New Show Announcement: The Ocean Blue, Don Peris & The April Skies @ Chameleon

We’re thrilled to announce that on Sunday June 2 The Ocean Blue, Don Peris (The Innocence Mission) and The April Skies will be performing at The Chameleon Club in Lancaster, PA. This show is All ages. Show starts at 6PM.

Allie-Gator’s Puppy Benefit

We’re playing a benefit today at ABC in Harrisburg! Please come out and support a great cause.

Allie-Gator’s Puppy Benefit

We’re thrilled to be a part of this event! We hope to see you there. We’re excited to play for you!

New Shows Announced!

The April Skies would like to announce some upcoming shows:

Sat March 24
Stage on Herr (HMAC), Harrisburg
1. A set of originals
2. Our 120 Minutes set (playings songs by The Smiths, Echo & the Bunnymen, New Order, The Stone Roses, U2, Death cab for cutie, arcade fire, the Killers and more…) — our friend Kemper will be singing with us! And lastly,
3. The return of A NIGHT LIKE THIS (Our Tribute to The Cure!)

Thu March 29,
The Grape Room, Philadelphia
A NIGHT LIKE THIS
We’ll be performing a 2 hour Tribute to The Cure!

Sat April 14,
Spy Club, Harrisburg
Opening for Tommy Stinson (The Replacements, Bash & Pop, GnR)
w/ The Line

More soon!

Peace everyone, Jake

It’s Only Rock and Roll

If I had a quarter for everytime someone said to me “I don’t understand how your band isn’t played on the big radio stations or selling out stadiums…”. It’s a nice gesture. And there are lots of obvious reasons why we’re not. We settled many years ago to the idea we’d prefer to “own” what we do. We don’t want other people telling us how we should sound, or look or that we’re too old to do this. We did all that years ago. No thanks (errmm, that doesn’t mean we’re not willing to listen to any offers).

We’ve also been lucky. We have a lot of friends who support us. Friends that book us in nice clubs, put us on fantastic bills. And all the way to everyone who comes out to the shows. We can’t thank you all for allowing us to do this. In trade, we’ll keep doing our best to make the best music we can and play our hearts out for you every time we step on stage.

For everyone out there keeping up with the changing music industry, here’s a pair of must-reads. Really interesting stuff here. I don’t study/analyze the music industry like I did in the early 90s, but I try to stay aware of any happenings especially the items that affect us independent artists.

Ex-Major Label Exec: ‘You Can’t Develop Artists When Everyone Thinks You’re an Extortionist’

How record companies functioned on a 90% failure for so long continues to astound me. Here’s a link to a fantastic documentary made years ago about The Dandy Warhols & The Brian Jonestown Massacre that touches on this subject: DIG!

And here’s a fantastic interview w/ David Lowery (Cracker, Camper Van Beethoven) that really tells what’s it like to be a independent artist in 2012:

I’m a Successful Artist. And Here’s Why Things Have Never Been Worse…

While a lot of this might not seem to matter to you music listeners/supporters out there, it should.

Peace everyone, Jake

New Show Announced

     SATURDAY NOVEMBER 27

    HARRISBURG MIDTOWN ARTS CENTER,

    STAGE ON HERR

    9PM,    w/ Hank and Cupcakes

The April Skies return to HMAC for the first time since the 90′s lineup reunion show last May. Expect to hear all your favorite songs off of FLOOD, HOW IT ALL PLAYED OUT or last year’s self-titled release THE APRIL SKIES. See you at HMAC on Nov 27th!

Friday May 14th!!! We’re excited… how about you?

Carey, Eric and Marko have all arrived safely in Harrisburg and rehearsals are already under way! We’re all excited about the show Friday so we hope to see you there!

When: Friday May 14, 2010
Where: Harrisburg Midtown Arts Center, Stage on Herr

The early 90s line-up of The April Skies will be performing for the first time since 1992.

Cary T. Brown
James “Jake” Crawford
Eric Riley Moore
Mark Tritico

Plus there will be full sets by the current lineup of The April Skies and Harrisburg favs Parallax Project. We hope to see you there for this special night.

Advance tickets are still on sale Click Here!

Memories of The April Skies

By Mark Tritico

I was in a band in 1990 called Falling and Laughing.  We were almost solely influenced by the Smiths.  The name of the band came from the song “Falling and Laughing” by Orange Juice.  We did covers by Aztec Camera and The Railway Children among others of that ilk.  I quickly adopted the nickname “Human Drum Machine” because of my super-fast, sixteenth note, propulsive rhythms.  This was something like my fifteenth band.

Falling and Laughing was falling apart. Jake and I were both students at Harrisburg Area Community College (HACC).  Jake lived in Hershey – I lived in Mechanicsburg.  My band was on a bill at a festival with Jake’s band, The April Skies.  I remember the bottom line was they needed work but the singer Cary Brown, was charismatic and the songs had potential but it seemed kind of countrified.

Jake and I met at the student Center at HACC and started up a conversation.  I know for a fact that it was about Roddy Frame, of Aztec Camera.  The guitarist from Falling and Laughing had met him and to him, it was like meeting Clapton. Jake and I decided to get together and jam.  He worked as a short order cook at the Hershey Italian Lodge.  They were kind enough to let us use the dining room for an audition.  I brought the singer from Falling and Laughing.  It was the three of us.  Jake, Steve Spahn and me.  It was fantastic.  Jake and I really communicated musically.  I was thinking “finally a guitar player who’s on the same exact page as me musically.  This was to be a new Falling and Laughing, with Jake on guitar,  Steve on vocals, and me on drums; but fate would see things differently.  Jake brought Cary the singer from The April Skies, and newcomer Eric Reilly Moore, bassist, a tall lanky guy with a mullet haircut.  When we played it was total magic.  We locked in perfectly.  We took songs that had previously sounded clumsy and gave them a gliding, rhythmic drive.  With this new lineup, the songs grew wings.

I had never worked with a bass player like Eric before and haven’t since.  He was all over the bass.  Playing up and down the fret board; playing counter melodies; he was amazing.  I know he played some brass, much like John Entwhistle, did so there may be some connection to playing brass and that kind of bass playing. My mom’s basement soon became the epicenter of the Harrisburg alternative music scene.  The band consistently had an audience during each rehearsal. So with the four indispensible components in place, things began happening fast.  Lots of shows, parties, etc.  We hooked up with Ed McKeon & Daniel Howard – our managers in NYC, who were  trying to get us a record deal; putting us in the CMJ music conference; setting us up with Mitch Easter of REM and Lets Active fame.

Cary was a very ebullient kind of person.  He was all about drawing energy and enthusiasm out of people.  That made him one of the best front men I’ve ever witnessed.  Being a very introverted person, I somehow found communicating with band members difficult.  Perhaps, I alienated people.  While the other guys did the town after a show, I went back to wherever we were staying and watched television. I could only communicate through music.  I only knew people through music.  Music has always been my raison d’être.

During its heyday, The April Skies played all the cool clubs like Maxwell’s Hoboken in Hoboken; 9:30 club in Washington, DC; CBGBs in NYC, and everywhere in between.  Our live shows were freaking awesome.  Fast and energetic like the Ramones, we got on stage, played a frenzied set, and were gone in a flash.  I didn’t care much for drinking in those days.  Before shows I would load up on stimulants.  This is why I played twice as fast live.

Early on, the band finessed their way into an opening slot for the English shoe-gazer band Ride  At that point I realized the band was on its way.  The members of Ride were very snobby.  Only the bass player talked to us and I think it was because he had no choice.  The other guys abandoned him after the show.

We would all climb into Cary’s 1970 VW microbus, which had no heat, and start chain smoking and drinking.   After a few miles, we would stop at Food Lion and buy peanut butter, jelly and Wonder Bread.  This is what we lived on at the time.  Jake ate a lot of refried beans cold, right out of the can.  After about a hundred miles, we would be headed towards Reading.  As we passed the Coor’s brewing plant we all saluted the brewery.   A few miles down the road, we would come to a stretch of highway with a tall sound barrier.  This was always our “pit stop.”

I also remember that right before a show was a huddle.  Hand on top of hand, we said something, I don’t remember what exactly, then broke the huddle and went on as if off to battle.

At some point, Eric left the band. We struggled to find another bassist but couldn’t Perhaps it was a result of our hubris.  Also Eric’s basslines may have been too daunting for most.  So The April Skies relied on our friend “Butsy” from the Sociables, another local band who often shared a bill with The April Skies.  “Butsy” was a guitarist not a bassist, but we soldiered on.  We pissed each other off at various times and occasionally, we all threatened to quit at various times.

We went though a lot.  I even caught pneumonia coming back from Mitch Easter’s studio in North Carolina.  The trip in the minivan was an eight hour ordeal in sub-zero temperatures.  We had a show and I remember Jake playing the CD for some other musicians, and we all felt really proud of ourselves.  The show bombed however, as the band was too ill to perform and, in retrospect, should have cancelled.  I arrived at many shows completely frozen and unable to thaw in time.  I think we could have stayed together longer, but it seemed egos were growing too big, to the point that we lost respect for each other.  Eric had rejoined the band, but I felt we were becoming too volatile a mixture.  Being who I was at 22 years old it was too much.

Flash forward 13 years – I was home one day listening to a Stone Roses CD, thinking about past glories with The April Skies, when the phone rings and it’s Jake.  He wanted me to join his current version of The April Skies which up until then, had him as the only original member.  I joined and stayed on for three more albums and lots of shows.  The spontaneous magic just wasn’t there for me.  Albums took six months rather than three days and my drumming just sounded mechanical and soulless to me.  It was time for a new start.  In 2008, I met my future bride Donna, aka “Habiba”, a popular teacher of  Middle Eastern Dance in upstate New York, and moved to Albany.

Currently, I perform with a couple of bands. One a blues/funk band in which my wife sings backup. I also provide accompaniment to my wife’s dance classes and troupe performances playing Middle Eastern percussion.

As far as the 2010 reunion show is concerned, I am nothing if not completely enthusiastic.  Will lightning strike twice – you bet it will.  Time can’t hinder that.  My drumming is better than ever so watch out Harrisburg

One Night Only

When: Friday May 14, 2010
Where: Harrisburg Midtown Arts Center, Stage on Herr

The early 90s line-up of The April Skies will be performing for the first time since 1992.

Cary T. Brown
James “Jake” Crawford
Eric Riley Moore
Mark Tritico

Plus there will be full sets by the current lineup of The April Skies and Harrisburg favs Parallax Project. We hope to see you there for this special night.

Click Here to buy tickets (and we DO urge you to buy tickets asap)!

Peace, love & understanding…

- THE APRIL SKIES