![_The Preservation, The Dalles and SuperLiteBike at Beauty Ballroom [Show Preview]](http://austinist.com/assets_c/2012/05/the preservation-thumb-250x250-716401.jpg)
Interview: Ultra8201 Turns Four
This Thursday, Ultra8201 celebrates its fourth anniversary at The Ghost Room. For a measly $5, you can enjoy pulsating guitar-rock all evening from three promising Austin bands, get your photo-booth on with Annie Ray, and be dazzled by The Red Boys. We caught up with Ultra8201 founder Richard Gonzales earlier this week to learn more about blog’s early days.
When did you start Ultra8201?
My first post was on 1.25.06 and I started it when I had just moved to Austin. I was just sitting around the house bored and thought I would try it out. People always ask about the name. Ultra is from the Depeche Mode album and 8201 is a date 8.2.01. It was a really important day to me during a time when I had really started to get into music. I had just got into reading blogs and I thought it would be cool to do one on the live shows I was checking out. Initially it was more of a thing to share with friends and if I had known then I would probably have chose an easier name to remember. As time went on though I noticed more and more people started to read it, and within a year, I had a news crew following me around ACL Fest. As it got bigger, I asked my best friend Joel (Richardson) if he wanted to come on and help out. We had always gone to shows and festivals together and although our tastes in music are not exactly the same, they complement each other very well. Now we have thousands of people that read it every month and are now on the 4th year. Plus people get our name right now (most of time)! It's pretty crazy.
I never thought that it would turn out this way. Back then it was just me talking about random things I thought were interesting but over the years and especially when Joel came on I think we developed a certain format. We have a show list on Monday and we do spotlights on bands during SXSW, ACL and Fun Fun Fun Fest. The most important thing for us is that we do still keep it personal. We are a news source for people but we hold ourselves to a very high standard in what we cover and I think people have responded to that. Our vision now is to be an Austin institution someday. We are so passionate about what we do and we are always trying to come up with new ideas and cool shows for people to come out to. We are working a live performance series we will film with both local and touring acts. People are going to love it.
Tell us a little about yourself -- where are you from, where did you go to school, and when did you decide that starting a music blog in Austin was something you wanted to do?
I have lived in Austin for a little over 4 years and I am from originally from El Paso, Texas and went to school at UTEP. I love my hometown but was ready for a change. The music scene there is a very different and special scene. At The Drive-In/The Mars Volta are a huge influence on what goes on down there and I saw some amazing musicians play at really random places while I lived there. I saw Beck play at a tiny club as he was passing through town there a few years ago and I remember catching the Riverboat Gamblers at this tiny bar and being blown away. I think the lead singer even got into a fight with someone in the crowd that night. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs just recorded some of their last album out there. It's a cool place.
When I got here and started blogging about shows I think that a lot of what I got out of the scene there carried over. I think people sometimes take all the amazing things we have going on in Austin for granted because it never really stops. Coming from a place where culture is hard to come by I think we are always really excited about all the things we get to do.
You have partnered with a number of Austin blogs for your fourth anniversary event -- do you have any favorite local or national blogs you read every day?
We are lucky to have become friends with some of our favorite bloggers. We check out the bigger blogs like My Old Kentucky Blog and Gorilla vs. Bear all the time and it's always cool to hang out with them when they come in town or we see them at festivals. I learn so much every time I talk to them. As for the locals, I can honestly say that we have such a great tight knit community of blogs/websites here. Everyone is extremely supportive of one another and there is zero competition. We all know we have different tastes and different styles and we just do our thing. We even co-sponsor the Austin Bleet-Up (Blogger Meet Up) with Tolly (Moseley) from Austin Eavesdropper twice a year just so we can have an excuse to meet up, drink and talk shop. It's been a huge success. Our sponsors are really great friends and everyone should check out their respective sites.
How did you settle on the three bands for the party on Thursday? Who exactly are The Redboys?
We have had such good experiences working with the bands we have had play our shows in the past that we wanted to keep the ball rolling on introducing local bands we love to a wider audience. We have seen bands like Ume and The White White Lights go on to further success and we hope the same will happen for the bands we have not only on Thursday but planned for all the shows we are working on this year. I think Thursday’s bands are stylish and are a different direction than we have seen from bands in Austin lately. New Roman Times have this lush new wave sound and the songs are just beautiful. A friend burned me The Authors’ EP last year and we couldn't believe they lived in Austin and we hadn't seen them. Since then they have recorded new material and have gotten even better. And we think people are going to fall in love with Politics this year. They have these great tightly crafted songs and have already started drawing big crowds at their live shows. And as for The Redboys, well all I can say is, don't miss this. A 9 and 11 year old just rocking out in between sets. We saw a YouTube video from them and just had to have them come play a couple of songs. People are going to love them. We think the bands all complement each other very well and it's going to be a great night of music.
Finally, how do you prepare for the beast that is SXSW?
SXSW is a crazy time for us and this year we are hosting a day show so it will be even crazier. More people read our site during that week than any other time all year and it is an insane amount of information to two people to go through. We get our info from all over the place. But it's mostly from the event planners and bands themselves. The emails have already started pouring and we will shift into full on SXSW mode starting Feb 1st. We find out a lot of secret stuff too and now that we have Twitter, we can get the info out even faster. Everyone should follow us (@ultra8201). We posted about Kanye West at The Fader Party very early on last year and had the scoop on a lot of parties.
Thanks! We’ll definitely be checking in frequently. All the best for year five.
[New Roman Times MySpace]
[The Authors MySpace]
[Politics MySpace]
