Regional MusicGeek – MusicGeek.org

Jonathan Jones readies Utah, Idaho tour in support of Community Group

Ron Trembath — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 08:23:05 +0000

Jonathan Jones

Jonathan Jones of We Shot The Moon is coming to you, Utah! Yes, the piano man behind the acclaimed indie pop troubadours We Shot The Moon is striking out on his own to support his latest solo effort, Community Group. He’s got a swell band to cover his ass on the way through the Inland Northwest as well. To help distribute the wealth of piano laced excellence, Jones has enlisted his fellow Moonies, as well as some new recruits including Spokane, Wa., based drummer Ben Hilzinger (The Young Professionals). It is suffice to say, something brilliant is in the work for you his already adoring fans.

Community Group is likely to be known as Jonathan Jones’s finest work to date. One listen to a track like “East Coast Feeling” brings to might the powers that be as being ever present and phenomenal in an entirely non-theological sense. Only the sense that one man’s sensual ability can bring your heart ablaze as melodies and harmonized beauty sweep and swill through your body. The kind of feelings only a wonderful song can invoke within you. So, find your way to whatever fine venue our hero of virtue and musical genius might be spitting his venom of positivity into the faces of an adoring crowd. Go ahead. Go get spit on!

To hear Community Group in its entirety and for three free downloads, including the amazing “East Coast Feeling”, visit jonathanjonesmusic.com.

Find Jonathan Jones in a city near you very soon:

6/22 – Logan, UT @ Logan Arthouse

6/23 – Provo, UT @ Velour

6/24 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court

6/25 – Rexburg, ID @ Hemming Village Complex (FREE Show)

6/27 – Boise, ID @ The Venue

PHOTOS: Trevor Green at Groovacious

Matthew Montgomery — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 18:33:31 +0000

PHOTOS: Reel Big Fish in St. George

Matthew Montgomery — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 18:36:03 +0000

Third-wave ska outfit Reel Big Fish made their first appearance in St. George in ten years; to see them again was a real treat for the young St. George audience. Here are some photos for your viewing.

PHOTOS: Harper in Cedar City

Matthew Montgomery — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 22:56:36 +0000

Apologies for the spotty posting the last week — some unforeseen circumstances (I now need reading glasses, and operating for extended periods without them is intolerable) have caused a bit of a slow-down. Thanks to our friend Steven Swift, Cedar City musician and artist, we’ve got some photos from the Harper show at Groovacious last night. Check out his photostream on Flickr.

The Fun Police are, well, fun

Scott Mathews — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 04:30:29 +0000

The Fun Police

The Fun Police are… well… fun! A quick listen of their most recent EP, Spring Break EP, had me dancing in my seat. Released for free at their website, www.thefunpolicemusic.com, the EP is three songs long with “Gringo Merengue,” “We Don’t Want No More,” and “Rather Be Dead.” The Fun Police are a refreshing reggae/ska band from Tacoma, Wash., with an impressive range of musical talent. With hints of blues, jazz, and frequent tongue-in-cheek lyrics, the band guides listeners through layers upon layers of funky, fun music. Definitely worth the listen, even (if not especially) for those not familiar with the genre.

The Fun Police released their first full length album in November, 2009, titled You Better Run, available at CD Baby here: cdbaby.com/cd/FunPolice. They are frequently playing shows in the Puget Sound area and “a sidewalk near you” in Seattle/Portland. The list of upcoming shows, as well as any other news from the band, may be found on their Myspace page: myspace.com/thefunpolicestation.

Upcoming Shows:

Apr 2 2010 8:00P World Famous Bob’s Java Jive Benefit TACOMA, WASHINGTON
Apr 6 2010 8:00P The Funhouse w/ Ocelot Omelet, Spillway and Neighbors SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
Apr 7 2010 9:00P Tony V’s Garage w/ Posum Fat EVERETT, WASHINGTON
Apr 9 2010 9:00P The 4th Ave Tavern w/ Dreaded Knuckles OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON
Apr 10 2010 8:00P The Shelter w/ Back Ally Kicks and Go Get The Scissors! CENTRALIA, WASHINGTON
May 8 2010 8:00P The Hub Bar and Grill w/ Black Market Review and Go Get the Scissors CENTRALIA, WASHINGTON
May 21 2010 8:00P Cafe Venus and the Marsbar SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
Jun 26 2010 8:00P Private Party TACOMA, WASHINGTON
Dec 25 2010 4:15PA Sidewalk Near you… SEATTLE. PORTLAND, TACOMA, BEDALE

Revolver Records thrives amidst record store closures

Matthew Montgomery — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 18:02:29 +0000

T.J. from Revolver Records from MusicGeek.org on Vimeo.

T.J. Jordan has a bold goal: to run the last record store in existence. When T.J. Jordan opened Revolver Records on Sept. 1, 2007, most people would have written it off as a pipe dream destined for failure. Two years later, Jordan and his staff are thriving at the Phoenix-based record store.

The store’s success, Jordan said, is down to one thing: It’s appealing to music lovers in search of something new.

“The people who come into record stores are coming in because they want something unique,” he said. “They’re not coming into to buy the latest Lil Wayne record. The only way record stores are going to stay in business is by appealing to the people who actually want to buy records.”

That appeal, Jordan said, is vital to the longevity of every record store; the traditional business model of the record store won’t keep them around, but providing excitement to music lovers will.

“If you go throughout the country, you’re going to see that the ones that are successful are the ones that have found a way to appeal to niche buyers and keep their store exciting,” he said. “I loved those record stores back in the ’90s, but I want to be the guy that owns the last record store. That’s my goal. I want to keep this in business as long as possible. What we try to do here is find ways we can stay in business, have a cushy job, and not have to work real jobs.”

Record stores are an invaluable asset in musical development, Jordan said. While the exit of many from the scene can be blamed on the faulty business model, much is lost when record stores shut their doors for good.

“If you listen to interviews with Paul McCartney or Brian Wilson, they always talk about the record stores they went into and discovered music,” he said. “Record stores are really important in musical development, and I hope it continues. I don’t like seeing record stores going out of business.”

Where Phoenix record stores like long-time city favorites Circles Records & Tapes — mere blocks away from Revolver — is closing its doors after 38 years of business, Revolver Records is busy carving out a niche for themselves. It’s not just Circles, but a business model that’s disappearing.

“The main reason is because they operate on a business model that worked for 1990, but it doesn’t work for 2010,” he said. “I don’t see that business model working now that you can download individual songs on iTunes. The ones that are dying are the ones that had a corporate mentality, and the ones that are thriving are appealing to music buyers again.”

Revolver’s niche, the same one to which other independent record stores across the country are looking, is why two-thirds of Jordan’s sales come from purchases of vinyl records.

As stores that sold vinyl in their heyday but have since moved exclusively to the CD sputter and collapse, Revolver Records represents a new breed of store: one that embraces the “long dead” format — and embraces their customer base along the way. Despite their love for vinyl, Jordan doesn’t think his customer base is simply antiquated.

“I think it would be foolish to say that most of our customers don’t have an iPod; I think they do,” he said. “I think the reason why people buy records is because it’s so unique, and it’s valuable.”

While the CD may have been easy to listen to, and the MP3 even easier to digest, there’s still an appeal to listening to vinyl, Jordan said.

“There’s a bit of effort involved in records,” Jordan said. “It’s tough to experience a record in tracks, you really experience it as a whole. For me, it’s a whole different experience, and I think that our customers come in for that.”

V-Tunes Music Festival returns for third year

Matthew Montgomery — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 22:06:04 +0000

Austin Joseph performs at V-Tunes 2009

V-Tunes Music Festival, which takes place outside Lake Powell in Big Water, Utah, will be returning for its third year running. Returning to the festival will be Cory Mon & the Starlight Gospel, who will be headlining the event, while Pat and Rosy Maloney, Steven Swift, Austin Joseph, and Easy Joseph will each return for the 2010 iteration of the festival. The one-day event will hit on June 5.

Announced Lineup

Cory Mon & the Starlight Gospel

Pat & Rosy Maloney

Matt Jennings

Dave McGraw & Crow Wing

Steven Swift

Easy Joseph

Sandy Stevens

Lindi & Company

Austin Joseph

Groovacious plans Harper, Beliss shows

Matthew Montgomery — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:09:26 +0000

Groovacious Records of Cedar City, Utah will be hosting a number of in-store shows in the coming month as they rev up for Groovefest 2010, which is just over three months away.

In a week, March 24, Australian rock-blues-soul-world musician Harper will feature at the store; tickets are $8 at the door. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.

Check out the Harper show on Facebook

Sister-duo Beliss, who performed in Cedar City during the 2009 southwest tour, will return on March 25. From Portland, Belinda and Melissa Underwood perform an eclectic blend of musical styles and aren’t to be missed. Tickets are available at the door, which opens at 7:30 p.m.

RSVP to the Beliss show on Facebook

Upcoming Cedar City, Utah concerts

March 20, 9pm, Worried Minds, Mike’s Tavern (21+)
March 23, Alwin Nikolai Centennial at Heritage Theater
March 24, 8pm, Harper at Groovacious Records
March 25, 8pm, Beliss at Groovacious Records
April 2, Green-Swift Duo with Bottled Monkey at Toadz
April 9, Kris Special at Groovacious Records
April 10, Green-Swift Duo with Kris Special at Toadz
April 17, Thrift Store Cowboys at Mike’s Tavern

Music Geek: Record stores at crossroads, but there’s time to recover

Matthew Montgomery — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 18:00:16 +0000

See, I can look classy every now and again.

While in Phoenix for a computer-assisted reporting conference — NICAR 2010, which has a name nearly as exciting as possible for this sort of this — I took a jaunt over to a couple record stores, interested, of course, in seeing what sorts of wares were on offer. What I found was surprising and depressing, inspiring and enlightening.

My first stop, Circles Records & Tapes was one which I’d recently discovered was either closing or had already closed. To my delight, I found it to have not yet closed, and a large advert touting their 50-percent-off liquidation sale made the whole thing all the more tantalizing. It was, then, a bit unfortunate to discover that the store was very much into the process of closing its doors, and the merchandise being liquidated included a few miscellaneous albums on vinyl — nothing of real note, excepting one of the many Brian Eno collaboration projects — and a slew of very cheap, obscure, and low-quality CD releases. It was no real pain to walk from the store empty handed, as I’d already assumed it had closed for good, and my plans were primarily to visit a store a few blocks away, Revolver Records. Anything I would have picked up at a Circles would have been merely a happy accident.

Revolver Records, only a couple blocks away from Circles — a short walk from the Arizona State University Downtown Campus, where the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism is located — was a different story. From my first step into the door, the atmosphere was friendly and inviting, if a little intimidating. The selection on show was impressive, considering the size of the store. After a few tense minutes of trying to discern the organizational pattern of the store — now, that was something left to be desired — I found my first record of the day: King Crimson’s 1982 classic Beat, an album I’d previously purchased, I believe, while I was still in high school. I’ve never been much opposed to owning albums in multiple formats, save a digital format.

Some more searching revealed a few post-rock and shoegaze favorites against the right-most wall in the section labeled “New Vinyl” — an ambiguous term at best, but I did my searching, insufficient labeling be damned. Pavement’s Terror Twilight immediately popped out at me, as it’s an album I’ve been listening to with real fervor in the last two weeks. Slint’s Spiderland, My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless — my choices were hardly limited in the ways I usually expect. I rounded off the day of purchasing with something a bit more modern: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s 2009 self-titled album.

So, I’m sitting in my hotel room, listening to Pavement’s “Ann Don’t Cry,” wishing I was listening to it on vinyl — and I can’t help but feel I’ve been cheating on Groovacious. I’ve been actively enjoying the presence of another label, and I did it knowingly and actively. It’s not as if I was dragged along to a store; I was the only one from my group who went. I mean, I don’t actually think I did anything of any consequence, but it’s an odd thing, isn’t it? To feel allegiance to an organization selling you music? Tim and Lisa Cretsinger at Groovacious have been terribly helpful and supportive, both of MusicGeek.org and my continuing musical development — and the things they do for the southern Utah community, musical and not, are of some real note.

But I won’t be in Cedar City, Utah, forever, will I? I ought to seek out quality record store experiences, both for myself and for others. If, like is commonly assumed, the independent record store is a dying breed, to not submerse myself in the waters of musical compassion would be remiss. Hopefully, in the future, we at MusicGeek.org will be able to give some real time and thought toward the record store as a social institution: Without it, who knows where music would be? What would growing bands do without the power of the in-store show? What about the accessibility of the latest, greatest music, or those ubiquitous recommendations from the person behind the counter? We’d be worse off without them, there’s no real doubting that.

Seeing Circles Records & Tapes on the verge of falling off the edge of relevance — and mere blocks from the seemingly successful Revolver Records; it ought to serve as a wake-up call, one much the like I’ll be receiving (well, my phone will be waking me up with its alarm clock function, but I’m in a hotel — that’s the point!) in only a few short hours. Record stores are facing an unenviable struggle; they’re being pulled in many directions by uneven forces.

The rise of the MP3 — no death blow on its own, to my mind — combined with financial hardship in tough economic conditions has forced record stores to redefine their very function in society. They can no longer function as the sole source of music for the music lover: From this point forward, people will download music, and people will be able to find obscure maxi-singles online with greater ease than they would by having their record store clerk order it. If the record store is no longer the sole source of music, what will be its function? This is the struggle owners are now being faced with, and it’s not an easy one. Everyone’s trying to deal with these diverse, plentiful problems in their own innovative ways; there’s no one-size-fits-all boilerplate solution out there.

It’ll take some work. Record stores will close. But I’m not convinced they’ll disappear forever. With careful, exacting effort, the record store will be a thing of the past, but a new type of record store will be a thing of the future.

Groovefest lineup promises musical surprises

Matthew Montgomery — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 21:13:59 +0000

The Packway Handle Band at Groovefest 2007 / Matthew Montgomery

After a multitude of revisions by Tim and Lisa Cretsinger, the lineup for the 2010 Groovefest American Music Festival has been released. Tim and Lisa own Groovacious Records in Cedar City, Utah, and have been organizing Groovefest for nine years. Groovefest is free to the public, and the main event — two full days of music — will take place at the Cedar City Main Street Park on June 25 and 26. Further events are being planned from Wednesday, June 23 to Sunday, June 27.

Friday, June 25

1:00 – 1:45 John Sotter
2:00 – 2:45 Molly Venter
3:00 – 4:00 Kort McCumber Band
4:15 – 5:15 Karling Abbeygate
5:30 – 6:30 Oakhurst
6:45 – 7:45 John Lisi & Delta Funk
8:00 – 9:15 Great American Taxi
9:30 – 11:00 Traveler

Saturday, June 26

11:30 – 12:15 John Batdorf
12:30 – 1:15 Joe Baker & His Barefoot Brakemen
1:30 – 2:30 The Gabrielle Louise Show
2:45 – 3:45 Trevor Green
4:00 – 5:00 The Henhouse Prowlers
5:15 – 6:15 Chris Laterzo & Buffalo Robe
6:30 – 7:30 The New Familiars
7:45 – 9:15 The Scott Holt Band
9:30 – 11:00 Lubriphonic