Kendrick Lamar tops Bonnaroo highlights, freestyles with Chance the Rapper during Earth, Wind & Fire

Kendrick tops Bonnaroo highlights, freestyles with Chance the Rapper during Earth, Wind & Fire
Mark E. Ortega
GrimyGoods.com
June 15, 2015

Of all the festivals I’ve traveled to the past few months, I felt least prepared for Bonnaroo. Flying in from LA I could only bring a small one-person tent and carry-on bag but I lucked into camping with people a bit more prepared.

We got into the line of cars to pull into the campgrounds at 4 am Thursday morning and didn’t park until close to 10:30 am. Despite that and no sleep, I rallied to see some awesome stuff the first night as well as a jam-packed Friday.

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Sasquatch! 2015 Roundup - the good, the bad and the surprising

Sasquatch! 2015 Roundup - the good, the bad and the surprising
Mark E. Ortega
GrimyGoods.com
May 26, 2015

This past Memorial Day Weekend, I flew from Los Angeles to Seattle for my first ever Sasquatch! Music Festival at The Gorge. I found a ride and camp mates via a ride-sharing site and arrived Thursday mid-afternoon, with the music kicking off Friday and extending all the way through the Monday holiday. It was my first four-day festival experience.

What made Sasquatch stand out from the rest of the festivals I’ve been to? It’s pretty much ONLY camping. It’s loads different from my previous music festival camping experiences at Coachella the past two years.

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Jungle proves to be one of Saturday's best feel-good performances at Coachella

Jungle proves to be one of Saturday's best feel-good performances at Coachella
Mark E. Ortega
GrimyGoods.com
April 12, 2015

Jungle had one of the shorter mid-day sets Saturday at Coachella, but damn was it sweet.

The London soul band’s set had the Mojave tent jumping and throwing their hands in the air. There were pockets all throughout the crowd of people dancing in a circle, taking turns showing their best moves.

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The Nine II Five: Volume Two

The Nine II Five: Volume Two
TheAudiologist.net
December 5, 2014




Remember mixed tapes? Mixed CDs? Recording songs off the radio? Nowadays, it’s too easy to try and make a playlist on subscription-based streaming sites that spiral out of control.

Every playlist I’ve made climbs to crazy numbers, sometimes into the hundreds. This can be nice, for many reasons. But there was a certain difficulty and passion that came all my life with making mixed CDs. There’s an art to it — being able to move from track to track without something feeling far too out of place.

925… It’s the area code where I grew up in northern California’s Bay Area. It also works as “nine-to-five”, commonly known as the working person’s grind Monday-through-Friday. I’m taking that number and using it as the formula for a mix I hope to continue creating every week.

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