• The successful first-annual WE PUSH BUTTONS: ELECTRONIC MUSIC FESTIVAL wrapped up on Saturday night with the WE PUSH BUTTONS AWARDS show at the Empire, hosted by A-FRAME and TODD "THE ROCKET" RICHARD. The awards recognized many of the more familiar names: Milled Pavement's MOSHE won Best Dubstep Act, DILLY DILLY won Best Album for her excellent Of Art and Intention (and the "Sibilance" staff voted that way, too). SANDBAG, not the old metal band from L/A, won Best Artist. BRZOWSKI won Best MC. The BIG EASY took home Best Venue, despite the Asylum's best efforts this year to book button-pushing acts. SECRET WEEKEND won Best Electronic Act. You can find the whole rundown here. The festival itself was an ambitious undertaking, and was only marred by the unexpected closing of the WHITE HEART, with the rug pulled out from under organizers with just two days' notice. The "Sibilance" staff hopes that room is filled quickly with something else amenable to live music, whether it be electronic or otherwise. Congress Street is booming lately, but the closings of the Bramhall and now White Heart are troubling.
• ADAM KURTZ left town for a while last weekend, setting off on a tour down to NYC, then on to Philly, DC, Chicago, and who knows where else. He's been working on the appropriately titled Open Road, a 10-song album that will be available for download-by-donation in the near future.
• JEFF KRAL (GOUD'S THUMB) continues his solo career with the full-length Touch and Go, an 11-song follow-up to 2008's This Road. You should be able to pick it up any time now. We haven't given it a good listen yet, but the packaging has again been made snappy as hell by old friend and LOST ON LIFTOFF frontman WALT CRAVEN.
• DEAD SEASON have had a great first couple of weeks for the new Life Death. BILLBOARD has them at the top spot of the Northeast Heatseekers list for top album sales. They're number one. MONSTERS OF FOLK are at number nine. Something's going right for Dead Season. Admittedly, the "Sibilance" staff are less than familiar with the rest of the top 10.
• Has anyone caught MAINELY ACOUSTIC? It's all original acoustic music filmed by NPCTV at the FARE SHARE COOPERATIVE GALLERY and hosted by MARY "UKELADY" CHRISTINE and there have been eight half-hour episodes distributed digitally between October 2008 and July 2009. Find the details of where to see it atwww.myspace.com/mainelyacoustic.
