Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Opening for Jon Schmidt!

We are proud to announce that we have just accepted an invitation to be the opening performance for Jon Schmidt's Christmas concert on December 19th at Gilbert High School's auditorium!


Jon is a very accomplished pianist who has thrilled audiences all over the West for the past several years with his powerful, exhilarating sound. We are honored to have the opportunity to share the stage with him at next month's show.

Tickets are $12 and can be purchased either directly from us (MC6) at any of our upcoming shows, or via this website. Hurry, b/c it's selling out fast!

It will also be an excellent opportunity to pick up our new CD, "Christmas", which will be on sale in the lobby during intermission as well as after the show.

We hope to see you there!

Thursday, October 23, 2008

The CD is finished!!

Wow! We thought this day would never come. We have been working on producing a CD for so long now, I can hardly remember when we started! But, at last, the long-awaited LP is complete.




We finished mixing the tracks last night and sent them off for mastering today. That means we should have freshly minted CDs in hand by Thanksgiving, and just in time for our Holiday concert schedule. Woo-hoo!

We are working now to set up a way to order a copy via this site. But until then, if you are interested in securing one of these "hot" items, just contact Jackson at the email address listed in the left-hand column and we'll shoot one off to you in a hurry. You can also pick one up at any of our live shows this Christmas season. Keep an eye out for upcoming live events!

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Desert Club Christmas House

We are very excited to announce that we have just confirmed our booking at the Desert Club Christmas Idea House Preview Gala Dinner and Auction to be held on December 4th at Stonebridge Manor in Mesa.

Desert Club, founded in 1946, is a non-profit women's service organization providing scholastic scholarships to students living in the East Valley and community grants to non-profit organizations serving women and children. Currently Desert Club has 45 active members and 112 "life" and "sustaining" members. Since 1958, Desert Club has hosted the annual Christmas Idea House where over the course of three days events are held at one or more beautifully decorated luxury homes. All of the proceeds from these events go to scholarships and community programs. Over the past fifty years, Desert Club's efforts have raised nearly two million dollars. Their website is http://christmasideahouse.org/christmasideahouse.htm.

The event is a class act and is a great way to get involved within the East Valley community during the holidays. We are pleased to have been invited to entertain during the Gala event.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Christmas album update

OK, so we have finished the recording process. We're so glad to be through that part, as it really is the hardest aspect of producing an album, although it's a lot of fun, too. It involves a lot of long, late nights singing the same song over, and over, and over again until we get it just right, or kill each other, whichever comes first. The close proximity and late hours lend to a bit of horsing around, but you have to keep it light or you'll simply go nuts! I can still hear those songs in my head and we finished in the studio 2 weeks ago!



Here's Jeremy showing us how it's really done!




Paul gets especially giddy in the studio. He really likes microphones!



Try falsetto, Dan!


The tracks are now in the mixing stage, and we plan to send them out for final mastering sometime within the next 7-10 days. It being a Christmas album puts us under the gun a bit as these need to be printed and ready for sale by mid-November. Keep your fingers crossed! More updates to come, so keep coming back!

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Mesa Sister Cities Concert

On Sept 11th (last Thursday) we sang a handful of songs at the Mesa Sister Cities September 11th Concert, which was to commemorate the 9-11-01 terrorist attacks against the US and to honor those that died as well as the heroes that were "born" on that day.



Here are some clips from our performance. We started out with a medley of the military branch anthems - Dad, this one's for you. Hope you like it.



We then launched into some doo-wop with "People Get Ready"


Lastly, here's our rendition of Billy Joel's "For the Longest Time". Doesn't Paul sound great?



We had a fun time with the various groups that performed that night, and our sincere thanks to the Mesa Sister Cities program for honoring us with an invitation to be a part of their show.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Mesa Music & Arts Festival - May 31, 2008

As noted in the Upcoming Live Shows section of this page, we will be performing at the Mesa Family Music & Arts Festival, held on May 31st at the Mesa Convention Center.



We go on stage (the free Local Stage) at about 6:15 pm, so be sure to catch us. I would also highly recommend catching the pro acts of Eclipse, which is also a 6-part a cappella group - very tight - as well as Peter Breinholt, who simply rocks. They will be performing in the same afternoon session (starts at 3:30 pm), so you can knock out 2 birds with one stone, er, ticket.

Tickets are on sale at http://www.musicandartsfestival.com/, so be sure to check it out. We hope to see you there!

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Album update

Many ask us, "Do you guys have a CD I can buy?" Our answer is, painfully, "No, not at this time." But, we are working on one, so that's good news.

In fact, we've been hitting the studio on various occasions for the past 3 years, but have had a real struggle finding the right combination of equipment, experience, and professional acumen. We first tried The Salt Mine, in Mesa, AZ. Great facilities and equipment, but they are more geared toward rock-n-roll bands, and not so much to a cappella groups. Honestly, they did not know what to do with us!

Then we tried a few stints at Lamont Audio, in Gilbert, AZ. Lots of tracks put down over the course of several sessions, but we never felt like it was coming together the way we wanted. Unsure of what the problem was or how to fix it, we took a break from recording to get "back to the basics" and nail down our songs.

So we then tried Sound Tracks Studio, in Mesa, AZ. I think these guys were more in-tune with what we are trying to do, and we recorded and mixed about 5-6 tracks there last year. We will likely include some of these tracks on a future CD.

We spent a very long night this past January recording about 4 songs at the Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences in Mesa, AZ as a mutual favor for a friend who was a student there. His final school project was to do a studio recording on his own, and we got to record for free. Great facility, great price, and awesome equipment (nicest we've worked with yet), but the expertise wasn't there, and we have yet still to see the finished product. Last I heard the guy has moved to San Francisco and is working in the recording industry there. I doubt we'll ever see those finished tracks. It was free, though, and a good experience for us.

Finally, we have now found a studio with great equipment, an attentive staff, and loads of experience with a cappella, and the result is some excellent work all around. Talmage Studios, in Gilbert, AZ is the place for us. In fact, Richard Talbot, the recording technician, is in an a vocal group of his own, so he understands the sound we are going for, and he is actually extremely helpful in helping us to achieve our optimal output. If we get "pitchy", he tells us right away, and we need that.

We have been working off and on at Talmage Studio since February. The trouble is being able to coordinate the schedules of 6 guys who have full-time jobs and large families (22 kids amongst the six of us, at last count!) as well as the budget for studio and mixing/mastering time. We have about 5 tracks completed so far, and are planning to get back to the studio again soon to complete the album. Our first CD will be a compilation of many of our favorite Christmas and holiday tunes, and this is appropriate as it will probably finally be ready in time for the holidays this year. We are also working on arrangements for an eventual gospel and hymns album to be produced next year (keeping fingers crossed!)

At any rate, keep an eye out for further announcements. I promise to keep you up to date with any new developments.