Semester Abroad farewell & Rocket hometown show 3/12

Nick Santino of A Rocket To The Moon acoustic, Semester Abroad, Lannen Fall, Stay, The Bay State and The Blue Pages

Last night, The First Congregational Church in Braintree was the place to be. Not only was it the farewell show for local fan favorite Semester Abroad, but it was also a hometown show for Nick Santino of A Rocket To The Moon! Along with those two talented acts, local main stays like Lannen Fall, The Bay State and The Blue Pages rocked the crowd along with a surprise acoustic set from Anthony of Stay! There couldn't be a more energetic crowd anywhere else last night!
The night started off on the right foot with the electronic french pop dance party that The Blue Pages bring to a show. From what they told me in our interview earlier on in the day, this is a new direction from them but it's a goldmine. With the set they played last night, it is obvious why they are touring with Cash Cash in a few months, and why they will definitely be making some new fans on that tour.

The front man's energy along with the band altogether is exciting and strongly reminds me of Jean Paul Marklouf, the front man of Cash Cash. Overall, it was a great set! Not that I didn't enjoy the last show I saw from Portland band The Bay State, but their set last night was much more of a stand out show in my opinion. The crowd was really into it, and Drew even said he recognized at least a hundred kids tonight. With the last time I caught this talented quartet, it was actually their album release show for their latest EP 'Haunted' and after a few months of practice, they have carved them into their set list beautifully. Three stand out tracks from the album were present in the set with "Liars", "Haunted" and "Hey Hey Glamour Kills".

Something that I've enjoyed about this act in particular is how there are both female and male lead vocals (Susanne and Tom respectively) and it started out early tonight. Susanne got her chance to shine with the second track of the set with "Liars" which the crowd was extremely receptive of. Then both Susanne and Tom rocked their current big hit Haunted and ended their set on the theme song they wrote for Glamour Kills which to Evan was incredibly into. I walked away completely impressed and it's always a good time with these guys!



After The Bay State left the stage, Anthony from Stay did an impromptu acoustic performance. Through out my experiences so far, I know that this band is one of the hardest working groups in Boston so it was great to get a little sneak peak of their live experience! Personally, my favorite part of the set was the genius cover of "Teenage Dirtbag" by Wheatus. The few songs Tony played last night seemed effortless and I'm definitely excited about the possibility of the band being part of the alternative music showcase series we're planning this summer for the Cape!



The last few times I've covered local shows, I always miss Lannen Fall's set completely or I catch the last song and don't really get to experience a true and blue set from the guys. Last night was my chance and they absolutely rocked it. I wish I had been able to see them play before last night but now it will just encourage me to get out to more of their shows! Prior to the show, I sat down with Jay and Danny from the group and they joked that there was probably no one there that even knew them which was completely untrue. From the fan reaction alone and kids in line, they were definitely a buzz word.

They proved the rumors and talk in their set that night, and from the first song I knew I was in for a treat. Since the last EP, due to some throat problems Jay experienced, Danny has come in as the lead singer and front man for the band it seems to come to him effortlessly. From the first chorus, he was on fire and the crowd was definitely eating it up. Smoothly transitioning into one of their more popular tracks, "Holly Hospital" which is a bit more of a dancy track the crowd and band quickly became extremely energetic and kept it up through the entire set. The girls at least, which made up about 95% of the people in attendance got even more swooped into it when Danny dedicated a track to all the cute girls in the audience! They definitely put the power behind the rumors I've heard about their live show and I'll be sure to check them out once again sometime soon!
And now to the reason why kids were treated to such a great line up of bands last night, the boys of Semester Abroad. The band has been together for three years now and recently announced that they will be going different ways, which prompted them to put together the show we all saw last night and it was great! To be honest, I had never been to a live show from them before and I was sold pretty quickly considering. Their pop punk is something we have seen in the past a few times over but there is something fresh about their lyrics and music that really make them different from the others.
They had some definite fans in the audience starting right from the beginning and kids were definitely pumped. I'd say the biggest crowd reaction was for their tunes 'Skyline' and 'Scene Girls Are Overrated' with the first being a much slower ballad that ended on their show on a great night and the latter definitely being much more dance-y. The show was a great end to their careers as Semester Abroad!

Last but definitely not least, Nick Santino of A Rocket To The Moon came out to do an acoustic set of both old and new songs from his band. Being a band that doesn't typically tour MA often due to what they can't control, most Rocket fans in the area come out in huge numbers to catch his home town shows while they can and he seemed to understand that. Maybe that's why he went all the way back to the 'Greetings From...' EP even opening his set with "If Only They Knew". Through out the set he played lots of music off of his band's debut album 'On Your Side' including 'She's Killing Me', 'Give A Damn', 'Mr.Right', 'Like We Used To', 'Dakota' and my personal favorite 'Baby Blue Eyes'.
Overall it was a great set, and made for a great end to the night that we say goodbye to Semester Abroad!

Little update!

I'm not a fan of these posts but I feel like it's needed every once in a while to update you all on what's going on lately!

There are a few things actually. I just started as the editor in chief of Shred News which is a great local music website. So far in my short first few days there, we have done a new layout and I have arranged interviews with Attack Attack, Asking Alexandria, Envy on the Coast & Four Year Strong so it is going pretty well and in the past they have interviewed bands like Skylit, Mayday Parade and The Rocket Summer! I'm still around MusicRemedy.com as well which I'll be doing interviews with You Me At Six and OkGo for so look for those as well!

I also have started working with a slew of RoadRunner artists in this special new project so look for those as well! Music show wise, this weekend I'll be heading out to interview my first country artist, that should be wild with Bucky Covington at the Calvin Theater and the same night I'll be headed to both a hometown Rocket To The Moon/last Semester Abroad show ever and I'll most likely be out on the scene this weekend as well, so hopefully check out those shows and have a great musically enhanced week!

I'll be posting these little updates every Sunday, so check back next week! :)

Want a taste of the new Audition album?

On Mix and Mark, you know there are five albums that I literally cannot wait for and will only be able to buy in physical form. The bands are Jack's Mannequin, Rooney, Augustana, She & Him and The Audition and the first one off that list is coming out March 16th!
I had known the name The Audition for a long time but hadn't seen them live until the last Cobra Starship headlining tour and had the pleasure of meeting Danny Stevens which led to an interview but their third album 'Self Titled' quickly took over my itunes playlist and I couldn't be more excited for the new one which leads me to the point of this post.

They will be streaming a new track off of the album every day on their website and go over there quick because today they just posted the meaning behind the second track (along the stream of it!): The Art of Living. From what I've heard so far from these guys, it looks like they are going a little more rock then pop and I couldn't be more excited about it!

The continuation of the know your canadian indie scene..kind of. The MIdway State!

They may have been the topic of my last post on the Canadian Indie Series on Mix and Mark (believe me, there are more interviews coming with Stereos, The Artist Life and The Envy to whet your appetites) but they have just been incredibly active lately.
That includes working on their next record and like the last time they were making new music, they have begun to do that again. The musical genius that I got a closer look thru the interview Kalli and Sarah did with Nathan at their last date in Montreal makes me more excited every day for what is to come from their time in the studio. Hopefully time that brings them back to Boston so maybe I can actually talk face to face to the person I've interviewed throughout my time as Mix and Mark multiple times.
Cross your fingers & check out the update below:

Our interview with Green River Ordinance!

At the last minute, I sat down to experience a band I've known about for a while now. Green River Ordinance have just reached the ten year mark as a band which makes this group of 24 and 25 year olds something magical. Being together since they were freshman and sophomores in high school, they have been winning over audiences everywhere with their sweet southern soul pop rock and have recently released their latest effort 'Out Of My Hands'.

The band initially came together ten years ago and even then back in high school, they were just as serious about their music as they are today. "I had only been in the band for like a couple months and Jamey, he asked me where I was planning to go to college because we were considering doing it full time and he was like 'I just want to make sure that you're going to be doing this as a career," said Joshua Wilkerson when we discussed if the band ever imagined they would still be this energized about a being a band together ever ten years. From their energy on stage and through their music, it seems obvious.

It's crazy to think that this album is only their sophomore full length considering how much touring they have put in and with bands like Switchfoot, Third Eye Blind and Collective Soul but the boys are very humble about their success as a band which showed when I asked about their three dream bands to tour with. Instead they named bands like U2 and Coldplay since they have been lucky enough to play with most, if not all of their heroes.

Our interview happened a few hours before they played their sold out show at Harper's Ferry two weeks ago and Jamey Ice, Joshua Perkins, Joshua Wilkerson and Denton Hunker talked about everything from their favorite part of being on the road to some of the craziest things they have experienced. There are quite a few of those stories!

How did Green River Ordinance first come together?
Joshua Perkins(lead vox): We've been a band since high school. Jamey and Geoff, they were brothers and they started the band when Geoff was thirteen and Jamey was fifteen. They were a blues rock band in their parents' garage so that's how it kind of got it's start. I was just fifteen when I joined and Joshua (Wilkerson) started shortly after that. We went to high school together and met Denton in college so we were just doing school while we were playing music together and then we dropped out of school two years into college and just bought a van and trailer and toured the country so now we're here. Have been a band for ten years.

Ten years! Really, that's huge. Did you ever think that you would reach that level?
Joshua Wilkerson(guitar): Um, it's actually kind of funny because in high school whenever we would talk about going to college, I had only been in the band for a few months and Jamey, he asked me where I was planning to go to college because we were considering doing it full time and he was like 'I just want to make sure that you're going to be doing this as a career". That was whenever we were fifteen or seventeen you know. We're all twenty four, twenty five now so there was some hope back then at a young age.
Josh P: But we never thought we would be doing this full time for this long.
Denton(drums): I sure didn't.
Josh P: We were hoping for it!

How do you go about the songwriting process? Is it one person, more collective?

Denton: Every song is different. We really don't have like a set way of writing songs. Sometimes someone will come up with an idea, sometimes two people will bring an idea, sometimes we'll be in the practice room and all five people will be pitching in. It sounds strange, but it's really different for every song.
Jamey(guitar): There really isn't any set formula.

You've been on this tour for a little bit now I believe. How has it been going so far?
Joshua P: It's been good! We've known the Sleeperstar guys for a few years, those Dallas boys, Waco guys and it's been awesome. I mean, our first show we played, we were supposed to play in DC, got rescheduled because of the blizzard but it's been a lot of fun! It feels like more of a road trip right now then it has been a tour. We've just been hanging out with them a lot and stuff so it's awesome to play with your friends you know. It's always great.

If you could go on the road with any three dream bands, maybe that are realistic for you guys or a dream, who do you think they would be?
Josh W: U2 would be a dream. Or Coldplay, that would be dream.
Joshua P: Um, but realistic?
Denton: Jimmy Eat World.
Jamey: We've gotten to play with most of our dream bands and heroes.
Josh W: Third Eye Blind is a group we grew up listening to and we got to play with them a few times.

Okay so would be on the list if it didn't already happen. What would you say is your favorite part of being on the road and playing shows?
Jamey: I think getting to meet people.
Joshua P: Getting to see different towns and cultures.
Denton: Um, I think getting to play music every night.
Jamey: You meet so many people and that's probably one of our favorite things. I mean in between the driving, the driving can probably be one of the least favorite parts of the road.
Josh W: Not all the driving. I think our least favorite part of driving is in terms of figuring out in the Northeast which highway we can get on with the trailer.

Always good to know. I know you guys have been together for a really long time for about ten years now but what do you think you would be doing if you weren't in GRO?

Josh W: Entrepreneurship for me.
Denton: I'd be, uh, bodybuilding.
Jamey: Ah, I would be in school for sure, back in school.
Joshua P: I'd be a ventriloquist for sure.
Josh W: You'd be good at it, you have the right lips.

Have you ever had any crazy experiences with fans over the years or pretty low key?
Josh W: We went on tour with David Cook for a while and it was great. You know, we met so many people every night we were playing in front of people. Like Jamey was saying, you get to meet a lot of people. One of the coolest things is they bring you food. So, it would depend on the location but some people bring in like Amish food.
Jamey: Two nights ago, we got a pound and a half of amish jerky.
Denton: Yeah! Like we got a warm thing of brownies then the other night got like four bags of cookies all in one night.
Joshua P: We get flowers a lot.
Josh W: Some girl gave me a flower one time and said 'Get Better'.
Joshua P: I don't know about crazy though. We're not cool enough for crazy fans. We just like to hang out and meet lovely people. We get magnets. Somehow, we got on this kick where we wanted to put magnets on our trailer.
Josh W: We bought on at this gas station that says 'Pimpin'. It's purple. It's not so much crazy, it's just on one tour we collected a lot. Like I mean, hundreds.
Denton: Some of them are falling off though.
Jamey: Yeah, they're falling off but then people us them like one or two nights ago.
Josh W: We tweeted about it once and just said 'hey if you want to bring any magnets, we're collecting magnets on the back of our trailer' and now people just bring them all the time.
Joshua P: We had a sweet band aid. We had a huge dent in the front of the van and had a big huge band aid for a car and um, somebody stole that!

That's a bummer! Now people are going to come out and steal your magnets. Who would you say are some of your bigger musical influences maybe for the band or growing up?

Joshua P: As far as the band goes?
Jamey: Probably some of those bands that we'd like to tour with.
Joshua P: Collective Soul, bands like that we love! You know, Jamey and Geoff grew up playing kind of blues rock and I grew up kind of in the country world and Joshua's dad toured with the Beach Boys. So growing up, all of us were kind of eclectic in our style and taste so it's a pretty cool environment when you're writing songs. You kind of pull from different chains of thought.
Josh W: A natural train of thought. It's like a brainstorm technique.

If you were to collaborate with any artist that you maybe personally know from touring with in the past, who would they be and what would the song be about?
Jamey: I'd say Collective Soul, but we've already collaborated with them a little bit like vocals.
Joshua P: Probably Collective Soul.
Josh W: I'd say Collective Soul.
Denton: Yeah, we'd probably do like a ska remix slash hip hop of Run or something.
Josh W: No! (laughs) Collective Soul would be fun, we actually got a chance to write with Ed a little bit but as far as what song we'd like to write about, I'd say an organic relative thing. It would be like what we were feeling that day.
Joshua P: Yeah, it's pretty hard to force a song. It's way easier to write a song about whatever comes to your mind!

--
Thank you to the boys of Green River Ordinance and Paul for doing this interview. The boys have some rumored happenings going on, so check out all the details coming on their myspace.

Goal for 2010: Interview the bands that you should know in 2010..according to Alt Press!

I've been talking for the last few months about how I really believe that if I put the work in, this can truly be my year and I think it's already happening! To think that it hasn't even been a year that I have seriously been putting in the effort...Warped Tour was actually my first in person interview experience ever and I have been lucky enough to sit down with so many bands since including just yesterday talking to Alex and Toby from Sparks The Rescue. I have interviewed bands like The Maine, A Rocket To The Moon, Hellogoodbye, Lights, The Millionaires, Breathe Carolina, Cash Cash and just so many more!

Lately I've been listening to past recordings I have on my trusty little recorder. It has 96 recordings on it and dates back to August 15th which besides Warped Tour is when I really started getting into doing in person interviews and learning the effort it takes to set these all up for myself. Since then has definitely been a learning experience, but I taught myself that if I take the iniative, I can do whatever I want to do. That has led me to my goal for 2010 and that is to interview at least fifty (be it email, in person or phone) of Alternative Press's bands you need to know in 2010. It's not an easy task considering the level of bands on it (the list includes acts like There for Tomorrow, Sum 41, Hey Monday and NeverShoutNever!) but I believe that with the help of Music Remedy and Eastscene which are the two other publications I work with, it could definitely happen!
I've also decided to do video updates of my progress which can be found on a youtube channel I am working on right now so keep updated on the going ons and besides those interviews, I will also be out at other shows as well!

Free Music in exchange for climate change?

Bonaroo and politics seem to be of similar nature when it comes to climate change and trying to help/fix the world and the people in charge of the festival and the great charitable organization Head Count are for the first time offering a completley free compilation of live performances at Bonnaroo. You can find the download at www.Musicforaction.org and I strongly suggest that you take their suggestion and contact your local senators and government officials about the problem!

Either way the music is free and you can find the track listing below:

Best of Bonnaroo Track List

Wilco Bull Black Nova

Pearl Jam Animal

Jack Johnson Inaudible Melodies

Dave Mathews Band Rapunzel

Death Cab for Cutie Cath...

Ani DiFranco Fuel

Phish Kill Devil Falls

Gov't Mule Banks of the Deep End

O.A.R. Delicate Few

moe. Not Coming Down

Raphael Saadiq 100 Yard Dash

Bob Weir & RatDog Throwing Stones

The Disco Biscuits And The Ladies Were the Rest of the Night

The Decemberists The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid

My Morning Jacket Oh! Sweet Nuthin’

Guster Happier

Phil Lesh and Friends Box of Rain