The Playroom Academy of Music in Baxter Village/Fort Mill SC set to open Dec 01
For Immediate Release
tammy@moonstruckpromotions.com
twitter.com/tammybrackett
http://www.facebook.com/people/Tammy-Brackett/679249597
804-365-8222
Related sites:
www.theplayroomacademy.com
The Exchange Building Suite 201
951 Market St
Fort Mill SC 29708
803-802-NOTE
The Playroom Academy of Music launches innovative teaching studio and retail location in Baxter SC December 1,2009
The way Playroom Academy’s founder and director Eddie Zimmerman sees it, the unique teaching philosophy offered at his new facility is like a gateway of higher learning for young music students.
“Our method targets lesson retention in a whole new light.” says Eddie Z,as he’s known in professional music circles. “The lesson is presented to the student by a teaching professional .The entire lesson is recorded digitally then stored in an on-line archive that only the student has access to. Students then have the ability to review the lesson or past lessons, anytime they wish. It ties the instrument to the student, and the lesson to the home computer. We incorporate current technology with the personal approach of one on one lessons. It’s interactive, effective learning at its best.”
The Playroom Academy will open January 2010 at its location in Baxter Village in Fort Mill, but a retail presence will be open December 2. “We’ll sell sticks, strings, instruments and other music related merchandise, with a focus on gift certificates and signing students up for lessons at The Playroom Academy.”
Eddie Z is best known as the guitarist and co-founder of the band Charity Case. The group performed over 200 shows as part of the Ace and TJ’s Grin Kids charity, raising $670,000 to send chronically disabled and terminally ill children to Walt Disney World. After an eight-year run, Charity Case is taking a break, allowing Eddie Z to work with kids of all ages and skill levels to develop the dream of playing music.
Eddie Z’s dedication is apparent when he speaks of his new endeavor. “We want to be parent friendly and kid cool.” he says .”The Playroom Academy offers a creative, encompassing music curriculum. We’ll offer summer camps, group ensemble lessons and preschool programs as well as classes in music production, engineering and computer based recording.”
“We’re a one stop for anything music related, from lessons to instruments.” says Eddie Z. “We’re here to help parents, kids and adults discover the delight of creative expression through music. “
“Talk about a perfect holiday present!” he chuckles with the enthusiasm of a jolly Santa. “The joy of the gift of music is about as perfect as it gets.”
The Monkey Mind
“…many of the questions we carry around with us have less to do with genuine issues, and more to do with the monkey mind itself. A trickling flow of hysteria pervades our day-to-day mental functioning, constantly influencing our thoughts and emotions. This subtle hysteria is our biggest problem, because it’s the root of all others. When our minds are aligned with God’s love and peace, two things are true. First, we don’t create as many problems in our lives. And second, we have the spiritual strength to handle them powerfully and positively when we do.”- Marianne Williamson/ Everyday Grace
Worry, stress, anxiety, tension. It seems as if these four march into our everyday lives first thing in the morning, invading our good intentions to be and do better. Then they won’t leave. They hang about, breathing down ones neck, constantly reminding us of imminent failure and everything we cannot accomplish. The quadruplets scream and yell and simply won’t quieten enough to allow us to be peaceful, happy and productive.
And it’s all our fault. We allow our thoughts to swing from branch to branch, screeching and flipping and tossing and fighting. If you’ve watched monkeys in a zoo or on tv, you know what unleashed, wild, hysteria looks like. And what an apt analogy of our synapses and emotions during our daily rounds.
How do we find peace in a world that is constantly not peaceful? Most of us don’t live as monks and hermits and have to mix with the world and its inhabitants. We can’t sit idly by and not speak up in a business meeting or a phone conference or in the studio or as we’re taking care of our music careers.
Quiet can only be found in the deep recesses of the heart. Quiet is an aspiration. It may not come all at once in chunks of hours spent meditating, but perhaps if we consciously string together small moments, maybe quiet will be a place we can go to often and without much effort.
Consciously watch your fingers on the frets or keys for 2 minutes. Conciously listen to a bird song or watch a squirrel play in the yard. Watch a drop of rain make its way down a window pane. Patch together small squares of silence and create a quilt of solace and quiet in your life.
Simplified at Blind Tiger 11/14
Joe Krown Trio Tour News!
November 11- Owsleys in Denver CO, November 12-State Theatre in Salt Lake City UT, November 14-Goodfoot in Portland OR, November 16-Moes Alley in Santa Cruz CA, November 17-Palms Playhouse Winter CA, November 18-Biscuits and Blues San Francisco CA, November 19-St Rocke in LA,CA, November 20-The Mint-Hermosa Beach CA, November 23 Rhythm Room Phoenix AZ
Related websites:
www.joekrown.com
www.walterwolfmanwashington.com
www.russellbatiste.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0sx92p3IZY
Legends Converge in New Orleans based Joe Krown Trio
featuring Walter Wolfman Washington
and Russell Batiste
Skimming the bios of New Orlean’s Joe Krown Trio is a trip down a virtual Who‘s Who of music giants. Among the collective lists of achievements and awards of band members are peppered the names of those they’ve played with; Ray Charles, Little Richard, David Batiste and Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown are only a few of the legends with whom Joe Krown Trio has shared the musical stage.
The illustrious players comprising Joe Krown Trio give a solid nod to predecessors, but consistantly fuse history with their own unique, funky, soul driven, R&B drenched jam that jumps off the stage like a living history lesson.
Hammond B-3 guru and bandleader Joe Krown spent fifteen years as Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown’s sideman. An award winning player, Krown has performed around the world, sharing the stage with icons like Mavis Staples, Charlie Musselwhite and the North Mississippi Allstars. Krown toured as a support act for Eric Clapton and numerous best selling records feature his name and astounding organ prowess.
For nearly 30 years,Walter “Wolfman” Washington has played with his band, The Roadmasters, touring every major music festival in the US and in Europe. As a teenager, Washington played guitar with Lee Dorsey who was touring in support of his smash hits, “Ride Your Pony” and “Working in a Coalmine.” In the mid 80’s, Washington started recording and releasing music with Rounder Records. Ever an innovator, Washington is known for his growling vocals and stunning guitar work and is a respected, revered and internationally known performer.
As a member of one of N’awlins legendary musical families, Russell Batiste Jr. knows his way around a sound stage. He’s played multiple instruments, and has been at the drum kit since the age of four. One of Russell’s earliest memories is sitting on Jackie Wilson’s knee listening to him sing “Lonely Teardrops”at a jam session hosted by his dad, David Batiste. Russell joined the Funky Meters in 1989. For five years, Batiste was the drummer for Vidal Blue featuring bassist Oteal Burbridge (Allman Brothers) and Page McConnell (Phish). Batiste recorded with Mike Gordon (Phish) and Eric Krasno from Soulive. Russell has also performed with Harry Connick Jr., Champion Jack DuPree, Robbie Robertson, and Maceo Parker.
Your attention to what others are choosing
There’s been a bump in the road. A snafu involving the loved one of one that is loved. This is a life changing circumstance and portends an irreversible chain of events that will ever alter this person’s life as well as the life of my dear one, who truly does not deserve another heartache from this sector. There is nothing at all to be done, except to pray, and I make that statement as if prayer is a pitiful and small thing, when in fact, it has the power to, if not change these occurences, make them understandable, bearable, tolerable in a strange sort of way. Sometimes prayer is the only thing we have.
I’m reminded of the teachings of Esther Hicks and Abraham concerning ones own personal point of attraction, and how we have to remain independent of the decisions of others.
“You are here to create the world around you that you choose, while you allow the world-as others choose it to be-to exist also. And while their choices in no way hinder your own choice, your attention to what they are choosing does affect your vibration and therefore your own point of attraction.”
Families, whether biological or the more common crazy-quilt collections of personalities that become like families, have an attraction all their own-whether it’s of a black hole ilk or a happy, well-adjusted variety. A family has a basic intrepid quality of striving to understand the parcels of personality compiling it despite a basic misunderstanding of each other as humans. Estrangement, legalities, heartbreak and knock down drag out fist fights can occur within the dynamic. But allow an outsider to have an attitude or opinion about the whole thing, and immediately, family units circle the wagons and start firing in the direction of the enemy. Your point of attraction, your sought after sweet harmonious vibration, is genetically linked to those cowboys perched on the buckboard, firing away.
How do we rise above? How do we hang on to our own light, our own hard-won point of attraction and alignment within the landscape of a world falling apart like a cookie dipped in too much milk? You can’t save it. It’s going to crumble faster than you can manage to take advantage of its sweetness.
For my part, I will sincerely pray for those I love, but I am determined to stay above the fray. And in that task, I’ll remember myself in my prayers. And at the edge of the abyss, trailing along after loved ones, I’ll fight to remain on solid ground to help them, to understand and to be the steady beat of a family’s heart.
11/12 SIMPLIFIED/ UNC-Chapel Hill Campus Y’s HOPE
Contact:Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives in Charlotte NC
There is no doubt about it. I love Guy Fieri. The Guy has personality popping from the tips of his spiky do to the bottoms of his sandal clad feet. He likes bling. He has tattoos and drives a snazzy rag top classic car. He is inventive and unabashedly in love with cooking, eating and making others happy. What is there NOT to like?
Friday nights I watch Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. It is my ultimate chill out from a week of wild work within the music business.
Imagine my surprise to learn Guy in my semi-hometown (I’m from a “suburb” of Charlotte, Belmont NC), The Queen City. Yesterday my pal Laurie Koster actually got to be on set at a taping of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives at Cabo Fish Taco in Charlotte. What a lucky, lucky, lucky girl.
This all ties in nicely to SIMPLIFIED’s performance Sunday November 01 at MACS SPEED SHOP, (“a quasi-dive where the parking lot mixes bikes, Beemers and Bugs. Charlotte may not be a barbecue town, but Mac’s brisket inspired Photographer and “meat-atarian” Gary Clark, to declare, “This is better’n any I’ve had in Texas.” -Southern Living Magazine 6/2008) I hope to entice Guy, if he’s still in town, to check out the band at Mac’s, a former transmission shop turned barbeque spot and one of Simplified’s best nights of music!
Eclipse dominates Pink Floyd tribute acts
October 23 at Crossroads in Huntsville AL
October 24 at Zydeco in Birmingham
There are a lot of Pink Floyd tributes out there, but the seven-piece Eclipse out of Nashville must be the Lexus of the bunch. The band didn’t chat up the audience, wear special costumes, fly a pink pig above the stage or have a crazy light show. It’s just a group of very skilled musicians who play Pink Floyd straight and achingly well.
“It’s very gratifying,” guitarist Tod Weidner said in the dressing room before the show. Most people think of “the fat guy in the Elvis costume” when they think of a tribute act. But for the members of Eclipse – who all play in original bands, too – it’s a good way to travel around and actually make money playing music, he said.
The 134 people who turned out to hear them got swept up into the experience. One 22-year-old guy and his father stood next to each other, transfixed. The son, wearing a Pink Floyd T-shirt, skipped his left hand along an imaginary guitar fret and flung himself against the railing in front of him. He nearly lost it at Blair Smart’s sax solo during “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” gripping his head in ecstasy.
Later, he shouted at his father excitedly, “It’s almost like Richard Wright is right here, right now!”
-Katjusa Cisar / 77Square/Wisconsin State Journal
Grown up musicians NEED a PLAYROOM!
Play or write music? You need a PLAYROOM
Fall Special!Monthly: New monthly clients receive their first month’s rent FREE!
Hourly Clients: Two hours in our National Room, fully equipped with DW Drums, Marshall Guitar Amps, Ampeg Bass rig, and a full monitor system for $75.Want to breath the air and capture the vibe of Usher, 3 Doors Down and Jewel? Rent a studio/rehearsal space at The Playroom and you or your band will be able to do just that!The Playroom is widely known as the place professionals go to create but it’s also a perfect spot for the beginning band or solo musician to write, dream and do! It’s a unique space for the weekend warrior wanting to rock out without disturbing the family or neighbors.Conveniently located one mile from uptown Charlotte, The Playroom is easily accessible but very private. The Playroom’s facilities are clean, safe, and comfortable, and were built to serve the musician regardless of genre or experience.For more info visit
Simplified at BLOCtoberfest October 24
Contact: tammy@moonstruckpromotions.com
804-365-8222
CHARLOTTE’S SIMPLIFIED ROCKS FALL 2009, Announces October tour schedule and highlights
OCTOBER 24-BLOCtoberfest atThe Epicentre in Charlotte NC-hosted by Business Leaders of Charlotte. Benefitting Jacobs Ladder, The Arc of Mecklenburg County http://www.bloctoberfest.com/ Tickets: 15.00 Showtime: 6-10pm
If you’re in the band Simplified, the walls of your humble abode may be hard to recall and it may be tough to sleep without the rumble of wheels beneath your head.
“We play on average about 250 shows a year. We’ve done over 1500 hundred shows in our four year life as a band, probably well over that! ” remarked Chris Sheridan in a recent interview with http://www.shutter16.com/.
Just last week, Charlotte NC’s Best Band (Best of the Best of Charlotte/Charlotte Magazine) capped a week of shows by playing with Blues Traveler at The Fillmore in Charlotte and sharing the stage with friends O.A.R at Battleship Park in Wilmington.
The band, signed last month to Rockman Management, continues to focus on the big picture.”We’re focused on developing Simplified in other marquee markets so that the band can continue to build on its momentum and play more with national acts.” says Rockman’s Paul Richards.
Simplified continues to travel and tour extensively, traveling to southeastern college campuses, venues and festivals. During rare days off, Simplified is hitting The Playroom in Fort Mill SC to write and plan their next cd, scheduled for release in spring of 2010.
This year, Simplified has been awarded The Best of the Best of Charlotte by Charlotte Magazine and was just voted Best Local Band for the second year in a row by the readers of Creative Loafing. In April, Simplified finished out the national Fender Road Worn competition as one of the top ten bands in the country based on fan votes for their video “Home”. In August, Simplified completed production of a new video for the fan favorite “Sugar Tree’ and hosted a video release party at Madisons in Charlotte.
