Entertainment

Shout! The Mod Musical

Created by Phiilip George and David Lowenstein

Shout!  is the mod musical that brings back the beautiful birds and smashing sounds that made England swing in the 60’s.  From cover-to-cover, Shout! travels in time from 1960 to 1970 chronicling the dawning liberation of women.  Just as Dusty Springfield, Petula Clarke, Cilla Black and Lulu were independent women with major careers, English and American women were redefining themselves in the face of changing attitudes about gender.  Shout! reflects that change through unforgettable music of the time.  Everything from the period is recreated – from the fashions and the dances to the music and the hair; all of which is heightened and made just a tiny bit larger.  Featuring such songs as Wishin’ and Hopin’, Son of a Preacher Man, Diamonds Are Forever, Goldfinger, To Sir With Love, These Boots Are Made for Walkin’, Shout, Downtown, and many more!

This show is appropriate for ages 12 on up.

Dinner Performances (7:00 P.M.)
February 5, 6, 10*, 11*, 12, 13, 17*, 18*, 19, 20, 2010
Matinee Dinner Performance (1:30 P.M.)
February 7, 2010* (Meal Served) (*Discount Dinner Performance)

No Dinner Matinee Performances (2:30 P.M.)
February 14, 21, 2010 (No Meal Served)

“The Hottest New Musical!” -Good Morning America

Menu:
New Orleans Style Brisket, Baked Potato, Broccoli with Cheese Sauce, Garden Fresh Salad with House Dressing, Snowflake Dinner Rolls, Coffee, Iced Tea, French Cheesecake w/Raspberry Topping.

UTEP Dinner Theatre
500 West University Ave.,. Union Building West, Room 209
El Paso, TX  79968

Centennial Live! Comedy Series kicks off with Warren B. Hall, Ponchi Herrera and Cedric Reed

Ready, set, laugh! The Centennial Comedy Series at Fort Bliss presents Warren B. Hall, Ponchi Herrera and Cedric Reed, on stage Saturday, February 13. Enjoy $1 draft while you laugh the night away at a great show featuring some of the hottest up-and-coming comics around.

Doors to the adults-only show at the Centennial Banquet and Conference Center, Bldg. 11199 on East Fort Bliss, open at 6 p.m.; the show starts at 7 p.m. and is open to the public. Guests without a Fort Bliss vehicle registration sticker must obtain a day pass before entering the installation.

Worried about getting on post? Don’t be … it’s simple! All you have to do is present your valid drivers license, vehicle registration and proof of insurance. It’s that easy!

“We’re so excited to kick off the year with the great comics we have lined up,” said Lora Diem, special events coordinator for the Marketing and Special Events Division of Fort Bliss Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation. “We worked with Sun City Comedy to bring in performers we thought would appeal to our Soldiers and their families, as well as the El Paso community.”

Warren B. Hall was handpicked for “Last Comic Standing” by the show’s host, Bill Bellamy. You’ve seen him on “Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen,” and he has performed for our troops in Iraq and Kuwait not once … not twice … but three times! He dares to be different with his comedy routine, employing a style that purposely avoids using the white vs. black angle – a style he feels has become all to common with many mainstream comics.

As a child, Warren was influenced by Eddie Murphy – he wanted to be just like the man he saw on “Saturday Night Live,” “Raw” and “Delirious.” Unfortunately, Warren’s mother was not impressed when her 10-year-old son began repeating some of Murphy’s more colorful language; being just like Eddie Murphy was out of the question.  On a positive note, Warren’s style of comedy evolved into the issues drive routine he plays today. For a peek at his show, search “Warren B. Hall” on YouTube.

Ponchi Herrera has done two USO tours in Japan, South Korea and Germany. He made an appearance on “LOCO Comedy Jam” and “Latino Laugh Festival: Diamonds in the Rough,” and has opened for Paul Rodriguez, Tex Alexandro and John Wesley Austin.

Guests ages 18 and up may purchase tickets for the adults-only show at Fort Bliss ITR, Bldg. 1743, Victory Avenue. Tickets cost $8 for one or $15 for two. For more information, call 588-8247.

Additional shows in the Centennial Live! Comedy Series are scheduled for April 14, July 24 and Sept. 25. For the most up-to-date information on who’s coming, stay tuned to www.blissmwr.com.

New Musical Instruments Attuned with Innovation

By George Varga

ANAHEIM, Calif. – Move over, Tomorrowland. Step aside, Fantasyland. The future is already here, with a dazzling array of innovative musical instruments that will be on store shelves soon. They were already on display this past weekend at the Anaheim Convention Center, which hosted 80,000 attendees and the wares of 1,400 exhibitors at the annual NAMM Show. NAMM stands for National Association of Music Merchants, although the organization has operated as the International Music Products Association for more than a decade, while retaining the NAMM acronym. “It’s a whole new world,” said Joe Lamond, the president and CEO of NAMM. “But our core mission is the same — to create excitement about playing instruments.” Headquartered in Carlsbad, Calif., NAMM has grown from a handful of piano dealers who founded the organization in 1901 to 9,000 member companies from more than 100 countries that produce every musical instrument imaginable. Among the instruments being unveiled in the shadow of Disneyland is the potentially game-changing You Rock Guitar. A hybrid instrument that weighs less than 6 pounds, it can be used as a video-game console to play “Guitar Hero,” “Rock Band” and other music-inspired games. It can also be plugged into an amplifier and played as a guitar — one that never requires tuning or hurts your fingers, can sound like one of 25 electric and acoustic guitar models and can be accompanied by instrumental backing tracks stored in an iPod, iPhone or any other mp3 player. Then there’s Beamz, which is powered by a computer through a USB port and looks like a science-fiction fan’s musical dream come to life. Beamz is billed as an interactive “recreational musical instrument,” and its users make sounds by passing their fingers through red laser beams emitted from a W-shaped console. By moving their hands up, down, sideways or at any angle and speed, users can play along to recorded and live music with a single motion, or as many as they like. “It’s a way to bring people into music in a whole new way, people who don’t play music,” said Beamz creator Jerry Riopelle, a veteran singer-songwriter turned music software creator. “Anything you play on Beamz will sound good, and you can learn to play it within minutes.” Perhaps most eye-popping is the uber-high-tech Eigenharp, which took nine years to develop — as opposed to a mere eight years for Beamz. The Eigenharp Alpha, which went on sale in August in Europe, has 120 melody keys, 12 percussion keys, a clarinet-like breath controller, two finger-activated strip controllers and — with the flick of a button myriad musical scales and instrument sounds to choose from.

Designed for live performances, it can play and record musical loops, change keys, transpose, program beats, alter tempos and switch and layer sounds. A beginner’s version, the Eigenharp Pico, which has 22 keys, is also available. “The future of music is making music software human and bringing an organic quality to electronic music,” said Eigenlabs founder John Lambert. Learning to play the highly complex Eigenharp Alpha is “intimidating” and can take months, Lambert acknowledged. However, he noted that his 8-year-old daughter was quickly able to play the far less complex Pico, which retails for about one-tenth of the nearly $5,610 list price of the Alpha. The prices of the Beamz ($199-$299) and the You Rock Guitar ($199) are much less daunting, and so is learning to play them: They require no musical skill, just the desire to make music with no fuss or training. “Our motto is: Have fun, rock will happen,” said Kevin Kent, 55, the CEO of You Rock Guitar manufacturer, Inspired Instruments. “Everything is going digital, that’s for certain. And first-time guitar players can play our instrument without making a mistake and without any musical knowledge.” Fender, the famed guitar and amplifier giant that has factories in Ensenada, Mexico, and Riverside County, is debuting its USB- and mp3-compatible Fender G-DEC 3 amplifiers. The 15- and 30-watt amps, which let you play and store music files, feature 100 music presets in myriad styles, some of which were created by such top guitarists as Brad Paisley and Keith Urban. Making music easier to play is also the goal of the Nuvo Clarineo ($149), a waterproof plastic clarinet designed for children. The wave of fresh ideas and products comes amid sagging instrument sales, which Lamond said dropped from an estimated $18 billion in 2008 to about $16.5 billion globally last year, nearly half of which came from the United States. But not every instrument at NAMM requires a computer or digital interface capabilities. Taylor Guitars, the El Cajon, Calif., company that recently celebrated its 35th anniversary, continues to thrive by making some of the world’s most sought-after acoustic guitars, including its new Jason Mraz Signature Model. The company is also using NAMM to introduce its new 8-string baritone guitar, which produces an unusually resonant sound and combines sonic characteristics of both a conventional guitar and a bass. “The first quarter of 2009 was pretty bleak, but the first quarter of 2010 seems pretty good and we’re looking at production increases,” company co-founder Bob Taylor said. “People are not going out and getting big-ticket items, but instruments tend to do well in a down economy. Guitars make them feel good. Or, maybe, guitar-players are irrepressible.”

COPYRIGHT 2010
CREATORS.COM

Riverdance is coming to town!

THE ORIGINAL INTERNATIONAL PHENOMENON
AT THE HISTORIC PLAZA THEATRE IN EL PASO
FEBRUARY 12-14
“A PHENOMENON OF HISTORIC PROPORTIONS!”
-Washington Post

El Paso, TX) RIVERDANCE, the thunderous celebration of Irish music, song and dance that has tapped its way onto the world stage thrilling millions of people around the globe, will play five Farewell Performances at the Historic Plaza Theatre in El Paso from Friday, February 12 to Sunday, February 14. Tickets for RIVERDANCE, starting at $36.50,  at all Ticketmaster locations, Ticketmaster.com or by calling 1-800-745-3000. Discounts are available for subscribers, senior citizens, military personnel and groups of 20 or more. Please check with the box office for any additional discounts.

“Since 1996, the success of RIVERDANCE in North America has gone beyond our wildest dreams,” said producer Moya Doherty. “The fact that the show continues to draw and excite audiences 13 years after its debut in Dublin is a tribute to every dancer, singer, musician, staff and crew member who have dedicated themselves to the show.”

Composed by Bill Whelan, produced by Moya Doherty and directed by John McColgan, to date, RIVERDANCE  has played over 10,000 performances, been seen live by more than 21 million people in over 300 venues throughout 32 countries across 4 continents. They have traveled well   over 563,000 miles (or to the moon and back!), played to a worldwide television audience of nearly 2 billion; sold over 3 million copies of the Grammy Award-winning CD (certified Platinum in the US) and over 10 million videos making it one of the best-selling entertainment videos in the world!  RIVERDANCE had its world premiere at the Point Theatre, Dublin, in February 1995, where it opened to unanimous critical acclaim.

What began as a seven-minute dance segment on the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest (televised to over 300 million people in Europe) and then quickly turned into a full-scale production has become much more than an international theatrical success. “I believe Riverdance has been basically a pathfinder,” said Niall O’Dowd, founder of Irish America Magazine and the Irish Voice newspaper. Along with the peace process in Northern Ireland and the economic miracle in Ireland proper, the show “has been a hugely important part of a transformation of the image of Ireland in the last 20 years.”

In a flash, RIVERDANCE became Ireland’s greatest ambassador and the thirst began.

RIVERDANCE changed the face of Irish dance and despite its imitators, has remained on top and was voted the #1 Variety/Family Entertainment Show in the US (1998).

There have been many milestones along the way including the distinction of being the largest Western musical to play China; a record-breaking line of 100 Irish dancers mesmerizing 85,000 people at the 2004 Special Olympics in Dublin; a 10th Anniversary celebration at Radio City Music Hall; dancing in Red Square and on the Great Wall of China and much more.

Of all the performances to emerge from Ireland in the past decade, nothing can compare to the energy, the sensuality and the spectacle of RIVERDANCE. An innovative and exciting blend of dance, music and song, draws on Irish traditions and the combined talents of the performers propel Irish dancing and music to the present day capturing the imagination of audiences across all ages and cultures.  This extraordinarily unique show features an international company all performing to the magic of Bill Whelan’s music.

Jam Theatricals (www.jamtheatricals.com) and the city of El Paso are proud to present RIVERDANCE as part of the El Paso Electric Presents Broadway in El Paso at the Historic Plaza Theatre 2009-10 Season, sponsored by KTSM-TV News Channel 9 and El Paso Times.