Come celebrate Jerry Garcia’s birthday with the Dark Star Orchestra! It's really about the sound that’s created. It's about a sense of familiarity. It's about a feeling that grabs listeners and takes over. It's about a contagious energy: it's about the experience. Dark Star Orchestra has been delivering this experience to old and new Grateful Dead fans since 1997, when DSO began recreating complete Grateful Dead shows from out of the band’s long touring history. The band has featured guest performances from original Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, Donna Jean Godchaux-Mackay, Vince Welnick, Tom Constanten and even toured with longtime Dead soundman, Dan Healy.Official Web Site
“Back in the old days,” muses resilient troubadour Chris Smither, “writing new songs and making new albums were just chores. My priority was, and still is, performing live. I guess I still write the songs and make the records so that I can go out and play – except that now I actually look forward to it. I’ve learned how to do it, and I’m very eager to get stuff recorded once I’ve written it.”
Named in honor of a sketch by the Monty Python comedy troupe, this 4-piece band of Santa Barbara, CA high school cronies – singer Glen Phillips, guitarist Todd Nichols, bassist Dean Dinning, and drummer Randy Guss – came to be known as Toad the Wet Sprocket in 1986. Their commercial breakthrough came in 1991 as the single “All I Want” (which had nearly been left off the album Fear) became a Top 20 hit. After Fear was certified platinum, another single from the LP, "Walk on the Ocean," also became a successful track for the band. They played over 300 shows on the Fear tour, a two-year marathon ending in throat surgery for Phillips’ overused pipes. Three years later, Toad returned with
Dulcinea, generating yet another Top 40 hit (not to mention a six week run as number
one on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks) with the single "Fall Down." Dulcinea then also sold enough copies to reward Toad
with another platinum certification.
Formed on an October night in 1976 following drinks at an Athens, GA, Chinese restaurant, the band played their first gig at a friend's house on Valentine's Day 1977. Naming themselves after Southern slang for exaggerated 'bouffant" hairdos, the newly-christened B-52s (Fred Schneider, Kate Pierson, Keith Strickland, Cindy Wilson and Ricky Wilson) began weekend road trips to New York City for gigs at CBGB's and a handful of other venues. Before long, their thrift store aesthetic and genre-defying songs were the talk of the post-punk underground. A record deal soon followed and their self-titled debut disc, produced by Chris Blackwell, sold more than 500,000 copies on the strength of their first singles, the garage rock party classic "Rock Lobster," and "52 Girls."
The B-52s began to attract fans far beyond the punk clubs of the Lower East Side — galvanizing the pop world with their 'stream-of-consciousness' approach to songwriting and outrageous performance. They had clearly tapped into a growing audience for new music that was much larger than anyone could have anticipated. "We always appealed to people outside the mainstream," says Kate Pierson, "and I think more people feel they're outside the mainstream these days."
Kottke has been awarded two Grammy nominations, a Doctorate in Music Performance by the Peck School of Music at the U of Wisconsin Milwaukee, and he continues touring globally.
A true musical phenomenon, this ten-member a cappella group performs sold out shows across the country! With outstanding voices and exuberant personalities, “We want the audience to not miss the instruments, be surprised by what we're doing, and in the end, appreciate the songs in a whole new way!"
Originally formed over a dozen years ago while students together at Indiana University, Straight No Chaser
(SNC) has reassembled and reemerged as a phenomenon – with a massive fanbase, over 20 million views on YouTube, numerous national TV appearances, and proven success with two holiday releases, 2008’s
Holiday Spirits and 2009’s Christmas Cheers. In an era when so much pop music is the product of digital processing and vocal pro-tooling, Straight No Chaser is the real deal – the captivating sound of ten unadulterated human voices coming together to make extraordinary music that is moving people in a fundamental sense… and with a sense of humor. |
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Chris Smither
Toad the Wet Sprocket
The
B-52s with Special Guest The Smith Bros.
Leo Kottke
Straight
No Chaser