Country Explosion - October 2011

By: M. Michelle Spencer
    The morning may have broken as a grey and rainy mess but by the time the bands took the stage, the audience at the Country Explosion 2011 Weekend Music Event were ready to rock –n– roll...country style, of course! Rebel Bail Bonds along with Steve Evans of KLCY 105.5 Eagle Country and Home Town Entertainment Productions were proud to present a phenomenal line up of country artists meant to provide the Uintah Basin and surrounding areas an event where they could kick back, relax and enjoy the company of family and friends while being entertained by some spectacular country artists.
    "I am so excited that they brought us here to Vernal," commented bass guitar player Duane Propes of the headlining band Little Texas. "It is small town audiences like this that make everything we do so worth it. We just like to show our fans how much we love them by coming out and giving them an amazing show."
    An amazing show is exactly what Little Texas provided to the crowd as they wrapped up the two day event on the evening of Saturday, September 17th, 2011.
    The weekend started out with just as big of a bang as it ended however when the Country Explosion audience welcomed hometown boy Charley Jenkins to the stage. Charley started off the event on Friday, September 16th with his own unique blend of country and a dash of rock –n– roll. Next up was Andy Griggs and the evening was rounded out with Billy Dean taking the stage. Saturday was also an exciting line up when the first act of the day was Opal Hill Drive an blues/alternative band out of Salt Lake City. Next in the line-up was an up and coming artist Amber Hayes.
    The organizers did a stellar job at providing a little something for all different country fans and their addition of another Utah boy, Marty Sutton, was just what the classic rock/country crowd ordered. Sutton's great stage show and original song tracks was able to keep the audience hopping as the talented and equally beautiful Jamie O'Neal took the stage. For many of the audience members, Jamie O'Neal's songs held fond memories as they sang along to hits such as "There is No Arizona" and "Trying to Find Atlantis."
    This party was far from over as a local favorite Jagertown took the stage. Lead singer Preston Creed got the audience up and out of their chairs as they warmed up the audience for the second to the last performer of the evening.
    Moe Bandy was the next up. Bandy's rapport with the crowd was able to get everyone excited and singing along to his #1 songs like, "I Cheated Me Right Out Of You" and "Just Good Ol' Boys".
    The event wrapped up when Little Texas took the stage and encouraged concert goers to come right up to the stage and dance and interact with the band. As one looked around you could see young and old alike enjoying themselves as they sang and danced.
    Some of the most memorable parts of the whole event was being able to watch as families came together and began to appreciate how many of today's country artists are bridging the gap between new and classic country. This music weekend also boosted an amazing meet and greet for fans where they were able to get up close and personal with some of their favorite artists.
    The event also had some great eats and treats to go along with the wonderful music. There were some fun vendors that included everything from the inflatable bouncy houses, to purses, to some great bling jewelry. Oh and did I mention the food? Well there was plenty of it. There was something for every member of your group.
    As organizers look to the future they have plans to make this music weekend an annual affair that will only get bigger and better for all those involved. This event is an amazing way for the surrounding area to also entertain the music goers because organizers want to draw out of towners who will be able to come to the Basin and bring an increase in the economic growth of the area. From out of towners to locals, organizers are working hard to create another fantastic event for the whole family to enjoy. All in all it was an incredible time and something that the Uintah Basin is looking forward to in the future.
 If you are interested in seeing more photos from Country Explosion 2011 go check out KLCY's FaceBook page.

 
 

The Edge of Rock - Adam Weston - August 2011

By: M. Michelle Spencer

A soft comforting voice that brings to the forefront of one's mind the likes of such contemporary singers like Jack Johnson and with the ballad like qualities of Marty Robbins and Johnny Horton, Adam Weston is Vernal boy who has caught the eye of some major record companies. "A new style that I hope people will like" is how Adam describes himself and his unique musical renderings. In fact just a few short months ago, Adam signed on with Tate Music Group (TMG) out of Mustang, Oklahoma.

    For Adam this was a very big break in his career and we were excited to share with our Edge readers a little more info about this Utah success story.

TE: So tell me a little bit about yourself.

BS: I am a 24 year-old father of a three year old little boy and the husband to my beautiful wife Amber. I am originally from Logan, UT but I moved to the Uintah Basin when I took a job with Halliburton. I have been working in the music industry for the last 10 years and I love it.

 
TE: So how exactly did you get started?

BS: This is a family thing for me. Ever since I have been old enough to pick up a pair of (drum) sticks, I have been playing music and singing. I have been writing my own songs since the age of 8. I loved it growing up because my brother was also into music but he eventually gave it up when he couldn't get a music deal and he went to medical school.

 
TE: What is your musical background?

BS: I am actually completely self-taught in several instruments. I currently play guitar, bass, piano, and drums and I also sing. Even though I am self taught, I take my music serious and I have won several drum competitions through the years. In fact when I was in high school I was in a band that won Battle of the Bands in Idaho. Our band was good enough that we were offered a recording contract with Stature Records. However our drummer wasn't ready to make a change like that so we didn't take the deal. Shortly after that I went solo and I have been doing it alone ever since.

 
TE: So how exactly did your music deal come about?

BS: I was on the verge of giving up when my wonderful wife encouraged me to send in one more demo. I did this and before I knew it, I was getting a phone call from LeeAnn Webb of TMG asking when we could get together to talk more about a recording contract because their music group loved my demo. That was at Christmas 2010. Can I even say what an amazing Christmas present that was for me and my family. I was just so excited.

 
TE: So what are your current goals?

BS: Well right now my label is having my lay low on the performing side of things until we can launch my album. Next month I am headed back out to Oklahoma to wrap up the rest of the vocal work on my album. The anticipated release date is mid September and we are so excited. Once that is done then I will have a tour schedule set up so that we can promote the album and gain even more exposure for my music.

 
TE: So how can people hear your songs now if it is not at a live concert?

BS: Right now I do have my (single) Long Lost Soldier on My Space. I would love it if people would go in and listen to it. You can find me at http://www.myspace.com/home#!/somebodysrival. You can also go in and search for me on My Space by searching for Adam Weston.

    Adam is excited about the upcoming launch of his album and will share with us here at The Edge all of the details on its release when the time comes, until then, make sure that you go in and check out his single on My Space.


 

Braggin' Rights - July 2011

“Chasing Horses” -  Photo Courtesy of Amber Spencer

“Off to the Races” - Photo Courtesy of Amber Spencer

“Dustin’s Big Ride” - Photo Courtesy of Amber Spencer

“Front Row Seats” - Photo Courtesy of Amber Bigler

The Edge of Rock - Blue Saige - June 2011

By: M. Michelle Spencer

    A sprinkle of country, a dash of rock, and a whole lot of soul, this is what the little girls of Blue Saige are made of! From humble home town beginnings to ever increasing local fame, the girls of Blue Saige are making their own unique mark on the music world.

    Deanne Quick, Mondi Taylor, and Mindee Zager have declared that it is their goal to enhance the world with their music and thus far they have succeeded in their goal. What started out as an impromptu funeral performance between friends has ended up with these three women gracing the stage with the likes of Donny Osmond and Patty Loveless. Not to mention that they have already received numerous awards and recognition like being the winner of the 2010 Uinta Basin in Celebration Talent Show and being finalists in the True Value Country Showdown.

    I had the opportunity to sit down with these girls and get to know them a little better.



TE: So how exactly did you guys get started?

BS: (Mondi) Well I had to sing for a funeral and so I went and got Deanne. I had met Mindee just the week before and I told Deanne we should go get Mindee and try out for the Country Showdown in Vernal. (Deanne) We only had a week to get ready but we did it. (Mindee laughing) We are just crazy like that. But is was so much fun considering we had just barely started singing together, I mean only one week! Actually it was more like one practice...on the day of the performance.



TE: What kind of music are you guys singing?

BS: (Mindee) We do very few cover songs (other artists), we try to keep that to a minimum. For the most part we write a lot of our own, with Mondi being the one who writes the majority. It is the rock yet country feel we like sing and that's what we write about.



TE: So tell me, how did you guys come up with the name Blue Saige?

BS: (Mondi) We were just throwing names out there like crazy. (Mindee) Ya we were saying things that reminded us of Neola like blue jeans and sage brush and Deanne goes "AAHH, Blue Saige!" But the more we got to thinking about it we realized that in the wintertime when you see the sage brush with dew on it, it has a blue look and that is really a defining feature of this area.



TE: So how long have you guys being doing this?

BS: (Deanne) Well from the time we decided after singing at the funeral to getting in our demo tape to the Showdown with like only 5 minutes to spare, it has been almost a year to date. (Mondi laughing) Yeah a year. Wow it seems like we barely started.



TE: So what are your current goals?

BS: (Mindee) Right now it is song writing and getting our CD out. (Mondi) Yeah our big goal is to just finish up our CD. We are real close to having it finished. We have a couple more songs to finish and then we can get back over to the studio to record them and then we are done and we are really excited. (Mindee) We want our album to be all of our own original songs with no cover songs and that is what we almost have done.



TE: So how can people hear your songs now if it is not at a live concert?

BS: (Mondi) Right now we have stuff on ReverbNation and on FaceBook and we are about ready to get our stuff on iTunes so people can download it as well. We have to finish up the copyrights and we will be ready to go.



TE: What is it that you would like to tell your fans out there?

BS: We are just thank-ful for everything that everyone has done for us. We are getting demos submitted to a record company right now and we are really excited. We can not wait to see where this journey takes us!



    Blue Saige has many upcoming events and they would love to have you come out to see what they are all about. You need to also go and check them out on FaceBook. Just search for Blue Saige and become a fan today.


 

The Edge of Rock - Red Lights and Cathedrals - May 2011

By: Brad Litton

Mostbands make a name for themselves playing live show after live show and doing as much as possible to get out in front of people. But in today's world of the Internet it's much easier for bands to create a following completely online. Not only that, it also provides a medium for bands to exist and create music without even having to be face to face. Maybe not the choice that every musician would make, but it's working beautifully for local indie pop rock duo Red Lights and Cathedrals. I had a chance to sit down with Coby Coonradt, one half of the group, with the other half, Randy Moser, on speakerphone, to find out more about how these guys have gotten where they are today without following the traditional routine.



EDGE: First things first guys, how did you come up with the name Red Lights and Cathedrals? Seems quite unique to me.

RL&C:    (Coby) Actually that's a line from a Third Eye Blind song called My Hit And Run on their Out Of The Vein album.

EDGE:    That's pretty awesome, I'm a big Third Eye Blind fan and didn't even realize that.

RL&C:    (Coby) Yeah, now when you go back and listen to that song you'll hear that every time.

EDGE:     So how did you guys get started? What's your origin story?

RL&C:    (Coby) Randy and I went to school together; he was actually a few years older than me. I was in a band called Wet Cement with one of his friends when I was 16 or 17. (Randy) And we're both from Kamas and our friend Tyler introduced us and when I got home from an LDS mission we started a band called Anesty. We played around as Anesty for a long time and then everybody had to move away, but Coby and I kept writing and going at it and eventually formally 'got back together'. (Coby) Yeah, we're basically an Internet band. It's all write, record, post it online, we don't play a lot of live shows or anything.

EDGE: I've been seeing more and more bands doing things solely on the Internet. That's a really cool idea, but how does the writing process work when you two are so far apart?

RL&C:    (Coby) Actually the other day I wrote a verse and a chorus and just texted it over to Randy on my phone and then he just ran with it, put something down on his recorder and sent it back to me. Sometimes I'll demo it myself or we'll write songs together, but we get together every 3 or 4 months and record together and collaborate on each song.

EDGE:    So are there any specific roles that each of you fill? Does one guy write the music, the other does the lyrics or something like that?

RL&C:    (Coby) No, actually, we both do everything. Wouldn't you say Randy? (Randy) Yeah, we definitely do. Both of us definitely have our strengths and weaknesses, but we both do everything. We're kinda like Prince. (Coby) Randy is definitely the better guitar player, but we both play, sing, write lyrics, everything.

EDGE:    Then who plays what?
RL&C:    (Coby) We both play guitar, we both sing, we both play bass…Like seriously when we're recording I'll play parts on his songs, maybe I'll play bass for half the song and he'll do the other half, we both really do collaborate on everything that way. We both play keys a little bit… (Randy) Neither of us really do drums, though. (Coby) Yeah, we use a program called EZDrummer for our drums for recording, but we do have an awesome drummer when we play live, but he lives in Cedar City so he's a long ways away.

EDGE:    Speaking of shows and being Internet based, so is this more of a hobby band or serious career since you don't play many live shows? No world tours or anything?

RL&C:    (Coby) Well that totally depends. If something happens and someone said, "Hey, come play, we want to sign you" then yeah. I think right now it's more of a hobby, but a little more serious than that. (Randy) I feel a lot of it is kinda like the lottery, y'know, as much as you play you're not going to win. It's true though, there's no doubt that we don't have big aspirations, it never hurts to dream. We used to tour and play a lot of shows previously. (Coby) Yeah, like two shows a week, and Randy still does two or three times a week across the Wasatch Front. (Randy) And when Coby can make it out he's playing with me, too.

EDGE:    I heard you guys used to play with Neon Trees a lot…

RL&C:    (Coby) Yep, we played with them probably 15, 20 times….And now they're being featured on Glee, that's crazy, how does that happen? Did you see that Randy? Wait don't you like Glee? (Randy) Yeah… (Coby) You're a Gleek! Yeah, we played with those guys a ton, Plain White T's, The Matches, Allred, and so forth.

EDGE: So how would you guys define your style? A lot of these other bands your naming are pretty indie, alternative, rock-ish stuff, is that the same vein you find yourselves in?

RL&C:    (Coby) I'd say indie pop maybe? We're not really trying for anything, it's just what comes out is what it is. (Randy) That new 'indie' sound is something that we don't really have, some mornings I'll wake up and feel like folk music, or rock or whatever comes out.

EDGE: So who are your influences?

RL&C: (Both) Third Eye Blind obviously (Coby) The Beatles, Jars of Clay, Toad and the Wet Sprocket, Brand New…(Randy) I'm always looking for new stuff, right now I'd say Vampire Weekend, Ra Ra Riot, and PlayBill. I really like those guys a lot. We used to always listen to the same stuff together and have passed our collections back and forth.

EDGE: So what plans have you guys got, anything we can look forward to?

RL&C:    (Coby) Well, we just released the self-titled album online at Reverbnation. We'll probably get together in a few months and record four or five more songs, maybe have another album in six months.

EDGE:    Where can we find you guys online?
RL&C:    (Coby) Reverbnation is the biggest one, we're also on Facebook and MySpace. Don't know why we're on MySpace anymore, but we are.

Brad Litton is a professional guitarist and guitar instructor in the Uintah Basin. For more info check out VernalGuitar.net or search Guitar Lessons in Vernal on Facebook

 

A New Kind Of Country Comes To Town - May 2011

By: M. Michelle Spencer

    High school math teacher and up and coming country music performer: two ideas that you would not normally put in the same sentence and yet here they are. An even better use of these words is when they are used to describe the up and coming country sensation Chance McKinney.

    Chance McKinney is the lead singer for the group Chance McKinney n' Crosswire. This group has set the country world on fire with their style of music termed "industrial country", a blend of Country music with 90's Rock, 60's Motown and dash of Heavy Metal influences.   

    At 6'6" Chance McKinney can be said to, literally, tower over the heads of men, but this man's gracious and humble demeanor can attest to the true character that McKinney possess. A product of Lolo, MT (Bitterroot Valley) McKinney was not what many people would have initially considered someone who had it all. In fact McKinney jokes about his childhood years and how it was not that easy being the slower, heavier kid that was clumsy. It was that pudgy, clumsy, slow kid who ended up as a 3-Time National Champion javelin thrower in high school, an All-State basketball player and who graduated with a 4.0 GPA. From there, he went on to become a Division I All-American for Washington State University while graduating Summa Cum Laude in Mathematics. Chance worked hard at his "day job" as a high school math teacher in the Seattle area while at night he pursued his love music.

    Over the last 10 years Chance has had the opportunity to be involved in different genres of music which have allowed him to develop and hone his own personal style of singing. McKinney was discovered one night when he was singing karaoke. He was approached about being the bass singer for a Motown group. It was from this point on that McKinney was hooked. From being the bass singer of an all black (except McKinney) Motown group, to being a part of the duo Nathan Chase, to writing and recording his own songs, McKinney has a love for his music and worked hard for the opportunity to share it with others.

    The Nathan Chase duo gave McKinney some great exposure by allowing him to open for singers like Big n' Rich, Blaine Larson, SheDaisy, Martina McBride, Little Big Town, Toby Keith, Brooks n' Dunn, Kenny Loggins and Gary Alan. McKinney felt that his "lucky break" occurred when their duo was asked to open for Kenny Chesney's Flip Flop tour. This performance lead to the Nathan Chance duo becoming the house band for 94.1FM KMPS in Seattle, Washington.

    "I just feel that luck comes in the form of a lot of hard work," McKinney says, "then you get a break and some good things happen, but they don't happen without the work."

    Work was exactly what McKinney was willing to do to in order to achieve his goals. He took the time to study and practice and heard a myriad of "no's" but this only added fuel to the fire he had burning. It was this willingness to work and be dedicated, that has afforded McKinney all of the lucky breaks that he has had thus far and he has no intention of slowing down now.

    In 2009 Nathan Chance dissolved and McKinney received a phone call from a good friend of his who live in Nashville who urged him to submit some of the new songs he'd written to CMT's Music City Madness competition. So, in October 2009, just minutes before the deadline to enter had passed, McKinney uploaded the video to "Be Real." This was the first song that he had ever wrote and that was back in 2007. Due to creative differences, the song was never used because his former group was unable to make a unanimous agreement about it.

    "The first time we played Be Real publicly was at the SheDaisy concert. It was in the middle of a 40-minute set and the only slow song of the night for us. Folks at the amphitheatre gave it a standing ovation."

    As the CMT competition progressed, McKinney joined forces with his long time friend and drummer Brian Bujacich and they began to practice with the dynamic guitar duo of Paul Schille (lead guitar) and Ray Neyen (bass) forming the new group of "Chance McKinney n' CrossWire." During this time McKinney's song "Be Real" was blowing away the competition due a lot in part to the combined efforts of many of McKinney's current and former high school math students.

    "Chance was surprised to find out that the students of Kamiak High School, combined with former students and athletes from Skyline, Inglemoor, Woodinville, University of Washington and Washington State University had secretly formed a MASSIVE network throughout the U.S. Word spread like wildfire. Media outlets from Washington to Montana to Oregon to Utah (and beyond) were catching on to the story of the high school math teacher gone country singer." - Excerpt from Chance McKinney bio from www.chancemckinney.com

    When it was all said and done Chance McKinney had won CMT's Music City Madness competition search for the #1 "unsigned" artist in the nation with over a million votes in the final round alone. Needless to say, McKinney was thrilled and more than ready for this new adventure to begin in his life.

    The year 2010 brought many new venues and opportunities for Chance McKinney n' Crosswire to work for a few more "lucky" breaks. McKinney is thrilled with the prospect of being the main booking artist even if, for now, it is smaller venues because he realizes that this is a just one more stepping stone to success.

    When he was asked for his thoughts about performing for the Tabby Valley Parks and Rec Summer Kick-Off Concert, he had this to say, "Well, if they are anything like Lolo, MT where I am from, I know we are going to have a great time. The small town crowds are the best because they are so excited that we are there for them."

    And a great time is just what Chance McKinney n' Crosswire plan on giving to their audience when they perform on Friday June 17, 2011 at Tabby Valley Centennial Park. Plan on bringing the whole family and discover what kind of work goes into a "lucky break" when a new kind of country comes to town.