Suburban Legends

Originally uploaded by Melissa Rachel Black

Melissa Black, who is an amazing photographer, has just written up a review of the September 13th show at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz, CA.

Based on her review of Suburban Legends, she seems to have been aware of them prior to the show, but you can tell from her tone that she is more of a Reel Big Fish fan.

Her photos from the event are great and her description of the “wild guitar battle” between Aaron Barrett and Brian Klemm is hilarious. I wish I could have seen that interaction at one of the shows as both of them are such amazing showmen.

Be sure to check out her other reviews and photos and wish her luck studying abroad.

[Underneath the Bodhi Tree]

Photo by Becky Scherger

East Coast, are you ready for some Suburban Legends lovin?

Bowling for Soup is currently on their UK Tour until the end of October. Once they return to the states, they will take a short break and in November begin a 2 week East Coast tour. Although neither band has officially confirmed it, it has leaked on several of the venue’s sites that Suburban Legends will be joining them for at least part of the 2 week tour, most likely the entire November tour. I assume this because Suburban Legends is confirmed for the first 2 days of the tour and one of the last days, so I doubt that they would go for the beginning, leave, and then come back at the end of the tour.

Below is the list of dates and venues that Bowling for Soup has announced for their November tour. I indicated which locations where the venue has confirmed that Suburban Legends will also be sharing the stage.

11/14 – Station 4 – Minneapolis, MN – CONFIRMED
$13 advance, $15 day of show – 16+ only

11/15  - Small Planet, Lansing, MI – CONFIRMED
$10 advance, $12 day of show – All Ages – Buy Tickets

11/17  - House of Blues, Cleveland, OH
$15 advance,  $18 day of show – All Ages

11/18  - Diesel, Pittsburgh, PA
$15 advance, $19 day of show – All Ages

11/20 – The Hardware Bar, Wilkes-Barre, PA
No Additional Info

11/21 – School of Rock, Hackensack, NJ
No Additional Info

11/22 – Chameleon Club, Lancaster, PA
$9.70 advance, $12 day of show – All Ages

11/23 – Canal Club, Richmond, VA – CONFIRMED
$12 advance, $16 day of show – All Ages – Buy Tickets

11/24 – Club Level, Columbia, SC
No Additional Info

Photo by Becky Scherger

The October schedule for Disneyland’s Tomorrowland Terrace is out and Suburban Legends is on it! Although no longer under the moniker TLT Dance Club, Suburban Legends will be playing as part of the “Tomorrowland Terrace Presents:” on October 23rd and October 24th at the typical times of:

7:00p – 7:30p
7:45p – 8:20p
8:35p – 9:05p
10:00p – 10:40p
11:00p – 11:30p

As luck would have it I am here the two weekends before, but will not be there that weekend. Those who are fortunate enough to go, please take pictures and upload them to Flickr for all us fans.

[Disneyland Calendar for October 23-24, 2009]

Photo by Adam Foster

MTV Networks has just announced an upcoming service for Rock Band called the Rock Band Network. This service will help bands create and release tracks that are compatible with Rock Band and allow fans to rock out to their favorite artist no matter who they are. But let’s be clear, this is not a fan service, it is entirely up to the band to take control and produce the tracks.  It will be a lot of work, but they will be able to gain a little profit (only 30% of sales), but more importantly, they will be able to gain more popularity via another medium.

So, of course I would love to see Suburban Legends take advantage of this service. I’m already so starved for something like this I’ve uploaded some songs into the Xbox game “Lips” so I could sing karaoke to their music. But who wouldn’t want to belt it out like Vince or drum along with Derek, or strum like Mikey or Brian on those plastic guitars. Sorry no plastic horn instruments, yet.

So what Suburban Legends songs do think would translate well into Rock Band? Remember, it’s not just your favorite song, but what would be a good fit for playing on four plastic instruments. I think the perfect first song would be “High Fives” but feel free to list your recommendations in the comments.

Since Suburban Legends in the process of writing and recording their upcoming album, this would be a perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. At the same time they are recording each of the separate tracks for each instrument, they could be converting each of those tracks to midi format so they can translate into the game.

Another forward thinking consideration is that with “The Beatles: Rock Band” coming out in September, the Rock Band Network might allow the recording multiple vocal tracks, since the Beatles games will feature up to 3 harmonizing tracks. Just imagine being able to play “Suburban Legends: Rock Band” and be able to sing as either Vince or Brian on “Desperate” or “So Fine”. Dreamy!

[MTV To Launch New Track Upload Program For 'Rock Band'] via [Kotaku]
[Creators.RockBand.com]

While the overall performances of Suburban Legends was excellent, I wanted to point out a few things I noticed in all the videos. First, big thanks to Justin Lewis, Byron Panopio, and Aaron Bertram for being special guests. Second, I noticed that Aaron has taken his past experience from Suburban Legends and current experience as a Disney cast member and meshed them together to really try to pump up the crowd. Aaron is at the front of the stage a lot of the time right next to Vince and both are getting the crowd really energized. As only a guest/temporary member, I’m surprised how much Aaron was at the forefront, but whatever works to keep the crowd going. Finally, I am quite pleased with the progression of Vince as the lead singer. From his first show in this role at iMusiCast in 2005 to these recent videos, Vince’s voice has matured and provides more clarity, power, and is a lot less pitchy, dawg.

The most comprehensive YouTube videos for these performances come from user xawesomexskaxmusicx who seems to be a huge SL fan because of the 32 total videos she’s uploaded, 31 are of Suburban Legends taken over the course of 2 years. For this recent performances at Tomorrowland Terrace, she uploaded 12 videos from the June 13th date. The video of Suburban Legends singing “Happy Birthday” to Allison is cute, and Brian Klemm’s jumping into the crowd while singing a cover of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You”, but their performance of the “Duck Tales Theme Song” stands out as the best of the bunch because it is such a fun song and it is one of the least jittery videos of the group (no offense).

YouTube user takenbysurprise87 was also at the June 13th show and she had a much better angle for videos and a better camera with stereo sound, but the sound of Suburban Legends’ sexiness is periodically interrupted by her fangirl screaming and singing along. Not to say that she’s not sexy too(can’t tell, her myspace link goes to some 49 year old lady in New York). I pick the cover of “Build Me Up, Buttercup” as the best of this group, just because she got a great angle where you can see Brian singing on the left side of the frame, and then on the right side you can see Robot, Aaron, and Vince singing backup and acting silly. Classic Suburban Legends.

lofimosh only uploaded 3.5 videos of  Suburban Legends on the night of the 13th. Three seem to be from their first set, with one final clip of him videotaping 3 raver kids at TLT Dance Club who are dancing to SL’s music. My guess is he is not a huge SL fan, but he did seem to stick around from the first set until dark when the raver kids emerged, so I might be wrong. While filming he stay pretty far back, so you get to see a good view of the entire stage and the crowd. The winner from this group is definitely the raver kids because of the ridiculous way the look. What is that on the guy’s heads, Princess Leia buns?

There were a few other single video uploads done by other YouTube users. Below are the quicklinks to each.

• Suburban Legends sings Happy Birthday at Disneyland by 1FoolishMortal
• Suburban Legends singing Disney’s Celebrate theme song TLT dance club by HV10N90
• SL Build Me Up Buttercup by IHYT116
• Suburban Legends – Been Up All Night (Live 6-12-09) by TrumpetBoredom
• Suburban Legends “Build Me Up Buttercup” at TLT in Disneyland 6.13.09 by Jaynicgurl

Suburban Legends will return to play at Disneyland’s TLT Dance Club on July 3rd and 4th. Please check this link for additional dates.

Presented by Paragon Booking

[FINAL UPDATE (hopefully): Paragon Booking has posted the NEW LOCATION FOR SKA IN THE PARK 2009
QBONKERS
9364 MAGNOLIA AVE
RIVERSIDE, CA 92883
Hopefully everything will go smoothly from this point onward.]

[2nd UPDATE: Paragon Booking, who is organizing Ska in the Park has posted on their MySpace Blog that the city of Riverside has "shut me down." But they are reaffirming that Ska in the Park has not been canceled, just "redirecting." They will be posing an update on their MySpace blog tomorrow and we will continue to keep you updated.]

[UPDATE: Suburban Legends has Twittered (Tweeted?) that "SKA IN THE PARK this Saturday has been moved from Riverside to The Fox Theater in Pomona, CA [editor: QBonkers in Riverside]. SL goes on at 2:45pm!”]

Paragon Booking has released the set times for Ska in the Park, going on June 27 at the American Legion Riverside Post 79 The Fox Theater in Pomona, CA Q-Bonkers Billiards in Riverside, CA,  with tickets going for $20 (less than $1 per band). Most of the bands are scheduled to play for 20-45 minutes. Suburban Legends are scheduled to go on at the not so prime time of 2:45pm – 3:30pm on the Main Stage and will be followed by Chase Long Beach from 3:40pm to 4:10pm.

Don’t forget to show up early to support the new guys, as doors open at 11am. Voodoo Glow Skulls are closing the show at 10:15pm, and even if they play for an hour, everything should be torn down and packed up by midnight. Full list of bands and their set times are listed below.

Main Stage

• Stupid Flanders 11:20-11:40
• The Pocketeers 11:50-12:10
• Illegal Beagle 12:20-12:40
• Defunked 12:50-1:15
• Maxwell Smart 1:25-1:55
• Half Past 2 2:05-2:35
• Suburban Legends 2:45-3:30
• Chase Long Beach 3:40-4:10
• The Skeletones 4:20-5:00
• RiceRokit 5:10-5:40
• The Dendrites 5:50-6:20
• The Guilty Parties 6:30-7:00
• Buddha Bomb 7:10-7:40
• Starpool 7:50-8:25
• Knock Out 8:35-9:10
• The Debonaires 9:20-10:05
• Voodoo Glow Skulls 10:15-

Side Stage

• The High Tops 11:10-11:30
• The Revivers 11:40-12:00
• Off Target 12:10-12:30
• The Boss Beats 12:40-1:00
• Taco Tuesday 1:10-1:35
• The Bashments 1:45-2:10
• Skamikaze 2:20-2:45
• Dr. Skavra 2:55-3:20
• Task Force Panda 3:30-3:55
• In Key Drop Outs 4:04-4:30
• The A Ok’s 4:40-5:05
• Nine 5 One 5:15-5:45
• Pilot Touhill 5:55-6:25
• Red Store Bums 6:35-7:05
• The B Sharps 7:15-7:45
• Assorted Jellybeans 7:55-

Ska in the Park MySpace Blog

Photo by Evan Wohrman

One week after Suburban Legends’ performances on June 12th and 13th at Tomorrowland Terrace, enough photos have been posted to merit a blog post. There isn’t a lot of photos, but the few that have crawled in are quite good quality. I spent a few days crawling around Flickr and Picasa, and was able to find that as apparently no SL fans like Picasa, but there are a few Flickr users who are SL fans.

Flickr user -Pacis- posted 28 photos in the set from the June 12th performance. There is a hilarious photo of Derek in the set, but my favorite has to be this photo of Vince wearing a Ducktales shirt and belting out a tune.

SL Superfan Evan Wohrman made it to both TLT Dance Club shows and took 20 pictures for both nights. He also managed to get the best group photo I’ve seen in a long time, and thanks to him for releasing it under creative commons so I could use it in this post. But the best photo of the set I think has to go to this picture of Mikey on bass. Nice angle, good lighting, no goofy face (see previously mentioned picture of Derek).

User DannyElfmansSecret posted 17 photos from the June 13 performances. She managed to get a great shot of almost everyone on stage, except Vince and Derek, and a great shot of Brian Klemm, which I would have to say this is my favorite of the set.

Flickr user Jon Delorey seems to have been on of the lucky few who’s planned trip to Disneyland with his YRUU religious youth group happened to be June 13, so he got to see Suburban Legends. Not sure if he was a fan, but several of his photos make reference to some of the other attendees being fans. Only 9 photos from the set are of Suburban Legends, but these are some of the most high energy photos I’ve seen of Suburban Legends. Great angles, bright colors, and nice action shots. Favorite photo of this set is actually just a vanity shot of 2 of the fans while Suburban Legends is the background, but each of the band members you can see are doing something interesting. Cute girls and Suburban Legends, that’s a win!

Coming soon, the videos from YouTube.

Click here for a list of upcoming Suburban Legends performances at Disneyland’s TLT Dance Club.

Photo by Stellar Spontaneous Photography

Disneyland News has posted a press release regarding some new Disneyland events scheduled for this summer, as part of their Summer Nightastic including the TLT Dance Club, which is being billed by Disney as “the night when Tomorrowland Terrace emits a neon glow as local radio DJs and live bands provide tunes that your whole family will enjoy.” We already know Suburban Legends is the first band that will be performing at the TLT Dance Club on June 12 and June 13, but Disneyland News also let it leak that they would be returning July 3 and July 4 (Independance Day). But wait there’s more!

Sluthing around the Summer Nightastic website, I found this PDF file (warning PDF link) with the entertainment schedule for the entire summer. I’m sure these dates are “subject to change”, but according to the schedule here is the full list of dates Suburban Legends is currently scheduled to play:

• June 12 – Friday
• June 13 – Saturday
• July 3 – Friday
• July 4 – Saturday
• July 31 – Friday
• August 16 – Sunday
• September 25 – Friday
• September 26 – Saturday

Now fans have the full schedule to plan their summer around and Suburban Legends will have more dates to test out their new songs and possibly test new members of the band.

[Disney Press Release]

Photo by Martina Josette

Suburban Legends fans have been waiting eagerly for their performances at Disneyland this Friday and Saturday. But Suburban Legends have played at Disneyland hundreds of times, so this might end up being somewhat anticlimactic. Why? Because from what I’ve been reading on message boards and on twitter, what fans are looking forward to the most is the new lineup, and what fans are going to see on Friday and Saturday isn’t necessarily the new line up, but probably just their temporary line up.

SL has said that Aaron Bertram is only slated for the summer season, and the other trumpet and trombone players seen in some twitpics might just be placeholders too. The replacement auditions are probably still be going on, because as early as a May 27, Suburban Legends had twittered that they were still auditioning new members. And that was after they showed the pics of the 4 horns practicing.

So, my fellow SL fans, should you not be excited for the Disneyland show? Of course not. But what you should be looking forward to is the chance to hear some of the songs that could be on their upcoming ska album. Suburban Legends should be trying out at least one or two of their new ska songs and gauging the crowds reaction. So if you like a song, really show it. Yell, scream, and shake it (but don’t break it).

But what Suburban Legends really should be looking at are the people in the back and gauging their reaction. These are not the fans, but just tourists passing through, and if they are smiling, dancing, or enjoying the songs, then you know the song is really good and fun, and in essence a true Suburban Legends song.

Click for Full Size

Suburban Legends just asked their fans to twitter their Top 3 favorite songs. The response was not bad, so being the nerd I am, I took those results and graphed them for your viewing pleasure. Graphs are cool (and colorful)!

As of this writing, Bright Spring Morning is the front runner, but I wonder which version people prefer; the ballad version from Dance Like Nobody’s Watching or the get-up-and-dance version from Rump Shaker.

Second favorite is going to High Fives, but Do It For the Kids is right on it’s tail. There is a four way tie for fourth place between Car 54, Hey DJ, I Want More, and Powerful Game. Although I genuinely like Car 54, it received most of it’s votes because one fan asked all his followers on Twitter to vote for it. I could have thrown out the votes, but I thought it was funny.

I was surprised to see Desperate not score higher, as it usually is a crowd favorite at shows and is their #1 bestseller on Amazon.com.

Although it might be a little premature to post the results, most responses to a tweet will come within 4-6 hours of the original post, so I don’t expect the results to change too much, as this post was written 7 hours after the Suburban Legends tweet.

Twitter your Top 3 SL Songs