Taubman Museum's First Annual "Battle of the Bands"

Man, this was an event!! The new Taubman Museum of Art really means ALL Art, even the performance kind. They have been presenting a variety of shows and exhibits indoors at the Museum and outdoors Downtown. One would normally expect a musem to be an inside adventure with paintings, photography, sculptures, and other exhibits of artwork. But definitey not this past Saturday.

I wish I could be everywhere around Roanoke filming things. And I do miss out on a lot of cool stuff. It's hard to keep up with the different events going on, especially in the summer. Some things slip by me... Luckily, I got tipped off by Facebook friend and band leader, Santiago Prada of Twelve O'Clock Knob. So I contacted the good people at the Taubman to ask if I could shoot their Battle of the Bands contest for the Star City FAME YouTube Channel.

The question arose whether SCF would be streaming the BOTB live. Unfortunately, my company was still in shopping-mode for a suitable live stream site. But at the last minute, my webmaster and I decided to choose a rather tech-integrated vendor and begin testing late Friday, just one day before the BOTB event. We did succeed in setting it up and running a live test demo. So off I went Saturday morning with the usual video gear plus additional equipment to attempt a broadcast of the show on a designated Star City FAME webpage. Alas, Roanoke WiFi would not reach behind the Taubman building. It took me a half hour to set up for the shoot, all the while connecting to any and every wireless signal that came up with a pulse and re-logging into the livestream site. I finally gave up and focused my full attention to the stage and filming. (Perhaps next time I should bring along 500 feet of Cat5 cable and ask to tap off the Museum's LAN/WAN... )

I knew I was in for a long day, so I brought 10 HDV tapes to cover the show. I used up six of them and documented every song by every band that played the BOTB. Though I started out setting up next to the PA mixing board some 70 feet away from the stage, I eventually drifted all the way to the front and off to the side only 5 feet away. Stage Sound granted me a line-out off the submixer. Thanks Stage Sound!! (They are my pro-audio supplier for SCF's music recording projects.) I tend to be a MacGiver of sorts, so I had signal converters and cables of every shape and size, including 65 feet of XLR mic cables which allowed for all the close-up camera work (eventually).

The BOTB was a big hit with the local bands and the audience. I had NO IDEA there were so many young and talented original acts here in Roanoke. In all, nineteen bands answered the call to enter the "battle" to try for a grand prize of $1000.

The show started at Noon, with Nancy and 2 Meteors opening things up, and ran until about 8pm. There was a nice variety of genres represented - rock, metal, reggae, hip-hop/DJ, country-rock, avant-guarde, power-pop, and what-not (because I really don't know what some of the newer forms are called these days). The winner for this First Annual event was a Christian Rock Band called Smoke and Mirrors. They didn't sound anything like the inside of any church I've been to... thank the Lord, haha!! I wanna know where they go on Sundays and I'll get my map out. (Yeah, I still use maps.)

After the winners and honorable mentions were announced, the audience shouted out for an encore by Smoke and Mirrors, which they humbly accepted. This took the event closer to 9pm - but it was soooo worth it! Even though my feet, back and neck were killing me from operating the camera, I loved every minute. The Taubman officials, Lisa Martin and Maria, and the staff of Norah's Cafe were wonderful to me, and I thank them deeply for saving my life with bottles of water and goodies. It was hellaciously hot and humid out there all day.

You'd think I would hit the shower and pass out after getting home, but I couldn't wait to roll back the tapes and begin transferring them to the editing computer. The audio quality suffered somewhat due to signal mis-matching, but overall the concert is nicely documented in HD widescreen format. Many of the bands have already contacted me through MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Therefore, I have since re-scheduled my regular business work to include editing BOTB tapes in the evening so these awesome guys and gals (the artists as well as their great fans) can re-live the moments in what looks to become a legendary annual event at the Taubman Museum of Art.

Here's a list of the bands that performed. Best wishes to them all in their musical journey!
•NANCY & 2 METEORS
•THE WAIT
•BLACK RAIN
•LEVI'S GENE POOL
•SMOKE N' MIRRORS
•HEAD OVER KILLS
•AMONG THE BRAVE
•THE AURORA OBSERVATORY
•GRASS MONKEY
•AFFLICTION KID
•COMMONPLACE
•THE ROYAL GREENS
•LAZY MAN DUB BAND
•ZULU WATU BAND
•THE PULLOUTS
•THE BASTARDS OF FATE
•CRAWLING THOUGH MUD WITH MACHINE GUNS
•TWELVE O'CLOCK KNOB
•THE SAD COBRAS

You can surf over to http://www.youtube.com/user/starcityfame to check out uploads of the BOTB.

Americana In-the-Round: Free Live Music at the Main Library

I love live music. There's no crying in baseball, and there's no faking in live music. To sound good, you simply have to be good.

So with that, StarCityFAME is excited to be going to the Roanoke Public Main Library on Jefferson Street tomorrow night (June 16th) where Emerging Artists will be presenting "American In-the-Round" on the Patio from 6PM to 8PM.

The performers are folk and country artists of the down-home-bred type, a genre called "Americana." We will be catching three such performers, who will be taking turns throughout the night with songs answering songs back and forth until time runs out. That's a neat way to share stage billing.

I looked up each artists' websites to check out their music and was pleasantly surprised at the maturity of songwriting and singing talents they possess. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's show!! (Hey, I'm a 80's hair-band fan, okay? It's taking me a while to get acclimated to the folk-bluegrass-country thing down here in SW Virginia. Wanna see my spandex?)

Emerging Artists' Program Developer River Laker has given StarCityFAME the green light to run footage of the event. I am hoping we can get great audio as that has been a bummer for us due to the authorizations needed for tapping into a live sound board. Perhaps we may get that okay this time around. Now THAT would be AWESOME!! (Keeping my fingers crossed...)

Here is a line-up of tomorrow night's artists (Bio's posted courtesy of their websites):

Jonathan Byrd - http://www.jonathanbyrd.com/

A native of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Jonathan grew up singing in the Southern Baptist church, where his father preached and his mother played piano. After four years in the Navy, he returned to Chapel Hill to play in rock bands in that legendary underground music scene. A friend of Jonathan's invited him to an old time fiddle festival in the mountains of southwest Virginia, where his writing began to change. Assimilating the sounds of southern traditional music, Byrd wrote new songs in an ancient style.

Doug and Telisha Williams - http://www.dandtw.com/

With their open, inviting personalities and intriguing stage presence, the duo is quickly growing their fan base. First timers at their live shows feel like old friends and part of the family after just a song or two. A single set of their music can bring audience members to their feet in applause, to their knees in prayer, and back to the bar to buy another beer.
Married and living in southwest Virginia, they tour constantly around the South and up into the North, crossing ever-widening boundaries with every step.

Danny Schmidt - http://www.dannyschmidt.com/

Austin, TX-based singer/songwriter Danny Schmidt is a writer's writer, with a lyrical depth drawing comparisons to Leonard Cohen, Townes Van Zandt, and Dave Carter. Upon winning the prestigious Kerrville New Folk award in 2007, Sing Out Magazine tagged Schmidt "the best new songwriter we've heard in 15 years." Just one man sitting alone on stage with his acoustic guitar and his poetry, in the timeless troubadour tradition, his musical influences draw from deeply-rooted Appalachian mountain gospel to haunted English balladry, from syncopated Piedmont country blues to vagabond 60’s protest folk-stumpery. But it all boils down to just great songwriting, in a singular style all his own. Not to be missed.

Okay kids... and grown-ups... See you there!!!
(Remember: The evening's performance is FREE!!! There will be refreshments, also. WHOA!!!)