In addition to her many album releases (see Discography), Vikki Carr has played concerts for fans around the world, as well as appeared on stage, and television. She has starred in productions of South Pacific, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Taking it on the Road … And I’m Getting My Act Together. In 2002 she starred in the Reprise production of Steven Sondheim’s beloved musical “Follies” in Los Angeles, garnering glowing reviews from the LA Times, Hollywood Reporter, and Variety. Two years later, Los Angeles PBS affiliate, KCET, filmed a special Vikki Carr: Memories, Memorias: a salute to the English-language hits of the 1940s and 1950s originally composed by Latinos, and featuring guest appearances by Jack Jones, Pepe Aguilar and Arturo Sandoval. PBS has again tapped Vikki to host and star in a new production celebrating the music of Mexico, Fiesta Mexicana, which will be featured on all PBS stations for their June 2008 pledge drive.

Born in El Paso, Texas, and raised in the San Gabriel Valley of California, Vikki Carr, the eldest of seven children, began performing at the tender age of four singing Adeste Fidelis in Latin at a Christmas program. She was signed to a contract with Liberty Records in 1961. She recorded He ‘s A Rebel, which first became a hit in Australia. That title was soon followed by the unforgettable release, It Must Be Him, which charged up the charts in England. One year later, the single was released in the United States and earned Carr three Grammy Award nominations. The international hit emerged again when she and the song were featured in the storyline of the Academy Award winning movie Moonstruck. After It Must Be Him came a string of hits including With Pen In Hand, for which she received her fourth Grammy Award nomination, The Lesson, Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You and For Once in My Life.

Her international appeal was so great that she was invited to perform at a Royal Command Performance for Queen Elizabeth, followed by sold-out shows throughout Europe. In the States, Vikki became a darling of the White House, performing regularly at State Dinners and at President Richard Nixon’s 1973 Inaugural celebration. President Ford called her his “favorite Mexican dish.” She also performed for Presidents’ Reagan, Bush and at the 1992 Presidential Summit hosted by President Clinton.

A frequent musical guest on major network variety shows, including Dean Martin, Ed Sullivan, Perry Como, and Carol Burnett, Vikki also taped six specials for London Weekend TV. As an actor, she appeared on the Bing Crosby Show, Mod Squad, Fantasy Island, and co-hosted the Mrs. America and Mrs. World of the World pageants. Vikki was the first female to regularly guest host for Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show. She was also a visitor and guest host on Michael Jackson’s ABC radio show.

The diversity of her rich voice is impressive. She can belt out the blues or touch the heart with a soft romantic ballad. Frank Sinatra said, “She possesses my kind of voice”, Dean Martin called her “the best girl singer in the business” and Bing Crosby and Ella Fitzgerald named her among their three favorite female singers of all time. Elvis Presley was also very fond of her and even remarked on stage in Las Vegas many times that Vikki Carr was one of his favorite singers and that he liked her because “she sang from the gut” and introduced her at many of his personal appearances in which she attended.

Vikki Carr has received too many prestigious awards to list, including the 2005 National Hispanic Media Coalition Impact Lifetime Achievement Award, 2003 Latino Spirit Award, 2003 Tito Guizar Award, 2002 Trefoil Award, 2000 Inductee, Latino Legends Hall of Fame, 1998 Imagen Foundation “Humanitarian Award, 1996 Hispanic Heritage Award, 1988 Nosotros Golden Eagle Award, 1984 Hispanic Woman of the Year, 1981 Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, 1974 Doctorate in Law from San Diego University and Doctorate in Fine Arts from St. Edwards University, 1972 American Guild of Variety Artist’s “Entertainer of the Year”, and the Los Angeles Times’ highly respected “Woman of the Year” for 1970. She has earned the career achievement award of the Association of Hispanic Critics, Chicago’s Ovation Award, the YWCA Silver Achievement Award and was honored in 1990 by the City of Hope with the Founder of Hope Award. In 1991, she was presented the Girl Scouts of America Award.

Respected as both an artist and a humanitarian, she devotes time to many charities including The United Way, The American Lung Association, Cancer Therapy and Research Center, The Muscular Dystrophy Association and St Jude’s Hospital. For 22 years she held benefit concerts to support Holy Cross High School in San Antonio. In 1971 Vikki established the Vikki Carr Scholarship Foundation, dedicated to offering college scholarships to Latino students in California and Texas. To date, the Foundation has awarded more than 280 scholarships totaling over a quarter of a million dollars.

“My voice is a gift and a gift is nothing unless you can share it. The Foundation is one of the ways that I am able to share my gift,” said Carr. “The Foundation seeks to help young Mexican-American students achieve their goals through a college education, something I myself was never able to do.”

Links:
http://www.vikkicarr.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Vikki-Carr/230040267123

That new chapter, 2205, was recorded in May at The Sonic Ranch in El Paso, TX, a studio made famous for its indie-rock clientele such as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Conor Oberst, Portugal The Man, Taking Back Sunday, Trail of The Dead and its extensive amp and guitar collection including guitars from the Stevie Ray Vaughan estate. “We were able to just live, breath and sleep this album 24/7, a luxury we didn’t have our first time recording,” says bassist Jamie Holm. “Most of the songs had been demoed before we recorded, but we had to arrange the songs and write lyrics on spot.” Some of those lyrics were inspired by the rumors of ghosts haunting the studios and housing, pet raccoons, and mementos discarded by previous artists. According to Uhl, “Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) left behind a piece of paper with the number of a therapist and masseuse in a dresser in our bedroom.”

The band’s house and rehearsal space, 2205 Grand Ave has served both as a rotating home for each member of the band over the last few years and as a central creative hub. This location has become such an important symbol to the band’s identity that every member has a tattoo “2205” on their inner wrist. The address now lends its name to the new LP, 2205. With this simple gesture, the band has taken an important part of their own lives in order to present it to old and new fans alike in the form of a wild, raucous, catchy new album. The excited Minneapolis fans at the 7th Street Entry may have given Sick of Sarah a welcome homecoming, but with 2205 the band are welcoming fans into their own home.

Links:
http://www.sickofsarah.com/
http://facebook.com/sickofsarah
http://twitter.com/sickofsarah
http://youtube.com/sickofsarah

And in Rojas’s vision, they’re set to pounding drums and scorching guitars.

Rojas calls “The Anthem of Angels”, the band’s eighth release on BEC Recordings, “one of the most honest records we’ve made. We’ve opened ourselves up more, and been vulnerable. On this record, we pull no punches.”

Honesty and candor have been trademarks of Rojas’s path from the depths of a cocaine-fueled suicide attempt through miraculous salvation in the back of an ambulance to the top of the Christian music charts. Seventh Day Slumber has long been heralded as a band that refuses to sugar-coat the struggles of real life. As the band has matured over the last 15 years, they’ve faced newfound challenges head on, and today their perspective and relevancy are as strong as ever, and their anthems of praise are even more profound.

Were it not for the resiliency of Rojas, Seventh Day Slumber’s story might be far different. In the early days, he knew his band needed a way to build awareness and name recognition, so he started his own label, signed his own band, and managed to get a single added on just two radio stations. Undeterred, Rojas launched a radio tour, wound up in the top ten, booked 30 shows, and got a distribution deal. The band’s first independent release, “Picking up the Pieces”, sold 40,000 units out of the gate and word of this scrappy Christian rock band was getting around.

By 2005, Tooth and Nail Records came calling with an offer to sign the band to BEC, and since then Seventh Day Slumber has not only found chart success and a string of top ten singles, they’ve seen the power of music and the gospel to change lives. “The stories we hear are amazing,” says Rojas. “Emails that say, ‘I was on the verge of pulling the trigger, and I heard your song on the radio, and it gave me hope, and I put the gun down.’ It’s just crazy to me, that a guy once filled with so much pain and hurt could write songs that touch people’s lives and make them feel like they can go on.”

Rojas’s musical beginnings were fostered in that context of pain and hurt. His abusive father had left and his family was poor. When he was 12 his mother bought him a spindly copycat B.C. Rich guitar from the Sears & Roebuck catalog. “I thought it was the coolest thing ever. She got me an amp for twenty dollars at a pawn shop. It was basically four pieces of wood and a speaker in the middle. It didn’t have distortion, so I had to crank it all the way up and make my own distortion.”

Rojas learned six Metallica songs and was ready to start his own band, even as his life was crumbling. As a teenager he was a drug addict and a convicted felon. He started writing songs to help him cope with the anguish in his heart. “If I was depressed, I’d write songs about it, and they were really depressing songs. If I was in pain, hurting, struggling, that’s what you got out of me.” Before he found Christ, those songs were devoid of hope and offered no solutions. Today, Rojas knows the answer. It’s telling that the band’s recent boxed set compilation was entitled “A Decade of Hope”. As Rojas puts it, “All the songs I had written prior to becoming a Christian could be called ‘A Decade of Pain’. Now, I still write about hurting and how I make mistakes, but I know that God has taken us from nothing and given us hope and life.”

A particularly poignant confessional song, One Mistake, is a prime example of the band’s willingness to share their faults so that others might know victory. Rojas is a family man now, with a wife and three sons and the associated responsibilities. One night, he slipped. He let his eyes stray too long on a computer screen. “I looked at something I shouldn’t have looked at that night, and I literally felt sick to my stomach. Here I am, lead singer of a Christian rock band, a lot of people look up to me. I felt like I had just made a huge mistake. I could have hidden it, but I know you cannot hide from God.

“I woke my wife up, and told her what happened. She saw how distraught I was. She was amazing, encouraging me that tomorrow’s a new day, a chance to start over, and reassuring me that she loves me. I went to my studio and sat with an acoustic guitar, and started crying. I felt like I had let God down, let my wife and kids down.

“I started writing this song, questioning why God would want to stay with me. I struggle with this lie of myself telling me God’s done with me, and the truth is He will never leave me.”

As the song’s triumphant bridge declares, “I’m not too far away / Still covered by your grace / And You came to take away my shame / I’m not one mistake away!”

Such openness about the struggle with sin resonates with listeners, particularly in a musical landscape that tends to hide from difficult issues. Seventh Day Slumber fans love to sing along with their music, perhaps because it’s so meaningful to them, and, as Rojas promises, “’Anthem of Angels’ has so many songs you can sing along to. You’ll hear catchy melodies and hooks and big riffs. From beginning to end, it’s a full rock worship experience.”

Maybe that’s what Rojas was picturing all along: a concert. A sea of people, joining their voices together in an anthem of praise, forming a beautiful union with the anthems of the angels, proclaiming not just doubt and struggle and fear but hope in a God of grace who will never leave us. That’s an anthem we’ll all want to sing.

Links:
http://www.seventhdayslumber.com/
http://facebook.com/seventhdayslumber
http://twitter.com/7thDaySlumber
http://youtube.com/7thdayslumber

Links:
http://dawngolden.tumblr.com/
http://facebook.com/dawngoldenandrosycross
http://twitter.com/DGandRC
http://youtube.com/DawnGoldenRosyCross

Links:
http://www.housesmusic.com/
http://facebook.com/sunhaus
http://twitter.com/HousesMusic

Passafire was formed in 2003 by students attending Savannah College of Art and Design. Throughout the years they have become a perpetually touring band playing hundreds of shows a year with bands like 311, Pepper, Rebelution, Matisyahu, Michael Franti, The Wailers and many more. Bowne doesn’t mind the grueling schedule and adds, “Touring is the best way to keep the buzz about the band going. What keeps it fun and exciting is the people we meet and places we get to see. We are in a new city every day so there’s always something to go see or do. If we didn’t tour constantly, we wouldn’t be doing as well as we are. That’s a fact.”

Links:
http://passafiretheband.com/
http://facebook.com/passafire
http://twitter.com/passafire
http://youtube.com/passafiretheband

Links:
http://vanitytheft.com/
http://facebook.com/vanitytheft
http://twitter.com/vanitytheft
http://youtube.com/vanitytheft

With the majority of 2010 spent writing, This Is She played their first show at the Cave Club in Islington at the beginning of 2011. Since then the band have played a string of live performances including Field Day and 1234 festivals and have supported bands such as The Horrors and The Pretty Things.

Links:
http://toy-band.com/
http://www.facebook.com/toy.band