We've partnered up with Ice Cream Man to give out some free ice cream! All summer long we're going to be giving you all of Ice Cream Man's updates from the road. This week, Matt Allen of Ice Cream Man tells us his story traveling from Georgia:
After Memphis we had planned on heading north to Milwaukee, but I hijacked the train and steered it towards Athens, Georgia. Once I heard about AthFest there and saw that our friends Dead Confederate were co-headlining one of the nights. I knew we had to head east, even if it meant that we’d be hot and sticky all weekend. I don’t think it got below 90 during the daytime hours the whole time we were there. That, coupled with a lot of humidity made for ideal cream slinging conditions.
Since we didn’t have too far to drive and since Nashville was sorta on the way we took our friend Ben up on an offer to tour Jack White’s new shop and headquarters for Third Man Records. After the tour we headed over to the largest record pressing plant in the country, United Record Pressing to sling some cream and take a tour.
After picking up a couple thousand ice cream treats in Atlanta we started to head east and made our first stop at a PacSun store. In the future we’ll be getting the word out a little better so that folks will know when we’ll be there and can stop by for a free treat. You can follow PacSun and Ice Cream Man on Twitter (@PacSun and @icecreamman) and also keep a look out for "#IcePac" to see when we’ll be stopping in your town at the local skate park or PacSun store.
I had never been to Athens before even though I knew it was one of the premier music towns in the country. Most people might know of it because of R.E.M. but there have been oddles of bands that have come from there. The Elephant 6 collective, which consists of tons of bands including Circulatory Sytem, of Montreal, Olivia Tremor Control, Elf Power, Neutral Milk Hotel and more, is loosely based out of Athens. Widespread Panic and B-52’s are both Athens. The list goes on and on and you’d be best off just heading down there during AthFest to check out some music.
Before we pulled the truck into the festival on Friday we stopped by the skate park on the east side of town and gave away some ice cream. It reminded me that I need to either ship my helmet out or buy a new one because I’ve already got my deck on board but I won’t skate a park without a helmet cause I had five concussions when I was younger and never wanna go through that again. We also made a quick stop at the PacSun store in Athens and it was especially fun because someone had tipped the employees off that we were going to be there and they lit up when we walked in with strawberry shortcakes, ice cream sandwiches, fruit bars, and Ninja Turtle pops.
Since we changed course in short notice we were very fortunate to be given a great parking space and permission to film. It didn’t hurt either that there was a beautiful mirror behind the truck and a dumpster next to us that was filled with old music instruments. My first thought was that Dead Confederate would be perfect for that setting and we ended up with Hardy and Jason from DC being joined by Chris and a buddy from Manchester Orchestra for an unreleased track. The highlight of the weekend was locking up the truck and heading over to Nuci’s Space to see Circulatory System and Modern Skirts. Nuci’s Space is non-profit health and music resource center centered around helping prevent suicide. You can learn more at www.nuci.org.. We liked Modern Skirts so much we asked them to stop by the truck the following morning. They get the award for being the first band to actually play the ice cream truck… .as in banging drumsticks on our outside rack where we put stickers and wookies and such.
-Matt Allen, Ice Cream Man
Be sure to check back here weekly for all the updates from Ice Cream Man, and don't forget to follow
@icecreamman &
@PacSun on Twitter to find out when they'll be in your area!
