2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Jessi Frick)

by Steven Spoerl

jessi frick

Few people have had as direct of an effect on this site’s coverage as Jessi Frick and the work she does with Father/Daughter Records. For the past few years we’ve been locked in a never-ending battle of vocal support and have frequently fought on behalf of the same bands and records. She’s seen me at my most enthusiastic (the Northside showcase), my most exhausted (the CMJ showcase), and a few stops along the way. Always an inspiration and a source of strange comfort, she’s fiercely protective of the artists on her label and the people she loves (for example: every artist on her label). With that in mind, it’s probably unsurprising that for her piece as a returning contributor to A Year’s Worth of Memories focuses on an act that meets that criteria. Here, she talks about the enormous impact one band had on her 2015. Read it below and then find a way to celebrate the family you’ve built.

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2015: Year of the Cig

When you run a record label, it’s essentially like being the matriarch (in my case) of a big ass family. You love your children equally for their enduring and sometimes unique qualities, and are always there to love and nurture them as well as disciplining them when they get out of line. Their lives are my life and my life is their life and together we are a wildly dysfunctional congregation of misfits.

In late 2014 I received an email from Dean Engle, a musician whose work I highly admire. In the email he tipped me off to a band from his hometown of New Paltz, NY called Diet Cig. I clicked the link. It took all of five seconds for me to fall helplessly in love with them. I needed this band in my life. It turned out their personalities nearly outshone their music — Alex & Noah immediately became the ying to my yang. They are everything I wanted to be and do when I was in my early 20’s. They are spontaneous and reckless and FUN.

Luckily, they welcomed me into their world, thus kicking off what was to be the most insane year in the history of this label. Everyone went ballistic and it was the ultimate. Diet Cig are a band that literally leaves it all out on the stage. They work hard for you have the best time of your life. Offstage, Noah and Alex are caring, dedicated people who are a joy to be in the same space with.

Now, a year later, we talk almost every single day. When I don’t hear from them in over 48 hours, I get nervous like a mom. I literally can’t imagine a time in my life when we weren’t best buds. Basically 2015 was the best.

-Jessi Frick