A Mostly Monthly E-Newsletter by and about GrooveLily
Valerie Vigoda: vocals/violin
Brendan Milburn: keys/vocals
Gene Lewin: drums/vocals
G r o o v e L i l y E – N e w s # 4 8
September is a magical month for all three members of the band: it’s when Brendan and Val’s son Mose was born, and (on the same fateful weekend in 2005) when Gene met his lovely wife Suzanne. We plan to celebrate these events, as we do all milestones these days, by 1) Val and Bren racing with Mose around the playground while he yells “Tain!” (train), “Caw!” (car), “Kuck!” (truck) and “Beekwee!” (BQE – the raised highway in our area of Brooklyn)…and by 2) Gene and Suzanne, after viewing this and seeing what they may be in for, frantically toddler-proofing their apartment as baby Elias crawls with increasing strength and determination toward the staircase.
After all of that, we’re going to play some music. Hope you can join us!
1. Surfacing In September: Chatham, NJ Concert Sep 22
2. Announcing *The* GL Fall NYC Event: “Midsummer” Concert @ Zipper Oct 14
3. The Next GrooveLily.com: Thanks For Your Input!
4. “Striking 12″ On Tour (With GrooveLily): WA/PA/MO/TX/VT/NH/NYC
5. “Striking 12″ Productions (Without GrooveLily): Philly, Cincinnati, Korea…
6. GL In Soap Opera Digest, Due To “Home” On “The Young & The Restless”
7. Upcoming GrooveLily Shows: Full List
1. Surfacing In September: Chatham, NJ Concert Sep 22
We don’t often play in churches anymore…but for Scott Sheldon and his terrific concert series in Chatham, NJ (motto “Great music. Good friends. Dessert’s on us”), we are glad to make an exception! This will be a really fun one, and we hope to see you there.Saturday, September 22, 2007
SANCTUARY CONCERTS
240 Southern Blvd
Chatham, NJ
8 PM, $20 General Admission
www.sanctuaryconcerts.com
973.376.4946
Special Guest: Danny Schmidt (“the best new songwriter I’ve heard in the last 15 years” – Rich Warren, Sing Out! Magazine)
2. Announcing *The* GL Fall NYC Event: “Midsummer” Concert @ Zipper Oct 14
We’ve been waiting for the chance to celebrate our newest album, “A Little Midsummer Night’s Music,” at home in NYC – and it’s finally here! Our second CD on the PS Classics label, “Midsummer” features the score we wrote for an innovative production of Shakespeare’s best-loved play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” directed by Tina Landau and co-produced by McCarter Theatre and Paper Mill Playhouse. The CD includes some of our most joyful and unfettered music to date (think prog-rock with lyrics by Shakespeare – we really went to town), and was released in February of this year, when we were mostly not at home; so it is high time for a major New York festivity, which we are planning for *SUNDAY, OCTOBER 14* at the Zipper Theatre in Manhattan. Special guests, a concert chock full of GL, including a full set of “Midsummer” music…be there!Sunday, October 14, 2007
THE ZIPPER THEATRE
336 West 37th Street
New York, NY
7 PM, $20 tickets
www.zippertheater.com
212.563.0480
bill@thezipperfactory.com[Midsummer Night's Dream] is built around the jazz-rock band GrooveLily, and their luscious stylings recall a smooth but hard-driving blend of Roxy Music and Herbie Hancock, quite suitably ornate and theatrical.
– Jonathon Warman, The New York BladeMuch of the familiar dialogue, conveniently written in rhyming couplets, is scored and sung with contemporary GrooveLily melodies so well suited to the words that it’s hard to believe they were written centuries apart.
– William Westhoven, The Daily Record
This Dream is not only embraced by an original score and songs by GrooveLily, a New York-based trio, but is set in motion by them…Their music, sensual, glib, romantic and raucous, delights throughout with its varied and eclectic musical vocabulary traversing rock, blues, Broadway, folk and jazz, even a passing nod to Kurt Weill, but mostly defined by its originality and independence.
– Simon Saltzman, CurtainUp
3.The Next GrooveLily.com: Thanks For Your Input!
We really appreciate everyone’s messages and helpful ideas about the next version of our website. As we embark on our redesign this fall, we will keep them all in mind. Thank you for your thoughts! GrooveLily.com 2.0 coming soon.
4. “Striking 12″ On Tour (With GrooveLily): WA/PA/MO/TX/VT/NH/NYCbr>
We are excited to announce that we are taking our show on the road, performing concert versions of “Striking 12″ in various places this holiday season:Oct 26-28 Tacoma, WA
Nov 10 Reading, PA
Nov 16-17 St. Louis, MO
Nov 27-29 College Station, TX
Dec 1 Huntingdon, PA
Dec 7 Burlington, VT
Dec 8 Portsmouth, NH
Dec 27-29 New York, NYNew Year’s Eve is still up in the air – there may indeed be a show that night (we are hoping!), and we should know soon.
5. “Striking 12″ Productions (Without GrooveLily): Philly, Cincinnati, Korea…
In addition to our own performances this holiday season, for the first time ever, the show is being licensed by other people. So the following are productions that we are not, repeat, NOT in; these theaters are mounting their own versions, with their own casts. We look forward to being in the audience for the one in Philadelphia, where S12 returns to the theater that premiered it in 2002! (And we WISH we could make it to Seoul, Korea, where the show is being translated into Korean, and where they’ve already cast a Korean version of Val.)This is a partial list; more complete info coming shortly!The Prince Music Theater, Philadelphia, PA
New Stage Collective, Cincinnati, OH
(A Very Nice Theater Whose Name We Will Know Soon), Seoul, Korea
6. GL In Soap Opera Digest, Due To “Home” On “The Young & The Restless”
13 years after the release of “Inhabit My Heart” (the Valerie Vigoda CD that started our band), the song “Home” from that album has found itself recurring on a soap opera! Apparently it’s been played several times on “The Young & The Restless,” most recently during a montage of Nick and his family on June 27. As a result, we were mentioned this week in Soap Opera Digest, which both stuns and honors us.You can hear the song on our music page anytime:http://groovelily.com/index2.html?music(scroll all the way down to “Inhabit My Heart”)