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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE....

(Local Music News)

by Tom Lounges


COME ROCK AT OUR HALLOWEEN HAUNTING!

    Beat Babe Mindy will be my co-host for our huge Halloween Haunting Bash on Oct. 28 at The New Backdoor Lounge.  This party will hopefully mark the beginning of beautiful relationship with the club's new management.

    Warning: If you want to see Mindy at her best, get there early BEFORE horror make-up and FX artist, Doug Goins gets his hands on her and transforms her live on stage into something totally hideous and horrible. 

    Goins, who does the FX and make up work for the cast of "Mancow's Morning
Madhouse" and for the increasingly popular PBS program, "Graveyard Theatre," will be our special guest at the party.  Goins will be giving a live demonstration of Hollywood Make-Up application on one of the early band breaks.  It's amazing what this guy can do with a little box of unflavored gelatin mix, some Karo Syrup, a few cotton balls and other common grocery products.

    Rockin' on stage that night will be Wicked City, who will perform a very special all Pink Floyd tribute set, that I promise will knock your socks clean off.  

    Joining them will be notable Southern rock group, Eat A Peach, who recently played at the World Music Theatre and who are enjoying considerable success with their Turbulence & Thunder  album.  Kicking things off is Reality Check, a versatile group that really impressed me at our September Beat Bash at Stardust Lounge.
   These guys cover all musical bases and cover them  well.


ELVIS IS EVERYWHERE!

    Mojo Nixon's famous cry of "Elvis is everywhere..." will seem like an
understatement when "The 8th Annual Elvis Fantasy Fest" returns to Portage, IN on Oct. 13-15. 

    This gathering which raises money for the Porter County Special Olympics each year, features dozens of vendors, a slew of Elvis impersonators, and several people who actually rubbed elbows with Elvis "back in the day."

    Returning as special guests for this year's event will be the King's former tour manager, Joe Esposito (who was also best man at El's wedding to Priscilla); Elvis's stage announcer and friend, Al Dvorin (the voice behind the famous line - "Elvis has left the building..."); and Elvis's personal nurse, Marion Cocke.

 
    New to this year's fest will be a bevy of box-office beauties who
co-starred with ol' swivel hips back in the Swingin' Sixties. Julie Parrish ("Paradise Hawaiian Style"), Cynthia Pepper ("Kissin' Cousins") and Deborah Walley ("Spinout") will kiss 'n' tell about their memories as Elvis's leading ladies.

    If this all sounds totally cool...trust me it is!  I attend the Elvis Fantasy Fest every year to support the efforts of promoters Paul and Kay Lipps on behalf of the region's special athletes.  I hope to see you there this!


RITUAL EXPO...  

    Fans of cutting edge music and fashion can taste the new underground sound and look at The Metro (3730 N. Clark) on Oct. 15, when the touring spectacle - Ritual Expo - hits Chicago.   The multi-media event, will find fashion, art, and technology colliding with eight cutting edge live music artists -- Jazzanova, King Britt, SLum Village, Bahamadia, Spontaneous, Lady D., Boo Williams, Anthony Nicholson and Madrid. Tix are $10 for the all ages/all day event (1 pm. to 10 p.m.).  For info, call (773) 549-3604.


THE BEST PART OF WAKIN' UP... 

    For Hoosier rock band, Zambow, the best part of wakin' up last month was learning that their band coffer was $10,000 bigger than it was the previous night.

     The sextet, which includes four Munster natives, took top honors Sept. 20 in the final round of a year-long national talent search sponsored by Folgers Coffee. Hundreds of musical artists entered the company's "Sing Our Jingle" competition, held to commemorate the 150th birthday of Folgers Coffee.  Zambow, who are now based in Lafayette, got word last month that they were among the 12 finalist chosen to compete in Los Angeles. 

  
    An added sugar coating to the newsflash that they were $10,000 richer, was knowing that Zambow was the latest in a long list of talent, including Aretha Franklin and Rev. Al Green, who have performed the famous java jingle - "The best part of wakin' up, is Folgers in your cup!" - since it was introduced in 1984.

    Zambow performed the jingle live before a panel of judges that included: Scott Pang, senior talent agent of ICM; David Wild, senior editor of "Rolling Stone" magazine; and Gail Mitchell, R&B editor of "Billboard."

    Announcing Zambow as the winner, was the event's celebrity emcee, Cynthia
Garrett, VH-1 veejay and the host of NBC's "Later with Cynthia Garrett.   She
then presented Zambow members - Ben Hilt, Aaron Zambo, Paul Caroccio, Jamie
Benson, Scott Senchak and Holly Senchak - with a giant check facsimile for the $10,000.

  
BAND BITS... 

.  Before we get into the local band stuff.  I'm thrilled to announce that old-school jazz great, Maynard Ferguson, will perform on Oct. 8 at my alma mater, Highland High School, in the Monbeck Memorial Auditorium (9135 Erie St.) with his Big Bop Noveau Band.  The 7:30 p.m. concert is a fund-raiser for the Highland Band Booster Association. Reserved seating tix are $15. For more info, call (219) 923-0010.

.   Nu Metal slammers Gravelbone have been doing high profile out of state concert dates alongside national names like Stone Temple Pilots, Apartment 26, Taproot and Disturbed in recent months.  While in Omaha, NB the Boners inspired twin mosh pits at a large fest date.

    They haven't performed locally since June, because of their out of state shows and considerable time spent demo-ing new material with a top shelf Brit producer currently twisting knobs Stateside. I hate not telling you who it is...but a promise is a promise.

    Dave Grieder, one of Bone's two radical frontmen, has sheared off his long black hair and dyed the close-cropped stubble blonde.

.  Speaking of Disturbed, Oak Lawn's "nu-metal" warriors are storming into the big leagues these days.  They were easily the "it" band of this year's Ozzfest line-up and now as their debut album steadily climbs the Billboard chart, the lads were the subject of full page color articles in no less than Rolling Stone and Spin Magazine last month. 

    These hometown hard rockers proved they have not forgotten their local roots and friendships by giving props in the Rolling Stone article to Ken and his crew over at Champ's Night Club in Burbank where the band first got it's start.  Whatta  class act.

.   Chicago fans of the hometown bands -  Disturbed and Smashing Pumpkins - can access some live, unreleased recordings by those acts via MBL Online Radio.  You can log on to these special sound files click here!

 
   MBL Online Radio, founded and operated by my good buddy Chris Akin, has
over 800 songs of all different genres and is a great alternative to traditional radio. New music is added twice weekly. Check out Chris online at: www.live365.com/cgi-bin/directory.cgi?autostart=mbleditor

.   History's End of Hammond is one band always flux with change.  That continued last month as bassist Scott Hicks and guitarist Greg Milikan logged in their last show with the popular retro-rock group.  Founding member Rich Melton will take over all guitar duties rather than replace Milikan and Al Cantu of Munster will slide in as bass player.

   Taking a few weeks off from clubs to allow Cantu time to tighten up with the band, the refreshed line-up will make their stage debut on Oct. 27 & 28 at Bookies in Dyer.

   Milikan and Hicks are said to be forming a new band...more on that next month.

.  There's a rumor that HYPER-TRIBE is coming out with a CD of original music before the holidays.  If true it will be their first recording in over 3 years.

.   Bob Barthel, guitarist and founder of N.W Indiana rock trio, The Bones, is trying on the hat of concert promoter this month.   The veteran musician will be booking a series of national acts at The Port Offshore in Portage, beginning Oct. 6 with the Jimmy Van Zant Band.  He'll follow up with shows every few weeks by major music stars like Exile on Oct. 20, Juice Newton on Nov. 10 and the Southern Rock All-Stars (ex-Molly Hatchet, Blackfoot, Rossington Band, and Lynyrd Skynyrd guys) on Nov. 24.

.   N.W. Indiana's all original hard rock band, Motherload, will soon be changing their name.  The group reports that within the next few weeks, they have to pull all of their product out of stores, purge their music from the internet and change their name.  This all comes because of having lost a court battle over the name with the South Side cover band, Motherlode.

     Sadly, the outcome will hurt them, considering the expense and effort Motherload has put forth in their just released CD of original music, packaged in a stellar four-color digi-pack.  The group, signed to an indie internet label, had been getting a lot of attention in recent weeks.  Their strong breakout has been stalled so that a band who does Alice In Chains and Stone Temple Pilots covers can keep playing the same half dozen clubs around the South Side.  Tragic...

.  Condolences to the family of Cryptic Vision guitarist, Jeff Bagherpour, on the loss of his mother, Marla Stegall, who passed away last month from cancer. She was age 60.  

  .   Popular region rock band, Vivid, have officially given up the ghost after several years of trying and flirting with stardom.  The band's drummer John Horvath, bassist Brett Ross and guitarist Nick Sikich, have already formed new group called, 6L6. Sikich is assuming the lead vocal duties and will have assistance in the guitar department from a newcomer to the scene, Josh Berg.  The band will start recording this month at Creature Features Studio in Highland with engineer Bob O'Connor.  

   Lastly, congratulations to local rocker Jerry Cook of the band, Aziz, on the Aug. 28th birth of his son, Calvin Christopher Cook.  Hmmm... potential new reader!

     That's all the room we've got for this month.  Catch you on the rebound.

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