“I have a problem with sweets. I have an inability to eat a just little bit. It's almost like I can't even enjoy chocolate anymore-- I have to stuff it into my brain, cram it into my ears. I don't like that I have to look at sweets and cookies and have emotions about them; I'm depressed because I can't eat it, or I'm being secretive and just stuffing a cookie in my mouth. It seems to control me more than I can control it.”
—“Portlandia” star Fred Armisen opens up to us about his debilitating addiction to sweets in our latest Guest List, which also features insights and confessions from Carrie Brownstein.“I don't think Marilyn Manson realized how big he was going to become. Once he did, he probably did way too many drugs and became unfocused, but he could have extended his reign if he hadn't become such a druggie. I just like when unexpected people come out of nowhere, and you're just like, 'Oh, for all these reasons this person is not gonna make it,' or 'This person doesn't fit the mold,' or 'This person's not pretty.' Then they just take all the trophies.”
—New York City rapper Mykki Blanco, from our latest Guest List.
Listen
Mikal CroninRead Evan Minsker’s review of power-pop auteur (and Ty Segall Band member) Mikal Cronin’s second solo album, MCII, a Best New Music pick. And check out his Guest List interview, where he talks about being terrorized by the Leprechaun and looking up to Tom Waits, right here.
The Art of a Small Wedding {The Guest List}
Writing the guest list for a small wedding may seem like a huge challenge. So if you’re struggling to cut down your guest list, here are a few tips to help you narrow it down…
Friends
If you haven’t seen or heard from a friend in the last 12 months, there’s no need to invite them. If you went to a friend’s wedding more than two years ago and haven’t seen or heard much from them since, you don’t have to invite them. A friend of mine’s brother narrowed his friends down by crossing off anyone he hadn’t seen in the last two months. Harsh but it worked for him and his wife.
Assumed Invites
Now this is awkward but it happens… a friend you hardly see or hear from just assumes they’re invited and they pop up in your Facebook inbox asking about the big day. This happened to my sister, she ignored it at first but eventually she had to write back and politely explain that her wedding was a small event for her nearest and dearest. Issue solved and no hard feelings (I hope).
Here’s what you could say: “Thank you so much for your interest in my wedding. Unfortunately we are organizing our wedding on a budget and therefore we’re only able to invite our closest friends and family.”
Hopefully they’ll be mature about it.
Family
If you only see certain extended family members briefly over Christmas, and they don’t know much about you or your fiancé, you don’t need to invite them. Invite family members you like, connect with when you see them, and who will add to your day.
Colleagues
If you have work mates you hang out with over the weekend, they’re friends and you should invite them. If not, inviting the office to your small wedding could be a recipe for awkwardness.
A friend of mine told about a wedding she and a few colleagues were invited to. She said it was awkward because they didn’t know any other guests, were all lumped at one table despite not being accustomed to hanging out together, and as a result most of them left early or as soon it was polite to do so.
So here’s what you could say when your wedding crops up in conversation: “We’re organizing a small wedding on a tight budget for our closest family and friends.”
Most people will understand.
The Parents’ Wish Lists
A friend of mine fought with her mother for the first time in her life over her wedding guest list. Her advice: “Don’t discuss the guest list until you have drafted it first!”
If you’re paying for part or or all of your wedding, maintain control of the guest list and don’t ask your parents who they would like to invite, rather say, “Mom and dad, we have space for X number people, is there anyone in particular you’d like to invite?”
My parents respected that I only wanted to invite people that meant something to either or both of us and to be fair, we invited an equal number of family members/family friends on either side (fair is fair).
There’s no perfect number of guests. I’ve heard from brides who have loved hosting 200 guests plus, and I’ve heard from others who have been happy to have 20 guests witness their wedding day. The choice is up to you and your man. But the bottom line is… it’s your party, invite who you want to. Cheers to that!
Lesson #24: Guest List
This was recommended to us by a reader and it’s a great topic to elaborate on because it’s one everyone will come in contact with at some point in their career in the industry.
When is it appropriate to ask for a guest list spot, and who is it appropriate to ask?
So your friend is on tour with the band opening up for your favorite band EVER! WOO! Good for them. Should you ask them to “get you on the list”? Well that depends on several factors. How big is this tour, what does your friend do, and where is the show?
How big is the tour?
Depending on the size of the headliner the guest list might be pretty packed every night by everyone from producers, to family, to groupies, to some dude who hooked up the frontman with a fat sack of weed. While everyone would love to be able to let in everyone’s friends for free, don’t ever guilt trip your friend if they don’t have a spot for you.
Who is your friend?
If your friend is with the opening band they usually only have about five spots. Those go pretty fast if each band member only gets one guest. If your friend is the TM, they might be able to swing a favor, but if your friend is doing merch, you might be out of luck. Why? Because the band isn’t going to take kindly to their merch person being distracted by a bunch of friends all night. This depends completely on the band, some bands are cool with strangers hanging out behind merch all night, but most aren’t. If you ask your merch friend, and they say no, be cool with it. It’s probably not their decision.
Where is the show?
So you want a guest list spot to see the band your friend is teching for in Los Angeles. Good luck. Last week’s LA show with the On Your Side Tour had an industry guest list of 100+ people. If you’re in Oklahoma, or Utah, you’re more likely to get a guest list spot because they don’t need those spots for their label, management team, family, ect. If the management, and label are there as well you can bet your friend doing merch is going to be stressed to the max doing their job as well as possible to impress the bosses. If the show you want to go to is the headliner’s hometown you’re probably out of luck as well. I know better than to ask anyone from San Diego for a guest list spot in their home town, because they have tons of family to accommodate, and the industry spill over from LA is absurd.
Who not to ask… EVER.
Well, me for one. If your friend is on the tour for a couple weeks taking pictures, or just hanging out don’t make them uncomfortable by asking them for guest list spots. If there’s extra space they’ll ask you if you want to come, I swear. Plus nobody wants to be put in the awkward position of having to ask their already stressed out TM if they can add some people the band doesn’t know to the list.
*Keep in mind we can spot you assholes who only want us for tickets from a mile away! Getting a text that says ”Hey girl, when am I going to see you? I miss you” two days before our tour rolls into your town, and I haven’t spoken to you in 9 months, is a HUGE red flag and makes me want invite you just to belittle you to tears in front of a large crowd! :-)
Budget & Guests
Your number one focus, after saying “yes” to your beau’s sweet proposal, is the budget followed by the guest list. I cannot preach it enough. You will absolutely spare yourself the stress, worry, and irritation that planning brings if you have these two items figured out from the very beginning.
Why are these important?
When you know how much money you can afford to spend on your wedding, you will also know what you can expect from it. Additionally, you will know how many people can enjoy it with you.
For example, if your budget is $10,000 for your ceremony and reception, you will know that an Estate wedding will not be a likely option. Having a sit-down 4-course meal served by waiters may also be out of the question. Inviting 500 of your closest friends would not be feasible.
You could, however, hold your ceremony and reception at the same venue like the Ole Hanson Beach Club or Newland Barn. You could also serve a small dinner after cocktail hour, using a few servers for maintenance. You can celebrate comfortably with about 100 of your closest friends, too.
Being aware of what is actually within reach will cut out your chances for maxing out credit cards, panicking about payment installments, and arguing with your soon-to-be spouse. Now is the time to learn about compromise and put your skills to use.
It is also the time to do your research and know when it is cost effective to do-it-yourself and when you should outsource for services. Some things that you should strongly consider outsourcing: Setup/tear-down, catering, photography, your wedding cake, and flowers. All of these categories are very time consuming and without the proper background, you could do some damage.
Invitations, favors, and decorations you could do yourself and have some enjoyable times with your bridal party while creating them. Just be sure these are items you can complete 1-2 weeks prior to your wedding (invitations should be done at least two months prior). It’s important that you have the entire week of your wedding clear so that you are able to relax and enjoy your beau before the big day…and more importantly, be proud of yourselves for not starting your marriage out in debt.
<3 Macie Bain
Pitchfork's Guest List: Our Favorite Albums of 2011
Russian Circles contribute their list of Albums to check out from 2011 for Pitchfork’s end of the Year Guest list.
Craft: VOID
Do you know how long we’ve been waiting for this album to finally come out? They’ve been posting teasers about it for a couple of years now—a studio update here, a snippet of a song there. And as with most elusive underground black metal, getting solid information on what was actually going on with the band was damn near impossible. But at least Craft made up for the five year wait after their 2006 masterpiece Fuck The Universe by delivering another solid album of discordant hooks and punishing riffs.
Helms Alee: Weatherhead
The greatest yell in recorded history, in my humble opinion, is that last round of howls to spew out of Black Francis’s muzzle on The Pixies’ “Tame.” It’s a frightful roar on it’s own, but embedded in the song’s loud-quiet-loud structure and set against the feminine sigh of Kim Deal, it becomes all the more ferocious and menacing. Weatherhead employs this tactic across the board, marrying moments of guitar jangle and the ethereal vocals of Dana James and Hozoji Annie Matheson-Margullis with heavy-as-fuck moments of low-end stomp and the imposing bellow of Ben Verellen. It makes the graceful passages even more beguiling and the bouts of volume and distortion even more massive.
Deafheaven: Roads to Judah
I saw Enslaved earlier this year and the singer was cracking jokes in between songs. C’mon man, part of the allure of black metal is the thoroughness of the whole introverted ultra-serious facade. Granted, sometimes it can be a bit much. Can we please stop paying attention to the racist ramblings of Varg Vikernes and ignore that unnecessary “transcendental” manifesto written by the dude from Liturgy? It makes one thankful for a band like Deafheaven, a humorless and imposing Bay Area band so uninterested in extending the theater of misanthropy beyond the confines of the stage that you’d be hard pressed to get anyone in the band to acknowledge their ties to black metal. So yeah, it might not be a band for the true kvlt dudes out there (most of whom are too young to have been listening to music when black metal first made the cover of Kerrang anyways), but for anyone that wants to hear blast beats, washes of tremolo-picked guitars, and harrowing banshee wails without having to deal with either entry-level Paganism and shady political affiliations on one end or fart jokes on the other, Roads to Judah is highly recommended.
Pitchfork's Guest List: Russian Circles List their Favorite Albums of 2011
Russian Circles contribute their list of Albums to check out from 2011 for Pitchfork’s end of the Year Guest list. And a big thanks to Russian Circles for introducing us to Deafheaven and bringing them into the Sargent House family.
Craft: VOID
Do you know how long we’ve been waiting for this album to finally come out? They’ve been posting teasers about it for a couple of years now—a studio update here, a snippet of a song there. And as with most elusive underground black metal, getting solid information on what was actually going on with the band was damn near impossible. But at least Craft made up for the five year wait after their 2006 masterpiece Fuck The Universe by delivering another solid album of discordant hooks and punishing riffs.
Helms Alee: Weatherhead
The greatest yell in recorded history, in my humble opinion, is that last round of howls to spew out of Black Francis’s muzzle on The Pixies’ “Tame.” It’s a frightful roar on it’s own, but embedded in the song’s loud-quiet-loud structure and set against the feminine sigh of Kim Deal, it becomes all the more ferocious and menacing. Weatherhead employs this tactic across the board, marrying moments of guitar jangle and the ethereal vocals of Dana James and Hozoji Annie Matheson-Margullis with heavy-as-fuck moments of low-end stomp and the imposing bellow of Ben Verellen. It makes the graceful passages even more beguiling and the bouts of volume and distortion even more massive.
Deafheaven: Roads to Judah
I saw Enslaved earlier this year and the singer was cracking jokes in between songs. C’mon man, part of the allure of black metal is the thoroughness of the whole introverted ultra-serious facade. Granted, sometimes it can be a bit much. Can we please stop paying attention to the racist ramblings of Varg Vikernes and ignore that unnecessary “transcendental” manifesto written by the dude from Liturgy? It makes one thankful for a band like Deafheaven, a humorless and imposing Bay Area band so uninterested in extending the theater of misanthropy beyond the confines of the stage that you’d be hard pressed to get anyone in the band to acknowledge their ties to black metal. So yeah, it might not be a band for the true kvlt dudes out there (most of whom are too young to have been listening to music when black metal first made the cover of Kerrang anyways), but for anyone that wants to hear blast beats, washes of tremolo-picked guitars, and harrowing banshee wails without having to deal with either entry-level Paganism and shady political affiliations on one end or fart jokes on the other, Roads to Judah is highly recommended.
Guest List
EelsGuest List - Eels
