James McCartney, the son of former Beatle Paul McCartney and the late Linda Eastman McCartney, will be perform [sic] in an 8 p.m. show at 1 Longfellow Square in Portland May 16 as part of a 27-state U.S. tour. McCartney is fresh off the release of his two digital-only EPs, “Available Light” and “Close At Hand,” as well as his first physical release, “The Complete EP Collection,” a special two-disc package that includes the debut EPs in their entirety along with five bonus tracks. Now, McCartney is set to release his first full-length album, “Me,” May 21. “For my first album I wanted to make a record that would be intimate, deeply personal, and honest,” McCartney said. “An album that would say, ‘This is who I am… both musically and personally. This is me.’” (read more at Wiscasset Newspaper)
For a youngster, playing the trombone is a challenge. The “slide” is often longer than the young musician’s arms, and keeping control can be difficult when extending it out. Sometimes it gets away, and drastic measures are needed to stop it. “Once in a while you have to use your foot,” remembers Don Brooks of Bethel, who learned to play in the 1930s. For his great-grandson, Christian Brown, it’s a more recent memory. “I’ve used my foot before in a concert,” said Christian, now a Telstar High School freshmen. “It almost went off the end and I had to catch it.” Don and Christian are separated by two generations, but sharing their devotion to the brass instrument has created a unique bond across the years. Don was in grammar school in Bethel when he started taking private trombone lessons. The instrument, he said, “just appealed to me. I enjoyed it from the start. They had a band and an orchestra in the old grammar school, and I played in them.” It was the beginning of a lifelong commitment to playing in musical groups – both informal and organized. (read more at Bethel Citizen)
BANGOR — Three bands that had major hits in the 1990s and have enjoyed continued popularity are set to perform at Darling’s Waterfront Pavilion on the Bangor Waterfront. The Barenaked Ladies, Ben Folds Five and Guster will join the growing roster of Waterfront Concerts already slated for this season on Sunday, July 21. Tickets will go on sale on Friday, March 22. The Barenaked Ladies performed on the Waterfront stage last summer and they continue their yearly “Last Summer on Earth Tour” with another stop in Bangor. BNL was formed in Toronto in the late ’80s, and over the course of 25 years has scored five Top 10 hits, including “One Week” and “If I Had a Million Dollars,” and has sold more than 15 million albums. Their last album, “Stop Us If You’ve Heard This One Before,” a compilation of rare and live tracks, was released last May. They also are known for having written and performed the theme song to the CBS sitcom “The Big Bang Theory.” The band has played in Maine more than 10 times over the past two decades. (read more at Lewiston Sun Journal)
LEWISTON — Legendary singer-songwriter Bob Dylan is scheduled to appear at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee in April, according to a new tour schedule posted on his website. The performance is scheduled for Wednesday, April 10, but no tickets are yet available online. A representative of the Colisee has said details on ticket pricing and availability will be released Monday. According to bobdylan.com, the 11-time Grammy Award-winning artist will appear at the Colisee with the Los Angeles-based folk rock quartet Dawes — made up of brothers Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith, Wylie Gelber and Tay Strathairn — as part of Dylan’s U.S. Spring Tour. (read more at Lewiston Sun Journal)
BANGOR, Maine — Living up to its name was never a problem for Motley Crue, one of the quintessential “bad boy” rock bands of all time. The Crue will be back on the road and for the first time in four years is including a Maine location on its international concert schedule. Motley Crue will play the Darling’s Waterfront Pavilion in Bangor on Thursday, May 16, with an opening act that has yet to be announced. The four-man act from Los Angeles is famous — or infamous, depending on your point of view — for onstage motorcycles, acrobats, contortionists and strippers during shows. They’ve become not only one the most successful and gritty ’80s “hair bands” but also an iconic rock phenomenon that has lasted well beyond the ’80s despite plenty of dissension, disruption, drama and disaster. “They just keep coming,” said Alex Gray, Waterfront Concerts chief promoter. “They just seem to get back to one thing, playing for a fan core that will do just about anything to go see them play. That passion is reflected from the band to the fans and back.” (read more at Bangor Daily News)
HEBER SPRINGS, Ark. — Former country star Mindy McCready apparently took her own life Sunday afternoon in Heber Springs, Ark. Authorities say McCready died of a suspected self-inflicted gunshot to the head and an autopsy is planned. She was 37, the mother of two young sons. McCready had attempted suicide at least three times since 2005, as she struggled to cope amid a series of tumultuous public events that marked much of her adult life. Speaking to The Associated Press in 2010, McCready smiled wryly while talking about the string of issues she’d dealt with over the last half-decade. “It is a giant whirlwind of chaos all the time,” she said of her life. “I call my life a beautiful mess and organized chaos. It’s just always been like that. My entire life things have been attracted to me and vice versa that turn into chaotic nightmares or I create the chaos myself. I think that’s really the life of a celebrity, of a big, huge, giant personality.” This time it seems the whirlwind overwhelmed McCready. Her death comes a month after that of David Wilson, her longtime boyfriend and the father of her youngest son. He is believed to have shot himself on the same porch of the home they shared in Heber Springs, a small vacation community about 65 miles north of Little Rock. (read more at Portland Press Herald)
BANGOR, Maine — Still known more for his work as the former front man for Hootie and the Blowfish, Darius Rucker will be the latest act to continue a strong country-western music influence at the Waterfront Concerts’ Bangor Pavilion shows. Rucker will headline his first country tour this year, and Bangor is one of his stops. Rucker will come to the Bangor waterfront with guest opening performers Rodney Atkins and Jana Kramer on Friday, June 21. Rucker, a 45-year-old native of Charleston, S.C., said this is his first tour as a headliner since his Hootie and the Blowfish days. “So to say I’m excited is an understatement,” Rucker said in a press release about the upcoming tour. (read more at Bangor Daily News)
BANGOR, Maine — One of the most decorated musicians — as part of a multiplatinum band that ruled the late 1970s and early 1980s, and as a solo act, songwriter or producer since then — is bringing the encore portion of his successful Back to Bass concert tour to Bangor. Gordon Sumner — better known internationally as Sting, the former lead singer and songwriter of the British supergroup The Police — has extended his 2011-12 world tour with more stops in North America and Europe, beginning in late May. Sting will perform many of his greatest hits from his days in The Police and as a solo artist — stripped down — with a five-piece band in Bangor on Thursday, June 20. Tickets go on sale at noon Friday, Feb. 1. (read more at Bangor Daily News)
Those in the mood to celebrate the end of 2012 and the beginning of a new year can do so in style at the Nasson Community Center in Springvale. The New Year’s Eve party features both a sumptuous buffet and a live band. Starting at 7 p.m. there will be hors d’oeuvres, followed by a buffet of shrimp and scallops sautéed in garlic wine sauce, beef tenderloin with mushroom burgundy sauce, chicken breast with spinach, three kinds of cheeses, salad, mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, chocolate and vanilla mousse and coffee. (read more at Weekend Observer)
AUGUSTA — When Betsy Kobayashi raises the bow of her violin straight up high, some 50 young string musicians follow suit, pointing to the high vaulted ceiling of South Parish Congregational Church and giving her their absolute attention. With an emphatic downstroke, Kobayashi launches the violin, viola and cello players into the first notes of “Minuet No. 3” by Johann Sebastian Bach. The sound is startlingly powerful yet sweet, filling the sanctuary of the church. None of the boys and girls has any sheet music in front of them. This is a rehearsal of the Pineland Suzuki School for two benefit concerts at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 8, in Oakland and 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 9, in Augusta. About 100 young musicians, most of them violinists, will perform. The Oakland concert will be at the Duke Albanese Performing Arts Center at Messalonskee High School. The Augusta concert will be at South Parish Congregational Church, off State Street. (read more at Kennebec Journal)
James McCartney, the son of former Beatle Paul McCartney and the late Linda Eastman McCartney, will be perform [sic] in an 8 p.m. show at 1 Longfellow Square in Portland May 16 as part of a 27-state U.S. tour. McCartney is fresh off the release of his two digital-only EPs, “Available Light” and “Close At Hand,” as well as his first physical release, “The Complete EP Collection,” a special two-disc package that includes the debut EPs in their entirety along with five bonus tracks. Now, McCartney is set to release his first full-length album, “Me,” May 21. “For my first album I wanted to make a record that would be intimate, deeply personal, and honest,” McCartney said. “An album that would say, ‘This is who I am… both musically and personally. This is me.’” (read more at Wiscasset Newspaper)
