A lot of cities, Kent included, have really fine local musicians who never really get known outside of their immediate locales. A local example here in Kent is the band 15-60-75, the Numbers Band. They are about to celebrate their 40th anniversary together as a band at the Kent Stage downtown. But outside of this immediate area, they are virtually unknown, why, I do not know. I've heard them play at the annual Kent Heritage Festival downtown on the weekend closest to the 4th of July and there is something admittedly hypnotic about some of their songs. It's sort of blues-y sounding yet with their own unique sound that is tough to describe. The one song I fell in love with years ago is called "Summer Fever". It's just a great sort of song that I can't describe why I like it other than to say it just appeals to me on some level. Hard to believe this band, a veritable Kent institution, has been around for so many long years to where generations of Kentites have heard them play and they're still around making music that people want to hear. Kent's full of wonderful local musicians who never really hit it big for some reason but remain sort of locally famous for their amazing talent.One city that seems to have produced some amazing musicians, particularly in the Irish tradition, is Chicago. I have tons of friends in that great city who have introduced me to some fabulous local musicians there. The biggest problem is trying to find their CDs, and I am sure that the same could be said for any local musician who self releases their own recordings. You can't find them on sites like Amazon.com and it takes some serious searching of the 'Net to find some of this stuff if you really want it. You almost have to know someone who knows someone who can get you CDs of some of these great local Chicago musicians. One group who I am particularly crazy about is Moore and Broaders, whose self released CD I first heard years ago and completely fell in love with, but short of going to Kitty O'Shea's (an upscale Irish restaurant/pub) in Chicago, buying a copy of their CD was nothing short of impossible. After much searching online, I finally found my own copy of this CD and it's such a pleasure to finally own it and to be able to download it on to my iPod. I just wish that there was some CD store that specialized in obscure local bands/musicians recordings where you could find this stuff. I also wish that more musicians would make .mp3 files of their CDs available on stuff like iTunes. I'll bet that it would do a lot of good for some of these obscure local musicians unless they only want to remain sort of local acts instead of being catapulted into national fame or something.
5 comments:
You know what would be cool - a compilation CD of all of these talented Kent artists. Is there anyone you know who could put that all together?
There are some local recording studios where local bands do their CDs. There are so many talented local musicians and bands like Rio Neon, The Numbers Band, Hal Walker, John Mosey, the Brazilian Choro ensemble, Brady's Leap and more that plays here locally and more who deserve to be heard by a larger public. Kent's brimming with musical talent, most of whom get heard at the Kent Heritage Festival or local venues like the Kent Stage or local bars/restaurants. The wider world deserves to hear our talent here and these musicians deserve the exposure!
Has anybody here figured out that I do NOT read Chinese?
Word verification: tensa, what all these Chinese posts are making me, spoken, of course, with an Italian accent!
Indeed. We also have some very fine local Irish muscians. Of course, I'm biased as they all were once history students of mine. In any case, you wrote an excellent summary of the Iraq misadventure. I couldn't agree more.
The Chinese is all spam. They're posting their website links. Just delete it.
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