| Dawn Of The Underground-April 2013
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Written by Dawn LeMay & Ken Weaver
Monday, 01 April 2013 14:56 |
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| "You say you want a revolution, you know you want to change the world". – The Beatles
Rebel Inc. returned to 98 Rocks Noise in the Basement on 3-11, police code for indecent exposure, coincidence? Anyone who has seen the athletic, energetic rebels wouldn't mind if they did. The rebels delivered their cadence driven message of "wake up, don't believe everything you are told", moving the crowd, physically and mentally challenging them to sweat, and to be as driven as they are to create a rebel revolution, a revolution of the mind.
Sanhedron creates a revolution of their own as they attempt to change the world with music by sponsoring a charity event, intended to CREATE a nurse. During a presentation, the members of discovered that $75 could provide the training to establish a pediatric nurse in Africa. Sanheadron sprang into action, heart and soul. According to Brennan Snow, "Not like pay it into a pot, and after administrative stuff, we'll see how much we can do, it's like $75 bucks, and bam, sleep well knowing that you paid to have a lifesaver created, who will provide healthcare for years to come that's a powerful impact from a singular effort". Get more information at http://gofundme.com/MusicInAction2013
From coast to coast the Baltimore music is impacting the world, the Niki Barr Band travels to the beautiful Florida Keys to call Jimmy Buffetts' Margaritaville their home for several weeks in March, and Teresa "StitcheZz" brings Baltimore flair to the beautiful state of Florida, as she creates relationships with southern bands and venues who welcome our local scene. This month also celebrates the South by Southwest SXSW music festival in Austin, Texas. South by Southwest (SXSW), is a music festival which takes place every spring in Austin, Texas. SXSW is a virtual who's who of the music scene, it is centered in and around the convention center, but every bar and every street corner is alive with music at almost every hour of the day for about a week straight. Ballyhoo (check out their new download http://www.marijuanalawsusa.com), Bumping Uglies, and Bond and Bentley are there to represent Baltimore on a world-wide stage, and The Perfects (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_WdQ1Xuzfw) bring their music to the Canadian Music Festival. "We", the Baltimore Music Scene are starting a revolution, and "we" are about to change the world.
Change is 1) Moving forward; advancing 2) proceeding in steps; continuing steadily by increments: progressive change.
"We" are change. According to Bill Cosby, "your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure." Not only have our local musicians shown their fortitude, and their desires, but by steadily progressing, they are succeeding. I truly believe that "the music scene" is succeeding in "putting Baltimore on the musical map", and with progressive positive movement, we will see the creation of a music phenomenon, centered in and around our city.
This month, we say goodbye to yet another entertainment complex, another hall of memories, as the Recher in Towson hosts its final Saturday rock show on March 23rd. Nightsbridge, Cinder Road, Cyrenic, Mason Summers, and Frenamie will be there to say GOODBYE. (www.facebook.com/events/504213902958160/?ref=ts&fref=ts)
Til next time, no matter where I travel, there is no place like home. I will look forward to seeing and supporting the entertainers, and the fans that love them, while I am out and about bringing the music that we love into the light!
Signed,
Dawn of the Underground
"Wake up, .. the revolution begins in your mind". – Rebel inc.
(98 Rock – Noise in the Basement interview 3/10/13) |
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| Dawn Of The Underground-March 2013
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Written by Dawn Lemay
Tuesday, 05 March 2013 18:06 |
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| Without music, life would be a mistake. – Friedrich Nietzsche
Music escorts us through happy and sad times. It marks our relationships, whether we're creating new ones or ending the ones that just won't work out. Reflect on your experiences, and you'll remember the music. Whether it comes from an actual song or a symphony of nature, there's a certain bond created when music is associated with an event; it makes a connection as concrete as the memory itself. Musicians have fine-tuned this art and given us the soundtrack of our lives.
HOURHAUS (www.hourhaus.com), Shockwave Magazine and FJ Entertainment have showcased some great local talent, including Meet at Sundown, Something Wicked this Way Comes, and Fire in Elysium (performed a creative cover of Seek and Destroy).
Adverse Attraction continues to attract listeners like moths to fire; the local music scene is heating up, and AA is blazing the way. Their music and stage appearance have a commercially-friendly polish accented by boyish good looks and a genuine nature, and the complexity that the lone female adds to the band equals pure energy and enjoyment. Check them out here.
Robert Bradley (Aries) has won accolades such as being named on the DC Metro Theater Arts Best of 2012 list, an honor given to the best vocal performances by actors in the DC Metro area. Robert said, "I'll be returning to reprise my role of Admiral Cockburn, lead villain of 1814 The Rock Opera." Keep up with Robert here, and read one of his reviews here.
Meanwhile, for one local band, there have been recent attempts to silence the music. According to Rebel Inc.'s Facebook page, "YouTube not only suspended our account due to 'content violations,' but they also removed all of our videos and got rid of all of our subscribers. Needless to say we feel our First Amendment rights have been violated. Please help us as we try to rebuild our account and search for other popular sites to use. New videos will be posted shortly. Thanks." Brian Haverlock explains further, "We still have the channel, but they took everything down, and took our subscribers away." The music of Rebel Inc. returns to Noise in the Basement at their new home, "Ottobar," on March 11. Get your tickets here.
And last but certainly not least, Happy Birthday Cody Cook, who celebrated his 21st at Ottobar accompanied by a virtual "who's who" from the local music scene. According to Cody "Chook," "It was so awesome! Great show, and hands down one of the best nights of my life!" Cody has become an integral part of the local music family, and his contributions to Sin4Sin, Playground Etiquette, Defiant Calibur, and others have not gone unnoticed. Keep rocking, and keep moving forward.
I'd like to add a personal thank you to all the musicians who have dedicated their time to creating music, following their dreams, and making the songs that will become the canvas our memories will be painted on. Like Billy Strayhorn said, "All music is beautiful," and it is.
Til' next time, no matter where I travel, there's no place like home. I look forward to seeing and supporting the entertainers and the fans who love them while I'm out and about bringing the music we love into the light!
Signed,
Dawn of the Underground |
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| Dawn Of The Underground-February 2013
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Written by Dawn Lemay
Wednesday, 06 February 2013 14:47 |
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| Cheering for your football team, redirecting cupid's arrow, watching the bi-polar changes of the seasons: these are a few of things February has to offer. Last month we saw some changes of our own, as Noise in the Basement changed its base of operations from Baltimore Soundstage to Ottobar. I would like to say goodbye, and thank you for all of the wonderful memories we shared in our temporary home. Ottobar, Noise in the Basements' new base, recently hosted many local music nights where REBEL INC., Adverse Attraction, Nightsbridge, Others May Fall, the Static, the Perfects, and many others had remarkably successful shows.
This month, Jimmie's Chicken Shack celebrated 20 years of misses at Rams Head (they've always been a hit in my book). Check out the amazing artwork Jimi creates at www.jah-haha.com. Help My Lil' Heads' benefit for the Smith Family rocked the House of Rock, and Nightsbridge shook the Recher as the amazing Mickey Valentine put on another unbelievably theatric show. Frenamie, charismatic as always, moved up the charts (in Denmark) and are currently at number #1017 – great job guys! Loving the Lies' "Somebody Wants You Dead" and other songs, like "Running With Scissors," by Yesterdays War, lit up the airwaves on 98 Rock's Noise in the Basement!
Like the TV sitcom, "Cheers," where everybody knows your name, the local music scene, "our family," has become as familiar as a worn out bar stool, interwoven into our daily existence. We chat, post, cross-promote and cajole on an almost endless basis. We are a motley crew, and we have been there for each other, cried tears of joy and sadness, swayed, jumped and moshed. We've had amazing memories – nights when the breeze on the rooftop at Bourbon Street felt like heaven – and moments we will never forget. We have been extras in music videos, dressed as zombies, shaken our heads at musicians whose hearts weren't in the music, and cheered until our throats were raw for those musicians who were.
The words that are written, the songs that are sung, the music played, are more than words on a page and musical notes in the air. Music is life – it is part of everything we do, and I think Bob Marley said it best: "One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain."
Til next time – no matter where I travel, there is no place like home. I look forward to seeing and supporting the entertainers, and the fans who love them while I am out and about bringing the music that we love into the light!
Signed,
Dawn of the Underground |
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| Dawn Of The Underground-January2013
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Written by Dawn
Thursday, 03 January 2013 11:19 |
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| I'm ending 2012 on the ultimate high note. If we could encapsulate moments in time, the night of the ALL STAR JAM – Noise in the Basement Holiday Edition would have had many moments worthy of capturing. From the talent, to the energy, to the genuine warmth of spirit, the 'night of a thousand collaborations' was reminiscent of the 121212 concert, Band Aid, and other "let's save the world" benefits that have been performed on larger stages around the world. This event happened to benefit St Jude's. The talent at Soundstage included: "awesome" Tommy Sinbazo, Victims of Experience, Dreamboat Armada, Loving the Lie, Sons of the Radio, Niki Barr Band, Forgive the Fallen, DIRT, Black Angel Down, The Perfects, Adverse Attraction, Tears of Mars, The Static, The Amaretto Meltdowns, Aries, Clear for Takeoff, Others May Fall, Femi the Drifish, Nightsbridge, The McNaughstys, Fatally Yours, Guns Out at Sundown, Eleven 54, Chemical Red, Playground Etiquette, Defiant Calibur, Ken Weaver, Tony Correlli, Sin for Sin, When Embers Ignite, Make Love and War, Absinthe, The Black Dahlia, The Royal Wigs and more, and members of the bands combined their talent to create playful, high energy interpretations of classic songs. The night's highlights were too many to mention, but some include a charming, well done, picture projection montage of Matt Davis "Our Hero" showing his support of the Baltimore local music scene, which was choreographed to the song, "My Hero." Later in the evening, the stage was flooded with a sea of vocal talent as a full lineup of musicians contributed to "Bohemian Rhapsody," culminating with Robert Bradley (Aries) hitting and sustaining the famous high note in the song that we all sing at the top of our lungs, pretending to be Freddie Mercury.
One word – amazing! Okay, two words – Wayne's World! ROCK ON!
Songs like "Bohemian Rhapsody" (Queen), "I Need You Tonight" (INXS), "Ace of Spades" (Motörhead), "Barracuda" (Heart), "Night Train" (Guns and Roses), "My Hero" (Foo Fighters) and many other covers were given new life and depth as the local music scene made them their own. It was a night of reflection, looking back at where we began and how far we had come...seeing what was once a group of perfect strangers assembled, all of whom had one thing in common – a love of music – and that created a wonderful thing: new friends and family. It's a multicultural, wibbly-wobbly, motley crew, melting pot of a family, but it's "Our Family," the Baltimore Music Scene. Thank you to all of the new friends that we've made along the way (while supporting local music and each other), and thank you for letting me believe in heroes again.
"A hero can be anyone, even a man doing something as simple and as reassuring as putting a coat around a little boy's shoulders to let him know that the world hadn't ended. " – Batman
No matter where I travel, there is no place like HOME, and as always, I look forward to seeing the musicians, comedians, entertainers, and the fans who love them while I am out and about bringing the music we love into the light!
Signed,
Dawn of the Underground and Ken Weaver |
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| Dawn Of The Underground-December 2012
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Written by Dawn Lemay
Saturday, 01 December 2012 23:10 |
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| Hopefully you were able to find things to be thankful for this holiday season, and maybe you even were able to give back to those who aren't as fortunate. Recently, many of our friends and neighbors were affected by Super Storm Sandy; its devastating force took away homes and lives and scarred the eastern seaboard. Just like the movie 2012, where disasters like Sandy signal the start of the end of the world, I truly believe that once December 21, 2012, passes, we should all hit the reset button and start anew. You need not look to churches or prophecies to tell you to be good to one another or help thy neighbor – just fucking do it. Help because you should, and care because it's the right thing to do. Support the local bands that give their time, money and skill to put on benefit shows. Thank the men and women serving in the military, whether you support the government or not. Thank the person who is always there to lend a helping hand, because they need support too. Not all heroes wear capes, some just wear their heart on their sleeve and are often battered and bruised while valiantly attempting to help others. Amazing things are happening...just take the time to listen and become involved. In music, local bands that once played for intimate audiences are touring across the country. I have personally witnessed people in Florida mentioning local bands like rebel inc., (viewed by many as this generation's premier protest band) and the Niki Barr Band (which has performed for U.S. troops around the world) in a very positive way. These voices – musicians, volunteers – these people are creating a platform that encourages change. When you listen to local bands, you are not just listening to a menagerie or people making sound, you are listening to the future. Whether it's the Perfects, with their next number one MTV video, or Loving the Lie pioneering new frontiers, or Playground Etiquette/Laughing Colors helping you celebrate the biggest party day of the year, one thing is for sure: the local Baltimore music scene, our scene, just keeps getting better and better.
No matter where I travel, there is no place like home, and as always, I look forward to seeing the musicians, comedians, and entertainers, as well as the fans who love them, while I am out and about bringing the music that we love into the light!
Signed,
Dawn of the Underground |
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