I think it's a forgone conclusion what I will lead with on this go-round. Something about a gig that I had talked about a couple weeks back involving a certain 21-year-old musical prodigy and the new band that she is fronting.
 |
| August Rage, a new cover band formed by veteran New Jersey musician/producer Stephen DeAcutis and fronted by Emily MacMahon, performed their first gig at Garwood's Crossroads rock club. |
Myself and my wife were able to head down to Crossroads in Garwood NJ, one of the area venues for music to cache August Rage, a new cover band put together by veteran musician and producer/mixer/engineer Stephen DeAcutis, which played their first show on April 30. The band consists of DeAcutis on lead guitar, John Hummel on drums, Joe Howell on bass, and none other than Emily MacMahon, with lead vocals, guitar, and keyboards.
If you have followed this blog the past couple of years with any authority, you'll know that Ms. MacMahon previously fronted the band ScreenAge, and attracted buzz around the state and even beyond, and as far as my blog is concerned, "superstardom", having had the last two year-end #1 songs.
DeAcutis, who is a veteran of the music business, producing, and engineering many albums over the years, is the mastermind of August Rage, having recently put this together; while looking for a lead singer, he loved what he saw and heard with Ms. MacMahon and recruited her for this new band. Great move. Here is a performance of Sass Jordan's "High Road Easy":
https://www.facebook.com/sdeacutis/videos/983385399047891
August Rage was actually the opening act at Crossroads that night, preceding Cosmic Karma Collective, but August Rage had its own following to start the night. The band took to the stage around 8:15 and played for an hour. The songs were mostly covers, spanning the 1960's through the 2000's, but the band added their own brand of interpretation on many of them. Leading off with KT Tunstall's 2005 hit "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" (I think that's the first time I've heard a band cover this song), the quartet focused mostly on the 1990's decade, with cool versions of Joan Osbourne's "One of Us", Shawn Colvin's "Sunny Came Home"; No Doubt's "Spiderwebs"; and the aforementioned Sass Jordan's "High Road Easy". While these selections, all by females or women-fronted bands, aren't normally done by cover bands, they were a natural for Emily to put her own special spin on them.
But she was more than adept at covering the male-led bands, too. Announcing that this is a Beatles tune but "that you may not have heard it before", the band went into "Penny Lane", which that, of course, you knew what it was, but they added a special spin on it, with some pauses and syncopation thrown in, and John Hummel's drumming taking the place of the original's trumpet piccolo made it just different enough to appreciate. Then there's Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll", and to tell you the truth, Robert Plant has nothing on Emily, who comes through as perhaps a modern-day Janis Joplin in belting out that rocker. Conversely, the ballad "I Can't Tell You Why", showed Emily just as effective in covering that Eagles classic; astute listeners knew she could do this as well, given her solo recording of "Only Us" that graced the top spot on my blog early last year.
There was an original song, that being DeAcutis' "Without You", and another song that I hadn't heard of, so I wasn't sure if it was a cover or not, but in both cases, the trade-offs in vocalization between Emily and Stephan meshed together very well. The latter song as well as a couple other songs showed Emily on lead guitar and especially keyboards. She can do it all.
Overall, it was an auspicious debut for August Rage. With a doubt, their repertoire will only expand as they plan on playing many gigs through the summer. It was also great to see the support for the band; as Emily had her parents Rowena and Winston there, as well as many of her friends, including members of her former band ScreenAge, supporting her, which was very pleasant to see.
My wife and I loved the show, and we talked a bit with Rowena afterwards, who said (and we agree) that Emily's talent is limitless, and she is exploring many avenues of music. While a cover band may not be her ultimate destination in music, we hope that August Rage is a steppingstone to explore more of her talents. Stephan DeAcutis has a full resume of production and engineering and can be the perfect mentor to Emily's career.
DeAcutis has production and/or engineering credits on many recent albums, by Gladys Knight, The Doughboys (whose 2015 Hot Beat Stew contained "For Your Love", which hit #19 on my blog in 2016), and even a reunion album for Vanilla Fudge (2015's Spirit of 67), as well as projects involving some of their members, including a new one for lead singer Mark Stein. Other credits, according to his discography include Cyndi Lauper's A Night to Remember.
Wishing August Rage the best of luck on their touring schedule this summer, and I will keep tabs on them.
SNS 100: LP's "Angels" barely holds off The Black Keys' "Wild Child" (by one point) to grab the top spot for a second week. Train's "AM Gold" makes a big move to #3 and is also within striking distance for the top spot. If the Keys and/or Train make it to the top, it will set records. It would be the Keys' seventh number one, and, since they had the very first blog #1 ("Tighten Up") in August 2010, they would break the record for the longest span of #1 blog songs. The current leader is Adele whose "Rolling in the Deep" hit the top in January 2011 and recently topped the list in November 2021 with "Easy on Me". If Train hits the top, it will set a record for the longest gap between number one songs. "Save Me San Francisco" hit #1 in the summer of 2011. The current record is by Pageants, whose "Just Tell Me" landed at the top spot in August of last year, eight and a half years after "Musing of the Tide" did the same in February 2013.
Mitski's "The Only Heartbreaker" drops a notch to #4, and David F. Porfirio's "Dreamscape" advances to #5. Three new entries land in the top 10: Deb Browning equals her peak position of "Stop Messin' With My Man" with her duet with Six Piece Suits, "Take Me By the Hand", moving 11-7, Florence + the Machine's "My Love" (12-9 and recently hit #1 on Sirius XM, Alt Nation's "Alt 18"), and Joy Again's "Looking Out for You" (13-10). Curtis Harding's "I Won't Let You Down", last week's Mover, grabs Impact honors in a 23-15 move, and Avi Wisnia's "Catching Leaves" moves 21-18, becoming his first top 20.
Some of the big movers further down include Anna Lavigne's 'Lavender Days" (31-23); Tim Izzard's "Glam Rock Star (Tribute)" (40-25); Harry Styles' "As It Was", back in the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 and debuting on Triple-A (44-35) and Lesa Hudson's "Sunny Days", grabbing Mover honors in a 76-40 advance.
Speaking of Ms. Hudson, I found more information on her. She has been recording since 2008, but recently has garnered many awards, including the 2018 and 2020 Carolina Beach Music Association (CBMA) vocalist of the year, and song of the year in 2020 for "A Little More Love". She is also lead vocalist with the Rick Strickland Band, another regular on the beach music charts. Looks like a lot of music to explore. As "Sunny Days" was a beach music hit in 2021 (although still doing well on many of that genre's charts), she just released a new song "Breathless". Will we see a Lesa blitz like we're currently seeing with Deb Browning? Stay tuned.
CAN YOU HEAR THEM NOW? The Top Debut this week belongs to the third release this year by the twin sister duo Hegazy, "Do You Want Me Now?", entering at #51; it follows the top five "Oil and Water" and "Maybe if We Try" which is still advancing towards the top 10 (15 to 12 this week). The song is powerful and deals with how society expects women to look and behave. The sisters have dealt with women's issues during their previous solo careers; Omnia previously visited similar issues with songs like "Aziza" (#3 in 2013) and "Dust" (#1 in 2015). Here, as depicted in the video, the sisters put on make-up to make themselves more "accepting" in society, but later on, remove it, prompting the title. As for the song, it has the slow, haunting beat similar to "Oil and Water", but with a more powerful guitar-oriented presentation that punctuates the message perfectly. Another winner for the duo.
Vance Joy returns with "Clarity" from his new album, In Our Own Sweet Time, due June 10. It's the third single from the album, following "Missing Piece" which peaked at #77 and "Don't Fade" the second single, which didn't make my playlist. The Aussie singer, born James Gabriel Keogh, had a #4 blog hit with "Lay It On Me" in 2017 and a Top 30 Billboard hit with "Riptide" in 2013. The new song is an original (not the Zedd song of several years back). It's an up-tempo, very catchy song with a story, depicted in the interesting video. Should be his best since "Lay It On Me".
Eliza and the Delusionals had a mini run on my blog with "Pull Apart Heart" and "Just Exist" in 2019-2020. After another single, they were a bit quiet. Recently, the band was busy releasing new songs during the past year, from an upcoming album Now and Then, which will be their first full length (the prior songs were from an EP). The "last single" (where were the others?) is "Bed Song". The band has always had an awesome sound to them. It's a mid-tempo indie rock record with plenty of ambience. While not as gutsy as, say, "Pull Apart Heart", repeated listens will propel this one up my playlist.
Western Massachusetts' Eavesdrop recently had a top 5 blog hit with "Alive". While the band has much material to discover, I decided to go back to their 2017 effort Tides for "Now You Know". This is the song that the female trio component of the band played during the summer of 2018 when I was at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art grounds (MoCA), which I had captured on video. The familiarity of the song (to me, anyway) should make this a winner, a chart-topper for the recent "Here". On the slow side of mid-tempo, but very appealing.
Maggie Rogers had a mid-charter on my blog with "Light On" in 2019. She returns with "That's Where I Am". which is a folky-art pop confection with some good background harmonies accompanying her. Starting out a rather sparse, the instruments kick in and accompany her vocals which have some good ranger to it, it evolves into a well-done indie pop/rock song.
Brandi Carlile had a great entry with "Right On Time", but because of bad luck with my iPod which during playlist shuffles, rarely came up. It was an awesome song, but meanwhile, her follow-up, "Broken Horses" is having a good run on Billboard's Hot AC list. This one is an up-tempo, soulful and bluesy tour-de-force with a hint of country and southern rock, which shows another side of this fine artist. Hopefully this will come up in my shuffle more often than her last song did.
Mt Joy debuts with "Lemon Tree". The indie rockers from L.A. by way of Philadelphia, deliver a song with multiple beats and enough drums and guitar to make this one worthy. Sad Girl, thanks to Shameless, is coming off a top 10 song with "Little Queenie", which came out several years ago, and I was trying to find a worthy, more recent follow-up. Seems that the name is also used by a female hip-hop artist, echoing the "Synch" situation that I described last week. Well, I did find a recent song by the band with that name, with a similar title of "Goodbye Queenie". A more slower and bluesy song than the prior one, but the lead singer still sounds like John Lennon. Worth a try.
MUCH JOY: With the additions of Mt. Joy and Vance Joy, a good chunk of songs and/or artists with that name are permeating the SNS 100. Aside from those two artists, we have two songs by Joy Again. In addition, Cannons is led by Michelle Joy; and Babeheaven is fronted by Hannah Joy, which has three songs on the list. And Donna Missal's middle name is Joy as well. I'm not even going to go down the list and check out first names of band members! Not on the list, but past and present are Joywave, Joydrop, Joy Formidable, and, going back forty years, Joy Division. And songs named "Joy" by Apollo 100, Isaac Hayes, Bastille, and of course "Joy to the World"....I could go on.
If music can't make you joyful, then what can?
Scenes ‘n’ Soundwaves 100 Playlist
April 24, 2022 (week ending April 300
|
This Week |
Last
Week |
ARTIST-Title |
Weeks
on List |
|
1 |
1 |
NUMBER ONE:  "Angels" Album: Churches (2 weeks at #1) |
13 |
|
2 |
4 |
7 |
|
|
3 |
8 |
6 |
|
|
4 |
3 |
8 |
|
|
5 |
6 |
8 |
|
|
6 |
5 |
13 |
|
|
7 |
11 |
6 |
|
|
8 |
2 |
9 |
|
|
9 |
12 |
6 |
|
|
10 |
13 |
8 |
|
|
11 |
7 |
10 |
|
|
12 |
15 |
6 |
|
|
13 |
9 |
13 |
|
|
14 |
14 |
8 |
|
|
15 |
23 |
TOP 20 IMPACT OF THE WEEK;  Album: If Words Were Flowers |
3 |
|
16 |
10 |
10 |
|
|
17 |
19 |
7 |
|
|
18 |
21 |
8 |
|
|
19 |
16 |
12 |
|
|
20 |
17 |
12 |
|
|
21 |
26 |
6 |
|
|
22 |
18 |
11 |
|
|
23 |
31 |
4 |
|
|
24 |
27 |
5 |
|
|
25 |
40 |
3 |
|
|
26 |
24 |
19 |
|
|
27 |
22 |
15 |
|
|
28 |
20 |
12 |
|
|
29 |
28 |
7 |
|
|
30 |
33 |
7 |
|
|
31 |
35 |
3 |
|
|
32 |
32 |
9 |
|
|
33 |
25 |
20 |
|
|
34 |
37 |
4 |
|
|
35 |
44 |
3 |
|
|
36 |
39 |
5 |
|
|
37 |
29 |
11 |
|
|
38 |
36 |
7 |
|
|
39 |
41 |
16 |
|
|
40 |
76 |
MOVER OF THE WEEK:  (Single Only) |
2 |
|
41 |
43 |
7 |
|
|
42 |
49 |
4 |
|
|
43 |
30 |
9 |
|
|
44 |
51 |
5 |
|
|
45 |
62 |
2 |
|
|
46 |
69 |
2 |
|
|
47 |
71 |
2 |
|
|
48 |
80 |
2 |
|
|
49 |
42 |
33 |
|
|
50 |
34 |
13 |
|
|
51 |
--- |
TOP DEBUT:  (Single Only) |
1 |
|
52 |
48 |
10 |
|
|
53 |
38 |
11 |
|
|
54 |
50 |
7 |
|
|
55 |
54 |
4 |
|
|
56 |
58 |
5 |
|
|
57 |
59 |
5 |
|
|
58 |
46 |
23 |
|
|
59 |
74 |
2 |
|
|
60 |
45 |
27 |
|
|
61 |
68 |
4 |
|
|
62 |
63 |
4 |
|
|
63 |
61 |
5 |
|
|
64 |
47 |
17 |
|
|
65 |
73 |
3 |
|
|
66 |
53 |
25 |
|
|
67 |
72 |
4 |
|
|
68 |
81 |
2 |
|
|
69 |
57 |
12 |
|
|
70 |
67 |
4 |
|
|
71 |
--- |
1 |
|
|
72 |
75 |
3 |
|
|
73 |
77 |
3 |
|
|
74 |
52 |
19 |
|
|
75 |
56 |
12 |
|
|
76 |
70 |
8 |
|
|
77 |
78 |
3 |
|
|
78 |
85 |
2 |
|
|
79 |
--- |
1 |
|
|
80 |
55 |
10 |
|
|
81 |
--- |
1 |
|
|
82 |
60 |
20 |
|
|
83 |
--- |
1 |
|
|
84 |
66 |
6 |
|
|
85 |
65 |
9 |
|
|
86 |
--- |
1 |
|
|
87 |
--- |
1 |
|
|
88 |
--- |
1 |
|
|
89 |
64 |
9 |
|
|
90 |
79 |
21 |
|
|
91 |
87 |
28 |
|
|
92 |
82 |
13 |
|
|
93 |
84 |
11 |
|
|
94 |
83 |
5 |
|
|
95 |
86 |
20 |
|
|
96 |
89 |
11 |
|
|
97 |
91 |
10 |
|
|
98 |
88 |
9 |
|
|
99 |
90 |
19 |
|
|
100 |
92 |
7 |
|
|
Songs with the greatest increase in
favorite points over the prior week. ●
Songs with
25 or more plays on iTunes/iPods ▲ Songs with 50 or more plays.
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