Check out this video about the creation of singer/songwriter Alex Miller’s most recent release, “Chin Up, Buckle Down, & Let Go.” I’ll be be joining Alex for an acoustic concert at The Basement in Columbus, OH on June 7th. Hope you can make it!
I’ll be putting on my first public clinic outside of MVNU this fall. On November 5th, I’ll be presenting on the topic of Groove Variations for Modern Drumming at The Center of Music and Art in Wintersville, OH, as part of their Extra Beat Percussion Series. I’m honored to have been asked to do this by one of my former MVNU students, William Cashdollar, who currently teaches at the CMA. I am GREATLY looking forward to this, and hope that it will be the first of more to come in the future.
CMA Press Link
I’m super excited to announce that The Wet Darlings have just released their second EP, entitled “So Long, Lover.”
The 6-track EP is available as a digital download through our Bandcamp site, iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, and more soon. A ton of hard work went into the making of this album, and I can’t wait for people to get it into their hands and to start listening to it!
We’re throwing our CD Release Party this Friday, March 18th at Skully’s Music Diner. We’ll have hard copies available for sale at the show, so if you’d like a disc to spin in your car, come out and join the party!! Our good friends at Make Believe Monsters will also be there doing on-site screen printing of our shirts in a variety of colors, so make sure to grab one!
I hope to see you there!
I’m proud to announce that I have been elected as the Secretary of the Ohio Chapter of the Percussive Arts Society. I’ll be supporting newly elected President Jerry Noble and Vice President Eric Paton. This is a great honor, and I hope that I can contribute to the already thriving community of dedicated drummers and percussionists that call Ohio home. The Ohio Chapter website is going through an overhaul, and we plan to work hard to build the best Ohio Day of Percussion yet, this year, as well as expand Ohio’s percussive community.
To whet your appetite even more…
It’s been awhile since I’ve had time to post on here. Things have been pretty crazy as of the past few months. Most of my efforts have been focused on the release of The Wet Darlings’ first EP, “X.” The album was recorded at the Earthwork Recording Studio in Newark, OH with my good friend Tom Atha at the helm, and mixed and produced by Grammy Award-winning producer, Jeff Ciampa. After having to push the release date back a couple of months due to our singer, Jenny, having surgery on her vocal chords, we’ve been hitting the press hard to promote our return to the stage, and the release of the EP.
We’ve been lucky enough to see a great response so far from the local press. With interview/reviews in both Uweekly and on ColumbusUnderground.com in the last couple of days. Our release show was also mentioned in this month’s issued of (614) Magazine, where we had a feature article written about us back in February. Tomorrow should see the Columbus Alive hit the stands, with photos and an interview we had with Chris Deville. Hopefully a review from the Other Paper will be sitting right next to it on the stands.
Most notable is that this EP is available for FREE on our website: http://www.thewetdarlings.com if you’re willing to join our mailing list! Not a bad deal, in these days of economic hardship, eh? If you feel like supporting us, the album is also available via iTunes, Amazon.com, Rhapsody.com, Napster, the Zune store, and ThinkIndie.com.
A limited edition run of hard copies will be available at our CD Release show, which is:
Saturday, June 12th
Skully’s Music Diner
1151 North High Street, Columbus, OH 43201
10pm, $6 cover charge ($9 for 18-20)
Please come out to see the show. It’s going to be one to remember for sure, with amazing local artists Happy Chichester and the Phantods opening for us. Along with the limited edition hard copies, there will also be t-shirts and buttons for sale at our merch table, and we’d love for you to leave with something to remember the show by. At the very least, DOWNLOAD X FOR FREE! I’d love to hear what you think of it! Thanks, and I hope to see you all this weekend!
The New Basics Brass Band will start a new weekly gig at the Vonn Jazz Lounge at Crosswoods on Feb. 15th. What better way to spend your monday nights than to get on down with some n’awlins second line and funk!? What’s that you say? You can’t think of any better way? I didn’t think so. Come on down, have a couple of drinks after your lame beginning of the work week, and let us help you unwind. See you there!
Just finished up playing with The Wet Darlings at the 2009 CD101 Andymanathon. It’s a fund-raiser for underprivileged children that DJ Andyman puts on every year. He stays on the air for 48 hours straight and asks for pledges and donations whilst taking song requests, auctioning off items, and also featuring local bands performing live on the air in the CD101 Big Room. We were honored when Andyman called us and asked us to participate in the event. Seeing his dedication to this cause was truly an inspiration, and I really couldn’t do more than smile when I saw him pushing through the last few hours of the event.
The Darlings scrounged up what money we could and made a band donation to do our part, which was probably the most rewarding part of the whole experience, but that’s not to discount the whole playing live on the airwaves bit. Playing in a room with a few people watching isn’t so weird, but seeing a few and knowing that there are probably thousands of people listening is a weird feeling. Kinda hard to muster the energy that comes from a typical live show, but I think we did pretty well, after listening to the recording of the segment that we were featured in. We played one of our originals, “So Long Lover,” and then a rendition of “O Holy Night,” to keep with the spirit of the event.
In any case, I haven’t heard the final results, but before I left the CD101 studios, I heard them announce that they had raised over $31,000, which is a wonderful feat. Although we only played a tiny part in the fund raiser, I’m glad that we could do our part in the endeavour, and really witness the spirit of giving that the holiday season is all about. Click here for more information on CD101 For the Kids. While you’re there, check out CD101 and all their cool upcoming events. When a local independent radio station goes all out for a charitable cause they way these guys have, I have no problem giving them a shameless plug, so please check them out online and tune into 101.1 fm.
UPDATE 12/21/09: Found out this morning that the Andymanathon managed to raise over $42,000 for the kids. Thanks to everyone who made a pledge and sacrificed to support this wonderful cause.
We started work on The Wet Darlings’ first album this weekend, working with Grammy award winning engineer Jeff Ciampa (Bill Evans, Wayne Shorter) producing, and engineer Tom Atha at Earthwork Recording Studio in Newark, OH.
Things went REALLY well; in two short days (we maybe worked 6 hours each day), we managed to capture all 9 drum tracks with multiple takes to choose from and time to spare. We tracked live to a click, and the tones we got were AWESOME. I’m really excited to see where the rest of this album goes, and I’ll surely be updating things here soon enough. Stay tuned.
Kevin Dean is making a return to the Rumba Cafe in Columbus in support of his debut album, “Long Live the Ashes.” I’m really excited about this, as I’ll not only get to see one of my good friends for the first time in months, but I’m also really looking forward to playing debuting some of his new tunes at this show! I would strongly encourage anyone who hasn’t checked out his tunes to look him up on iTunes and take a listen. Kevin’s just beginning to blossom as an artist, and I firmly believe he’s going to do something great with his talent. Come check it out before he’s too big to come back to Columbus.
Thursday, June 18th at 10pm
Rumba Cafe
Also Appearing: Miss Molly!
