Green River Festival 2011

Wow! It was another hot, fun Green River Festival performance this year! R.O.C.K. had a blast giving a crazy high energy show to the crowd, and it was fantastic seeing our friends Mister G, Ratboy Jr., Rani Arbo and Daisy Mayhem, School for the Dead (did you pre-order Henning's new CD about movies yet?) and more perform at the festival. We also made friends with Baze and His Silly Friends and reacquainted ourselves with In the Nick of Time who Aric met at Kindiefest 2011 and Planet Z (formerly the Pop Rockets). The Carolina Chocolate Drops also performed an incredible, intimate small set on the Meltdown stage that was off the charts before they rocked the main stage later in the day! All the music on the Meltdown stage was awesome. Thanks to Bill Childs of Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child and all the staff at 93.9 The River for a great weekend of music, and of course, thanks to all the families who R.O.C.K.ed out with us!!! You can catch pictures from the event at masslive.com.

Forgot to post this in May...Valley Advocate article regarding Aric's award and work with families by James Heflin

Click here to read the article written by James Heflin of the Valley Advocate. Thanks again to everyone who supported Aric at the WFCR Gala event in May. It was a magical night, as Aric received his award from Susan Stamberg and performed his new song "Deep Sea Diner" with former Future Maestros student Davian McDonald. The four year old prodigy rocked a solo on his classical guitar! Great job Davian!

Aric has been selected to receive the 2011 WFCR Arts & Humanities Emerging Talent Award!

Hello friends of R.O.C.K.!

It has been a busy year for us! Thank you to everyone who made it out to see us at Flywheel in November and the Eric Carle Museum in January! We will have more band gigs coming soon, so please check back soon for more info on when and where! We will also be upgrading our Facebook page to a band page soon, so we can be cooler/more hip.

Aric will be playing solo at 93.9 The River's Family Book and Music event MELTDOWN on March 26th in the "Chill Room." Come check out a huge day of fun, free family music for all! Lots of book readings by famous children's book authors as well and plenty of activities for the whole family to enjoy! More info can also be found on the Spare the Rock site.

Finally, it is with great excitement that we make an announcement: Aric has been selected to receive the 2011 WFCR Arts & Humanities Emerging Talent Award! This is a very prestigious honor, and here is what Aric has to say about it from a Facebook post earlier today:

"So excited, thankful and overjoyed to share this news with all of you: I am the recipient of the 2011 WFCR Arts and Humanites award for Emerging Talent!!!

Thank you to all of my family, friends, band mates, co-workers and especially my fans and families of my students for giving me the platform to receive this honor!"

More information about this exciting news can be found at WFCR.org. Other organizations and individuals are being honored this year as well. Congratulations to all!!!

R.O.C.K. + Valley Advocate = COVER STORY WEEK OF 6/24/2010!!!

We are featured in the Valley Advocate this week! It's a Cover Story on our big CD Release Party event at the Flywheel. Click here to view the story!

It gives a good history of the band and Aric's musical experiences since birth. Also, there's a side feature on R.O.C.K.'s Top Ten Favorite Kindie Songs (of the moment). Thanks to Matthew Dube, James Heflin and everyone at the Valley Advocate for this special moment in R.O.C.K. History!!!

CD RELEASE PARTY!!!

(Details below from our press release):

R.O.C.K. CD release event at the Flywheel Arts Collective

Easthampton, MA 01027

Sunday June 27^th, 2010

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM (doors open at 10:30 AM)

$5 tickets sold at the door

Easthampton’s own rockin’ family music band, The Royal Order of Chords and Keys (R.O.C.K.), are set to release their brand new CD, “Punk Rock, One Sock!!!” at the new Flywheel Arts Collective on Sunday, June 27^th.

Having recently appeared at the prestigious Kindiefest conference in Brooklyn, NY in early May, the members of R.O.C.K. are looking to rock their hometown with the release of their debut band album.

Lead Singer Aric Bieganek has gained a faithful following of young fans in Western Massachusetts and beyond as a teacher and performer, and now he has joined forces with hard rock drummer/dad Hans Dalhaus and funk powerhouse bassist David Picchi to form one of the loudest children’s music bands in the country.

R.O.C.K.’s music is often featured on 93.9 The River’s “Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child” radio show, and they will also be headlining the River’s Meltdown Kids’ stage at the Green River Festival on July 18^th, 2010.

R.O.C.K.’s monster CD release party will feature special guest appearances by bassist David Picchi’s funk/jazz band, FlavaEvolution, and local youth musical sensation Madesyn Hope Lawrence in her debut performance. Mt. Tom’s Ice Cream of Easthampton will also be serving free ice cream at the event in honor of the R.O.C.K. song, “Jim, the Ice Cream Man,” which is about owner/operator Jim Ingram.

Tickets are available to the general public and will be sold at the door for $5 with a portion of the proceeds going to the Flywheel Arts Collective to support their brand new, beautiful space in the old Easthampton Town Hall.

Kindiefest 2010: Recess R.O.C.K. reborn (for approx. 30 min.)...

Recess Rock, Aric's original band name prior to the formation of R.O.C.K., was reborn at Kindiefest on Sunday May 2nd, 2010. Read below for details!

Stuck in traffic for almost 3 hours at the final exit on the BQE due to some crazy NYC Road Race, Hans and Dave were stunningly unable to arrive at Kindiefest for R.O.C.K.'s breakout performance...

How about a little QnA to explain what happened as a result of the unlucky delay:

Did Aric break a sweat? Maybe, but it was also like 90 humid degrees.

Did Aric give up? No way.

Did Aric go backstage and alert Bill Childs of the situation? Yes.

Did Bill then go ask Daron (drums) and Jack (bass) from the Recess Monkey to perform with Aric last minute during R.O.C.K.'s 30 minute set? Yes.

Did they say no? No.

Did they say yes? Yes.

Did Jack and Daron learn 5 songs with Aric backstage in the 15 minutes prior to R.O.C.K.'s Kindiefest Set? Indeed.

Did Aric really break two strings onstage in back to back songs? Yes.

Did he panic? No.

Did Aric ask the audience if anyone had a guitar he could use? Yes.

Did members of Clementown give Aric a guitar to use onstage? Yes.

Did the guitar work? No. For some reason, it needed batteries (Buy Clementown's CDs/Books anyway. They set awesome Calef Brown's poetry books for kids to music!!!! Thanks guys!!!)

Did Aric then proceed to play two more songs with only four strings on his guitar (E, G, B and high E)???? You bet.

As a result, did the Pizza Song sound like the B-52s on Cotton Candy, and Kitty McGoo sound like Presidents of the United States of America rehearsing a song for the first time? They kind of did.

Did the temporarily formed "Recess R.O.C.K." entertain the Kindiefest crowd with an extremely punky, fun and zany set of R.O.C.K. songs? OH YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Should you, as a fan of R.O.C.K., go out and immediately buy the entire collection of DVDs and CDs in the Recess Monkey collection? Absolutely, without a doubt (Is this the Magic 8 Ball answering all of these questions????)

Are Aric, Hans and Dave forever grateful to Recess Monkey and Bill Childs for their actions? YESSSSS!!!!!!! We're not worthy, we're not worthy (Oh, Wayne, where are you? Please don't say watch the Love Guru, oh Mike Myers)...

...and thus, Recess Monkey joined forces with R.O.C.K. to form Recess R.O.C.K.: for approximately 30 minutes...

Hans and Dave eventually made it to Littlefield (the Kindiefest venue) safely as Aric was helping Recess Monkey get their instruments into a cab (so they could cruise to the airport). It's a little sad that the Kindiefest crowd didn't get to hear the true "R.O.C.K." sound, but at the same time, it was definitely an amazingly positive, unique experience and a real good story to tell the grandkids someday.

You can click here for footage of Car Seat Driver performed solo by Aric at Kindiefest.

Also, here is footage of Aric with Daron and Jack (of Recess Monkey) performing "Punk Rock, One Sock!!!"

Videos courtesy of MrJeff2000!!! Also, note that Kitty McGoo is in Ben's 5/3/2010 playlist on Jeff's site!!!! Thanks Jeff and Ben!!!!

Mommy Poppins loves Cookies and Milk!

Mommy Poppins, a great blog out of NY, made a special reference to "Cookies and Milk" in her promotion of Kindiefest today. She said it was one of her "personal favorites" from the lineup of bands playing at the Festival along with Ralph Covert's "I'm Not Tired."

We're really glad she feels this way, as not only do we agree, but we also know that just a glassful of milk helps the cookie go down...(soggy cookie...)