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NEWS
07/17/07
NYC
Was somewhat alcohol soaked. Nell told me the margaritas were killer...I didn't believe her.
Waiting to hear placement for the Dewey Beach Music Fest (which is the same weekend as the Midpoint Festival) and we just applied to the CMJ in New York.
Keeping our finger's crossed...
Oh...enjoy some Flight of the Conchords...
07/11/07
The Trend
We've got a feature article in "The Trend" today.
"Local Musicians The Underhills are looking to climb the charts".
By Pete Kennedy, Trend Editor
Dave Rossi is just getting over a bit of cabin fever. He's back in front of local audiences like MilkBoy Coffee in Ardmore and Steel City Coffeehouse in Phoenixville after a long time in the studio.
"It took us a year to get the new album recorded and mixed," he said. "We missed performing". He and co-rockers Paul Toland on vocals and lead guitar, Harry Doyle on drums, and Mitch Cojocariu on bass make up the rock/pop music group "The Underhills". Since returning to a full performance schedule, they've been playing at festivals, like the 2007 Millennium Music Conference in Februar and getting cuts from their new album "The Road From Here" onto mix tapes.
Their good fortune has arisen from their versatility in playing different musical styles in different environments, form the Main Line to New York City. They also credit a resurging and vibrant local music community. "I like the acoustic sets because it lets the songs breathe a bit, but afterwards we try to get back to the harder stuff. WE can go from The Grape Street to some of the singer-songwriter coffeehouse...with close to 3 sets of original music," said Rossi.
The name comes from when Toland and Rossi began writing and performing together a decade ago. They took on a now defunct stage persona of a pair of twins by the name of Underhill because of their similar appearance and voices. After spending a bundle to rent studio time for their previous album "Dawn", Rossi decided to invenst in a home studio this time around
It took a while, but the band was able to learn to use the production equipment, and the latest mixing software allowed them to work with far-away professionals. "A lot of people helped me with this album from across the world" Rossi said. "Paul Russell, from Calamity Studio in Singapore, helped me remix it and our producer, Jim Howe, lives in Washington D.C."
While playing gigs is the ideal scenario for The Underhills, they are also seeing how other bands are remaining independent of major labels and still being successful. That might mean writing songs, helping to produce other bands, or working the distribution end of the business.
With so much on the horizon, and even though most of the next album is written, they're in no rush to depart the stage.
07/10/07
Wonderful things going on. First off, if you're too lazy to scroll down a half page, let me remind you to make sure you hit our our myspace site. It really has the most up to date show info at this point in time because it's really easy to update, and I'm pretty lazy when it comes to anything besides music and family. For those looking for press kit information, please visit our Sonicbids EPK.
Let me start with the news:
Midpoint Music Fesitval
The Underhills have been selected to perform at the 2007 Midpoint Music Festival in Cincinatti, OH. The Conference runs from September 27th to 30th at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinatti. Our performance date is not yet solidified but is soon to follow.
The Midpoint Music Conference & Festival, founded in 2001, has an all-volunteer staff that works year round to help bring talented independent regional, national and international artists to Cincinnati, OH for three days and nights of showcases and music industry seminars. Steeped in its own rich music history (James Brown recorded his greatest songs here, and Bootsy Collins, the Afghan Whigs, Ass Ponys, Blessid Union of Souls, and Peter Frampton have all called it home) and easily accessible from just about anywhere in the United States, Canada and Europe, the goal of Midpoint is to make enough noise to bring the music industry to the artist.
We're very happy to be a part of this event...
Lineup change
We'd like to welcome Harry Doyle as our new drummer. Harry has been a staple of the Philly live music scene for some time, playing with such bands as Candy Flyp and singer / songwriter Kate Gaffney. We'd also like to welcome Keith McCrary as our new bass player. Keith has been playing bass for 18 years and has played with bands such as Captain Zig and Dr. What?? Although Mitch has technically not left the band, his schedule and outside projects have kept him away from us for some time. We miss him, but we must move forward with our busy schedule.
Gigs
We've been booked on December 29th to play the Spring Concert Series (I know...it's technicall Winter) at the Theatre at Merchant Square in Allentown, PA. This 600 seat all age venue is being sponsored by WZZO, WDIY, and The Guitar Villa.
I'm putting a kick ass night together for this...please stay tuned.
Promotion
We've added Diana G as marketing and promotions manager for the band. She can be reached at diana@theunderhills.com
03/01/07
We got "1000 Years" with the wonderfully talented Ona Meyer on this very impressive compilation that will be distributed mid March throughout all of SXSW and the rest of the rival Austin conferences!!!
A SXSW Compilation:
Shmusicmusic and Veracruz Music International represent Grammy awarded songwriters and record producers who have both written for and produced some of the world's top recording artists. Members on our team include the legendary Randy Bachman who, with his bands BTO & The Guess Who, sold over 40 million records; Legendary producer Charles Foskett, who has a wealth of experience having worked with two Beatles, Paul and Ringo, Bonnie Tyler, Kim Wilde, Cliff Richard, Robin Gibb (Bee Gees), and has produced Elvis Costello, Thompson Twins, Mick Taylor, and dozens more.
2,000 CDs will be produced and distributed to industry professionals at the top conventions in Austin during the biggest music week of the year!!!!
You can download 1000 Years for free for 2 more weeks.
Added Grape Street gig to the schedule section !!!!!
NEW DOWNLOAD!!!!
Another freebie download from the new album. This one is 1000 Years with backing vocals by Ona Meyer.
New show posted at Milkboy Coffeehouse in the schedule section. This is a cool little intimate venue !!!!!
ALBUM RELEASE!!!!
IT'S HERE...
Wander over to the recordings section and take advantage of our 3 for 1 promo. Hurry, it won't be up for very long!!!!
Details and pictures from the MMC are coming. We had a great gig at a great venue and met some outstanding fucking talent. Thanks for all who came out and supported us!!!
Sorry we disappeared again. I know, I suck. We've kind of picked up and moved over to our myspace site until I can find some time to continually update this one.
The album is completed and in replication. We are getting radio play all over the country and are starting to line up shows.
We've been selected to showcase at this year's Millennium Music Conference in Harrisburg, PA.
Gig date is Friday, February 16th. Info in the gigs section AND on our myspace site. We have a caravan heading up. Email me if you are interested in going...
Head over the songs section to hear a sample of the album...
Here's Mitch riding the big gay swing. Rawr!!!!!
Holy Crap...first update in 3 years? There is no excuse for this...period. We can only apologize and let you know we are still here and we are still making music.
So the deal is, it basically took us 2 freaking years to record this album. Over 2 years, actually. Our initial name for the album was going to be 2 years, 92 days, 15 hours. But that sucks, so we changed it. The bottom line is, we are very obsessive / compulsive with what we put out there. Good or bad this is the way it is. You add life into the mix and this is what happens. This is, by far, the best project we've ever done. The good news is it is COMPLETE (kind of) !!!!. The better news is that I won't be mixing it !!!! We have outsourced this to our Producer. We anticipate a soon to be release (April) and then a full live schedule to follow. Look for Paul, myself, and Mitch to do some acoustic gigs early on to drum up support, but by the summer we will be going full out again.
This site, as you see it, will be completely redesigned in the coming months as well.
Oh, gotta myspace account ?? Goto our myspace site and join our small but growing friend base. Anything good enough for 12 year olds is good enough for us.
We are gearing up for a VERY busy summer. HIghlights include JNI's battle of the bands, Weekend shows at the Pontiac, Joclyn's, Finney's, The Nail...just to name a few.
'Anthem' is still getting play on WZZO, 95.1. Thanks for those who let me know when they hear it.
Our next show will be at Finney's Pub in Doylestown on Saturday, April 19th. With spring break and a holiday weekend at hand, we expect this to be a great show !! We'll have the full night. Mike Sapone from Turning Wheel will be opening for us a with an acoustic set.
Check the Schedule section for up to date information and directions.
Greetings...tons of exciting stuff on the horizon. We're putting the finishing touches on a whole flock of new songs and are hoping to start pre production on them fairly soon. The goal is to start recording the new album in early summer. We'll have 10 new songs total. We're all pretty excited. A few will start to make their way into our set in the next few months. Be on the lookout......
Thanks to all who supported us at the Grape Street last Wednesday. A fairly impressive crowd for a usually tough midweek gig.
Our next show will be at The Nail on Friday, March 28th. We're expecting a big crowd for this one...The Nail has teamed up with Brownies 23 East and if we bring numbers out that Friday (30 +), we will automatically be booked at Brownies.
Upcoming in April/ May/June: Joclyns, The Pontiac Grille, Finneys, The Grape Street
Check the Schedule section for up to date information.
Our next show is this Saturday, February 22nd at The Pontaic Grille on South Street. Check the schedule section for times. We go on at 9:00 sharp (1st band).
Our next show is this Saturday, January 25th at Joclyn's in Media. Check the schedule section for times. We'll be having CD and drink giveaways all night. Don't miss out, get there early!
Our WZZO appearance last Sunday was a great success...It was really a lot of fun and just a great experience. Kudos to Brother Joel for having such a great outlet for original music. Neither Dave's flu NOR Mitch's head cold could take the edge off the solid acoustic set we put forth. FYI, the 2 songs we did live we're "She's So Far Away" and "Dreams, American", both new songs not on any CD as of yet.
The Underhills will be live in the WZZO studios (95.1 FM, Allentown) on Sunday, January 19th. Show time is 11:00 pm. This will be a full hour of, well, us. 3 live acoustic songs, a meet and greet interview, some CD airplay, as well as just some music we like to listen to. On Sunday, January 19th 11:00pm, Please check out Z95, 95.1FM WZZO, Allentowns bestrock station.
This quote is from producer/writer Chris Moon regarding The Underhills involvement in his Colors Project...
"The Underhills were selected to represent Pennsylvania after weeks of "auditioning" hundreds of local artists in that area. Their creativity, unique style, and razor sharp edge for crafting consistently strong originals made them an easy choice. Their submission was among the very best of all songs submitted and was selected to be on the coveted "#1 - RED ALBUM" (one of three albums in the collection) by a large panel of independent judges. As a producer/writer with over 10 million records sold, and the producer who discovered Prince I know great talent when I hear it ... The Underhills are an "over the top" talent with a bright future ahead ... I suggest you get their autographs now!"
- Chris Moon, January 2003
Thanks Chris, it was a great project to be involved in.
The Underhills have been chosen as the sole independent artist in Pennsylvania to represent the National 'Colors' project, conceived by Christopher Moon. Chris Moon, who has over 10 million in records sold, is credited with discovering Prince in the early 1980's, as well as writing Princes first hit song. The Underhills were hand picked by Chris, beating out thousands of local bands, to represent Pennsylvania in this Nationally unifying songwriting project that coincides with the September 11th tragedies. One set of common lyrics, 50 different versions from each of 50 artists from 50 different states.
More information on 'Colors', or to buy the 50 song box set, visit www.pro5.com/colors. You can also view our press release, or hear the official Pennsylvania version of 'Colors', written and performed by The Underhills.
