Walk The Moon
Event on 2012-06-04 20:00:00

Supporting Acts: Morning Parade

Walk The Moon

Nicholas Petricca (vocals, keyboards) / Kevin Ray (bass, vocals) / Eli Maiman (guitar, vocals) / Sean Waugaman (drums, vocals) This past June, Seattle news and culture blog Seattlest.com posted a review of a show by Walk The Moon. It read like this: "Walk The Moon hit the stage with so much energy that the crowd immediately pushed forward and started dancing. It's refreshing to see a band that's having as much, or more, fun than the people there to see them. They took us back to the days of basement dance parties on hot summer nights, where everyone's just happy to be alive and among friends." That review pretty much sums up this young Cincinnati band's mission statement: "We want our music to be the most fun thing you've ever listened to in your entire life," says bassist Kevin Ray. "We want it to not just affect you emotionally, but also physically in that it makes you want to dance." Everything Walk The Moon does is infused with a playful spirit, from their radiant live shows, where the crowd often coalesces into one joyful, pogo-ing mass, to the songs the band are currently recording for their debut album. The music brims with sparkling synth-heavy pop hooks, chanted melodies, sunny harmonies, and agile polyrhythmic grooves – a sound influenced by the New Wave stylings of their favorite artists Talking Heads, David Bowie, and The Police. "We started describing it as an 'indie-pop fiesta' and that kind of stuck," says singer, songwriter, and keyboardist Nicholas Petricca. Launched in 2008 by Petricca, Walk The Moon has steadily made a name for itself as an unsigned band over the last few years, attracting a broad mix of fans who have happily submitted to a pre-show face-painting ritual conducted by band members to get everyone into the communal spirit of the event. "Sometimes it's like, 'Dude, what are you doing here? How have you heard of us?'" marvels guitarist Eli Maiman. "But they're there, they've got face paint on, and they're playing air guitar. It's awesome. We just create the music we love and hope that other people love it, too." Walk the Moon's appeal has also extended to such press outlets as Spin.com, The New York Post, Esquire.com, MTV.com, as well as Nylonmag.com, who called them "pure, unadulterated fun" and NME.com, who raved about their "bold, broadly beaming" sound. They were also handpicked to be featured during SXSW on Last Call With Carson Daly. So who is Walk The Moon? Petricca, Ray, Maiman, and drummer Sean Waugaman are all Ohio natives in their early 20's who became acquainted in various ways. Petricca and Ray knew each other as toddlers (their mothers were close friends), Ray and Waugaman had played in bands together, and Petricca met Maiman through the local scene in Cincinnati. "Being a musician has always been a career dream for me," says Petricca, a golden-throated crooner who began playing piano as a child and singing in high school. "So I needed to find people who wanted to do this as badly as I did, which these guys all did." Their first gig together was at Cincinnati watering hole the Northside Tavern. "We thought, 'If we could just get 50 people in, the room would look fine," Ray recalls. "Then 350 people showed up." Walk the Moon's shows, including jubilant sets at this year's SXSW, Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza festivals, boasted a similar vibe. "Bonnaroo was everything we could want from a Walk The Moon show," Waugaman says. "Everybody was sweaty and muddy. There were people standing on tables and on each other." Walk The Moon are currently in the studio, and are looking forward to finishing up their album, which is being produced by Ben H. Allen (Gnarls Barkley, Animal Collective). The album will feature a host of new songs as well as new versions of songs from their independently released 2010 album I Want, I Want, including the viral sensation "Anna Sun." The eye-catching video for "Anna Sun" sparked major buzz when it was posted on tastemaker blog "All Things Go" and tweeted about by indie label Neon Gold Records. "We wanted the video to get people interested and then for the live show to kick their asses," Petricca says. The clip for "Anna Sun" – a happy-sad sing-along affair that claims "this house is falling apart" before declaring "We're gonna rattle this ghost town!" – features Petricca cavorting with colorfully dressed young Cincinnatians sporting leotards, headbands, and face paint. The video neatly captures the creative heart of Walk The Moon's music. "I like to write about this idea of feeling young throughout your life," Petricca says. "'Anna Sun' is about eternal youth, and it recalls a lot of my memories from college, but it also addresses the fear of losing that innocence and falling into a routine. I feel like the things we do to escape, like going out and partying, are to recapture the imagination you had a child, which is something that speaks to me personally as a songwriter. All of my favorite songs have always set my imagination running. In that sense, I love the idea that we could be a band that gets people into Neverland, and lets them make their own movie in their head while they're listening."

at Troubadour
9081 Santa Monica Boulevard
West Hollywood, United States

Rahsaan Patterson
Event on 2012-05-19 20:00:00

Supporting Acts: Yahzarah

Rahsaan Patterson

Times change. We see new loves, new challenges, shifts in values, and shifts in scene. As experienced by singer and songwriter Rahsaan Patterson on his new CD Wines & Spirits, we witness the powerful evolution of an artist who has always reached beyond the norms to challenge ears and minds. Emerging from personal firestorms, Patterson has been tried, tested, and found true, and his journey to artistic rebirth is documented on this, his latest release on Artistry Music. The title of Wines & Spirits reflects Patterson's view of a life of small pleasures, and recognition of the spiritual in the mundane. "There's something very Biblical about it," Patterson says about the title phrase. "I remember as a kid driving around New York, whenever I would see a liquor store that said 'Wines & Spirits', it just struck me. I grew up Pentecostal and the whole thing with spirits and the gospel and the Holy Ghost, so it was all connected for me." Wines & Spirits gives you the full maturation of a soulful artist, whose melodic and lyrical prowess has been an influence on a range of today's artists, from Brandy (for whom he penned "Baby") to Van Hunt. After 23 years in show business (he was a child star on TV's Kids Incorporated), and ten years since his debut Rahsaan Patterson, the singer reflects, "This album may be my most vulnerable, I don't dress anything up… What this album reflects more so than my previous ones, is that my first album I was 23 years old, this one I'm 33 years old." The gritty funk of "Cloud 9" becomes an anthem for dancing away the blues, while the Sunday morning groove of "Feels Good" celebrates simple pleasures. The sensual, otherworldly flow of "Water" finds Patterson emotionally deluged after the loss of love, while his acoustic recording of the Janis Ian tune "Stars" is a sermon on the fleeting nature of fame. Most celebratory of all is the transformative "Higher Love", where earthly and divine love redeems the soul. "I think a lot of the songs, even the titles, have a celestial feeling for me," Patterson notes. "In my previous albums I've always presented diversity — don't put me in a box, don't expect me to do this one thing, don't expect me to sing one way, but I knew I had to do it in doses," Patterson says. "This album comes at a time where I think a lot of what we've had to live through as a society has really brought us together, like I'm human, you're human." Co-producers and co-writers for Wines & Spirits include Keith Crouch, who worked on Patterson's 1997 debut, and frequent collaborator Jamey Jaz, who in addition to working on the debut with Crouch, also contributed to Love In Stereo and After Hours. With his independent spirit ever intact, Patterson also reached out to new writers to challenge his muse, among them Audius Mtawaira, who co-created the gorgeous ballad single "Stop Breaking My Heart". Also new is Ian Read, an up and coming DJ whose efforts at creating atmospheric sound led to "Water"; and Timothy "Twizz" Bailey Jr., whose synthesized bass tracks for "Higher Love" were found through MySpace.com (the discovery of which re-ignited the singer's passion for making music). Patterson also includes a track titled "Oh Lord (Take Me Back)" that he recorded as a full-fledged member of the international group SugaRush Beat Company featuring Patterson with a Danish vocalist and an Australian producer. Throughout Wines & Spirits, Patterson's amazing vocal abilities carry the weight of an entire woodwind section, cooing like a flute, thrilling like a French horn, mining the sexy depths of emotion like a jazz saxophone. In fact, Patterson was named after the legendary jazz sax player Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and was raised in Harlem, New York, where music and the Pentecostal faith made their earliest impressions on him. But unlike other historically tortured soul singers, Rahsaan has made peace between his spiritual and secular sides. Inspired by Prince, Rufus, Miles Davis, Earth, Wind & Fire, Donny Hathaway, Sarah Vaughn, Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson, young Rahsaan was performing in his Pentecostal church choir by the age of 6. His talent and precociousness led his family to relocate to California, where he started a TV career. But music was in his soul, and Patterson began honing his craft and reaching out to other musicians in the Los Angeles area. His unique sense of melody and lyric soon netted him songwriting placements, with hit songs for Tevin Campbell, Chico DeBarge, Christopher Williams, and Jody Watley. Together with producer Keith Crouch, he wrote the triple-platinum selling "Baby", which reached Number One on the national charts in 1994 and helped launch Brandy's multi-faceted career. MCA came calling soon after, and Patterson released his self-titled debut in 1997, helping to fuel what was then the nascent neo-soul movement. The album included what has become his signature tune, "Where You Are", as well as the funky "Stop By", immediately putting him on the radar with R&B fans. The artist followed that effort with 1999's critically praised album, Love In Stereo. Along the way, Patterson shared his artistry on soundtracks "Love & Basketball", "Dr. Doolittle", "Two Can Play That Game", "Hoodlum", "Brown Sugar", as well as the renowned comedian Steve Harvey's compilation Sign Of Things To Come. He has also consistently worked with a range of instrumental artists, including guitarist Jonathan Butler, saxophonists Boney James and Jimmy Sommers, and keyboardist Brian Culbertson. Combining Rahsaan's three solo releases — with songs he has written and performed on soundtracks and songs written and recorded by outside artists, Patterson has contributed music to more than ten million CDs sold to date. "As I get older and look back at my accomplishments, I'm quite surprised and amused with what I have achieved and things I've done," Patterson laughs. Not one to create music for strictly commercial considerations, the artist has been able to keep the integrity of his artistry intact. "My music is always layered, it's always personal and spiritual and it's always my relationship with my listener," he says. "You listening to my album is my conversation with you."

at Bourbon Street
316 Guilford Avenue
Baltimore, United States

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