It’s apparent that the CV Music scene is growing by leaps and bounds at a quick pace. I don’t remember a time, at least not in the last 25 years I’ve lived here, that there were so many opportunities for local musicians. Now more than ever, radio shows, TV shows, print publications and blogs like Visions & Vibez are supporting the local music scene. Non-profits like The Coachella Valley Art Scene are continually finding cool locations to host musicians and artists alike to perform and promote.
Let’s start with the current line-up of Battle of the Bands and Showcases. Tachevah recently announced the Top 10 bands that will be competing in there 2 Preliminary Showcases, with nine of the bands being local including: Elektric Lucie, a bi-lingual, alternative rock band from Indio and Mexicali, who garnered the most votes in the video round competition. They were followed by indie rock band The BrosQuitos who received the second most votes. Other local bands selected for Tachevah are Annabelle Asylum, a hard rock-rap band from Palm Desert; Arek Religa, a La Quinta solo guitar artist; Bridger, a punk rock band from Palm Desert; Daytime Moon, a psych-rock band from Joshua Tree; Generic, a hip-hop group from Shadow Hills in Indio; Kayves, an electro-rock group band from Cathedral City; Shawn Don, a hip-hop artist from Rancho Mirage who has already recorded with Snoop Dogg, and the only band not from the area is The Traveling Fools. The first show will take place at Pappy & Hariett’s on March 23 and the other at The Hood Bar & Pizza on March 30. The Finals will be held in May and the winner will receive $3,000 in cash. Congratulations to all the bands that made it through!
Congratulations also go out to The BrosQuitos who won the Riverside County Fair’s Battle of the Bands last week, where they received a nice merchandise package.
Also in process is CV Weekly’s own CV Music Showcase with the next preliminary competition being held on Sunday, March 5 at The Hood Bar & Pizza, where Black Water Gospel, Porsia Camille, 5th Town and Avenida will compete, with the winner that night receiving $200.00 and the opportunity to move forward and compete in the Finals to be held Saturday, April 8, also at The Hood. The March winner will join other Finalists; Drop Mob, The Bermuda and Sunday Funeral. The winner of the Finals will receive $1500.00 cash, a merch package, and a one song recording session with award winning producer Ronnie King.
Last year’s CV Music Showcase winner was Bridger, who now will be competing in Tachevah. This band also walks away with several CV Music Awards in several categories each year. Definitely the band to watch!
And of course this year’s CV Music Awards will be held Sunday, June 4 where bands and artists will be awarded in 35 different categories of ALL music genres with 15 or more bands performing at the show and several surprise collaborations going down.
Music Showcases and competitions aside…let’s talk about the recent surge of acoustic music venues for artists to perform at. From one end of the valley to another new places are supporting the acoustic artist’s performance. Several months back, producer, songwriter, performer, Esjay Jones started The Acoustic Sessions at Hard Rock Hotel in PS in the lounge on Friday nights. Because of its success they have expanded to Saturday nights where artists from all over get to perform at the Global Sessions. This Friday is Rick Shelley and Hannah Mills and then on Saturday, David Macias and Alex Rosales perform.
On the other end of the valley in Indian Wells, the Miramonte Resort is now offering live acoustic music on Monday nights from 6-9 and Thursday nights from 5-8, also in their lounge, with both evenings having ½ price Happy Hour specials. This Thursday night is Courtney Chambers and next Monday is Mark Gregg.
Several other locations like Eureka, featuring Mikey Reyes Acoustic Movement, Stuft Pizza at Westfield Mall featuring different performers each week on Thursdays, Tack room Tavern in Indio has Wednesday acoustic nights hosted by Lance Riebsomer and most recently The Agave Lounge at The Hyatt in Indian Wells started having live music with Eevaan Tre performing.
In Rancho Mirage is the River Music Series, curated by jimi “Fitz” Fitzgerald from CV 104.3, with Rick Shelley taking the stage this Saturday night from 6-7:30pm.
And let’s not forget the breweries. Both CV Brewing and La Quinta Brewery host live music with the latter on a regular basis. Of course you can always check out our Club Crawler listings to get a weekly update of all the venues hosting music.
Next week we will talk about non acoustic music venues so stay tuned.
But for now, let’s all wish our very own head music writer, Lisa Morgan, a Happy Birthday as she will be performing at Big Rock Pub on Sunday, from 4-8pm at the Open Mic Birthday Bash Jam.
