The ‘08 version of the Alternative Media Expo has wrapped up and was a great success! We’re proud to announce that over 650 people attended the Expo and, with exhibitors and their guests added in, we’re estimating that the show had approximately 900 people pass through! We thank all the attendees for their support and we hope you’ll again treat us with your presence next year!

We have to thank all our sponsors: Humid Beings, Dirty Coast, the Charitable Film Network, Static TV, the New Orleans Craft Mafia, ANTIGRAVITY and Defend New Orleans, as well as special guests Josh Neufeld and Deborah Cotton, the Contemporary Arts Center, Juan’s Flying Burrito, NOLA Rising, Bernard Pearce, all of the AG crew, Gambit Weekly and, of course, all our exhibitors!

We’re already thinking about AME ‘09, so get ready!

In the meantime, check out some photos of the Expo. If you have photos, please let us know!

Not a hoax, not a dream, not an imaginary story!

AG editor and Expo founder Leo McGovern is featured on the cover of this week’s GAMBIT WEEKLY and is part of an excellent story on the history of the Expo, the event’s special guest and A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge artist Josh Neufeld and a few fellow exhibitors: Erik Kiesewetter of Constance, photographer Zack Smith, Backporch Revolution’s Alec Vance and Notes From New Orleans author Deborah Cotton.

Read it online!

See you this weekend at the Expo!

Tired of the same old outrageously boring tee shirts breeding like rabbits in the city, in the summer of 2005 Patrick Brower and Blake Haney decided to be the change they wished to see in New Orleans. And then Katrina changed everything. What was at first just a few tee shirt designs that native New Orleanians could sport with pride and laughs became a symbol of New Orleans’ struggle to rebuild without losing our unique soul. Since Dirty Coast’s launch shortly after Katrina, the company has grown from selling their shirts in just a few local shops to operating their own retail website and bustling Magazine Street store, stocking upwards of 8,000 shirts in over forty-five designs, as well as stickers, posters, bags, undies and more. ANTIGRAVITY spoke with Haney and Brower about what it takes to make it as a new company, how to keep customers coming back and the importance of Acadiana Self Reliance. (more…)

In 1997, Boise, ID, guitar-stretchers Built to Spill released Perfect From Now On, a sprawling record that patches together bits of Neil Young guitar, Pink Floyd atmospherics and singer Doug Martsch’s star-gazing lyrics, with melodies to match. Though they had already released a couple of well-received indie pop records that caught the ear of Isaac Brock, who went on to form Modest Mouse, it was Perfect From Now On that launched Built to Spill into the realm of Important Indie Rock Bands. That record, along with follow-up Keep It Like a Secret, established Martsch as the genre’s only active guitar god, the one guy besides J Mascis who could trill into a wah solo and actually get the tight pants shaking. The centerpiece of 2000’s Live is a twenty-minute version of Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer” that more-often-than-not surpasses the original in its spacy noodling. In 2006, the group released You in Reverse, which, while lacking the slick melodies that so define Perfect and Secret, shows that Martsch’s ability to experiment with song structure without losing pop sensibility has only grown in the ten years his band has been on Warner Brothers.

(more…)