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After 42 years, “Rejects” Play Farewell Show Friday

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The Rejects playing at the Rock n Green Tomato Festival

What do you get when you mix some local teachers, drums, guitars, a keyboard and couple of kazoos?  The answer is the iconic, family friendly band that has been entertaining fans at special events and festivals since 1973.  The Rejects, however, are disbanding as a couple of members are moving out of state for retirement.  All good things must come to an end.

As a result, Friday, Sept 25th from 4pm – 7pm, The Rejects will play their last Happy Hour concert at The Soft Rock Cafe at  877 E. Franklin Street in Centerville.  Free Pizza will be served to attendees.. and of course there will be drink specials.

Known for playing classic rock, oldies and even some new hits, The Reject’s shows are never short on talent, humor or fun.

It all started 42 years ago when some Centerville teachers Dan Hill and Steve Flaum, joined with Dan’s brother, the drummer.  Over the years the lineup has changed slightly, but the basic core have remained.  Gary Knight of “The Fries” was once a part of the band, and the addition of Beth Hill many years ago allowed keyboards and more vocal variety into the repertoire.

In 1994, the band was inducted into the Kazoo Hall of Fame for their special contributions to “Kazoo Rock.”   But make no mistake, this is a great live Rock n Roll band.  People of all ages dance and sing along with the hits of the group.  Lots of gags apply such as Mr Flaum aka Dr Humm’s “severed mannequin hand” holding the microphone to the mic stand.  Or a suitcase marked BRAIN in a humorous misspelling of Brian Hinder’s name.  Who can forget the “You’re Sixteen” sing-a-long” where the band holds up signs of “60” during the lyrics, suggesting ” You’re 60, you’re beautiful and you’re mine” as a sign of the times.

From festivals to parties, from amphitheaters to bars, and even gymnasiums, The Rejects have kept a busy schedule over the years.  They have entertained thousands and thousands of people from the Miami Valley and beyond.  First performing to friends and students, to family members and just overall fans, the band now finds themselves performing to kids of their students and the band’s grandkids.  Far from rejects, the band members have proven themselves as pillars in the Dayton area communities.

The Rejects in Concert !

My how time has flown and The Rejects fan base has proved strong through each generation.  Make sure you don’t miss this final concert celebration at Soft Rock Cafe  with free pizza!

DON’T FORGET or MISS THIS SHOW !

 

HERE’S THE SKINNY:

WHAT: REJECT’S LAST HAPPY HOUR CONCERT

WHEN: FRIDAY NIGHT, SEPT 25th 4pm-7pm

WHERE: SOFT ROCK CAFE in Centerville at 877 E. Franklin Street.

 

We are former students and fans, and it is with heartfelt sadness and admiration that we will be attending the band’s last  Centerville performance tomorrow.  But, we also want to say  “Thank You,” to Dan, Steve, Beth and the rest of the band.  Thank you,  for teaching us about life, music and so much more.  Best of luck in all you do, from your adoring fans … THE REJECTS RULE !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stivers School for the Arts Jazz Orchestra – Bound for NYC

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(from The Seedling Foundation)

The Stivers School for the Arts Jazz Orchestra is going to New York to perform at Lincoln Center as distinguished student artists with the New York City Jazz Festival.  The festival features the best of college jazz performers plus four selected high school ensembles, and as winners of the 2010 Berklee College of Music National High School Jazz Festival, Stivers was not required to audition for the spot on the New York City Jazz Festival lineup. Festival managers heard the Dayton group in Boston and extended the invitation.

Produced by Manhattan Concert Productions, the New York City Jazz Festival will feature Kurt Elling, the Grammy-winning male vocalist, and Bob Mintzer, multiple Grammy Award winner, composer, arranger and Yellowjackets big band leader. The Stivers Orchestra will participate in pre-performance workshops under the direction of  Festival Artistic Director Steve Zegree – internationally recognized as one of the most respected jazz conductors and active as a pianist, conductor and jazz clinician.

Benefit concert scheduled

The trip depends upon the orchestra raising funds for travel and registration. A benefit concert featuring the Stivers Jazz Orchestra is scheduled for 8:00pm on Saturday, January 21 at Stivers Centennial Hall. The concert will feature one of America’s finest jazz trumpeters, Derrick Gardner. Gardner, who travels with Harry Connick, Jr. and the Count Basie Orchestra, is a distinguished composer, arranger, performer and teacher.  For over 20 years Gardner has headed the Jazz Prophets, a distinguished sextet in the tradition of the funky, soulful jazz sound Cannonball Adderly and Horace Silver. Gardner has also performed with the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra.

General admission tickets for the benefit concert are $10. They can be ordered online at www.theseedlings.org or by calling 937-546-1675. Patron tickets are available at $50. Patrons are invited to a pre-performance reception with Derrick Gardner and will receive reserved seating. Patron tickets qualify for a $25 tax deduction.

Stivers Jazz Orchestra director Claude Thomas said of the Festival invitation, “In September, the Stivers Jazz Orchestra was invited to perform at the New York City Jazz Festival at Lincoln Center’s Allen Room. The invitation followed years of national performances by our Jazz Orchestra at Boston’s Berklee High School Jazz Festival. We have competed at Berklee 3 times and won 3 times,  including 2011.  How do you get to Carnegie Hall? ….. practice. In the jazz world, you ask how do you get to Lincoln Center? The same way, plus playing for the Dayton community like in our January 21st concert to raise travel and registration funds. The Stivers Jazz Orchestra is one of only 4 high schools in the country invited to perform, an unbelievable opportunity and honor for theDayton community, our school and students, past and present who have worked so hard to make this invitation a reality.”

The concert is sponsored by the seedling Foundation, a 501 [c] [3] non-profit organization that supports arts programs at Stivers School for the Arts.

For more information call Bill Pflaum, 937-469-2662.

Southern Boys, Simple Men

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Southern Rock Is Pronounced Lynyrd Skynyrd

“Well every time that I come home nobody wants to let me be
It seems that all the friends I got just got to come interrogate me
Well, I appreciate your feelings and I don’t want to pass you by
But I don’t ask you about your business, don’t ask me about mine”
~Gary Rossington/Ronnie VanZant

Don’t Ask Me No Questions

The iconic band that is Lynyrd Skynyrd is at once an ever changing amalgam of talent as well as a indestructible thread holding together the roots of American rock. From their auspicious beginnings, practicing in a carport in the summer of ’64 in Alabama, to their recent Rowdy Frynds tour with Hank Williams Jr., Lynyrd Skynyrd has remained true to their origins, playing the type of music that has made their name synonymous with “southern rock”.  The history of Lynyrd Skynyrd is one of tragedy, turmoil and triumph. Yet, throughout it all, their music plays a testament to the undying appeal of their sound and words.

The original line up of what was to become Lynyrd Skynyd was formed in 1964 with Bob Burns, Gary Rossington, Ronnie Van Zant, Allen Collins and Larry Junstrom. They practiced in the carport at Bob’s house, which gave inspiration for their original band name, “My Backyard”. “The Noble Five” quickly supplanted that name as the boys melded their Southern blues sound with the prevalent country influences that resonated throughout the south at that time. With the introduction into the mix of British invaders such as Free, The Beatles, Beck and Clapton, their sound was all but complete. There was an ever-changing roster of names that the group called themselves while they honed their sound; The Wildcats, The Sons of Satan, Conqueror Worm, The Pretty Ones and The One Percent. Then, one night at the Forrest Inn, Ronnie called out to the crowd, ‘Hey, we’re Leonard Skinner and we’re gonna play for y’all tonight’. Leonard Skinner, it should be noted, was the name of the gym teacher whom Gary and Ronnie had problems with on a regular basis. Most of the people in the crowd had had problems as well, so the new name was met with a thunderous applause. Later, the band would change the vowels in the name to y’s to “protect the guilty”.

            By 1970, having honed their musicianship in countless bars and taverns, Lynyrd Skynyrd cut some demos of the originals that they had accumulated, using Quin Ivy’s studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, returning in ’71 to make a full album at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios. Skynyrd was finally signed in 1972 by Al Kooper, who also produced their first three albums: pronounced leh-nerd skin-nerd (1973), Second Helping (1974) and Nuthin’ Fancy (1975). They immediately caught the eye of Pete Townshend who signed them up as an opening act for The Who’s Quadrophenia Tour.

Skynyrd was promptly propelled into a world of fame that they may have yearned for, but were perhaps not wholly prepared to deal with. Various changes in the band’s line-up, exhaustive touring and an accelerated drug and alcohol intake served to create fissures in the once impervious Southern rock band. Tom Dowd stepped in as producer on the Gimme Back My Bullets album, bringing with him a discipline and focus the band desperately needed.

Steve Gaines filled the void that Ed King left during the Torture Tour, bringing the band back to it’s original three lead guitars. They once again became a tight performance group, as captured in the 1976 live album One More From The Road.  The revived Skynyrd next created Street Survivors, arguably the band’s best since Second Helping. The album cover showed the group engulfed in flames and one of the songs held the lyric “The smell of death surrounds you” which ominously alluded to an impending tragedy that loomed on the horizon.

On October 20, 1977, just three days after the release of Street Survivors, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s tour plane, nicknamed “Freebird”, ran out of gas due to a mechanical failure, crashing into a marshy bog on Johnny Mote’s farm in Magnolia, Mississippi, killing band members Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, back-up vocalist and Steve’s sister Cassie Gaines. Skynyrd’s road manager, Dean Kilpatrick and the two pilots also died from the crash, as all of the deceased were in the front section that broke apart on impact. The other twenty or so passengers were injured to some degree or another. Powell’s nose had been utterly mangled, Gary Rossington suffered numerous broken bones and contusions, and Allen Collins had a hefty piece of metal embedded in his arm. Artimus Pyle, the drummer, managed to walk to get assistance, but suffered a shotgun blast by a person mistaking him for an intruder.

With only two of the original members surviving the crash, the days of Lynyrd Skynyrd seemed to have come to a fiery end. The label quickly pulled all the copies of “Street Survivors” depicting the band surrounded by flames. The following year, MCA records released the Muscle Shoals sessions and titled it Skynyrd’s First…and Last. Some of the members played with bands like Molly Hatchet, Alias and .38 Special. Gary Rossington and Allen Collins went on to form The Rossington Collins band in the early eighties after Rossington had undergone extensive surgeries to regain the use of his arm.

Tragedy still stalked the musicians when Artimus Pyle suffered a leg injury in a motorcycle accident, Allen Collins’ pregnant wife suddenly died and a 1984 car crash paralyzed both of Collins’ legs and killed his girlfriend. Collins died in 1990 after succumbing to pneumonia.

A 1987 concert commemorating the 1977 plane crash found Ronnie’s brother, Johnny Van Zant stepping into the spotlight as lead singer, showing the world that the music of Lynyrd Skynyrd was far from forgotten. Through many permutations over the years, Skynyrd has recorded several new albums, been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, performed innumerable concerts and held onto the sound that has made the freebird a phoenix of American rock and roll culture.

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