2006: The Year In Review

Let’s call 2006 “the year of parties”! Not once, not twice, but three times (almost four!) we took the show on the road for festival gigs in far-flung cities.

The big kahuna, of course, was South By Southwest in Austin, Texas, where on St. Patrick’s Day we snuggled onto a tiny stage in front of a couple of hundred revelers at Friends bar, in the heart of the action on Sixth Street. Memorial Day weekend found us in Wilmington, North Carolina, for the 10th annual Wilmington Exchange Festival, on a much larger stage but with a much smaller audience. A fun time, regardless!

Alas, we had to pass up a last-minute chance to play the Midwest Music Summit in August, although it was nice to be asked. But in late September, we journeyed north to Boston for the NEMO Conference and a showcase sponsored by popular music blog Donewaiting.com.

Closer to home, but no less eventful, were November’s 20th birthday celebration for Bar/None Records in Williamsburg, when we brought down the house with an unexpectedly extended closing set, and our first-ever rehearsal space party the night before, when we shared the bill with the reunited Jenifer Convertible.

Two packed shows at Joe’s Pub and appearances at Northsix, Mo Pitkins, the Delancey and Monkey Town rounded out a busy performance schedule for the Sharpies this year.

Meanwhile, our legend continued to grow on the Internet, particularly in the emerging medium of podcasting, where our songs found favor in such disparate locales as Germany, France, Detroit and the mysterious British isle of Avalon. TST established an early and commanding presence on the fast-growing social networking site Haystack, even as our count of MySpace friends appeared on track to hit exceeded 10,000 by year’s end (Sharp Things songs have received nearly 29,000 plays on MySpace to date!). Thesharpthings.com, the latest incarnation of which debuted in January, also spread the gospel, as more than 8,000 visitors from 104 countries logged 18,000 page views and several thousand more than 35,000 downloads of album cuts, live tracks and demos.

And let’s not forget the old school, as beloved San Francisco-based DJ Dennis “The Menace” graciously devoted a full hour of his Sunday afternoon show on KUSF to an extended interview with TST, taped at SXSW. Yes, you could hear it on the Internet, too!

As 2006 draws to a close, we are well along in recording our third album, A Moveable Feast, featuring a 40-piece orchestra, exciting musical guests (to be named later) and, naturally, our best songs ever — ensuring that 2007 will the most exciting year yet.

previous next