Off the Stage: The Cloers

Ang CD Release Party @ The Java Bean

Last night, we went to see our good friends, Ang Medlin and Tom Williams play live at the Java Bean in Mt. Holly, NC. This show was special because it was their CD release party. They had a great turn out of family and friends, and we all enjoyed celebrating this accomplishment with them. They have been working very hard for several months to get these songs is a form where folks could buy them and we are pleased to say that we own their first CD. Ang already keeps a very steady calendar of gigs, but it always helps to make a living as an artist if you have a product to sell that represents what the audience heard at the show.

Another special guest was in attendance, their producer, Fred Story. Fred and his wife, Becky, own a studio called, Concentrix. Fred is an accomplished musician, composer, and producer and Becky is an artist as well. She is a writer, producer, and also does voice-over work (and ceramics too!). These are some great folks, and we were so pleased to meet them and get to know a little bit about what they do. We will definitely be talking to them more in the future. If you are looking for a studio and talented, kind people, you should check out Concentrix studio. They have won numerous awards and their studio staff works on many different types of projects. It's the real deal. Awesome!

Now, a little about Ang. Ang's vocals are powerful and sweet at the same time. She has a gorgeous voice, and you can see why she left radio programming to work on getting her songs on the radio. Tom is a great addition to Ang's guitar playing. He is one of the good ones that understand that you only need to play just "so" much, and not run all over the vocals. Ang and Tom really compliment each other styles, and this CD is proof that they are right on track by recording these songs and letting the public know more about them and their music.

Also, we were honored that Ang asked us to play a few songs while they took a set break. We had a great time performing for her fans and friends and we hope that we will see some of these folks back at the Mt. Holly Music Festival on September 19th. Ang and The Cloers will both be performing on that day. Come check it out if you happen to be in the area.

The "Play Without Fear" CD is available at their live shows, and will be for sale online very soon. Check out Ang's myspace page for updates on when the CDs will be available at online retail stores. We hope that you will take a listen and support your local rock stars wherever they/you may live.

Amissville & Ellis Paul at The Evening Muse

Tonight, we got off work early and headed down to The Evening Muse to see our friends, Amissville, open up for Ellis Paul. Amissville (pronounced ey-mes-ville) is a singer-songwriter duo consisting of Mer Laney and Dave Holtzclaw. Each of them perform songs that they wrote individually as well as back each other with harmony on some of their duet songs. They are both very talented vocalists and writers. Dave is known as one of the best local guitar guys and everybody knows how gorgeous Mer's vocals are. We really enjoyed getting to hear them perform their "set". We have participated in a few songwriting circles with them, but it really is different hearing someone "perform" their music. The excitement that a live show brings really changes the dynamic of how the songs come across. We highly recommend checking them out, and definitely try to see them live. We don't think that you will be disappointed.

After Amissville opened the show, another very talented guy, Chris Trapper, played a set. He is a very engaging performing songwriter, and quickly won us over. Whenever we spend our dwindling resources for a show, it's because we are really crazy about that artist. We didn't go to hear the artist who is the "opener" for the headlining act. So, they have a difficult job of playing to an audience who usually isn't familiar with them or their music. However, I will say that Chris Trapper made 2 new fans tonight. He has such an ease on stage. We definitely learned some things from him tonight.

But, for the real education of the night, our man, Ellis Paul showed us how a live show is supposed to go. Most of those who know us know that we are CRAZY Ellis Paul fans. We listen to his "Live From Eddie's Attic" CD at least once a week. We were going to drive to Asheville to see him, but he made a last minute schedule adjustment, and was able to work Charlotte into his tour. Our friend, Laurie Koster, makes a really awesome local music newsletter, and it alerted us to the Ellis concert. Sometimes, she knows about stuff before the general public. So, the day we saw the Charlotte show at The Evening Muse advertised in Laurie's newsletter, we bought our tickets.

OK, begin the gushing. We find it very difficult to ever hear people who sound as good "live" as they do recorded. Well, Ellis is one of those performers. From the first note, you know that you don't have to be afraid that he just can't do it. When we see artists who are straining to hit their notes, or are having rhythmic problems with their instrument, it make us, the audience, very nervous for them. When a performer makes the audience nervous, they aren't having a good time anymore. 

We were so pleased that he sang every one of our favorite songs, and we even found some new favorites off the new CD. It is supposed to come out later this year, but he was selling advanced copies at the live show. So...of course we bought one, had him sign it, and have been listening to it non-stop. Annalee and The Day Before Everything Changed are two great new songs of his. We highly recommend seeing him live. In our opinion (and many other smart folk's opinions - ha! ha!), he is one of the best performing songwriters of our time. You are doing yourself a disservice if you don't hear him live at least once in your life. OK, are you guys convinced yet?? By the way, Ellis doesn't pay us to adore him, we just do it for free!

Our First Grant Proposal

The past two weeks have been spent in utter chaos trying to get together all of the paperwork and the work sample needed to apply for our first grant. I seriously had no idea that the process was so involved! But, "today, today, today; today is a very good day". I'm "blog singing" in case you didn't get that! OK, you can tell we are tired. Our local Arts & Science Council is giving out grant money to regional artists who meet the criteria that they set forth in their application rules. Thankfully, we met those requirements. Artists can apply as "emerging artists" or as "established artists". Established artists can ask for more money than the emerging artists because they have proven that they are continuously pursuing their art. Of course, we applied as an emerging artist, and were allowed to request up to $3000.00 to aid us in the project of our choice. We decided that we would apply for money to complete our debut CD project. We'll, it took us a lot longer to get everything together for the application than we thought it would. There is a lot of legwork that we didn't expect and we had a few meltdowns along the way. We were put on bandwidth restriction by our internet service provider, so we had to spend the entire day driving around to find wi-fi access last Sunday. Everything closes early, so we kept moving around from parking lots, to Panera, to Starbucks. But, that was the day that we finished our project budget (big chore, lots of research).

Also, the studio computer had "hard drive failure"- a computer heart attack :(, and it took several days to get the computer to a place, once the NEW hard drive was installed and all of the old software was loaded back on, where we could record one of our songs.

Our artist advocate at the Arts & Science Council told our group that she would be happy to review anyone's application as long as they turned it in one week before the actual turn-in deadline. We had already decided that we were going to take full advantage of that since this was our first attempt at applying for a grant. Honestly, we thought our first draft was pretty good, but WRONG!!! We had so many things that needed correction, so we had to write new content, re-arrange our budget, re-do our paperwork, and still, we didn't have a CD to send in. I cannot tell you how grateful we were that our advocate was honest with us, and let us know exactly how we needed to refocus our proposal. By the time we finished the final draft, we were sure (based on another review) that it was the best proposal we could write.

Due to a few snags uploading our grant paperwork, we only had 10 minutes yesterday before we left for work to record whatever it was that we were going to send in as our "work sample". We knew we only had time for one take, so we both told each other, "No pressure, but don't screw this up!". Surprisingly, we only had a couple of little errors that we knew we would be just fine living with. So, we went to work, then went to an open mic showcase that we were scheduled to sing at, and got home at 12:00 am. John went straight to the studio, mixed the live to 2 track recording (not a whole lot to do there), and burned the 3 copies that were required to finish our proposal. We made it to bed at 4:15 am (but set 3 alarms because we were terrified of oversleeping), woke up at 10:00 am, showered, drove down to the Arts & Science Council office, and dropped off the 3 CDs at 11:15 am. We actually got it in 45 minutes before the deadline. YAY!!! The way things were going yesterday, I wasn't sure that we would get it in 5 minutes before the deadline.

Overall, this has been an amazing learning experience, and we are very glad that we decided to see it through. Whether or not our project is funded, we definitely feel more confident about applying for our next grant (Wow, did I just say that we were going to go through all of this drama again?). Now it's out of our hands, and we wait until December 1st to hear... yes or no. Keep your fingers crossed for yes, please. : )

NSAI Open Mic Night @ The Well

Tonight, 18 songwriters, mostly from our local chapter of the Nashville Songwriters Association, gathered at The Well in Pineville, NC to perform for 10 minutes each. Normally, we critique each others songs, but tonight was all about performing. There was no trying to fix someone's lyrics, no seeing if the chorus rises enough to be distinctive from the verses, no correction of awkward phrasing; just good old listening for the sake of listening and enjoying. Usually, when everyone brings in their songs, they are a work in progress. But, this time it was so cool to actually see the final results of all of our songwriting friends labor - a finished product.

When presenting a song for critique, we all tend to be a little more subdued. I know that almost every single song we have brought to the songwriting group for critique was literally finished on the day that we have our local chapter of the Nashville songwriter's meeting. This is because we usually take the day off, and spend the whole day songwriting. It has become something we look forward to, although we do wish we had the time to finish things a little earlier so that they would be polished before we bring them to the group.

But, everyone was TERRIFIC tonight! I was so impressed by our group of writers. We seriously need to do a writer's performance series around town. Even those who are usually shy really surprised me at how amazing they were when they were "on" and everyone was just seeing the song as finished and the performance as something new.

Special thanks to Bruce Johnson and Steve Simpson who set everything up, and ran sound for the evening. They did such a great job. And, to Susan McSwiney who always makes anything that our group needs, possible. Without her, we wouldn't be able to have the monthly meetings that we have. She volunteers her time, The Well graciously allows us to meet there, and she serves awesome coffee and drinks from the coffee bar. 

This was our first time doing this kind of thing at The Well, and I hope that it becomes a regular event. We had a great time, and loved hearing all of our old friends, and some new ones as well, perform for us. Thanks to all of the guests that came out to hear someone play. It was great to see some new faces out there in the audience.

Our Monthly NSAI Meeting - August

Tonight at our monthly NSAI meeting, we had several of our members speak about their experience at The Swannanoa Gathering. The Swannanoa Gathering is a series of week-long workshops in various folk arts held in July and August on the campus of Warren Wilson College in Swannonoa, NC. The town of Swannanoa is right outside of Asheville, NC, so the campus of Warren Wilson is surrounded by the Great Smoky Mountains.

This educational event is different in the fact that there is limited enrollment and an open format which allows each student to select their own curriculum from a variety of courses. Courses include voice, musical performance, music theory, songwriting, as well living an artistic life. They have classes for beginners as well as classes that will challenge musicians who have played their instrument for years. The staff and instructors are extremely supportive and stay on campus all week to be there to answer any questions the students may have. At night time, there are open mics and a staff concert at the end of the week.

Our group brought back their excitement from a weeks worth of learning. Some of our songwriting group hadn't ever finished a song, but were challenged during the week, and completed several songs. Each person that went to The Gathering came forward and spoke for 10-15 minutes and shared some of the things that they learned. This is something we would love to attend next year if our schedule permits.

Also, we are pleased to announce that we performed song #10 of the CD and overall, we received good feedback. We felt a little uneasy because we finished it right before we left the house. We need to do a couple of more tweaks on it, but we are seriously excited about finishing the writing process for the CD.

Our First "Real" Show: The Evening Muse

Well, it has been a week since our first "real" show, and we are just now recovering. We only had a few days to promote for it, so we went full force for about 5 days. It was a good trial run to show us just what it takes to promote a show and have people attend that show. Networking is key! How else are you going to be able to get people to a show even if it is last minute. The relationships that we have with our friends and our social networking buddies really made our first show very special.

We arrived early, and were so incredibly manic. I thought we would be more nervous, but we were just really excited. After our sound check, we welcomed all of our guests and had a great time just socializing. About 5 minutes before the show started, we began to get a little nervous. Oh crap! People actually came out JUST TO SEE US. Were we ready? Oh my god, what do we say in between songs? Are people going to like what we do? Are we going to look like idiots and embarrass ourselves? Do I remember the words to these songs (we are just finishing all of the lyric re-writes for the CD)? 

Well, it was all just fine, and we were pleased with how well the show went. We had such a great time, and many in the audience told us that they had fun and that they would like to come see us again whenever we schedule our next show. Between our crowd and the folks Paul invited, we had around 60 people show up. Don Koster, AKA "Door Guy", said that the average for a Wednesday night was about 20-30. So, compared to that, we had a great turn out.  

After we played, the headliner - Paul Atkinson - came on stage. He did a really great set, and has such a beautiful, soulful voice. And, he's a great guy so that makes everyone really love him. I encourage you to check out his music and see where he is playing next. You won't want to miss it.  Special thanks to Paul for asking us to open for him. He gave us an amazing opportunity to play somewhere we have always wanted to perform, The Evening Muse.

The Evening Muse has such a great staff, and the room is intimate and a perfect setting to see your favorite singer-songwriter. Check it out when you get a chance. 

Special thanks to Rodney Lanier, the sound technician who helped us sound good, Don Koster who greeted everyone at the door, Chris Koster who kept everyone happy at the bar, and Laurie Koster who included us in her local music news letter.

The following folks dropped everything they could have been doing during the middle of the week, and came out to support us. We thank and love you all....

      

Cathy McCann: Artist as Entrepreneur and Arts & Science Council. A great advocate for the arts.

Adin McCann: New friend and husband of a great lady.

Kali Ferguson: Storytelling phenom (poet, dancer, singer, writer). You HAVE to hear her. 

Scott Pacitti: CRAZY improv actor/leader of "The Chuckleheads". Go see them!

Gillian Albinski: Movies, Theatre, Commercials, Video, Set Dressing (She does it all!)

Douglas Young: Has programmed many exciting shows for the 09-10 season at Blumenthal PAC

Lucy Hazelhurst: A very talented ceramic artist and one of the sweetest people I know.

Carmella Jarvi: Seriously great painter. You NEED to see (and buy) her work. 

Chris English: Local troubador.  Love his sound.

Mer Laney: Amazing singer-songwriter for the duo, "Amissville".  Gorgeous voice!

Dave Holtzclaw: Great vocalist, writer, guitar player, photographer, for the duo, "Amissville". 

Wayne Sloop, Sr.: Dad, AKA the does-anything-and-everything-we-ask-him-to-do guy

Mary Sloop: Mom & one our biggest fans

Wayne Sloop, Jr.: My one and only sibling, and a great artist-musician himself

Angela Sloop: Awesome sister-in-law

Druanna Sloop: My favorite neice : )

Jason Switzer: Independent musician/songwriter/performer.  Recorded our 1st live show.

Jan Switzer: Our new friend and rabid fan of the band Cracker. If they're playing, you'll see her.

Angelo Melendez: Co-coordinator for the Charlotte NSAI group.  Great performing songwriter!

Susan McSwiney: Selfless volunteer for The Well, and keeps our Charlotte NSAI group in line.