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.

Ok, so I found something to mix in with my Mandy Moore rotation these days – Colbie Caillat’s new album CoCo.

It has that Southern California vibe that reminds me of the time I got to stay in a beach house that belonged to my mom’s friend. The doors and windows were always open because there weren’t any bugs to speak of and the weather was perfect, perfect, perfect. So I had three or four days of gauzy sheer curtains blowing in the breeze and that fresh ocean air smell all through the house. Flip-flops and sarongs as standard dress. Lemon trees in the backyard. Spontaneously arranged seashell collections on the porch. That’s where I go when I listen to CoCo. Not a bad place to be taken back to in my mind!

And apparently appropriate, since she IS from California. I can see what the people reviewing her on iTunes mean when they say things like she’s writing “Beach Music” and they would love for her play with Jack Johnson sometime.

Colbie’s voice is sweet and soothing, and overall the beats are light and bouncy, even on the slower songs. Favorite songs of the moment: Bubbly for the super cute lyrics and tune, Tied Down for the ukulele and reggae vibe, Feelings Show for the catchy chorus that gets my head bopping every time. Honestly though, I really just like the whole album! Every song is good, so no need to skip around or fast forward.

My lovely cousin pointed me to Colbie’s MySpace page a few months ago and I signed up to get updates right away because I knew I’d be wanting to hear more! One of those MySpace success stories, Colbie ventured out into the public arena by posting a few songs on her page. When she put Bubbly up she suddenly skyrocketed to be the number one unsigned artist on MySpace, a position she held for four months in a row! Of course record companies took notice, and since she already had a huge fan base and real life feedback that she was a success, she was able to sign with a company that would give her full creative control. I think her fans will agree it’s a good thing, Colbie knows what she’s doing and has a good thing going. I could listen to her pure, simple, sweet sound for a long, long time.

UPDATE – where to buy CoCo:

Download on On iTunes
Download or buy CD On Amazon