Eric grew up on Massachusetts’ North Shore with the dream of starting a band and going on tour with Pearl Jam. When he discovered that his guitar chops were more on Lil’ Wayne’s level than Mike McCready’s he decided to move to the business side of music, but not without holding out hope that he could someday make a guest appearance with Pearl Jam a la Theo Epstein. As a veteran of college radio and a current Boston music blogger, Eric fills all of his time with tunes even when he’s not in the office helping out Sonicbids’ membership of emerging artists.
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When I first saw Rubblebucket at a summer concert series in my tiny hometown, I got hooked on the band’s danceable grooves and flair for putting on an entertaining and interactive show. It took two years and a handful of shows in between to finally catch up with the band at our SXSW party at Maggie Mae’s last week and with plenty of live energy and even a couple of robots (see our own Kate taking on the machine in the clip of “Came Out of a Lady” below) it was easy to see that the Brooklyn via Vermont group stole the show. The band played a variety of songs from their catalog and even showed off a brand new song called “Deeper Rage” (see video below).
I asked them about their trip to Austin, their highlights from SXSW and what goes in to creating their impressive live shows. Read on below to see what Kalmia, Adam, Ian and David had to say.
Last Friday was certainly a busy day for the Sonicbids crew down at SXSW. Our official showcase featured 12 bands playing alternating 30 minute sets on the upstairs and downstairs stages on Maggie Mae’s. This led to a non-stop stream of rock n roll from 11:30am until 6pm, but we still made some time to catch up with our opening act and JanSport Battle of the Bands winner Hotfox.
So how did 5 college kids from Bloomington, Indiana end up playing at SXSW? Lead singer Oliver Hopkins explained, “We knew buddies of ours from Bloomington called The Broderick had won the JanSport contest through Sonicbids a couple years ago so when that opportunity came up again this year and we got the email, we went ahead and submitted our song ‘Mountain Tiger.’”
Drummer Michael Preuschl continued, “Once we got into the top 50 we had a grassroots campaign and put the information on our social media sites and told our friends and our families to . . . → Read more
This fall Sonicbids teamed up with the City Arts Fest in Seattle to help one luckySonicbids artist perform at the festival. After reviewing almost 300 submissions City Arts selected The Nameless of Portland, Oregon to perform on the opening night of the festival. Sonicbids helped The Nameless get to Seattle with a $500 travel stipend and after the festival was over I had a chance to catch up with multi-instrumentalist Stephen Pancerev to chat about the band, their trip to Seattle and their experience at the festival.
The seeds for The Nameless were planted when Stephen and vocalist Kelly Grohs met while working at the “infamous” Le Bistro Montage in Portland. “Kelly and I were co-workers for years and had rambled through a few bands together, but then I moved to Providence for 5 years and it wasn’t until I came back that I decided I wanted to A) pursue my passion in playing guitar and piano and B) do that with Kelly in some context.”
As we all know, music brings people together. Here’s another incredible story where music has crossed cultural and geographical boundaries and brought together two Sonicbids artists who live nearly 5000 miles apart.
After Brooklyn’s Nello Luchi saw Sao Paulo’s Nana Rizinni featured on the Soncibids homepage she took a listen to the music and liked it so much that she reached out to Nana. After 6 months of connecting over social networks, the two have now co-wrote a song together, shot an incredible video, and created a lifelong friendship. “Sao Brooklyn” is the fusion of two artists who came from completely different backgrounds and musical styles, but the finished product is an undeniably cohesive effort. Check out the video for “Sao Brooklyn” below as well as an interview with Nana and Nello along with some behind the scenes footage of how the video was made.
Sonicbids: How did this whole project come about?
Nana Rizinni: It was around June this year. Nello and I both are on Sonicbids, and . . . → Read more
Sustainability. Social responsibility. Going “green”. These are all concepts that are thrown around lightly in our society, but what do they actually mean? This year the Earth Day Network asked just that to Sonicbids artists as part of the Music for the Earth competition. In a quest for increased awareness about environmental issues what better place to turn than the power of music?
As part of the competition Sonicbids artists were asked to submit songs that promoted environmental awareness. After a round of voting, the top 20 artists were narrowed to an overall winner by a panel of judges. When all was said and done Brazilian singer-songwriter Paulo Lara came out on top.
Lara’s song “Better World” took home the top prize, a Gibson Jackson Browne acoustic guitar, which was the first of its kind made for a left-handed player. When asked about the winning song Lara replied, “I always felt like writing a song about the planet, the issues we are facing; . . . → Read more
Eric grew up on Massachusetts’ North Shore with the dream of starting a band and going on tour with Pearl Jam. When he discovered that his guitar chops were more on Lil’ Wayne’s level than Mike McCready’s he decided to move to the business side of music, but not without holding out hope that he could someday make a guest appearance with Pearl Jam a la Theo Epstein. As a veteran of college radio and a current Boston music blogger, Eric fills all of his time with tunes even when he’s not in the office helping out Sonicbids’ membership of emerging artists.
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When I first saw Rubblebucket at a summer concert series in my tiny hometown, I got hooked on the band’s danceable grooves and flair for putting on an entertaining and interactive show. It took two years and a handful of shows in between to finally catch up with the band at our SXSW party at Maggie Mae’s last week and with plenty of live energy and even a couple of robots (see our own Kate taking on the machine in the clip of “Came Out of a Lady” below) it was easy to see that the Brooklyn via Vermont group stole the show. The band played a variety of songs from their catalog and even showed off a brand new song called “Deeper Rage” (see video below).
