12 artists 'Live from Bad Racket'; studio announces first compilation release

Source: Bad Racket Recording Studio
http://badracketrecording.bandcamp.com/

A multitude of sounds have been projected in the craft studio space of Bad Racket. During two years of operation, the production team has recorded and engineered a mix of full-length records and EPs and coordinated numerous live shows (on- and off-site events). Hundreds of songs have reverberated off the aged walls and colorful hand-fashioned partitions that enliven the open performance space.

Arguably one of the most successful endeavors helping to launch the studio out of Northeast Ohio obscurity is the Live from Bad Racket video series it launched in collaboration with Ohio Authority in 2010. To commemorate the growth of the video series, Bad Racket assembled––and will release on Nov. 20––its first compilation album reflecting the sundry musicians with whom the studio worked in its infancy.

The musical corpus comprises the first dozen artists and bands to be featured in the Live from Bad Racket series from 2010 through 2011. It is a diverse audio showcase, which includes tracks by Signals Midwest, Nick Zuber, The Family Womack Band, and Thaddeus Anna Greene. [Full track listing available here.]

"I've been planning this for a long time. Basically, since we did the first video I wanted to release the audio," said Thomas Fox, Bad Racket co-owner and studio manager. "It's been two years since I first started thinking about this."

Signals Midwest was the first band to appear in a Live from Bad Racket music video. The group's guitarist and vocalist, Max Stern, recollects his early experiences with the studio.

"I was kind of the guinea pig," Stern said, attributing his Bad Racket introduction to his acquaintance with studio co-founder Adam Wagner. Stern was working at Go Media, a marketing and design agency located two floors above the studio on Lorain Avenue in Ohio City. Wagner invited him and his band to demo some tracks in the recording space, which was still bare-walled and lacking a proper audio control panel. Despite meager aesthetics in the performance chamber, Stern said the pre-session hangouts and listening parties made the difference. He scheduled Signals Midwest for a recording session in October 2010. That month, the Live from Bad Racket series was born with the recording and filming of "In Tensions."

"I didn't know Live from Bad Racket was going to become this big thing," Stern said, adding, "We must have played that song 15 to 20 times that day because the director, Aaron Freeder, only had one camera."

Stern admitted he was sick of the song by end of the day. However, the overall experience and resulting product led to an official recording session for Signals Midwest's full-length album, Latitudes and Longitudes––another first for Bad Racket. [Wagner and Stern recount the experience in this recent Bad Racket blog post and interview.] 

"I feel like we got on the ground floor of something really awesome," Stern expressed.

Since then, the band has recorded several smaller projects, including a couple of split 7" records with ally bands French Exit and Shady Ave. Stern even recorded a solo acoustic project, Meridian, at the studio.

"I don't feel the need to go anywhere else," Stern said. Describing Bad Racket's recording process as "open, communicative," he explained, "I felt really taken care of as a musician, like they wanted the output  to sound as good as I wanted it to."

Launch event – Part I

Signals Midwest will headline the first of four launch events to promote the Live from Bad Racket compilation album on Friday, November 16.

"Thomas has put together four really cool shows. Each kind of reflects a different genre so this is kind of the 'punk rock' show," Stern said. "I'm excited we're headlining. I feel like we've been together since the beginning. It's cool to carry it over into this."

Accompanying Signals Midwest for Friday's show are:

• Ma Jolie (Philadelphia, Pa.)
• Worship This! (Cleveland/Akron)
• En Garde (Akron/Kent)

The event will be held at Bad Racket Recording Studio, 4507 Lorain Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44102.

Official release details

On Nov. 20, the Live from Bad Racket compilation album will be available through online vendors i-Tunes and Amazon. Hard copies will be available at exclusive Northeast Ohio venues: Music Saves, Room Service and The Root Cafe. Pre-ordering for digital or hard-copy editions of the album is open now through BandCamp.

Live from Bad Racket: Nights "Walk Away"

Lugging musical instruments and gear to a roof accessible only by a ladder and a ceiling exit is no easy task. But that’s what Director Aaron Freeder and the Bad Racket Recording Studio team had to do to pull off the Nights Live from Bad Racket video shoot last fall. In fact, Nights front-woman Jenna Fournier said the production team had to tie the drums with ropes and pull them up the side of the building.


Bethesda was the first band to be filmed on the roof of the studio on Lorain Avenue for the “Live” series. However, the Nights production was fittingly the first Live feature shot atop the building after dusk. Some residents in the Ohio City neighborhood apparently were not too thrilled with the raucous rockers performing amidst bright flashing lights late into the evening.


"Someone had actually called the cops on us. We had to quit for the night and come back the next day," Fournier said, adding that night two wrapped earlier in the evening to avoid another noise complaint.


Freeder released the Nights Live from Bad Racket music video via Vimeo on January 1. The black-and-white feature stars the band performing “Walk Away.”


"Aaron who shot it, i thought, is very talented," Fournier said. "He had a vision, and we just did what we do and played."

Live From Bad Racket - Nights from Aaron Freeder on Vimeo.



On being asked to join the Live from Bad Racket featured artists, Fournier said, "We were flattered, and they have done a lot in the year they've been around. They did it kind of as a perk for us recording there. If we were to hire someone to do that, it would be thousands of dollars. It's a nice promotional tool to have."


Nights recorded its upcoming full-length album with Bad Racket, but is still working on wrapping up the final product. Fournier said the group is re-tracking a few things and outsourcing mixing. The record is expected to release in early spring. The band is hoping to be on tour by summer. 


Nights' next show is at The Happy Dog on Tuesday, January 10. The band will play with psych-pop rockers DOM. 


Nights is also scheduled for February 18 at the Beachland Tavern. Twin Sister will headline the show featuring Ava Luna.

Monday Muse: Humble Home "Too Young" and Thaddeus Greene "Let Me Be" Live From Bad Racket

The Rhythm Report is once again celebrating the reverent songwriting of Humble Home in this week's Monday Muse. Last month, the blog featured a video of Humble Home's vocalists Nick Wise and Matt Hectorne in a back-alley performance of "Babel," originally released in 2010.


Bad Racket Recording Studio introduced a new audio-visual production featuring the full band on December 2. The independent folk rock quartet from the Solon-Aurora area was invited into the Ohio City-based studio to record a Live From Bad Racket session directed by Aaron Freeder. 

Live From Bad Racket - Humble Home from Bad Racket on Vimeo

Filmed at and audio engineered by Bad Racket Recording Studio
Directed by Aaron Freeder

Humble Home announced through social media that the band is in writing sessions and updated fans with a Facebook post that read, "New material is coming together like cream and coffee. Stay tuned."

The group has been generous to eager ears, playing raw renditions of their latest creations during a few live performances in the past months. Fans can catch up with the band before the year's end at The Grog Shop on Sunday, December 18, when Humble Home takes the stage with Above the Atlantic, CARE and Morgan Mecasky.

MORE MUSING

Throwback artist Thaddeus Greene was also a featured subject for a Live From Bad Racket video that hit the internet in November. Greene was courteous to allow a sneak preview of the "Let Me Be" audio recording for The Rhythm Report's interview with Bad Racket in October. Now, the full craft recording production is available to satiate the auditory and visual senses. Watch the video here and stay tuned to The Rhythm Report for more on this exceptionally vintage musician.

Live From Bad Racket - Thaddeus Greene from Bad Racket on Vimeo

Filmed at and audio engineered by Bad Racket Recording Studio

Directed by Aaron Freeder

Show to See: Thursday, Oct. 27 – Nicky English at Grog Shop

Rocker Nicky English will play at Grog Shop on Thursday, October 27, with TS & The Past Haunts (featuring Travis Shettel of Piebald), Aficionado and ME before he migrates southwest from the cold, coming winter to make Southern California his new home.

The show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10, purchase in advance here.

The former Posh Army frontman recorded a Live From Bad Racket session earlier this year. Watch Nicky English and band perform "Call You Back."

Live From Bad Racket is an award-winning series produced by Aaron Freeder. 

Live, Local Music is at Heart of Bad Racket Anniversary Show

Written by Priscilla Tasker

Camaraderie and music pulsed through the multi-colored paneled walls of Bad Racket Recording Studio in Ohio City as friends and artists gathered to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the business that is growing into a mainstay of the Cleveland music scene. An intimate crowd upwards of 60 people assembled to swill a few brews and listen to area bands play on the small stage centered in the studio chamber.

Ladybird and The Folk led off the night to entertain early arrivers with live incantations of spritely verse and acoustic-driven progressions.

 Bad Racket Anniversary Show! – October 21, 2011
©Bad Racket

An assorted mix of folk mingled in the dimly lit room around miscellaneous seating arrangements, a makeshift coffee table propped up by tires, and a piano bar, behind which was a keg of Buckeye Brewing’s Cleveland Beer Week “special brew” – a gift bestowed to the studio owners by its crafter. 

Humble Home emerged to the performance platform. Nebulous harmonies and ghostly minstrelsies soon filled and hung in the space with listeners yielding to the beauty of sound suspended in air. Many of the band’s songs are doleful and pensive in nature, but the four men delivered a lively set. To appease the congregation’s calls for one more song, the band closed with an upbeat work in progress, “Welcome Home,” giving witnesses a first listen to the song which had never before been played outside of the Humble Home practice space.

Humble Home at Bad Racket – October 21, 2011
©Bad Racket

Although Ladybird and Humble Home were the only artists promoted as part of the bill, Bad Racket invited several other musicians with whom the studio’s worked to take the stage. 

After a brief intermission, Thaddeus Greene and The So & So’s roused the company of music lovers with swelling vintage rock grooves, harkening to acid rock days. The band played as a duo, Greene and drummer Anthony Foti (also of Humble Home). With a few words, they paid tribute to ailing bassist, Matthew Augusta, who was unable to join them for the evening.

Thaddeus Greene at Bad Racket – October 21, 2011
©Bad Racket

The extended lineup drove the event well beyond its scheduled end time of 11 p.m. Tom Evanchuck and The Old Money strolled in close to midnight, after the band’s show at Wilbert’s, to set the party off with its blues-bound rock ‘n’ roll. The performance was marked by G. Patrick Jenkins III’s exhibition of his new lead guitar role. The energy of the full band behind familiar tunes sent a few individuals into a dizzying dance.

Cool Jason and Pat Mulloy wound down the night with a few good ol’ boy bar tunes before the crowd dwindled. There were only a hand full of people left talking and diddling around on the instruments strewn about the stage as Bad Racket’s Thomas Fox picked up the acoustic guitar to croon a couple of tunes in the quiet company of those who remained.

ººº

Listen to The Rhythm Report's pre-show interview with two of three Bad Racket co-owners, Adam Wagner and Thomas Fox.

Read about one of many wins for Bad Racket in 2011 in this article: Last-minute music fest takes Rock Hall, Science Center


Bad Racket, LLC is owned and operated by Thomas Fox, Adam Wagner and James Kananen.

A Rhythm Report Film – The Great Unsaid: Documented

I know many of you have been waiting for it. And to my patient patrons and Benjamin Barr fans, I present The Great Unsaid: A Documented Tale.

In March 2011, Barr produced and directed a music video to accompany the debut of his musically inclined alter ego Jim Truth's single "The Great Unsaid." The song is the sixth track on the album Caught and Held Fast, which Barr originally released under a different title in 2010 and re-recorded under its new moniker with the help of Bad Racket Recording Studio earlier this year.

Filmed at The Grog Shop in Cleveland Heights and Barr's Ohio City home, The Great Unsaid: A Documented Tale captures the escapades of the crew and cast during the two-day video shoot as well as the director's reflections on the production. The documentary premiered at the music video release party in June. This is the first time it has been released online.

The Great Unsaid: Documented

Run time: 10 minutes, 44 seconds

Produced and directed by Priscilla Tasker of The Rhythm Report and De los angeles Productions 

in association with Benjamin Barr and Failure Films

Standard definition Grog Shop footage shot by Priscilla Tasker

HD Grog Shop footage shot by Eric Leiser, Sian Wright and Len Ganley

Director interview filmed by Sian Wright and Eric Leiser

Watch the music video for Jim Truth's "The Great Unsaid," too.

The Great Unsaid from Benjamin Liar on Vimeo.

Bad Racket Anniversary Show! Full interview with Thomas Fox and Adam Wagner

Rhythm Reporter Priscilla Tasker interviews Thomas Fox and Adam Wagner of Bad Racket about their Ohio City-based studio’s first year in business. In this 12-minute interview, the two Cleveland entrepreneurs talk about the goals they set for 2011, the making of the Live from Bad Racket series, organizing 6ixth City Tech Fest's musical lineup earlier in July, and the artists they've worked with since the studio officially opened shop on October 17, 2010. 

Bad Racket Anniversary Show! Interview with Thomas Fox and Adam Wagner by TheRhythmReport
Featured music: "Let Me Be" Thaddeus Greene – Recorded at Bad Racket Recording Studio – August 20, 2011 (Song is scheduled for official release later this fall.)

Bad Racket Anniversary Show! 

Friday, October 21 – 8 p.m.

Musical acts: Humble Home and Ladybird and The Folk

Free event with registration

Find more information and register at http://anniversaryshow.eventbrite.com/.

Bad Racket, LLC is owned and operated by Thomas Fox, Adam Wagner and James Kananen.

Audio Tease: Bad Racket interview with Thomas Fox and Adam Wagner, full interview to come

Rhythm Reporter Priscilla Tasker interviews Thomas Fox and Adam Wagner of Bad Racket about their studio’s first year in business. In this short, the two Cleveland entrepreneurs tell how they met at John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio.

Bad Racket Interview - Teaser - October 18, 2011 by TheRhythmReport

Featured music: “Caught (and held fast)" by Jim Truth from the album Caught and Held Fast. Principal recording by BNAB at The Liar’s Lair. Additional recording and mixing by Adam Wagner (Bad Racket)


Bad Racket Anniversary Show! 
Friday, October 21 – 8 p.m.
Musical acts: Humble Home and Ladybird and The Folk
Free event with registration
Find more information and register at http://anniversaryshow.eventbrite.com/.


Bad Racket, LLC is owned and operated by Thomas Fox, Adam Wagner and James Kananen.


Stay tuned for the extended interview later this week.

Last-minute music fest takes Rock Hall, Science Center

Humble Home – © The Rhythm Report 2011

Need to pull together a multi-artist concert with Northeast Ohio’s finest musicians in two weeks? Call Bad Racket Recording Studios.

Organizers for 6ixth City Tech Fest called on Bad Racket’s Tom Fox when they decided to add musical entertainment to its lineup of technology and entrepreneurial-based conferences held at The Great Lakes Science Center and The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum on Saturday, July 23.

Bad Racket has worked with a few of the area’s most successful musicians, some of whom Fox and partner Adam Wagner turned to as they sought to pull together a last-minute lineup of more than 10 bands.

“I just went through the Cleveland playlist of people who I like that play in Cleveland and people who I’ve worked with at Bad Racket and said, ‘Are you available?’” Fox said. “People just got back to me like, ‘Hell, yeah! I’m not going to miss that for anything. Rock Hall. Science Center. All this energy going on.”

Nick Zuber Band (NZB), Nights, and Tom Evanchuck and The Old Money are a few of the bands on the Bad Racket client list who came out to perform. NZB and Nights played the indoor stage at the Science Center and the Evanchuck crew headlined the outdoor set on the Rock Hall’s museum plaza.

Nick Zuber Band – © The Rhythm Report 2011

Zuber jazzed up his acoustic, boy-on-the-beach guitar sound with the backing of a saxophonist Bryan Connell and longtime drummer, Angela “AC” Cutrone. Also playing as a trio, Nights serenaded a modest audience in the atrium; the whimsy of their melodies capturing the attention of a few passersby. Evanchuck and band played a set in grueling, over 90-degree heat after standing by to support several acts who played before them, including Humble Home and Thaddeus Green and The So & So’s.

Much credit was given to the outdoor performers who braved the sultry weather to play for a small audience who sparsely congregated on the barren plaza. The lack of a solid crowd is one drawback to piecing together a music festival in such a short timeframe at two locations where visitors’ primary objectives are to tour the facilities and escape sweltering temperatures.

“I wish more people had stopped to listen, but it’s definitely cool to play at a place that’s made for music,” said Anthony Foti, drummer for Humble Home and Thaddeus Green, about performing at the Rock Hall.

Fox said beyond familiar acts to form the day’s roster, he also reached out to bands that Bad Racket is scouting to work with in the future. Two acts that stood out to The Rhythm Report were:

Humble G  – © The Rhythm Report 2011

• Humble G, a quintet that blends the sounds of classical violin, African beats and hip hop into forms of music it calls “HipHope” and “Afri-pean” and
• The rambunctious Zach Freidhof, of Zach and The Bright Lights, who played an acoustic set, escaping the confines of the stage during his final song to flee up the escalator and entertain Science Center visitors on the main level of the venue before security stopped him from dashing up to the third floor. (Watch the video here.)

“That’s rock and roll,” Freidhof said.

Bad Racket pulled together a multifarious cast of artists from Rob Geer, of The Conductor and The Creator, who played a solo set composed of original songs and creative covers, to the rap squad Wildlife Soundz, who performed with live drums and vocals over prerecorded instrumentals. Other acts included The Commonwealth, Filmstrip and Tha Outsiderz.

Bad Racket does not have plans to coordinate any other festivals this year. But who knows in another 16 days, Fox said. However, the studio is planning an event to celebrate the one-year anniversary of its video series Live from Bad Racket in the fall and its team plans on being a part of The 6ixth City Tech Fest next year.

“The Tech Fest is this entrepreneurship showcase. They’ve got all these people that are doing startup companies, and they’re all kind of in this rockstar mindset of going their own way and trying to figure out how to make something in this world,” Fox said. “It’s the same thing as music. It really is, from an emotional standpoint. If they do this again next year, we’re only going to do it bigger.”

Photos can be seen on The Rhythm Report's Facebook page. 
Videos of select performances are available on YouTube or in this previous blog post.


Written by Priscilla Tasker

Tom Evanchuck strikes a chord with three new records

Written by Priscilla Tasker

At only 22 years old, one knows Tom Evanchuck could not have lived all the tales he sings, but he tells them better than most ever could. He’s drawn from the greatest storytellers of eras gone by, the music of our mothers’ and fathers’ time, and the tunes their parents tapped to before that.  The air of an ageless soul flows in his music and strikes a listener still.

Better known as an acoustic folk artist around the Greater Cleveland area, Evanchuck is reshaping the mold with his first electric record, Tom Evanchuck is back as The Evanchucks, and still holding true to the sound that has captured fans — not only from the local scene, but beyond Ohio’s state line — with the simultaneous release of his third acoustic album, Fadin’ Glow.

Fadin’ Glow

In Evanchuck’s traditional fashion, Fadin’ Glow is a patchwork of stories sung over an undulating acoustic guitar. But breaking away from the mirthful melodies heard on Tom, Fadin’ Glow is a collection of somber chanties. While the record starts with “Sunshine,” an upbeat rockabilly jive with an optimistic message about taking life as it rolls, the record’s title song is a brief, lonesome ballad encapsulating the silent moments of a heart aching in hope. Leah McCoy’s innocently sweet vocals complement the depth of Evanchuck’s own on the song “Fadin’ Glow,” as well as several other tracks featured on the album including “Glory,” a matrimonial love duet with the potential to steal the hearts of brides across the country picking out their perfect wedding songs.

Evanchuck said his writing for this album was more personal than his previous work. “All My Friends” is true down to the very last verse, he said. In the song, he candidly expresses his sentiment regarding his brother’s departure to the Navy, warbling, “They call it a tin can, for a grown man, the office of the sea. I say, those thievens stole my brother, and it’s a while ‘til he’s free.” 

“The development of my writing has gone from strictly wanting to write story songs to more personal writing. It’s matured in many ways,” Evanchuck said. 

However, his broad stock of songs is evidence that Evanchuck is a storyteller at the core. Fadin’ Glow’s third track “Everett” is a brazen western-style fable that tells the tale of an unscrupulous character who steals the life of another man and makes it his own only to be caught.

“My mind is somewhat of a scary place,” Evanchuck laughed.

The record ends with the low-tumbling strain “Somebody’s Got To,” a prelude to the electric release.

Tom Evanchuck is back as The Evanchucks

Tom Evanchuck is back as The Evanchucks picks up where Fadin’ Glow left off, with a charged reprise of “Somebody’s Got To.” The electric-infused record signals Evanchuck’s crossover from humble folk singer to bonafide rock musician. The album is an ode to Americana. Hints of blues and gospel permeate through distorted guitar riffs, going back to the roots of rock ‘n’ roll.

“Take Me Back” is a carefree anthem one-way bound to make you want to forget responsibility and hit the open road. Drummer Anthony Evanchuck kickstarts the song with a Texas shuffle rat-a-tat that drives the energy of the roving guitar over Patrick Jenkin’s gravel bass line and straight on through Will Nolan’s wild organ interludes.

The band switches up the tempo on “Long, Long Ohio,” a steady-building tribute to the unchanging comfort of home peppered with simple, percussive tambourine taps beneath melodic guitar murmurs. 

“I love Otis Redding, Ray Charles, and Lightning Hopkins — that old bluesy sound mixed with Motown. Basically, if I could sing like an old black man, I would,” Evanchuck said of his inspiration for both the electric and acoustic releases.

Dwelling on the fight to surrender to lover’s adoration, Evanchuck feigns the fervor of Charles’ “Georgia On My Mind” as he cries out for “Peace of Mind” on the aptly titled blues, doo-wop tune. The song, he said, is “basically telling the girl, she knows and you know — so just give in. Find that peace of mind.” 

The good-time spirit of Tom Evanchuck is back as The Evanchucks makes it a fitting summer soundtrack. With the collaboration of talented musicians backing Evanchuck on this album, his newfound sound ascends to a class of music lost in your parents’ record collections.

Fadin’ Glow and Tom Evanchuck is back as The Evanchucks were both recorded by Division Sound and are available on iTunes and Amazon. The three-song EP, Nebby Thomas and Zrenner Lewis, which Evanchuck recorded with Bad Racket Recording Studios and launched in advance of the dual release, is available on CDBaby and Amazon.

Editor’s note: For an optimal listening experience, begin with Nebby Thomas and Zrenner Lewis, follow with Fadin’ Glow and end with Tom Evanchuck is back as The Evanchucks.

Follow Tom Evanchuck and The Old Money on 

Facebook and Twitter. 

Read more on Tom Evanchuck in these Rhythm Report articles:

• "TOM" beyond the Evanchuck: An interview with The Old Money
• United We Stand: Evanchuck, Red Wanting Blue

Also, check out photos of the band's summer festival junket in Ohio in 

The Rhythm Report's Facebook albums: 

• Painesville's Party in the Park 
• 6ixth City Tech Fest