New York City-based indie alternative act D’Arcy shared her newest single “Bad Habit” on May 28 in preparation for the release of her debut EP album and tour.
D’Arcy’s debut single, “Crush,” was released in October 2020. “Crush” was followed by her single “Bad Girls” in December 2020 with a remix by producer Morgothbeatz, who has previously worked on tracks with rappers Lil Xan and Juice WRLD.
“Bad Habit” stands in contrast to D’Arcy’s other tracks, which focus on upbeat young love, lust and wild nights. “Bad Habit,” with its buzzing bassline and low-spirited lyrics seems to reflect the aftermath of the “cocaine, head spin, pills and gin,” that D’Arcy sings about in “Bad Girls.”
D’Arcy’s alternative style shines in “Bad Habit,” using original electronic tracks that add to the mysterious and grungy feel of the lyrics. The genre-bending singer sticks out in a similar way that Nine Inch Nails does, shifting from electronic, to art-pop, to more angsty alt-rock in each single. D’Arcy is one of those artists that simply can’t be kept within a genre label.
Bad Habit centers on a struggle with addiction and the road to recovery, the song involves self-awareness about the reality of addiction.
D’Arcy
“Bad Habit” also evokes a similar vibe to popular singer Lorde’s alternative style, both discussing themes like addiction, nightlife, and settling into adulthood. D’Arcy’s developing style through her first three singles is a promising introduction for her upcoming album.
D’Arcy’s “Hard to Kill” Summer Tour headlined by country singer Lee Dewyze will kick off on August 14 and make four stops in New York State in September. D’Arcy’s debut EP will be released in mid-August.
Boston Calling Festival has announced their return to the Harvard Athletic Complex on May 27-29, 2022, with headliners Foo Fighters and Rage Against the Machine.
Foo Fighters and Rage Against the Machine were both set to headline Boston Calling in 2020 with the Red Hot Chili Peppers before the festival was cancelled due to the pandemic. These two iconic rockers will top the bill of a lineup with over 60 performers next year, including an additional headliner, that have yet to be announced.
RATM’s performance will be the band’s only New England show on their 2022 North American tour, where the band will be reuniting for the first time after a decade. Foo Fighters, who are celebrating their 25th anniversary and their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, will be performing at Boston Calling as the fourth stop on their 2021-2022 tour.
A limited number of early bird 3-Day General Admission, VIP, and Platinum tickets are on sale now on the Boston Calling website. According to festival coordinators, the early bird period features all three ticket tiers at its lowest pricing for Boston Calling 2022.
Anderson .Paak’s performance at Boston Calling 2019
Aside from musical performances, Boston Calling plans to showcase new forms of entertainment from DJ sets to comedy shows, alongside extensive food and drink offerings from over 35 vendors.
A shot from Boston Calling at City Hall Plaza in 2016
Expanded offerings in the VIP and Platinum tiers in 2022 have also been announced. Fans can expect new viewing areas within the sections, including views of both the Red and Green Stages, and an expanded viewing deck within the Platinum section.
More information will be shared as it is announced. Check out the Boston Calling website for more in-depth details on the festival’s offerings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHX72IH79a8
Boston Calling 2022 Teaser Video
Update on 7/14/21: Run the Jewels and Black Pumas join the lineup. This will be Run the Jewels’ third time performing at the festival. Black Pumas are making their Boston Calling debut. A limited number of early bird 3-day tickets are on sale now at www.bostoncalling.com. The early bird 3-Day General Admission tickets ($299.99), 3-Day VIP tickets ($799.99), and 3-Day Platinum tickets ($1,599.99) are on sale now. A special limited 2-pack of early bird 3-Day GA tickets ($549.99) is also available. This early bird period will offer the lowest pricing for 3-Day tickets for Boston Calling 2022.
The Northeast’s largest free blues festival, NYS Blues Fest, has announced its comeback with a new location and a lineup that will bring Central New York to its feet. This year’s New York State Blues Festival will be held at Chevy Court inside the New York State Fairgrounds in Syracuse, and will run from June 24 through June 26.
The free three-day event kicks off on Thursday, June 24 at 5 p.m. on the ProAct Main Stage with the Gabe Stillman Band. Capping off the first night will be Robert Randolph & the Family Band, who is celebrating their Grammy nominated 2019 release, Brighter Days.
Larkin Poe closes out the 2021 NYS Blues Festival on Saturday, June 26. This talented sister act was the Thursday night headliner for the fest in 2018.
Larkin Poe performing “Black Echo” at the 2018 NYS Blues Fest
Moving the festival from Clinton Square to the NYS Fairgrounds allows for greater capacity with vaccinated and unvaccinated sections. A COVID-19 vaccination will not be required to attend this event, but proof of a vaccination must be shown upon entry to the festival grounds.
Non-vaccinated attendees are required to register for a free ticket, available on EventBrite. Alongside the ticket, non-vaccinated attendees will be required to wear a mask and practice social distancing as per New York State reopening guidelines.
The NYS Blues Fest is offering a VIP package for vaccinated attendees. The package will include a boxed meal from one of the festival vendors, access to the VIP tent and preferred seating in front of the stage. VIP ticket prices can be found on the NYS Blues ticket portal.
Parking will be available in the fairgrounds’ Brown Lot for $10 per vehicle and motorcycles can park in a designated area of the lot at $5 per bike. ADA parking will be available in the Emerald Lot for $10 as well.
Visit the New York State Blues Fest website for full artist bios and ticket information.
After a year of isolation and stress, Make Music Day is returning to in-person and outdoor events in hopes to reconnect communities. Musicians of all ages and skill levels from around the world will unite for a day of fun, collaboration and mentorship by participating in free music-making events on June 21.
Make Music is a celebration of music around the world on the Summer Solstice. First held in France as the Fête de la Musique in 1982, it is now held annually in more than 1,000 cities in 120 countries.
Fête de la Musique made its North American debut with Make Music NY. Starting as a grassroots initiative by a team of volunteers, the event quickly became a success. Today, over 5,000 New York musicians perform at free, outdoor concerts on June 21.
Within the New York area, Ithaca, Ossining-Briarcliff and New York City are hosting celebrations this year. They plan to hold in-person interactive events, like ukulele circles, live concerts, and even jam sessions on house porches. They will be continuing some virtual activities from last year, including a “sing together” over Zoom. Safety precautions, such as masks and social distancing, are still in place based on location guidelines.
A record 90+ U.S. cities have announced they are celebrating Make Music Day in person this year. New chapters have launched recently in Alabama, California, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin, bringing the holiday to even more of the country.
Make Music Day Introduction Video
To memorialize the loss of the past year, Make Music Day will include a project called This Moment In Time, a series of gong performances in public places around the world. Anyone with a large gong is invited to bring it out at noon on June 21 and play for one uninterrupted hour.
For the second year, the Make Music Alliance is offering a composition contest for composers aged 13-21 in commemoration of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. The Tulsa Race Massacre took place on May 31 – June 1, when a mob of White residents attacked Black residents and businesses in the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Young composers are invited to write a song for an overdubbed, a cappella baritone singer, using text from a first-hand account of the massacre by B.C. Franklin, a lawyer at the time. A panel of judges, including composers Hiroya Miura, Trevor Weston, composer/conductor Francisco Núñez, and soprano Talise Trevigne, will provide feedback and select three winning pieces.
The winning pieces will be professionally recorded by baritone Christopher Herbert and released online for Make Music Day. Winning composers will also receive a free copy of Finale music notation software.
The submission deadline for the composition contest is May 31, full details can be found on the contest webpage.
If competitions aren’t for you, the United Kingdom and Lagos are collaborating to create an international and interactive song project called “MixMash Studios.”
MixMash Studios invites people around the world to contribute audio samples between now and June 20. Anything from bass guitar lines, barking dogs, vocals, the grind of a coffee maker, or any other creative sound bites are accepted.
Then, music producers assembled by the Make Music Alliance, Make Music Day UK, and Make Music Lagos, will have 24 hours to create an original piece of music using only the samples, which will be presented on Make Music Day. Submit your sound files here.
The celebrations will continue with a second percussion project, the premiere of Flowerpot Music, written by Elliot Cole and directed by Peter Ferry. This piece uses various flowerpots as drums to make chime-like sounds. An interactive lesson will be held to teach participants how to play the unlikely instrument alongside the premiere. Flowerpot Music No. 1 was premiered virtually last year, but composer Elliot Cole has specially created a new version for this year’s Make Music Day.
Anyone can attend this event regardless of prior percussion experience. Mallets will be provided.
Last Year’s Premiere of Flowerpot Music No 1
For a full list of Make Music Day locations and how to register, check out the Make Music Dayofficial website.
New York City native Des Rocs has announced his first headline tour, Des Rocs Alive, consisting of more than 20 shows and kicking off on September 23 at Firefly Music Festival. The tour concludes on November 4 with a hometown show at the Bowery Ballroom in Manhattan.
Graphic from “This is our Life” Music Video
The tour will make stops at iconic venues around the country like Los Angeles’ The Troubadour, Minneapolis’ The Turf Club and Austin, TX’s Antone’s Nightclub. Des Rocs will also make stops at the Firefly Festival and the sold-out Aftershock Fest.
Des Rocs is a fourth-generation New Yorker as well as a rock-and-roll musician. He’s shared stages with The Rolling Stones, Muse, K Flay, Fall Out Boy, Weezer and Grandson.
“I feel like I was put on this earth to play shows,” Des Rocs said. “Since I was 13, I’ve played my guitar in basements and dive bars to anyone who’d listen.”
Des Rocs has released three EPs to date, including Let the Vultures In, Martyr Parade, and This Is Our Life, released in December 2020. The album’s title track hit top 20 at Active Rock radio and top 40 at Alternative radio. Fans can expect new music to be released later this year.
Des Rocs’ song “POS” from his album This is Our Life
“This tour is a lifetime in the making,” Des Rocs said. “I can’t wait to finally put all these songs on a stage after dreaming about it for a year in isolation.”
Tickets go on sale May 21, and can be purchased on Des Rocs’ website.
Des Rocs 2021 Tour Dates:
September 23-26 – Dover, DE @ Firefly Music Festival
September 28 – Detroit, MI @ El Club
September 30 – Columbus, OH @ The Basement
October 1 – Chicago, IL @ Beat Kitchen
October 2 – St. Paul, MI @ Turf Club
October 5 – Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge
October 8 – Sacramento, CA @ Aftershock Festival
October 10 – Seattle, WA @ Sunset Tavern
October 11 – Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
October 13 – San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop
October 14 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Troubadour
October 16 – San Diego, CA @ Soda Bar
October 19 – Austin, TX @ Antone’s
October 20 – Dallas, TX @ Three Links
October 21 – Houston, TX @ The Secret Group
October 23 – Nashville, TN @ The End
October 25 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle Backroom
October 26 – Virginia Beach, VA @ Elevation 27
October 27 – Washington, DC @ Songbyrd
November 2 – Boston, MA @ The Middle East (upstairs)
The 2021 American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) Music Awards kicked off their four-day virtual celebration with the reveal of this year’s ASCAP Composers’ Choice Awards, acknowledging diverse entertainment acts that comforted and inspired the world throughout 2020.
Composers’ Choice Awards recognize winners chosen by the ASCAP composer and songwriter community. The 2021 recipients share a common theme in that each of their projects tells a story of humanity’s triumph over adversity. Some recipients include John Batiste and Trent Reznor as film score of the year for the highly acclaimed Disney film Soul, Raphael Saadiq as television score of the year with Lovecraft Country and Gustavo Santaolalla as video game score of the year with The Last of Us Part II.
Gustavo Santaolalla plays score from The Last of UsPart II
This year’s awards also includes winners in two new categories, documentary score of the year and top streaming films, an expanded number of awards presented for streaming series.
Through May 20, acceptance speeches, exclusive photos, videos and streamed performances will be featured on the ASCAP and ASCAP Screen social media pages. Highlights include a tour of Studio Ferber in Paris, where Lionel Liminana and David Menke composed for top streaming film winner Last Days of American Crime and a brief saxophone solo from Lenny Pickett, Saturday Night Live musical director and winner of the top rated television series with co-writer Howard Shore.
Introduction by Paul Williams (ASCAP President and Chairman)
For a complete list of Screen Music Awards and winners, check out the ASCAP website.
After a hiatus last year due to the COVID pandemic, The American Music Festival has announced a comeback with four days of events at Albany’s Palace Theatre.
The Albany Symphony Orchestra photo courtesy of Albany Symphony
Presented by the two-time Grammy award-winning Albany Symphony Orchestra and their music director David Alan Miller, the annual festival celebrates cutting-edge composers and musicians. This year, the festival will be held from June 10-13 and consist of a Composer Workshop Masterclass, outdoor neighborhood performances, and family activities.
Other events include a First Draughts reading session, which gives the public a glimpse into the weeklong Composer Workshop, as well as performances from members of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet and the orchestra’s own Dogs of Desire.
A recent addition to the events include a collaboration between the Albany Symphony and NYSID (New York State Industries for the Disabled). They will be hosting a panel discussing how disabilities can actually provide more positive abilities than negative. The band Flame, made up of talented musicians with disabilities, will also be performing.
The festival will also feature works from composers Nina Shekhar, Clarice Assad, Molly Joyce, Christopher Theofanidis, Alexis Lamb, Kerwin Young, Bobby Ge, Jack Frerer, Carolyn Yarnell, and Tom Morrison, alongside other musicians. Many of the works will be premiered at the fest.
One of the composers, Nina Shekhar, writes in reaction to how classical music has lacked in responding to current social issues. Her piece, Above the Fray, pokes fun at this phenomenon by distorting Bach’s famous Prelude from Cello Suite No. 1.
“Unlike Western art tradition, which believes that classical music is a one-size-fits-all solution, this piece challenges that and asserts that we each have infinitely unique identities that morph under different circumstances. Art itself is not static, but rather something dynamic that we can allow to breathe, reshape, decompose, and reincarnate into new life forms over time,”
Nina Shekhar, Featured Composer at the American Music Festival
In accordance with New York reopening guidelines, the concerts will have limited in-person attendance for paid subscribers only. Livestream access will be available for free.
Concert livestreams can be accessed on the Albany Symphony Orchestra website. Check out the complete schedule below.
Composers Molly Joyce and Nina Shekar sit down for an honest talk about creativity, resilience, and embracing differences with Maureen O’Brien, President & CEO at New York State Industries for the Disabled (NYSID) and Greg Sorrentino, President & CEO at Center for Disability Services.
Opera Saratoga has introduced the fourth installment of their 2021 America Sings digital concert series in Saratoga Springs. On Friday, May 21, the series will return to Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs for “A Tribute to Langston Hughes,” featuring baritone singer Justin Austin and pianist/composer Damien Sneed. Justin and Damien’s all Langston Hughes program will feature songs by Margaret Bonds, Robert Owens, Damien Sneed and Ricky Ian Gordon.
America Sings Flier photo courtesy of Opera Saratoga website
America Sings is a concert series that amplifies the voices of BIPOC artists, who have historically been underrepresented on the concert stage. Each event will feature a wide array of classical, jazz and popular music from various performers.
Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. In addition to poetry, Hughes wrote plays and short stories, and collaborated with many composers.
All concerts in Opera Saratoga’s America Sings series are livestreamed to the public for free, but viewers are encouraged to contribute through a virtual tip jar during each event. All “tips” made during each concert will be split equally between Opera Saratoga and the featured artists, providing support to artists who have been financially impacted by the shutdown of live performances across the country.
The Langston Hughes tribute event will be livestreamed at 7 p.m. on Caffe Lena’s YouTube Channel and the Facebook pages of both Opera Saratoga and Caffè Lena. For livestream access and more information, check out the Opera Saratoga website.
