I can barely contain my excitement.  We’ve been waiting months for this show to finally get here, and tonight is the night.  If you’re in the Springfield, MO area tonight, you don’t want to miss this show.  Doors are at 8pm, $10 cover and all ages.  We’ll be recording this show like all the rest, so I’ll post the whole show if we get permission to do so.  See you there!

Anthem [mp3]

Shook [mp3]

“Ares” Live Video

“First Snow” Live

Live from the Meridian Coffee House (acoustic style)

Here’s a nice little remix of “Soon It Will Be Cold Enough to Build Fires” I randomly found on youtube by a kid called None Like Joshua.

Official Site / Myspace / Vote for Emancipator in Bonobo’s Remix Competition

And don’t forget to check out Lemondrop’s homepage to see other shows we’ve got booked.  Also, become a fan of Lemondrop on facebook!

www.ld417.org

Let’s start there.  You remember Lemondrop Records right?  The record label Chuck and I started two years ago and had pretty good success getting local bands out to our Springfield community.  But with two guys, you can only really do so much.  Chuck then brought the idea up of focusing on furthering both arts and music in our community from a grassroots level, going strictly local, rather than trying to make money by promoting bands and their music to Springfield and surrounding areas, which had begun to stall out.  The resulting efforts of us pursuing this new direction was turning Lemondrop Records into simply Lemondrop, a non-profit art and music resource that brought all the brightest and best people we’d worked with freelance style over the years, in house, working as a unit towards our new mission, and acting as a central collective bridging the gap between artists, musicians, and the community.  To keep this brief, I’ll point you to two links that sum up our mission and what we think the future holds for us better than I could write here…

About Lemondrop

The Lemondrop Art Directory (what we feel will be our eventual future, and will represent the culmination of all our non-profit plans in one place)

Now that you’ve read the basic idea of what we are and where we’re going, let me tell you a bit about what we’ve been up to since the switch.  Last summer we had the great fortune to meet a donor who loved our vision with Lemondrop Records, and wanted to help us get this next venture truly underway.  With his help, we got a window front space on Commercial Street, a budding art street, and we’ve been throwing art gallery shows in conjunction with Springfield’s 1st Friday art walks.  From there, we brought in Ben the Builder as we’ve dubbed him and a stage was soon built in record time.  We threw our first huge show as an experiment to see if we had the chops to not only book an out of town band, but get people to show up.  We brought in Big Gigantic, a fantastic show by the way, and saw nearly 70 people travel from St. Louis and Columbia, nearly three hour drives, to catch the show, and a packed house full of locals, officially selling our little space out in our first try.  I was amazed, and we knew after that show we could pull off a Lemondrop concert series.

We took a Christmas break, and after a slight complication with our space and getting it back up and running after delays due to city regulations needing to be met, we’re back in business.  This Saturday we’ve got Mac Lethal over at the High Life, followed by D.J.P. and our Lemondrop DJ’s the following Thursday for Lemondrop Night at the same venue.  But what I’m beyond excited about, and what should excite most my readers since I’ve written about him multiple times here on the Perch, is we’ve got Emancipator coming to the Lemondrop space March 18th.

That’s right, Emancipator.  The guy who brought you one of my favorite instrumental tracks in “Anthem” [mp3]

That’s the sweet show poster.  If you can make it out to that show, we’d love to have you.  And you know it’ll be an amazing show.

Basically, that’s the jist of the new Lemondrop.  Non-profit art collective aimed at furthering and nurturing local art culture here in Springfield while providing a means for bands and artists to get their music and art to the community, and vice versa.  Sorry I’ve been lacking on the Perch side of things, but I’m back and 2010 should be one hell of a year.  Thanks for sticking with me and I’ll keep you updated on all things Lemondrop, as well as keep my music ramblings coming as frequently as possible.

-Kevin

P.S.  If you’re interested, here’s a couple things we’re getting off the ground under the Lemondrop Umbrella…

Ruby Jewel – “Music Inspiring Change”
Another non-profit (something we’re all about these days), that is basically a place where we bring bands and non-profit organizations together to create synergy and promote a healthy working relationship between the two.  Non-profit Org’s sift through our database of songs, usually singles OK’d by the bands for free use, that fit whatever use the Organization may need (commercials, theme songs, causes, etc.).  The end result, we think at least, will be a place that provides a service no one has yet to give, which is helping ease the complications for Non-profits that arise from getting and using songs by bringing bands together who are OK with having their song used by the non-profit for free, and who in turn help these bands get more exposure.  Get it?  Yeah, we don’t really either, but we’ll figure it out over time as it evolves. (bands and Org’s added as I snatch them up)

Music Revolt – Down with major labels and that sort of stuff.  Podcasts every week (drinking of a six pack each show manditory), news and updates on everyday corruption by the major labels and what we can do about it, along with all sorts of other stuff we haven’t thought of yet.  Should be fun and you should definitely join our revolution.  (site not quite done yet, but you can still listen to our podcasts while we get the kinks ironed out and the site official launched)

-Kevin

1. MGMT – Time to Pretend
   
2. Goldfinger – The Only One
   
3. Snowglobe – Changes
   
4. Badly Drawn Boy – A Peak You Reach
   
5. Annie Stella – Keep Me Around
   
6. Maia Hirasawa – My New Friend
   
7. Emily Loizeau – Viola pourquoi
   
8. Sondre Lerche – Let My Love Open the Door
   
9. Georgie James – More Lights
   
10. Panic at the Disco – Folkin’ Around
    
11. Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin – Modern Mystery
    

For those of you that may have not been paying attention this last year, I have a record label I started with my friend Charlie called LemonDrop Records.  We’re oh so close to having the online store finished and up and running, then things will really take off.  But for now, we’re pumping out our bands’ albums the old fashioned way, through word of mouth, selling them at shows, and any other way we can think of.  The Verbs are one of our flagship bands and I’m more than excited that tonight has arrived, as they’re finally releasing their debut cd.  Normally, you might think I’d be a bit biased since they’re my label’s band, but believe me when I say these guys are great.  Their live shows coupled with this debut album has landed them the coveted “Best Album” award in Springfield’s Go Magazine, an award voted by fans all throughout Springfield, so that right there says a lot that the fans themselves voted their debut album the best.

If you’re in Springfield or any of the surrounding areas, make the trip up to the Gillioz Theatre in downtown Springfield to check out the Verbs cd release show.  They’ll be accompanied onstage for just this one time by guest musicians, including Lacoma Jefferson on piano, who is the main piano player for my band, Honest Artist.  Add an acoustic guitar and a few backup singers and you’ve got yourself one heck of a Verbs show.  So, if you can make it, be sure to swing by as I’d like to see any and everyone I can that reads this blog come out and support my other main venture.  This is just the beginning of LemonDrop, as we’ve got even more bands waiting in the wings, but having the Verbs as a flagship band is pretty great if you ask me.

The Verbs CD Release Show
Gillioz Theatre
All Ages; $7 tickets
7:00pm show starts

Champagne Bottles and Chandeliers

Lady Grey

Verbs Myspace / LemonDrop Records / Verbs live on our local news

Some LemonDrop news for ya:

March 21st – Jimmy Spits‘ new album Leaps and Bounds is released

April 29th – The Verbs‘ debut self-titled album is released (date of their cd release show at least)

And if you’re confused by the above, those are my record label’s first two bands!  I couldn’t be more excited and the Verbs are even nominated for Go Magazine’s best band of the year.  That’s one of our bigger magazines here in Springfield.  But the shop is almost finished and up on our site, the blog is still as active as ever, and once we get those album up on the site, we’ll be working hard to get music videos made, a short live video of the Verbs cd release show done by my friend’s production company, merch designed and printed, and so much more (including my music finally getting recorded!).  The possibilities are endless and I’m glad you guys are along for the ride.

See you Wednesday!

Our flagship band has finished recording their debut album and I couldn’t be more excited to get it mastered, on the site for all of you to download, and start promoting it all over the net.  We don’t have a release date just yet, but it’ll be soon.  For now, check out our latest Dropcast, where we sat with the guys from the Verbs and talked about all kinds of topics, then they played a few songs acoustic style.

Dropcast #3 – The Verbs
P.S.  I’m working on my top 50 list this weekend, so hopefully I can get that posted soon.  Things got crazy at the end of last week, so I didn’t have near enough free time to write up that massive two part post, but I’m working on it I swear.

For our first Dropcast, we’re featuring a freestyle Jimmy did with Tommy P. of the Spacetones. We’ll have a Dropcast once a week so this is just the beginning. The excitement is building and everyone at LemonDrop can’t wait for everything to really get rolling. Enjoy the first ever LemonDrop Dropcast and look for more to come. By the way, if you’re in Springfield, I’m opening for the Verbs and Spacetones Saturday night at the Outland Ballroom. I’ll have Joe on drums, but after that my band, which will consist of me, Joe on drums and guitar, Chris on lead guitar and drums sometimes, and Jackson Hunt on keys. That’ll most likely be the core of Honest Artist (I think that’s the name we might go with). We’ll learn my songs at first, with Chris and Jackson both taking turns opening for the band when we have shows, then down the line we’ll just start writing songs as a band. I can’t wait. Make it tomorrow night if you can’t. And…sigh…if you don’t want to miss the Mountain Goats w/the Bowerbirds, you know I understand that. But having a show is a good trade-off to missing the Mountain Goats, even though it’s at Randy Bacon’s again. A place Darnielle has specifically claimed he loves to play, which means he rambles even more when he performs there. That show is Saturday night as well, so catch one or the other. Doesn’t really matter much to me since they’ll both be great for different reasons and you’ll win no matter which show you see. Now go check out the Dropcast!

Dropcast #1 – Jimmy Spits and Tommy P. freestyle at 2am (NSFW by the way)

1. Final Fantasy – Paris 1919 (ft. Cadence Weapon)
   
2. Get Him Eat Him – 2 X2 (ft. Zach Condon of Beirut)
   
3. Annuals – Nah Keseyi
   
4. Illinois – Alone Again
   
5. Tuung – Soup
   
6. Lymbyc System – Birds
   
7. Manchester Orchestra – Brother (Annuals cover)
   
8. Radiohead – Videotape (Mojib Remix)
   
9. Beat Radio – A Million Miles
   
10. The Cinematic Orchestra – To Build a Home (ft. Patrick Watson)
    
11. Orba Squara – Perfect Timing This Morning (yes, this is from the iPhone commercial)
    
12. Scala & Kolacny Brothers – Heartbeats (Knife cover)
    

So, I haven’t done a good job of blogging lately. I’ve kind of been on a one man show promoting mission promoting LemonDrop’s show tonight. Getting the bands situated, checking the specs for the venue, getting all the little things squared away like the autograph board and the live painter, and whatever else was involved with getting this show off the ground. So, forgive me for having to work until 3pm every day then immediately jumping to LemonDrop show stuff the rest of the afternoons. I did buy Guitar Hero III, so that’s been a nice escape from everything. But, don’t fret my faithful readers, this week’s Perch Mix I made sure was amazing. We’ve got live Final Fantasy featuring Cadence Weapon, a Radiohead remix, the song that was in the iPhone commercial, Annuals new song, a great Annuals cover by Manchester Orchestra, a Get Him Eat Him song that’s only made all the better by Zach Condon’s instrumentation, and even my favorite little instrumental song off Tuung’s latest release Good Arrows. Hope this mix is enjoyed by all and if you’re in the Springfield area, come party with us tonight. On the agenda: live painting by our friend Carl, tv’s around the place playing Nicolas Cage’s worst movie like Face/Off, Gone in 60 Seconds, and Next, live DJ’ing by E$Money and the Nocturnal Doses, the chance to sign our giant autograph board, and finally performances by Jimmy Spits and the Spacetones. If that doesn’t sound fun, I don’t know what does. See you there tonight!

The Spacetones – Simply What It Is (LemonDrop Band)

Randy Bacon Gallery
Saturday Nov. 3rd
Doors at 7:30pm
$5 Cover
All Ages

Show #1: Potter’s House – Thursday, Oct. 4th – 9:30pm
Show #2: Your Mom Fest – Friday, Oct. 5th – At the Mo State Bear Paw – 2-3pm

I won’t leave you today without posting some good music though. I’ve recently gotten back into Novi Split and found that my love for his album Pink in the Sink is still as strong as ever. Such a great album. Chickity check it out.

Leaving It

California Skies

You Got Served
[youtube ewLFv9XcIbc]
Official Site / Myspace