The Bowery Presents

The Bowery Presents upcoming shows

Maroon 5

VV Brown

Venue:
CMAC (Canandaigua, NY)
Date:
Sat 8/07
Notes:
all ages
Doors: 6:30 PM / Show: 7:30 PM
$75, $55, $40, $32.50
Tickets
Maroon 5
official website
myspace
Capturing their first of two Grammys as Best New Artist of 2005, and going on to sell more than ten million albums worldwide, Maroon 5 won plaudits with the hybrid rock/R&B sound they introduced on their debut album Songs About Jane. High school mates in West L.A., Levine, Carmichael and Madden, first achieved recognition under the moniker Kara’s Flowers. Although the world seemed to open oyster-like for them – recording their first album with legendary producer Rob Cavallo (Green Day, Goo Goo Dolls) – their debut, The Fourth World, proved a commercial disappointment. Kara’s Flowers was given a release from the label, and its members mulled their collective future. College became the intermediate answer, and while Madden stayed in Los Angeles to study at UCLA, Levine and Carmichael headed east to State University of New York. The SUNY dorms yielded an epiphany. “The halls were blasting gospel music and people were listening to stuff we’d never actually listened to, like Biggie Smalls, Missy Elliot and Jay-Z,” recalls Levine. Levine began to actively listen to Stevie Wonder and embraced a new singing style. Carmichael started playing keyboards. And the future suddenly looked bright again, in a very different light. When the duo hooked back up with Madden in L.A., they were reinvigorated by adding an R&B, groove-based tint to their explosive rock & roll. With the new musical frame of mind came a new name, Maroon 5, and a fifth member, guitarist James Valentine. Fortified with a new attitude, a new sound and a new name, Maroon 5 quickly attracted attention from labels. Octone Records, then a new indie label based in New York, signed the group, and in 2001 Maroon 5 entered the studio with producer Matt Wallace (The Replacements, Faith No More). Also known for their commitment to the environment, Maroon 5 was honored at the 2006 Environmental Media Awards and recently pledged their time and energy toward Global Cool, a newly launched initiative to fight global warming by motivating a billion people worldwide to reduce their personal energy use.
VV Brown
myspace
Trailing glowing reviews, unforgettable original songs and fresh, pulsating retro-flavored rhythms behind her every live and televised appearance in her U.K. home base, British singer-songwriter V V BROWN is scheduled to release her exuberantly creative debut album, TRAVELLING LIKE THE LIGHT, on Capitol Records February 9, 2010.

Instantly greeted by fans and cognoscenti as a new artist, composer and self-producer of true substance, effortless charisma and delicious musicianly caprice, Brown is busily playing summertime festivals, promoting the recent European release of the album and posting a series of videos, vlogs and acoustic performances online that confirm the most elaborate praises of the press, which greeted her album as "a perfect pop cocktail" (The Sun) and "Spector-ish pop as slick as her black pompadour, and her vocal shines through every track" (Elle).

The 25-year-old Brown, born in Northampton, England and based in London, wrote her first melody on the piano at age 5, with training in church, weekend jazz and classical piano lessons, and, of course, in her parents' record collection, which included Ruth Brown, The Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, Queen and Elvis Presley. Accordingly, the video clips populating her various websites and her special on-line unplugged performances display both the emotional honesty and the high musical standard of her songs: for example, an impressive surf-flavored performance of "Crying Blood" from the stage of Later With Jools Holland, launchpad for so many notable young UK talents; the perfectly-crafted yet boldly unconventional "LEAVE!"; the insanely hooky "Shark in the Water," and a moving, beautifully-arranged cover of the Killers' "Human." (Not to mention the irresistibly charming "Bottles," which manages to suggest, at once, "100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall," "The Twelve Days of Christmas" and "Children, Go Where I Send Thee.")

To call V V Brown a genre-bender is the both the understatement of the year, and also somewhat off the point -- because Brown's subtle use of vintage rock and soul rhythms and grooves is so organically and expressively unified with her melodies, lyrics and vocal dynamics that she becomes an object lesson in appreciating music for its own sake, as a timeless joy, free of labels or categories. "I can't remember a time when music was not a part of me," Brown told an interviewer. Describing a major-label deal in her late-teens that detoured her to Los Angeles earlier in the decade, she reflected afterward, "Artists that I love, connect with people...because they make music which reflects who they are. People can tell. The way you walk, talk, wear your hair and breathe. Everything that's happened in the last few years has taught me the value of knowing yourself and being yourself."

Last summer, Brown has performed at a prestigious slate of festivals, in every gig living up to the impressed oohs and aahs of the press, and opening up for the like of The Ting Tings, Ladyhawke and Antony & the Johnsons. She has also made fashion appearances at supermodel Naomi Campbell's charity event, and at London Fashion Week, after being signed by the Select Agency after a chance meeting with a talent agent.
American Express — Are you a card member?

© 2010