Admittedly I have been a bit silent about the past Drop Dead, no full review, not as many photos as there should have been. Honestly this year was daunting. Between crazy logistics and sound problems, there never the less was magic in the air. Festival officially was 5 days beginning with concerts on the beach under the moonlight but people came early and stayed late so it really was more like a week to two week extravaganza. The bands were amazing, and Portugal was a special place to visit. Simply the whole thing was daunting work to put together and run with a tiny crew but an experience of a lifetime never the less.

There has been copious amounts of videos from the festival on youtube some of questionable quality, some pretty damn good. this will give you some idea of inspiration , madness and silliness that went on last October in Portugal, Drop Dead Festival 6. Kicking things off with a funny segment from a major Portuguese TV station featuring an interview with yours truly and bemused 13th moon.

Please follow me behind the Cut to see UK Decay, Kitchen and the Plastic Spoons, Lene Lovich , Cinema Strange, Phantom Vision, †13th MOON†, and Tchiki Boum playing at the festival.

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Great news for art punks and weird wave fiends it has just been announced that the second annual Mutant Transmissions Festival will take place in NYC on April 5th and 6th, 2009.

Last years MTF took place in LA and spotlighted a slew of excellent west coast bands as well as some interlopers. This year mutant Transmissions hits NYC which will give a an opportunity for the east coast weirdos to join in the fun. MT is a DIY event and invites local art and music community to get involved in planning and production. The younger crowd is also not excluded since the festival is traditionally an all ages event and every one is embraced with equal id not all together sane enthusiasm. Watch for the line up and updates on Mutant Transmissions Myspace. To join in the fun email mutanttransmissions at gmail dot com.

9.8 out of 10 New York music fiends and club owners know NYC is total shit for all ages shows. Be it because city officials are consistently waging a war against under 21 venues or because clubs make money from alcohol proceeds and they don’t really fight for the under 21 crowd, NYC 18+ let alone all ages clubs are overwhelmingly a hard gig to find.

But as the old saying goes where there is a will there is a way. There is a thriving DIY all ages scene in New Your City. In the vacuum of proper all ages venues, shows are being booked in everything from music studios, to wear house spaces, even into living rooms. These clubs not being exactly legal it’s a bit tricky to advertise so everything is done mostly through word of mouth, social networks like myspace and free pamphlets and publications like Showpaper.

Last Friday at a benefit for Showpaper at Brooklyn’s Vanishing Point, of course a DIY all ages event, a 6 bands picked up a flag of the original NYC no wavers and raised a banner of New New Sound. The cool thing about the show was the variety of sound, from punk, to tribal world music, to post punk, to 8 bit, to no wave and art punk. Kids at this show stayed for the whole concert, getting into each band, dancing, going generally going crazy being proficient at a serious business of having a good time.

You be the judge bellow: full evidence complete with show videos!

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