Sure Juror @ Bryn Mawr (pt. 4)

(Photo by Kevin Convery)

I’m back again to offer a précis for anyone that may have missed us this past Saturday at Bryn Mawr…

This was our fourth time at Bryn Mawr in the past 2 years. It’s always a blast, and I always end up drinking too much tequila, but that last part really doesn’t matter, does it?

The night was suppose to start around 9pm, but due to some slight confusion with directions, our PA didn’t arrive until shortly before 9:30pm We unloaded the speakers while openers Water Sports set up. I haven’t seen Water Sports since this summer when we were playing shows in the area prior to finishing Smut, and with the addition of a keyboard player their songs filled out rather nicely. I enjoyed their set, and hope they put out a record sometime soon.

Sometime after eleven o’clock we took up our various instruments and began doing what we do best. A quick set of “Sure Juror” songs got the crowd in the mood, and then another hour or so of covers and some unreleased song and what not to satisfy the mob.

It was hot. The boys were sweaty. The tequila was warm, and so was the beer. Everyone danced until they couldn’t stand. It’s always a good time inside Radnor’s lounge, and hopefully this won’t be our last time playing Bryn Mawr.

In other news...




I received an email from Harper today responding to my inquiry about MACRoCk 2007...and it looks like this years conference is definitely a no go. BUT....The MACRoCk Committee seems confident that they will return stronger then ever. I advise anyone who can to contact Harper or WXJM, or JMU about donations, panels, bands, or anything you can think of to make sure MACRoCk will return in 2008.




Sean (Sure Juror)

The lamest post I will possibly write (this week).

So I know it’s not that big a deal to the people that read this blog…or to any fans of Sure Juror in general, but we have just reached 3000 friends on myspace. Yea, it’s a small insignificant landmark to be bragging about, but still it’s nice. It only took us 2 years to get here.

The funny thing is that no one in the band thought that myspace would be worth our time when the band first got together. It all started March of 2005 when the original 5 members start practicing for WCUR’s battle of the bands. Back then we weren’t Sure Juror. We were infamously known as Jonathan Heathcote…there may have been a “band”, after Heathcote, but I really don’t remember. We enter the battle of the bands almost as a joke, saying we needed some motivation to practice. The kind DJs at WCUR were so impressed with the album, that we were bumped right into the final 16. So two weeks before the final 4 showcase, we started to practice. We managed about 6 full band practices during those two weeks. We threw in a few covers to fill out our set…and Jonathan Heathcote (soon to be Sure Juror) played our first show. The judges said we had a poor stage presence, and that our songwriting was weak. Okay!

The next morning Luke, Jonathan, and myself headed down to MACRoCk, where we got to see many amazing bands, and better still, we got the chance to sit down at a bunch of panels, hosted by a various collection of label CEO’s, Musicians, Radio DJs, Independent Promoters, etc…At this point we really had nothing going for us. New band, one show under us, and an album that wasn’t pressed…So we asked as many questions as we could…On the subject of “Networking through the World Wide Web” places like myspace and purevolume came up in discussions…and we were told not to invest a lot of our time in such things. So we didn’t. We had a myspace account, and it was a more glorified email for us then anything else….Fast forward to MACRoCk 2006

Once again we headed down to Harrisonburg, VA, and to our surprise we received a complete 180 from the panels. Now they were telling us that myspace is an independent musician’s best friend. They even said it was worth looking into a myspace bot to add more friends. We were told that labels DO look at the number of profile views, and the number of friends an artist has….Independent promoter’s look at where you have played, and the number of shows you have…Basically they told us that we couldn’t do anything with out a myspace, and not just a myspace…but a myspace with all the flashy pictures and the 3,005,746 friends. Hmm…Well we probably won’t reach that status be we do try…All our friends have either been hand picked by us, or have requested us as a friend. It’s an on going process that helps us discover new people and new music as much as it puts our music out to the masses. So to all of our friends, Thanks for the add!!!

-Sean-