Stories: Records and Record Stores, Part 1
Record stores have played an important role in many people’s lives. Whether finding your new favorite band, meeting your new best friend, or just having a great time, record stores shape us in a way that clicking “Buy” simply can’t replicate. Collected below are the first part in a series of stories from some of our favorite bands and labels around. Read along as they tell their tales, and remember that your next trip to the record store could be something special. Improve your odds by going more.
Check out more of our Record Store Day content here.
Column: Sofa King Bent - Record Store Day Edition
In a special RSD edition of Sofa King Bent, Tiffany waxes nostalgic about her time as a clerk at the coolest record store in town: Tower Records.
The Mitzvah. College. Marriage. Procreation. Each one signifies that great transition from adolescence to adulthood. In a “melting pot” of traditions, we each have our own unique rites of passage. However, because American identity is so closely tied to our economic institution of capitalism, it seems we all share the burden of work. And so it goes that we all share at least one road on the pilgrimage to maturity and that is when we get our first “real job.” Parallel to my discovery of punk, I’ve been at least partially employed since the age 13. My parents encouraged an early work ethic as a way to alleviate the financial strain of having to pay off all of my BMG music service bills and requests for record shopping funds.
However, the first gig that provided fiscal independence enough to sustain my utilities, diet and habit for record collecting began in August 2004. I was in my punk rebellion prime and on the tail end of my teens. As a result, my parents began to worry about my burgeoning adulthood and that my two-foot Mohawk and fresh tattoos were going to hinder my search for gainful employment. But on the eve of my sophomore year of college, I landed a sales clerk position at Tower Records on West End Ave in Nashville, TN. My progenitors nodded with approval.
