Words by Max Gardener | Photos by Alex Castillero
First, the name. Barbecue Pop, originally coined by friend of the label Christian Burns, started as a pseudo music genre. After chewing on that idea, I think it's really more of a feeling. Think the Eagles "Already Gone" with the windows down, headed south on the freeway at dusk. Think three beers, two-dogs deep at a barbecue on a day off with your closest friends. Think sitting on a porch or in the backyard with a record on, the music bleeding through the window screens from inside the house, just loud enough for the neighbors to know you're enjoying your afternoon.
That's Barbecue Pop.
So, as we were putting together our summer run, we knew we wanted to include a barbecue element, at least once. And the Barbecue Pop name kept calling out to us. So this was that, and it was great. For a first-time label event, we were stoked to have all of our closest friends come by.
Kenny manning the grill, streaming the World Cup.
We had tons of food, beers, and wine (thanks Fussie wines!). We brought our own grill and collaborated with DeeLux on everything else. Kenny held it down, to say the least, and "Bun or no bun?" surprisingly enough, became his standard line of questioning after more than a few people wanted to go bun-less.
Blake holding down the merch table with new and vintage stock.
Blake and Alex worked the merch, showcasing our new shirts, tote, flyers for the next event, and some of our more vintage stock, such as vinyl and cassettes from previous releases from both Kenny (skuuls) and I. We'll be adding these to our online store shortly.
Pop Club opened around 8:30, kicking off the night with tunes new and old. They've got new music on the horizon, perhaps a new EP. Their recent single "Over the Moon" has been on heavy rotation for us since it came out. This also marked Pop Club's first show back in years, and it seemed to serve as a perfect warm-up for their headlining slot at our next event on 7/24 at Permanent Records in East LA.
My band closed things out, running through songs from our album Things We Tell Ourselves. It was our third show with this band lineup, and it felt good. We were joined by Chelsea and Justine from the DeeLux family, who got up and sang backups on "Ready," just like they did on the recording. Having them there made it clear: great background singers can change everything.
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