Singer-songwriter Juli Crockett

(See update at bottom of post!) My friend David Hurlin, one of Fairfield Iowa’s favorite drummers, has been living in LA and playing with the alt-country, love drunk, hillybilly rock, freak-folk revolution band known as The Evangenitals for some time now. He told me about the band leader and songwriter Juli Crockett and Juli and I quickly found each other on all the various blogs and social networking pages we both inhabit on the web. Juli is a fountain of inspiration, energy and creativity with multiple degrees and titles – a BFA in Theater from NYU, an MFA in directing experimental theater from CalArts and she’s working on a PhD in Philosophy at The European Graduate School. She’s an ordained minister of the ULC and a retired, undefeated professional boxer!  (According to Sports Illustrated, she’s the “real” Million Dollar Baby!)  What kind of music would come from such varied life experience? One of my favorite descriptions on the band website is: “The jukebox at the Mad Hatter’s tea party.”

As I always say, probably the best way to really find out what a band is like is to listen to their music!  Here is a video of them performing the song Bad Town live:

The Evangenitals’ current project is actually theatrical!  Titled Dawn of Quixote: Chapter the First, is a philosophical and musical exploration of the first chapter of Don Quixote, written and directed by Juli. It stars Shaughn Buchholz (Scrubs) as Quixote, Christopher Goodson (Cold Case) as Sancho, and Lisa Dee (Evangenitals, Killsonic) as Dulcinea. The live original score is performed by the Evangenitals. They have been invited to perform the show at the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland this August!

Dawn of Quixote: Chapter the First

While CalArts is supplying venue & promotional support in Edinburgh, the band needs to raise the majority of the funds themselves to cover transportation, room, and board for all nine performers. They have turned to a fascinating new fundraising site called Kickstarter to help manage pledges.

The idea behind Kickstarter is you can post your project, different levels of pledges and prizes for those pledges, the total amount needed and a deadline. You then promote the page to your fans and start collecting pledges. However, if the total goal is not met, nobody pays anything! It seems both potentially amazing and potentially frustrating – I know that Allison Weiss made more than her goal that she needed to release a new EP in just one day and so is continuing to raise funds until the Kickstarter due date comes, in hopes of earning enough to make a full length CD instead. But what if someone raised partially enough and then didn’t get to use any of that money at all?  On the other hand, the format could provide some peace of mind to investors who don’t want to donate only to see their money sit stagnant or be spent on something non-project related…

In any case, at the time of this posting, The Evangenitals have gathered 26% of their pledges and have two weeks to go before their deadline.  Prizes range from “A warm fuzzy feeling inside” to personalized, autographed headshots of actors Shaughn Buchholz and Christopher Goodson to drum lessons with David Hurlin to a moonlit, midnight horseback ride with the Cast & Evangenitals and many others inbetween.  Check out their Kickstarter page through the widget above or by going to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/635470598/dawn-of-quixote-rides-to-edinburgh-fringe-fest .  I myself have already made a pledge of $10, and I DO feel a warm fuzzy feeling inside. 

If you’re interested in finding out more about the band, buying their CD’s or listening to more songs, check them out on MySpace or on their website.
(Careful Fairfield readers will notice that the band roster includes not one but TWO Fairfield members – Matt Ticciati recently joined them on bass!)

Tune in to KRUU-LP 100.1 FM here in Fairfield or kruufm.com worldwide online on Tuesday 6/30 for a mini Michael Jackson tribute of covers sung by female singer-songwriters starting at 9am central, and then the interview with Juli Crockett!

UPDATE: At the last minute, we were able to get co-founder Lisa Dee on the line too, so we had twice the fun!  Stay tuned for the podcast which will be posted to the station website soon.

I just got an email from the Americana duo Truckstop Souvenir about the flooding in Cedar Rapids and other Iowa river towns, and what you can do to help out some of the musicians and artists who lost equipment and housing in the recent floods. As self employed people, artists often don’t have insurance, and losing their equipment/workspaces is also losing their means to livelihood. Not to mention, with these historical high waters, many people who DO have insurance don’t have insurance that covers flood because water has just plain NEVER come anywhere near their houses before. Anything you could give would help and be much appreciated.

Lauryn and Dennis also happen to live across the street from me (and fellow DJs on KRUU!), so pretty much everything they say about the weather experience these days goes for me too. They played today at our local Farmer’s Market, and donated all their tips to the Iowa Artist Relief Fund. It’s a beautiful sunny Saturday, here’s hoping it stays clear for the next weeks and the waters continue to recede.

Here’s the message from Lauryn and Dennis. (And there’s a link to go check out their music at the end, which you should, because they are AWESOME):

Hey y’all. It’s been a long, long time since we sent out an email to our entire mailing list, but we’ve gotten some emails from folks worried about how the weather in Iowa has affected us. We wanted to assure everyone that we are safe and dry here (relatively speaking),as there are no rivers running through our town. The county has experienced some minor flooding, but nothing like the devastation Cedar Rapids, Des Moines and other river towns in the Midwest have experienced.

We just learned about a fund for Iowa artists and musicians affected by the floods. The Iowa Artist Relief Fund has been set up through the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation and the Legion Arts to assist artists who have lost equipment, portfolios, tools, studios, housing and more. If you have a little spare change to help these folks out, you can donate via the Legion Arts website:

http://www.legionarts.org/

Every little bit helps and on behalf of our fellow artists and musicians, we greatly appreciate anything you can give!

Thanks for all the continued support. We’ll be in touch as we get closer to that second album we keep talking about … the finish line is in sight!

All the best,
Lauryn and Dennis

http:///www.truckstopsouvenir.com
http://www.myspace.com/truckstopsouvenir
http://www.legionarts.org