Summer 2011 is coming……this summer. Yay concerts!

Happy mid-January, world!

We do exist! Yes, we’ve disappeared for a bit this winter, but we will indeed be coming back for another go-round on the Plymouth Waterfront. But this time, our 5th year of concerts, we’re doing it a bit differently. Sadly, because of various reasons, we will only be putting on one main stage show at DCR Pilgrim Memorial State Park. But it will be one hell of a show, and we’ll still be rocking the Hedge House lawn with lots of acoustic shows.

You can expect an all-day music festival sometime around the end of July. And before that, starting the first weekend in July, we’ll be giving you 2 solid months of our popular acoustic shows on the lawn of the Hedge House (thanks again to the perennially-wonderful Plymouth Antiquarian Society).

This change was triggered by a wonderful event, the wedding of Brewster owner Scott McEwen and Erin Hollenbeck in the end of June. Don’t forget to congratulate them!

We’ll be seeing you – don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, and EMAIL us if you would like to perform at or sponsor the series. And for a not-so-informative (but Jaws-themed) teaser page, go the the concert series web site (it’ll be back up soon).

- Jon & the Brewster Team

Up-and-coming indie foursome The Black Eyed Peas to play at the summer concert series

This year we’ve got a special treat for the concert series. A little known but truly awesome indie band from Los Angeles will be bringing their mellow, poignant vibe to the School’s Out Summer Concert Series. They’re called The Black Eyed Peas. You might not have heard of them, but they’re certainly making their way up in some underground music circuits. You can read more about them here.

Opening the show will be a cool up-and-coming guy named Kanye West, and a really cool singer-songwriter that you’ll be saying “I knew him before he was famous” about in a couple years: James Taylor. The show is on June 31st and it’s going to be a great time.

Happy April 1st!

Brewster Productions

A weekend in the scaffolding at the Reggie Lewis Center

Stephen Infascelli (left) was the special guest DJ for the Nike Indoor Nationals this past weekend. Brewster provided the sound.

Happy Monday,

So we got through our weekend of sound production at the Reggie Lewis Center, where we were in charge of music and a nice little bunch of announcers carrying around wireless microphones. If you were following our frequent tweets throughout the weekend, you probably heard about some initial troubles with the mics, which we swiftly solved on Saturday morning. And you probably heard about some crazy athletics going on. Being that this was Nike Indoor Nationals, it was the national championship for high school indoor track individual and relay team athletes. We saw people breaking national all-time records and having top-ten all-time performances right and left. You can read some of the results here.

Once we got past our first-day issues with an audio ducking system (we removed it and everything magically started working great), we had a great but occasionally monotonous time. Scott, Steve Infascelli and I sat up in a big scaffolding tower with our sound equipment and a bunch of food, where we diligently kept track of 4 wireless-mic announcers roaming about the stadium and 2 wired-mic announcers close by. Check out these photos, and we’ll be posting some more video soon.

Now, back to the music – and I don’t mean the Ke$ha and Miley Cyrus we were playing all weekend. This coming weekend, 3/19 & 3/20 we’ve got two awesome shows at Sweetwater Cafe: Shaun Dever, w/ Ben Carter and Nick Amendolare on Friday 3/19, then Jake Hill and Greg Loftus on Saturday 3/20. Saturday’s show will be the Boston launch party for Tranzmission, a really cool indie music blog by our good friend and journalist Ryan Wood.

CONCERT SERIES NEWS: This past Thursday, we officially started booking artists at the School’s Out Summer Concert Series! We are beyond excited about this. So far we’ve got a giant 3rd of July show, a Warped Tour send-off party for a band from Braintree, a couple old friends, and a bunch of new ones. Go to the concert series web site to read more and check out the schedule.

Have a tubular week. Happy St. Patrick’s day.

- Jon

Greg Loftus + Nate Cristofori TONIGHT at Sweetwater Cafe, Boston!

Top of the morning to you all,

We’ve got a great show coming your way tonight in Boston. At Sweetwater Cafe, near the Common (green line Boylston stop), Greg Loftus and Nate Cristofori will taking over. You’ve seen both of them at the School’s Out concert series – we all love Greg’s gritty southern blues-folk sound and Nate’s silky smooth piano ballads. Don’t miss it. See you there.

Next week: The Okay Win and 3rd Left.

- Jon

Hedge House Acoustic summer concert dates!!

Good evening everyone,

Have we got some great news for a cold February night: We’re officially announcing our 9 acoustic summer shows at the Hedge House Lawn! That’s right, that puts the 2010 School’s Out Summer Concert Series up to 14 shows, which is 1 more than we tried for last year (the weather was not our friend at many points), and 5 more than we actually pulled off. It’s going to be an incredible summer concert series, and we’re trying to raise some money to get some great names in there to play with the local guys – you can find out how to support the series with your donations here. So without further adieu, here they are, the 2010 ‘Acoustic Evenings On the Harbor’ shows @ the Hedge House Lawn (which was graciously donated as a venue by the Plymouth Antiquarian Society):

5/28/10

6/4/10

6/11/10

6/18/10

7/2/10

7/30/10

8/20/10

8/28/10 (saturday)

9/3/10

So that’s that. We’ll be announcing the performers in the coming months, which means if you want to play, send us an email. These shows are for ‘acoustic’ acts, which means pretty much any act with a few people and no drums. It’s more of an intimate coffeehouse sorta vibe going on. If you think you fit the bill, give us a holler. We love pianos and definitely want to get some different instruments up there too. Concert series booking info.

And please, DONATE! Thanks everyone, happy Groundhog Day!

- Jon

The concert series is almost here (yes!), and get this: we need money.

Chris Albert performing at the Hedge House, Sept 4, 2009.

Yes it’s that time of the year again when we get to sit down and plan out the School’s Out Summer Concert Series, which is basically the culmination of our year here at Brewster Productions, and we’re very excited for our 3rd year of bringing great music to the Plymouth waterfront. We love the planning, and booking all the shows, and producing them in the summer, but the tough part that gets us every year (and probably always will) is the money. The concert series takes a little bit o’ cash to keep it going and we’ve managed to survive the past 2 years on very very generous donations from the general public and businesses.

So right now, to kick off February, we’re going to shamelessly plead for some money from people. Sure, if you’re deciding whether to give your money to our concert series or a Haiti earthquake relief fund of sorts, go ahead and give your money to the people who need it. But, if you’ve already given a bunch of money to Haiti relief, and cancer research, and a soup kitchen somewhere, we’d love if you’d keep the donation train rolling and throw us a few dollars. And really, that’s all we’re asking for, a few dollars – whatever you have to give will help out, because we are a very low-budget concert series. And if you donate anything at all, we will dig through our merch boxes and send you some cool stuff like pins, pens, sampler CDs, and maybe an old Schoolhouse Rock t-shirt if we have any left.

We’ve already revealed the main stage show schedule – 5 huge shows for the hot summer nights – and pretty soon, the super-awesome-and-popular Hedge House acoustic dates are going to be unveiled to the world, so make sure you stay tuned. If you are a business, these concerts are awesome opportunities to get great exposure through sponsorship, so get in touch with us. And if you are just a regular person who doesn’t have any reason to promote themselves (we’ll still put your name up all over our web site in gratitude), it still feels great to help out a good cause by donating some money.

To find out more about DONATING, click here.  The concert series is a non-profit organization and every cent that is donated goes right back into making the series awesome. And even though NPOs certainly can legally pay employees, we are all-volunteer, and not even the directors get paid. This is all because we’re devoted to creating an awesomely fun concert series, and we need every bit of money we can get to pay for various things.

So please help us out. To learn all about the concert series check out the Web site: brewsterproductions.com/concertseries. Rock & roll.

- Jon

Showtime! Ben Carter & Darren Hawe to hit Boston for a ‘sweet’ time

Ben Carter performs July 3, 2009 at the School's Out Summer Concert Series

Happy New Decade everybody!

We’ve got our first show of the ’10s (or the ‘teens, or whatever we’re going to call this decade), and along with Ben Carter and Darren Hawe, we’ll be rocking the fine city of Boston. The show is at Sweetwater Cafe, and it’s going to be a darned fun time. The details!:

Ben Carter, Darren Hawe + more tba
LIVE @ Sweetwater Cafe, Boylston Pl., Boston
Feb. 6, 2010
10pm, $5 cover, 21+

This’ll be a great show, so don’t miss it. Also, stay tuned for some great news and info about the concert series coming up. We’ve got big things planned for this year and we can’t wait to unveil them. Remember, if you’re in a band, or you’re a solo performer, now is the time to send us an email and tell us you want to play. Rock & roll!

- Jon

Talent show: Hectic, but great. Concert series: Main stage dates up!

Greetings everyone,

We just did sound for the Plymouth South High School talent show the other night – boy was that a workout. We were literally in non-stop motion for 2+ hours. It was a great time, and we really got to test our abilities under pressure. The high school kids were great, and hopefully we’ll be seeing some of them out for the concert series.

Speaking of which, just the other day, we announced the 5 main stage dates of the School’s Out Summer Concert Series. This is a huge deal for us, because the summer has become our busiest and most fun time of the year. There will be 5 main stage dates in July and August, which will feature full bands and other artists, along with around 10 acoustic Hedge House shows. CLICK HERE to go to the concert series Web site and check out the dates. Maybe your band will be up on that stage in 2010…

Remember, the 2 biggest things you can do to help out the concert series are to 1) come to the shows, and 2) DONATE! All money goes into the concert series.

We’ve got a bit of an opening in the Brewster schedule at the moment, which you can expect to be filled with some sort of holiday charity show. In the mean time, Brewster’s getting involved with some independent film, which you should keep an eye out for.

Thanks for listening, until next time, stay tuned for news from your friendly neighborhood Brewster Productions. Happy Thanksgiving, the best holiday of the year!

I have about 4 helpings too many of turkey to eat on Thursday, so I have to start preparing. G’day.

- Jon
BP