Which is kind of crazy. Just before my 18th birthday I put on a show at my Dad’s “farm” that featured some of the earlier Slumberland-related acts like Lilys, Swirlies, and Small Factory. (When the label was based in D.C.) It lasted two of the hottest days in July. Hundreds of people showed, but my father regretted his decision to let me try my hand at show promotion when someone almost burnt down a few trees with fireworks. I remember wanting to book Velocity Girl, but it hadn’t worked out. They were probably too big then: “My Forgotten Favorite” felt like a massive hit to the people writing and obsessively trading zines. It was kinda my Summer Of Love, where I found a path from the hardcore, thrash metal, NYC noise, and SST of early high school to the DIY K “love rock” (Some Velvet Sidewalk, Lync, Karp, Beat Happening, etc.) and the buzz and sweetness of Slumberland. (Check out the beginning of Swirlies’ “Sarah Sitting” to see what I mean.) Showing my roots, I liked the shoe-gaze best: The Ropers, Henry’s Dress, Black Tambourine, Swirlies, Lilys, etc. And, yeah, everyone loved My Bloody Valentine/Pavement. (I found a cassette copy of Slanted & Enchanted stuck beneath some bushes in the backyard a few days after the shows ended.) I say this anniversary’s crazy because founder Mike Schulman has so admirably stuck to a specific sound and aesthetic, while always founding a way to mine the best of it. That, and it’s hard to believe this little label we were supporting one 7″ at a time — a label that, okay, felt refined from its first release — is still here and bigger than ever.

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From “Spectator & Pupil” to one of last year’s single best pop songs “Violent Sensations Descend,” etc., past Gummy Awards Live participants Violens are such an appealingly frosty band that it’s easy understanding the mindset behind Lilys/Rod Coles’ decision to change the title of the New York four piece’s ice-mentioning “Already Over” to “Already Oslo” in the course of their remix. The makeover remains as crisp as the original, but you get extra percussion and additional layers. It’s part of a series of remixes from Violens’ debut that will appear as a free digital EP along with reworkings by recent tourmates MGMT as well as RAC, and Subtle People. Chairlift’s Caroline Polacheck came up with the visuals for an “Already Over” “visual remix.” For now, check out what Kurt Heasley & Co. have done to the track, while catching up on Violens’ fairly complex touring plans.

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Day last of All Tomorrow’s Parties’ first foray in the great state of New York featured another blockbuster, ’90s-leaning lineup, although this one was extra special: acts hand picked by the triumphantly returning My Bloody Valentine, and evidently proud of it. Each thanked Shields & Co. in their own way, repeatedly, echoing weekend long talks through Kutsher’s about how much the band meant, then and now. The first such set we caught was Lilys, who interestingly (and not unexpectedly) rejected their early MBV-inspired shoe-gaze material for the later Kinks-esque stuff a la “Nanny In Manhattan,” “Better Can’t Make Your Life Better,” etc. Pushing the anxiety of influence to extremes, Kurt Heasley made a joke about “Tone Bender” after a few people yelled out requests for it, saying it was “a mistake” putting it on record. (They did play “Ginger,” old timers.)

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