Austin Exchange - the Theme WAS trumped by Music

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Lawrence
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Austin Exchange - the Theme WAS trumped by Music

#1 Post by Lawrence » Fri Aug 15, 2003 12:45 pm

A great deal has been said about the "Theme vs. Music&Dancing" debate, somewhat centered recently around Austin's theme and all the hype. Even I started posting on Yesnooti about it, albeit briefly.

Shana and Ryan, I totally hear your concerns and agree with them. Part of the blame for not having details about music publicized is mine as music coordinator. I have been working out the details on the music while others have spent so much time on theme and party hype.

The substantial majority our Exchange budget is going toward the live music, DJ'ed music, and sound. We are custom-making most if not all of the bands this year to match the best of the live bands of past Austin Exchanges: particularly the small group combo on Friday Night at the UnExchange two years ago, and the big band at last years dot-com Exchange. We have found that hiring pre-formed bands often falls short of what "we" want as dancers. Although there certainly are exceptions in other cities, we don't have George Gee or Dean Mora in Austin. But we DO have phenomenal musicians who can play with the best of them, and we want to show them off as a great part of "Austin."

The main ballroom music will feature Mainstream, Big Band, and "Groove" Swing. (Sorry, Peter). However, we will have sizeable alternative rooms for Classic swing, Slow Blues dancing and even "Westie Lindy" (an alternative term to West Coast Swing because it is not technically "WCS" but instead just Lindy patterns to non-swing 4/4 music, like Lou Rawls "Natural Man").

And, Shana, I completely agree with your sentiment a few months ago about an Exchange featuring local DJs, not just the same core at every Exchange or smattering of anonymous DJs from everywhere. We plan to feature our own DJs (not just Nathan and me, but also Jeramie Anderson, Matt Jones, and others), supplemented by some of the best from other cities.

I frankly can't believe the frat-theme hype has been so successful in creating "buzz" about the Exchange, but I hope that the success/banter regarding the hype does not hinder Austin's reputation for fantastic music every year. Our Exchanges would not be so popular without great music and dancing at the core. We also have the benefit of having party-oriented people AND dance/music oriented people, which combine to make our Exchanges some of the best ever.
Last edited by Lawrence on Tue Nov 04, 2003 3:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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#2 Post by Lawrence » Fri Aug 15, 2003 2:03 pm

Nathan's post also highlights how the venues will overwhelm the theme, as well.
Nate Dogg wrote:Swifty sent me a private message earlier today, his comment was that he knew nothing about our venues. Since, the website did not really showcase them, I thought I would address that in this thread.

Venues:
Main venue - The Fed - http://www.themansion.info/build.html; One large ballroom, two smaller ones, lots of additional space. People have said nothing but good things about this venue. That is why we use it both Friday and Saturday night.
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We also have Footworks Dance Center for afterhours.
It has over 6000 square feet of cushioned wood dance floors. In addition to substantial room for lounging.
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LBJ Presidential Library for Lindy in the Park
We dance in the large marble space in front of the library, very popular for our past lindy in the parks.
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We have Saengerrunde Hall for Sunday night, which I don't have any pictures of, it worked great last year, basically a smaller dance hall compared to the Fed. There is also a bowling alley downstairs.

And we have Sunday afterhours in the American Legion Hall for Sunday afterhours
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Friday afternoon welcome dance at Ruta Maya (coffee bar, with live music, decent size dance floor).
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#3 Post by Shanabanana » Mon Aug 18, 2003 12:19 pm

Thanks for the response Lawrence. I believe that most of the statements have been in the spirit of feedback and not slams. It's good to see that they were understood as such.

Good luck on planning the exchange.

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#4 Post by Swifty » Mon Aug 18, 2003 12:29 pm

Yeah, what Shana said.

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#5 Post by Mr Awesomer » Tue Aug 19, 2003 1:03 pm

It's nice to see focus being put back on music and dance... as opposed to a bunch of freakin paddles. All of the sudden I actually wouldn't mind going.
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#6 Post by Lawrence » Tue Aug 26, 2003 7:24 pm

Details are yet to be worked out, but I mentioned it in another thread, so I'll let it out here, too.

The Texas Trumpets is the Sunday night Blues band. Check out "Paige N T.C." on the website!

http://www.docbluesrecords.com/shop/t_t ... t0002.html
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#7 Post by Swifty » Wed Aug 27, 2003 5:32 am


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#8 Post by Nate Dogg » Wed Aug 27, 2003 8:22 am

Do you have friends that want to fly down for the Exchange? Still looking for a flight yourself?

Orbitz is having an Austin fare sale, Oct 17-19th

Check it, www.orbitz.com, www.austinlindyexchange.com

Dear NATHAN,

Orbitz is announcing lower fares from Austin to many popular

destinations! Plan your trip anytime between now and January 16 to take advantage

of these huge savings - book it!



Austin Round-Trip Sale Fares - book it!

From To Round-Trip*



Austin Baltimore $204

Austin Columbus, OH $204

Austin Indianapolis $204

Austin Las Vegas $204

Austin Nashville $204

Austin Norfolk, VA $204

Austin Oakland $204

Austin Orange County $204

Austin Portland, OR $204

Austin Providence $204

Austin Raleigh/Durham $204

Austin Reno $204

Austin Salt Lake City $204

Austin San Diego $204

Austin Seattle $204





Traveling before Sept 28? Lower fares may be available!

Search for lower fares now!



Terms and Conditions

Advance purchase: 14-days

Travel dates: Travel Aug 19 through Jan 16, 2004. All travel must be

completed by Jan 16, 2004.

Travel days: Fares are valid for travel on Tue, Wed and Sat. Fares for

travel on other days may be higher.

Blackout dates: Aug 29, Sep 1, Nov 26,30, Dec 19-22, 26-28, 2003 and

Jan 3-4, 2004

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#9 Post by Lawrence » Wed Aug 27, 2003 10:38 am

Swifty wrote:www.missingpaddles.com ?
We have several unemployed techies in Austin with a bit too much time on their hands and a few servers at their disposal. It's all in fun, and none of it is coming out of the ALX budget. It's the equivalent of an independently-financed fan club.

I also have nothing to do with it, and, to re-emphasize the point, the paddle hype is not going to distract from my planning the music or from the ultimate event.
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#10 Post by Nate Dogg » Wed Aug 27, 2003 6:59 pm

Lawrence wrote:
Swifty wrote:www.missingpaddles.com ?
We have several unemployed techies in Austin with a bit too much time on their hands and a few servers at their disposal. It's all in fun, and none of it is coming out of the ALX budget. It's the equivalent of an independently-financed fan club.

I also have nothing to do with it, and, to re-emphasize the point, the paddle hype is not going to distract from my planning the music or from the ultimate event.
Ryan Swift, you need to come to ALX. You have given us so much input over the past two months, you feel like another Committee member.

I am not being sarcastic. The Committee is very aware of you and your posts. It would be awesome for you to come to Austin and give everybody your honest feedback afterward.

If you don't like the Exchange. I will personally refund your registration, out of my own funds, no ALX money.

Nathan

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#11 Post by Swifty » Thu Aug 28, 2003 7:06 am

Thanks, but I still think I'll pass.

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#12 Post by Drew » Sun Aug 31, 2003 1:53 pm

Nate Dogg wrote:Do you have friends that want to fly down for the Exchange? Still looking for a flight yourself?

Orbitz is having an Austin fare sale, Oct 17-19th

Check it, www.orbitz.com, www.austinlindyexchange.com

Dear NATHAN,

Orbitz is announcing lower fares from Austin to many popular

destinations! Plan your trip anytime between now and January 16 to take advantage

of these huge savings - book it!



Austin Round-Trip Sale Fares - book it!

From To Round-Trip*



Austin Baltimore $204

Austin Columbus, OH $204

Austin Indianapolis $204

Austin Las Vegas $204

Austin Nashville $204

Austin Norfolk, VA $204

Austin Oakland $204

Austin Orange County $204

Austin Portland, OR $204

Austin Providence $204

Austin Raleigh/Durham $204

Austin Reno $204

Austin Salt Lake City $204

Austin San Diego $204

Austin Seattle $204





Traveling before Sept 28? Lower fares may be available!

Search for lower fares now!



Terms and Conditions

Advance purchase: 14-days

Travel dates: Travel Aug 19 through Jan 16, 2004. All travel must be

completed by Jan 16, 2004.

Travel days: Fares are valid for travel on Tue, Wed and Sat. Fares for

travel on other days may be higher.

Blackout dates: Aug 29, Sep 1, Nov 26,30, Dec 19-22, 26-28, 2003 and

Jan 3-4, 2004
I want to come to this but having serious trouble finding any airfare from Minneapolis-St. Paul for less than $300. If you come across anything, please let me know.

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Re: Austin Exchange - the Theme will be trumped by Music

#13 Post by Shorty Dave » Sun Aug 31, 2003 10:48 pm

Lawrence wrote:However, we will have sizeable alternative rooms for Classic swing, Slow Blues dancing and even "Westie Lindy" (an alternative term to West Coast Swing because it is not technically "WCS" but instead just Lindy patterns to non-swing 4/4 music, like Lou Rawls "Natural Man").
Are there going to be *four* rooms at once? Or just two - a main one and an alternative - and the "theme" of the alternative will be constantly changing throughout the night.

Personally, I'm still undecided if multiple rooms playing a niche is better than just one room with a big mix. But I don't ever recall four different rooms at a lindy event, so if indeed that's the case, it'll be interested to see how well it goes over.

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Re: Austin Exchange - the Theme will be trumped by Music

#14 Post by Nate Dogg » Mon Sep 01, 2003 10:27 am

Shorty Dave wrote:
Lawrence wrote:However, we will have sizeable alternative rooms for Classic swing, Slow Blues dancing and even "Westie Lindy" (an alternative term to West Coast Swing because it is not technically "WCS" but instead just Lindy patterns to non-swing 4/4 music, like Lou Rawls "Natural Man").
Are there going to be *four* rooms at once? Or just two - a main one and an alternative - and the "theme" of the alternative will be constantly changing throughout the night.

Personally, I'm still undecided if multiple rooms playing a niche is better than just one room with a big mix. But I don't ever recall four different rooms at a lindy event, so if indeed that's the case, it'll be interested to see how well it goes over.
At any given time there will be two rooms. The rooms will have pre-announced musical themes for different segments of time. The advantage to the DJs is that they know what is going on in the other room, so they will be able to contrast better.

This should reduce incidents of having the DJs in alternative room sound too much like the DJ in the main room.

Most likely the "Themes" will probably be for the length of the dance, they won't change hourly. But, that has not been 100% decided. My hope is that the Exchange goer will know what the alternative room is when they walk in the door, they won't feel the need to wander over to the other room every hour to see if it has changed dramatically.

As for you preference, I can understand that and agree in principal. The main reason that we have multiple room is the volume of people at our Exchange. We have to spread people out to make the dancing comfortable. Luckily, our venues are large enough to allow this to happen. We had 300 something dancers last year and I don't think anybody ever felt cramped.

The main motiviation for side rooms is dispersion of people, not any desire to segregate a particular music style. Having themes for the rooms makes things more organized, that's all.

Nathan

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#15 Post by Lawrence » Wed Sep 03, 2003 11:52 pm

Some more music details about the Big Band at the Austin Exchange.

As I mentioned, we are custom making the Friday and Saturday night bands instead of just hiring pre-fabbed bands that accidentally play ideally danceable music every two songs or so. We have done the custom-made small group band successfully before at the UnExchange, but the Big Band is going to be a new experience: an all-star Big Band of the best Austin jazzmen, hand-picked by Lindy Hoppers for a Lindy Hop event. Not a Hanger Dance, not a PBS show, not a non-dancing musicain trying to approximate what we want, but a Big Band designed for Lindy Hop.

The Big Band will be tailored to Ellington and Basie styles: using either the "chonk-chonk" hard-attack, stacatto rhythms of Ellington, or the soft-attack/ long sustain rhythmic flow of Basie's rhythm section, depending on the song.

The arrangements will mostly be the same "original/classic-era" arrangements played by the Southwest Texas Big Band that played last year's Exchange: definitely the best Big Band I have ever heard in person. We will not use Southwest Texas this year because their academic regimen has shifted to Glenn Miller/Tommy Dorsey material and they are booked to play their Dorsey/Miller material at a Texas Jazz fest on the other side of Texas that weekend. But we will have their book of Ellington/Basie tunes and hire professional jazzmen to fill in the big band, not students like last year.

I put together a sample set list of Basie and Ellington tunes on a CD, not just to identify the tunes (because all jazzmen should have some familiarity with 90% of these tunes), but to capture the "style" of performance we want out of the band. Every band member will get a copy of this CD so as to get them on board with the sound we want.

Some of these songs might seem a bit "played," but they are also the standards that everyone loves and that all our musicians will know well enough. This being the first time we have custom-made a Big Band for this purpose, we also want to start with a solid core and then branch out from there in the future if need be.

Basie

Everyday I Have The Blues (Diane Schuur with Basie Orch)
Easy Does It (Big 18 version)
Blues for Ilene (Live at the Sands 1966)
Smack Dab In the Middle (Roulette Live recording)
Splanky (Roulette Live Recording)
Blues for Stephanie (Not sure which version I have)
Allright, O.K. You Win (Uptown Saturday Night compilation Live performace)
In A Mellow Tone ("En Concert" Paris Concert 3/29/60)
Segue In C (Roulette Live Recordings)
Teddy the Toad (off "Corner Pocket" live Laserlight CD)
Didn't You? (April In Paris)
BLUES ("Live" Laserlight CD)
Wild Man (Duke and Basie: "First Time" Alt Take)
Corner Pocket (April In Paris)
Four Five Six (Roulette Live Recordings)
Moten Swing (Roulette Live Recordings/Kansas City Soundtrack)

Ellington

Creole Love Call (Historically Speaking)
East St. Louis Toodle-oo (Historically Speaking)
Happy Go Lucky Local (Lincoln Center Jazz Orch w/ Wynton Marsalis)
Take the A Train (Blanton Webster RCA; Dreyfus "Take the A Train" Remaster)
Smada (Blues In Orbit)
C Jam Blues (Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra)
Jack The Bear ("Blanton Webster"/Big Band All-Stars remake/"Ko-Ko" Dreyfus CD)
Ko-Ko (Blanton Webster RCA/ "Ko-Ko" Dreyfus remaster)
Wailing Interval (Swinging with The Duke)
Stompy Jones (Historically Speaking)
Main Stem (Historically Speaking)
Perdido (DMP Big Band: Tribute to Ellington)
The Jeep Is Jumpin (Historically Speaking)
Caravan (Harry James; King James Version)
Things Aint What They Used to Be (City Rhythm Orchestra)
Don't Get Around Much Anymore (Gene Harris and Philip Morris Superband)

For those who do not know, the arrangements of Big Band songs often determine how long each song will be, with solos sometimes lengthening them. All the arrangements we have average three to four minutes, and they will be kept that short. The tempos of these recordings fit a 60/10/10/10/10 split among tempos: 60% from 130-160 BPM, 10% from 160-200, 10% over 200, 10% 100-130, 10% under 100 (Bluesy ballads: no sweet or jazz ballads).
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