The Rocket Summer will be playing with the Goo Goo Dolls at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center on April 24th. Robby Takac of the Goo Goo Dolls – Pictured
“The Rocket Summer is the rock solo-project of Bryce Avary, and is based in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas. Avary is known for his unique talents as he plays every instrument on his records as well as produces them. The Rocket Summer’s live shows are uplifting, energetic and emotionally charged. Avary’s music has unique emotional qualities that has created a loyal and rabid following of fans around the world.
Bryce became interested with music around the age of 11, when his father bought him his first guitar from a pawn shop. He then started playing drums and various other instruments. After being in a high school “indie rock punk” band inspired by Pavement, Archers of Loaf and Weezer, Avary began performing local acoustic shows as a teenager in Dallas, Fort Worth and Denton. As Avary’s local fan base grew, he released his first EP at the age of 16 in limited release during 1999. Distributing the EP himself under the name The Rocket Summer (the name inspired by Ray Bradbury’s short story) to local stores to be sold on consignment, his music appeared on The Adventure Club segment of the KDGE radio station, and quickly became the most requested local band on the program that year. With increased interest in the music from local, national, and international magazines and the EP selling in 5 continents, in 2003 Bryce produced and released his debut album Calendar Days. The album title comes from a line in the song “TV Family”. Using a $15,000 budget, the album was recorded in Kansas on the label The Militia Group. The album was critically praised as being extremely uplifting, and included varied music (for example, the track “What We Hate, We Make” which includes the 6th grade choir that his younger sister was in from Texas). The album sold well throughout the United States and Japan.
In November 2004, Bryce began working on his second album Hello, Good Friend – the album title coming from the song “Never Knew”. This album included more piano central songs than his previous album. The Rocket Summer has toured the US and Japan extensively and has gained a large fan base. Although not immediately obvious in his lyrics, Avary is a Christian and lets his faith and stories influence his lyrics and his music. Avary says that his faith is the most important thing in his life. He has always said that TRS music is for everyone which is why The Rocket Summer hasn’t ever gravitated toward being a christian market type of band.
He signed with Island Def Jam Records for his third record, Do You Feel, which was released on July 17th, 2007. The first single from the album is So Much Love. The Rocket Summer has released the music video for So Much Love. On September 5th, 2008, the music video for Do You Feel was released. The music video for Do You Feel was co-directed by Bryce Avary with director Nate Weaver. The video was funded by Avary. The video for Do You Feel featured stories of real people with “real issues” such as homelessness, addiction, disease and abuse. The video also featured cameos from artists Andrew McMahon of Jack’s Mannequin, Matt Theissen of Relient K, Josh Farro and Jeremy Davis of Paramore, Mike Herrera of MxPx, Forrest Kline of Hellogoodbye, Alex Gaskarth of All Time Low and Jonathan Cook of Forever The Sickest Kids.
While Avary writes and produces his albums while playing every instrument, he is also known for his hard work ethic on the road. The Rocket Summer has toured the US, Canada, The UK, and Japan numerous times and have been responsible for taking now popular bands such as Paramore, The Plain White T’s, The Format and Phantom Planet as support acts.
The Rocket Summer has headlined many sold out tours in the US, Canada, The Uk, and Japan. The Rocket Summer has also played many worldwide festivals such as Glastonbury Festival in England, T in the Park Festival in Scotland, Summer Sonic Festival in Japan, Oxygen Festival in Ireland, Austin City Limits, SxSw, Bamboozle and Cornerstone. The Rocket Summer toured with the Vans Warped Tour in the summer of 2007 for two months. Although Bryce records all of his own instruments for his records, he tours with a band made up of mostly high school friends.
In January 27, 2008, The Rocket Summer played a series of dates in the UK including major cities such as London, Manchester, Newcastle and Cardiff, with The Secret Handshake and Between the Trees supporting. Before The Rocket Summer’s set every night, Jamie Tworkowski spoke briefly about To Write Love On Her Arms. Without even having an album released in the UK, these dates sold out weeks before the tour began. Beginning March 14, 2008, The Rocket Summer co-headlined the Alternative Press tour. It started in Houston, Texas and ended in May in Cleveland, Ohio. Also co-headlining was All Time Low, with The Matches, Sonny, and Forever The Sickest Kids supporting The Rocket Summer returned to the UK with a headlining show beginning on June 28, 2008 in Yeovil and ending on July 16, 2008 in Birmingham. The Rocket Summer returned to the United States for a headlining fall tour with support from The Secret Handshake, Phantom Planet and The Morning Light. After conclusion of the tour, Bryce Avary took some time off to write a new record. He recorded the new album at Ocean Studios in Burbank, CA from February-April. Bryce produced the record with CJ Eiriksson, who also engineered the album. Some of the tracks were mixed by Neal Avron. The album, titled “Of Men and Angels” is expected to be released in 2009 by Island Def Jam.”
The City of Jacksonville is once again presenting Starry Nights which was well-known as one of Jacksonville’s most popular outdoor events for more than a decade, combining the wonderful sounds of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra and an exciting variety of top entertainers. This event creates a festive downtown atmosphere in Metropolitan Park with the beautiful St. Johns River serving as the perfect backdrop.
Here are some of the concert dates and performers.
April 10 – Styx
Styx transformed from a suburban Chicago basement in the early 1970s to the virtual arena rock prototypes by the late 1970s and early 1980s, due to a fondness for big rockers and soaring power ballads. Styx’s mainstream success began with “Lady.” Most of their subsequent releases throughout the late 1970s earned at least platinum certification and spawned such hit singles and classic rock radio standards as “Come Sail Away,” “Renegade,” “Blue Collar Man,” and “Fooling Yourself.”
April 24 – Idina Menzel
Featuring Broadway powerhouse Idina Menzel, the Tony award-winning “Elphaba” from the international blockbuster “Wicked.” With a diverse repertoire of classic pop, musical theater favorites (including hits from “Wicked” and “Rent”) as well as songs from her album “I Stand,” Idina Menzel demonstrates why she is one of the great vocal performers of our time. Catch her this spring on the FOX television series “Glee!”
April 24th – Conductor Matthew Kraemer
Recognized for his “musical sensitivity” and “energized sense of interpretation”, conductor Matthew Kraemer begins his tenure as associate conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra in September 2009. In this role he will appear on each of the orchestra’s major series, including subscription weeks, Pops, and Family concerts. He will play a vital role in the BPO’s award winning education and community engagement programs, in addition to assisting Music Director JoAnn Falletta during her Kleinhans Hall weeks, recording sessions and on tour. The 2009-2010 season will also mark his third and final year as associate conductor of the Virginia Symphony. Upcoming season highlights include an all Mozart program and The Music Man with the BPO, Strauss’ Don Juan and Stravinsky’s Firebird with the VSO, and performances with Philippe Quint, Ben Folds, and Chris Botti. He will also debut with the Jacksonville Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony orchestras in the spring of 2010.
It’s time for Savannah to “Go Green” and celebrate its Irish heritage and culture. On Saturday, March 13, 2010 it’s time for the annual Irish Celebration in Emmet Park – Tara Feis.
This is a great event for the whole family with irish music, dance food and fun. This year, Cathie Ryan Band will be performing.
For more information about the event, visit http://http//www.savannahga.gov/arts
Click here to read more about St Patrick’s Day in Savannah
Join Cage the Elephant fans at Music Farm in Charleston on the 22nd of February for a great concert. Cage the Elephant will be accompanied by As Tall As Lions and Morning Teleportatio, this is a concert you don’t want to miss!
A little about Cage the Elephant:
Music critics who have witnessed the eye-popping spectacle that is a Cage the Elephant live performance have likened the band’s singer to many things, among them “a demented Bible Belt preacher,” “a Tasmanian devil whooping and jumping up and down like a frenzied gibbon.” And that’s just frontman Matt Shultz. The verdict? “Exhilarating, 100 mph stuff,” raved British indie music bible NME about one of the group’s U.K. gigs last fall. Cage the Elephant’s raucous live show — which made this red-hot Kentucky-bred band the talk of this year’s South-by-Southwest music festival, and led USA Today to single them out as a band not to miss at 2009’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival — is the perfect showcase for their buzzed-about self-titled debut album for Jive Records. Recorded over 10 days with Grammy Award-winning producer Jay Joyce, and a Top 40 hit when it was released on British indie label Relentless in the U.K. last June, the album is a genre-defying blend of rock n roll and raw youthful punk energy all propelled by Matt’s taunting, Dylan-esque rhythmic vocal delivery, Brad Shultz and Lincoln Parish’s furious twin guitar assault, and bassist Daniel Tichenor and drummer Jared Champion’s rock-steady funk grooves. “The music comes from a pure place,” Matt says. We really like the energy of music that feels passionate, raw, unplanned emotion. That’s what we were really trying to capture in the studio.” And although the grooves are designed to make you move, there’s more going on in these punk funk tunes than the reckless abandonment that first meet the ear. Lyricist Matt tells stories about his life. The first single off of the album is “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked,” in which Matt describes being mugged by a drug dealer and picking up a young female hitch-hiker he soon finds out is a prostitute. “That song is about realizing that everyone’s got a back-story and that essentially we’re all the same,” he says. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a priest, a coke dealer, or a prostitute; we all struggle with the same things, so how can we sit in judgment of others when each of us has something in our closet that we’d never tell anyone.” Or like his experience dealing with shady shit-talkers on the instantly addictive track “In One Ear” (sample lyric: “They say I’m just a stupid kid / another crazy radical / rock n’ roll is dead / I probably should have stayed in school / Another generation X / who somehow slipped up through the cracks / Oh they’d love to see me fall / But I’m already on my back”), then tackles corruption and hypocrisy on “James Brown” and religion and war on “Lotus.” Throughout the album’s 11-song cycle, Matt’s frustration with society is readily apparent. “But mostly you can hear the frustration I have in myself,” he says. “Like why did I buy into certain things the world has sold me? That’s where I was coming from when I wrote the songs — just looking at the world and realizing it’s full of hypocrites and I’m one too.” Given Matt’s background, it’s not surprising that such searching subject matter would find its way into Cage the Elephant’s songs. The band members hail from Bowling Green, Kentucky — a town where working in the nearby Chevrolet assembly plant or Fruit of the Loom headquarters were the main employment games in town. “It was the kind of place where if you didn’t play football, or you were a little bit different, people thought you were gay,” Matt says. “I didn’t want to be part of that jock world. I liked music so I quit the football team when I was a jr. and started a band. Forming Cage the Elephant was a rebellious thing — a way for us to carve out our own path instead of following the path created by the community that surrounded us.” The Shultz brothers grew up poor, sharing a tiny room in the family’s two-bedroom apartment with two other siblings. “Our dad drove a supply truck and he was gone a lot,” Matt recalls. “There wasn’t a lot of money or anything to do so we would make up goofy songs to pass the time.” At age 12, Brad bought a beat-up guitar from a neighborhood kid for $20 that he played until it literally fell apart. Not long after their parents were divorced, Brad snuck home a cassette of Jimi Hendrix’s Live at Woodstock, which the brothers listened to obsessively for three years, cementing their love for rock and roll. A few years later, Matt bought Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are a-Changin’. “That was a huge, life-changing album for me.” he says. “Just the honesty in Dylan’s music and how he looked at society, it really opened my eyes to how blind we really are.” After the brothers’ parents divorced, the music floodgates opened and they began to devour everything they could find from the Beatles, The Ramones, Led Zeppelin, Chuck Berry, the Rolling Stones, Nirvana, and the Pixies, to name but a few. “A lot of bands put themselves in a box and say, ‘We’re not going to be influenced by anything,’ Matt says. “We don’t mind being influenced though. I don’t think you should force influence but to fight against it would be like fighting against nature. You have a responsability to innovate but a lot of the time people mistake pretentiousness for innovation and allow that pretentiousness to taint their creativity. What you end up with is very contrived soulless music. Everything we love about music we wanted to put in our own music. When it comes down to it, we just want to make music that we love.”
Join Beatles lovers from around the world at the Times-Union Center for Performing Arts in Jacksonville Florida this Valentines day at 7:00 pm. This is one experience you don’t want to miss!
In their production of “Rain: The Beatles Experience”, this show is a multi-media, multi-dimensional event which features 5 different scene and costume changes, 3 video screens, and live camera projection, combining television commercials and historical video footage from the ’60′s. As anyone who has witnessed Rain in concert will attest, the music is first and foremost, and is recreated with the utmost care and integrity. Rain distinguishes itself by focusing on details, and delivers a perfect note for note performance. All the music is performed live, with no pre-recorded tapes or sequences.
The first set is an astonishing recreation of the Beatles stage set from the 1964 Ed Sullivan show, with the band dressed in the authentic Saville Row custom tailored suits, Beatle boots, and donning hair styles to match the likenesses of John, Paul, George and Ringo. The set, combined with black and white camera work instantly takes you back in time to that historic first night that the Beatles appeared on American television.
Second Set – Shea Stadium
After a brief interlude of songs from their movie era featuring selections from “A Hard Days Night”, the band is suddenly transported to Shea Stadium via helicopter where nearly 56,000 fans witness the group’s highest attended concert to date. Live video technology provides views of the band through close- ups and different angles, as members of the audience are projected onto the main screens for a completely interactive experience.
Third Set – Sgt. Pepper Era
The third set features the music and colorful costumes of the “Sgt. Pepper” era. Behind the band, a huge backdrop of the Sgt. Pepper album cover is shown. Or so it seems. Upon closer inspection, you’ll see that the band has cleverly interspersed their own photos to completely re-create the famous album cover. With the use of sophisticated sound and lighting, audiences will experience the music, energy and excitement of seeing the Beatles live in concert – something that the Beatles themselves never did during this period.
In fact, the Beatles stopped touring after 1966 and never performed the music of Sgt. Pepper live.
Fourth Set – Flower Power
After a quick intermission, the fourth set opens to the strains of Indian music where a brief description of the “Summer of Love” and the group’s new-found interest in meditation transports us back to that memorable time. The curtain opens to reveal the band attired in costumes reminiscent of the flower power era, as they perform the music of the years 1967-68. Of special note here is the performance of an acoustic set, revealing to the audience what the Beatles’ actual song writing processes may have been like.
Fifth Set – Abbey Road
The Abbey Road period brings the show to its fifth set. A re-creation of the famous “Abbey Road” album cover provides the backdrop, while stage props such as the doorway to EMI studios add to the visual effects that accurately reflect this period. The transformation to this era is complete with yet another costume change, reflecting the style of the Beatles during 1969-70. The visual effect is such that you think the band has stepped out of the album cover. The music within this set includes selections from the “Golden Slumbers” medley through “The End” — the Beatles’ swan song of their short but magnificent career.
Join the Black Eyed Peas on Tuesday, Feb 9 at 8:00pm for the concert of a lifetime. This will change the very way you experience music. The concert will be at the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena. Tickets are available now. This is going to be an amazing show that will completely change the way you experience music! Described as the ultimate Black Eyed Peas party experience, it also marks the first time that the group – will.i.am, apl.de.ap, Taboo and Fergie – is united for a North American headline tour since their 2006 Monkey Business world tour.
In support of their multi-platinum #1 album, The E.N.D, featuring the chart record-breaking consecutive #1 singles, “Boom Boom Pow” and “I Gotta Feeling” – The Black Eyed Peas will replicate the party vibe of a hot
The E.N.D., The Black Eyed Peas’ fifth studio album, is also their first original album since Monkey Business (released May 2005), certified RIAA triple platinum in the U.S., with worldwide sales of more than 9 million copies. Monkey Business generated Grammy® Awards over two consecutive years, for “Don’t Phunk with My Heart” and “My Humps.” The Peas’ first Grammy® Award came six years ago, for “Let’s Get It Started,” from their breakthrough album of 2003, Elephunk, which introduced Fergie into the lineup, and turned the group into international superstars with cumulative 25-times platinum sales in nearly a dozen countries around the world.
[AEG Live]
We went to the songwriter contest/music festival in Jacksonville at Treehill Nature Center. Nashville producer Michael Knox, who was part of the jury, was there as well.
Below is the list of the winners. The talented Kelty Shellhorn is only 14 years old! Watch the video for more.
Top 3 Songs:
1) Bryan Fogle
2) Kelty Shellhorn
3) Craig Hand
Top 3 Artists:
1) Kata Rhe
2) Kelty Shellhorn
3) Rebecca Hewitt
Best Green Song:
Al Monte
Upcoming Star:
Kelty Shellhorn
Even though summer is over, the Reggae Nights summer concert series is coming up on the last and final concert for the summer on Saturday October 17, 2009, at Wannamaker County Park. This time Reggae Infinity is performing. This is the last chance to attend Reggae Nights, the Summer Concert Series of the Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission, for this season, so don’t miss out.
Reggae Infinity was formed in 1996 in Columbia, SC and consists of four members who hail from all around the Caribbean islands. They have four upcoming events in October alone including their stop in North Charleston for Reggae Nights. They have recorded a number of original songs with a strong spiritual foundation and are appropriate for all age groups.
The gates open at 7:30 pm and music starts at 8:30 pm. Admission is $8.00 or 5 books of Greenbax. Children 12 and under enjoy free admission. Annual Gold Passes will be honored.
For more information and detailed schedules and locations visit www.ccprc.com or call 843-795-4Fun.
Feel the heat at the 2009 Latin American Festival Sunday, October 4 from 12pm-6pm. Celebrate the sights and sounds of the Latino world while live Salsa and Merengue music fill the air. Showcase your skills in the Salsa dance contest hosted by DJ Luigi of Latin Groove. Enjoy authentic cuisine from Puerto Rico, Peru, Colombia, and other Latin American countries as well as craft items and plenty of activities for families to enjoy.
Kids will love the all you can ride inflatables with the purchase of a $5 wristband. Take a trip around the world in the Global Education building and learn about different cultures through crafts, storytelling, and more.
Come and enjoy the fun on Sunday, October 4 from 12pm-6pm at Wannamaker County Park for the Latin American Festival. Admission is $10 or 6 books of Greenbax. Children ages 12 and under as well as Gold Pass holders enjoy free admission. Call (843) 795-4FUN (4386) for more information.
The 28th Annual Savannah Jazz Festival is held September 20 – 27, 2009 and if you love jazz, you have to come to Savannah for this special festival. Every year the festival takes over the city with a colorful musical celebration of all genres of jazz, from Dixieland, traditional swing, straight-ahead and bop to melodic standards, Latin rhythms and funky down-home “gutbucket†blues.
Savannah Jazz festival offers the best in international, national, regional and local jazz talent. There are many live performances, jam session and also film screenings.
This festival offer free concerts.
For a detailed schedule visit the website www.savannahjazzfestival.org or call 912-675-5419.
