The Torch Is Passed
Dean Budnick
2006-11-01
So did you make it to Vegoose? Alas, I sat it out. And so goes the streak. The run is done. Huh? Well in the spring of 2002 before the first Bonnaroo was even announced I spent sometime yapping with the folks at Superfly about how the teams at Jambands.com and Relix could participate in some way. My first suggestion was a radio station, as Jeff Waful and myself had just started our Jam Nation show on WMRQ in Hartford and I thought it would be cool to bring that down to Manchester (plus, I had always enjoyed the radio stations at the Phish festivals over the years). Well that all was a bit too complicated for Bonnaroo Year One but it did lead me to think about immediacy as well as the core competence of what we do and all that jazz. This led me to suggest a daily newspaper. Thus, the Bonnaroo Beacon was born (and, btw, while my first conversations were with the Superfly folks, Ashley Capps and A.C. Entertainment came to be big supporters and facilitators as well). I’d be the first to admit the first year was a bit dicey. We didn’t yet have a crack staff of designers (I daresay we didn’t have much of a staff at all, although Jefferson Waful fought the good fight with me). So not only did I write, edit and shoot photographs but a week before the festival, someone taught me PageMaker and I designed the sucker myself (as you might imagine, while the content was great, the design looked like the work of someone who had learned PageMaker a week before the festival). I don’t believe I slept the last three days of Bonnaroo 2002 (and I had one altercation with a damp if affable, wide-pupiled photographer who arrived at my hotel room at 4AM- this is before we started sharing space in the media trailer- who demanded the front page image...all while I was desperately trying to put the final issue to bed after 72 sleepless hours). From there we did a series of papers (and by year two, we had real designers on board- Thank you Mark Berger, Paula Cyhan and Tommy Faulker). Here is a check list in case you want to go back and complete your collection: Bonnaroo Beacon (2002-2006)
Terrapin Tribune (2002)
All About IT (2003) (this one may be my favorite- working in the Jefferson in the base-plus the image of Phish performing in the Tower we were able to share the next day with the thousands of folks who had missed it very much fulfilled the mission of the paper).
Coventry Courier (2004)
Randall’s Island Satellite (2006)
My good friend and esteemed colleague Josh Baron was anointed for Vegoose and he did a fine job with the Golden Goose. You can check out the results on the revamped Relix site. Oh yes and speaking of the revamped Relix site, please stay tuned. We have some changes of our own on the way as well. Anyhow, the torch has been passed… And speaking of torches being passed, were you at the High Times Stony Awards? I was and what do you know, our documentary, Wetlands Preserved, took home the award for “Best Unreleased” film. Not bad, eh? Okay, next year we’re going to come storming back and win ‘Best Music Documentary” or the like. So we hope… Anyhow, here is a photo of Pete Shapiro and myself from the Stonys proudly hoisting the award. Our mothers are so proud… 
photo by Brian Jahn
Oh yes, plenty of quality content on the site this month, did I fail to mention that?
Later days and peace,
Dean
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