Wizrocklopedia

Last night on Twitter, Doug MacDonald (aka Catchlove) noted that it had been 6 years since the Phoenix Rising conference held in New Orleans, LA.

May 2007 was a momentous time – wizard rock was growing quickly, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was 2 months away from being published, as was the release of the Order of the Phoenix movie. That summer and fall would see an explosion in new wrock bands, and the launching of an all wizard rock con, the glorious Wrockstock! And it was Phoenix Rising that gave Abby Hupp the idea to hold a con just for wizard rock bands and fans.

Oh, and MTV was there too.

Here’s some videos from the fans and bands that attended and played at Phoenix Rising. If you were there, give us some of your favorite memories in the comments below!

Hey West Coast wizards! Harry and the Potters are on their way out to spread some awesome music and wizard love with you on their way to LeakyCon.

Anyone who’s seen Harry and the Potters live know how amazing their shows are, and if you haven’t seen them… what are you waiting for???

Here’s a list of their dates and info, which we got  from their Tumblr page. Please visit it for more information on the shows and venues.

June 1 | Denver, CO  | Denver Comic Con | Rock Comic Con |  with Kirby Krackle, H2Awesome!, and the Doubleclicks | 10pm | Tickets

June 3 | Windsor, CO |  Clearview Library District | 720 3rd Street | 6pm | ALL AGES  | Free | special acoustic sing-a-long set

June 15 | Seattle, WA | Vera Project | $11 | 7:30pm | ALL AGES | tix

June 16 | Portland, OR | Gathering of the Goof Punx | ALL AGES

June 17 | Olympia, WA | Northern | 414 1/2 Legion Way | ALL AGES | Time TBA

June 19 | Reno, NV | Holland | 140 Vesta St | ALL AGES | Time TBA

June 20 | Bay Area | TBA 

June 21 | So Cal | TBA 

June 22 | Phoenix, AZ | Burton Barr Central Library | 1221 N Central Ave | 6pm | Free | ALL AGES

June 23 | Tucson, AZ | Hotel Congress | 311 E Congress St. | FREE | 1pm wizard events … 4pm rock show | ALL AGES

June 24 | So Cal | TBA 

June 25 | San Francisco, CA | Brick & Mortar Music Hall | 1710 Mission Street | with James Rabbit | $10 | EARLY SHOW 5pm doors finished by 8pm | All Ages

June 28 | Portland, OR  | LeakyCon

August 8 – 11 | London, UK  | LeakyCon

MORE UK DATES TBA

Since we raised the issue a few weeks ago about archiving wizard rock music, we thought this might be a fun question to toss out to everyone:

How do you like to purchase your wizard rock music – on a physical CD, or as a digital download?

A lot of people like the instant gratification of a download, and bands like the lower costs they incur to get their music out to everyone. On the other hand, a good number of listeners like having a CD to hold, cover art to check out, liner notes to read, etc. and some bands have had some really great packaging in the past.

So let’s hear it! What’s your preferred way to get wizard rock – on CD, or as a download?

Welcome to this week’s Wrock Wrap Up! Don’t forget to keep us updated on your Wrock news!

General

Check out this past week’s episode of Side B Radio, which featured plenty of wizard rock and other geeky fandom music. Alex Carpenter and Kirstyn Hippe were interviewed as well, making the show a great listen!

Albums

Gadding With Ghouls has released a free 5 song sampler on their Bandcamp page, called “Servings From the Hopping Pot”. The free EP includes songs from their first album, as well as a few tracks from their upcoming new release.

Videos

Last week’s Wrock and Love 2013 festival in Sweden featured a big jam on a cover tune from some band you probably have never heard of.

Question Mark – found under creative commons

I know I am a day late, but I seriously have nothing guys. All of the pictures in the feed are outdated, and I am still giving those who attended MISTI-Con some time to get their pictures up.

Please, send in any Wizard Rock photos to the Wizrocklopedia Flickr Feed.

Here’s a great vid from this past weekend’s MISTI-Con, featuring Lily and James playing their song “Lily!”

For more of their music, you should definitely go visit their Bandcamp page! If you caught their set at MISTI-Con, leave us some feedback in the comments below.

With the fantastic success of this past weekend’s MISTI-Con up in New Hampshire, we all wanted to know:

What Harry Potter or wizard rock con are you most looking forward to this year?

There are also a few tours coming up this summer, but for this week’s Question Tuesday, let’s hear about the cons. You know, the ones you’re planning to fly out to, spend some sleepless nights hanging with your friends, and losing your voices while screaming your heart out during the wrock concerts to.

Oh, and if you have pictures from MISTI, please be sure to add them to our Flickr feed so Camie can share them on our Creevey Thursdays!

Welcome to this week’s Wrock Wrap Up! Don’t forget to keep us updated on your Wrock news!

General

Fans have just 6 more days left to contribute to the Go West, Young Wizards Kickstarter to help Tonks and the Aurors, Justin Finch-Fletchley, and Kirstyn Hippe on their upcoming summer tour.

Wizard rock fan Rosalyn has a survey for wizard rockers to take if they’d like to help her out with her Ethnomusicology class (which is based on the study of music of other cultures). It’s a short questionnaire, so please take a look if you’re interested in contributing.

The Sectumsempra Band have changed their name again, and are now known as Bathroom Laceration. Due to the name change, they’ve also changed the URL of their Soundcloud page where you can download 5 of their songs. Highly recommended if you’re a fan of early 80′s skate punk music.

Site News

We now have a Wizrocklopedia Tumblr page set up, thanks to Laura! Those of you who like Tumblr for reading and sharing news can follow us there for all the latest wizard rock links and info.

Albums

Ravenrock is hard at work on a new album, which should be available in the coming months. For now, you can purchase their first single “This Is The End” on their Bandcamp page.

Crowd shot – photo courtesy of eratic0101

Hey guys! MISTI-Con is upon us!

I know today is the start of the con, but I would love to see a huge influx of wizard rock photos from this weekend make it into the Wizrocklopedia Flickr Feed. As said before, all Creevey Thursday photo selections come from the submissions to that feed.

I hope everyone at the con has an awesome time!

It’s no secret that MySpace helped fuel the wizard rock explosion. In fact, I don’t think there are many wizard rock fans that can claim they DIDN’T spend at least a few sleepless nights constantly adding bands as friends and downloading new music when they first discovered wizard rock through MySpace. This is especially true for people who discovered wrock between 2006-2010.

In 2013, however, MySpace has gone the way of the dinosaur. It may be popular in some small areas, but as a social platform it’s been replaced by Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you name it. And it was truly the social aspect of MySpace that helped spread the word of wizard rock, and led to the formation of so many bands.

Up until mid-2008 or so, users could easily download the songs that bands uploaded to MySpace. Instead of having to sit at a PC with MySpace open and streaming, fans could simply download songs to their heart’s content, and in a few days have a giant wrock playlist that they could take with them wherever they went.  Once MySpace eliminated that feature, fans could still get mp3s by purchasing them through outlets like iTunes, or by purchasing CDs from the bands directly. Some bands still opted to release their music freely by uploading it to file sharing sites, and placing the links on their MySpace pages.

MySpace is now undergoing another reinvention. It’s been sold off a few times, each time for a lesser price than its last sale. It’s current owners are really pushing hard for MySpace to once again be a destination for music fans, and looking to focus just on giving bands an outlet to reach new fans.

A huge looming issue is the potential removal of inactive pages on MySpace. Users can currently choose to log into either the old interface (which is incredibly bloated and slow), or the new interface. There are concerns from a number of places about what will happen when MySpace finally converts to the new interface on a full time basis – reports are already surfacing that users converting their profiles to the new MySpace are losing their old content, and some theorize that users may need to create an entirely new profile on the new system, losing their old profile entirely.

So, why is this an issue? (more…)