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

All shows at the Showmobile stage have been saved! The Chamber of Commerce now owns the stage and has contracted us to operate it.

Hey everyone. We have great news that just broke today in the Old Colony Memorial. We’ve been contracted by the Plymouth Area Chamber of Commerce (new owners of the Showmobile mobile stage) to open and close it for all events this summer. What does this mean? It means that us and every other event planner (like Project Arts and Lenny Vaz) no longer needs to worry about covering the cost of opening the stage – and not because someone has come to the rescue with the money, but because a real solution was found, and no one will have to worry about the DPW fees in the future.

Here’s the OCM article from today:

But the town has given its portable stage, known as the Showmobile to The Plymouth Area Chamber of Commerce, which is working with a private organization that will open and close the stage for a nominal fee that will not be passed on to event organizers.

Jon Dorn of Brewster Productions said his company is poised to sign a contract with the Chamber. Brewster Productions was founded by a group of Plymouth South High grads and is locally known for the School’s Out Summer Concert Series, which offers some shows on the Hedge House lawn and others performed from the Showmobile in Pilgrim Memorial State Park. CONTINUE READING HERE…

Saucy Seth & the Clams of Death before our performance at prom May 7, 2004. From left: Jon Dorn, Seth McFadyen, Andrew Thompson, James Grinsell, Phil Hulse.

Sure, this is kind of a self-happy-birthday wishing, but that’s okay, I love my band and I figured I’d write something quick about them/us.

It’s been exactly 6 years since the band originally known as Saucy Seth & the Clams of Death took the stage Friday, May 7, 2004 at Lombardo’s in Randolph as the band for the Class of 2005 Plymouth South High School junior prom. We officially changed our name to The Eagle Hill Band in July 2008, and played our last show as the Clams of Death on December 30, 2007, but the band hasn’t changed a whole lot except for the name and a little thinning out of membership. What is now a 3-piece of Seth McFadyen, Phil Hulse, and myself (James just practiced with us yesterday, so we may be +1 this summer), was once us three, plus James Grinsell on the rhythm guitar, and the ridiculously talented Andrew Thompson on piano.

I think one of the big reasons we changed our name is that we don’t really consider ourselves Saucy Seth & the Clams of Death without the full 5-piece. It may sound weird, but to us, ‘Saucy Seth’ is a sacred name. It’s the first band I was ever in, and we achieved a pretty good amount of popularity at South HS – we had the honor of being in the long line of bands like the Skakopaths, the Leftovers, Leftout, Drive It Like You Stole It, Underage, and [our immediate predecessor] Comboguy. It’s not a lot in terms of the world of music, but it’s a pretty big deal to be the popular band in a high school for a short period of time. The big difference between us and those other bands was that we played classic rock. We all came from pop-punk and ska backgrounds, except Thompson, but we took that and decided to start a classic rock band. And it was damn fun.

And it still is damn fun. We’ve played a bunch of shows as a band over the past 6 years, sometimes with 5, 4 or 3 people, sometimes with our friend Nick Amendolare, and once as a 3-piece we called Nantucket Sleigh Ride. We’re still going strong as the EHB with Seth, Phil, and me holding down the fort all these years. We’re probably one of the more casual bands around, and I’d say that’s our best quality. We play when we want to – when we have time and when we can find a show. We’ve never once gotten too serious, or taken ourselves too seriously. We’re not a band “trying to make it” – we’ve already made it as far as I’m concerned – we’re a group of friends who can get together whenever they can and play music with incredible chemistry, and people seem to have fun watching us play.

So if I have a message to all you young musicians out there it would be: Make a band with your friends, don’t try to make friends from a band. If you’re only goal as a band is to get a record deal, chances are you’re not going to have much fun with it. If you’re looking to have fun, you’re much better off getting a group of your own friends together to play. With Brewster Productions, I’ve seen a lot of different young band scenarios, and my anecdotal evidence suggests that the laid-back attitude of my beloved EHB is the one that lasts 6 years (and counting).

Have fun with music – if you’re not having fun, what’s the point?

Yours in nostalgia,
Jon

(ps – check out some Clams of Death stuff below)

Lucas Carpenter returned to Boston April 12 at All Asia in Cambridge, along with Ben Carter and Jared Salvatore.

Lucas Carpenter stopped by the All Asia in Cambridge during his tour (he’s playing in CT tonight), and put on an incredible show, just like the last time he played with us August 7th at the concert series. Joining him onstage was Jared Salvatore‘s band, an incredible 4-piece from boston (you can expect to see them this summer), and our old friend Ben Carter. All three acts put on amazing shows, despite the tight time constraints, and Lucas had the whole crowd singing along to a bunch of his own songs, which must be an incredible feeling for a musician.

Make sure you come check out the Ben Carter this Thursday night at Sweetwater Cafe – it’s 21+, but it’s free! We also have show there for the next couple Thursdays, so check out our rad schedule (which is pretty packed after these few years of working really hard to eventually have a consistent schedule…that’s a self pat on the back right there).

Summer is inching ever-closer, so make sure you check out the SCHOOL’S OUT SUMMER CONCERT SERIES for the best indie music right in Plymouth, Mass. It’s going to be an incredible summer.

Jon

Lucas Carpenter performs at the School's Out Summer Concert Series August 7, 2009.

Last summer, Lucas Carpenter conquered the Plymouth Waterfront main stage with his infectious songs and awe-inspiring showmanship. Now, in just a couple weeks the Philly-based Berkelee grad is back in the area for what will surely be an amazing show. Lucas will be playing at ALL ASIA in Cambridge April 12th . Our good friend and local crowd-pleaser Ben Carter will open the show, which starts at 8pm.

Take a listen to Lucas here: myspace.com/lucascarpenter. If his music itself doesn’t convince you to come, then watch a few videos on YouTube.

On the other-Boston-shows front, starting April 8th we will be producing Singer-Songwriter Thursdays at Sweetwater Cafe (3 Boylston Place, by the Common). Also, we’re currently in the process of booking all the School’s Out Summer Concert Series shows, so if you want to play, or know someone who does, give us a shout (booking@brewsterproductions.com)!! Same goes for the Sweetwater shows.

Stay dry.

- Jon

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 at Sweetwater Cafe March 5, 2010. Presented by Brewster Productions.

The rad tunes were pouring out of a little room downstairs in an alleyway club tonight in Boston. Greg Loftus and Nate Cristofori, two of south-of-Boston’s finest, tuned up Sweetwater Cafe’s downstairs stage tonight. Nate started off the show with some great sing-alongs with his contagious piano-ing, and Greg closed out the evening with some incredible bluesy guitar and singing work. Check out the photos. Good night, and see you next week.

Nate Cristofori at Sweetwater Cafe March 5, 2010. Presented by Brewster Productions.

Here’s what’s going on next weekend: The two big shows are THE OKAY WIN 3/12 and 3rd LEFT 3/13, both at Sweetwater Cafe. Also next weekend, Team Brewster will be tackling the Nike Indoor Nationals track meet as the official sound team. We’re going to tweet about the wacky time we’re having the whole time with fun photos, so stay tuned to that if you feel like reliving your former athletic days through a sound production company. Which reminds me: Follow us on Twitter! Who knows, maybe we’ll end up like that girl @lovelybutton if Conan discovers us.

Photo gallery and video below!!

- Jon

PS – HAPPY 23rd BIRTHDAY TO SCOTT!

Shaun Dever, performing 3/19 at Sweetwater Cafe, is also our main graphics and poster guy here at Brewster. So, without his computer while surfing the days away in Costa Rica, this is the poster he came up with.

This will be a great weekend. On March 19, Shaun Dever will rock the Sweetwater Cafe in his ‘back in the USA’ debut show after surfing his way through Costa Rica for some time (see the photo). Then the very next day, March 20, our good friend and international indie music writer Ryan Wood will be hosting the official Boston launch party of his new music blog, The Tranzmission, which will feature the incomparable JAKE HILL w/ another incredible mainstay of ours, Greg Loftus – it’s sure to be a bluesy, folksy night.

So you’re probably beginning to see that March at Sweetwater Cafe in Boston, presented by Brewster Productions, is going to be a pretty rad time. Make sure you check out the show schedule because we’ve got 7 SHOWS coming up featuring the likes of Sean P. Rogan (of Big D and the Kids Table), The Okay Win, Big Big Buildings, Nate Cristofori, Electric Mummy and more. It’s gonna be a great month as we get geared up for the big 3rd season of the School’s Out Summer Concert Series. (and yes, we know all these shows at sweetwater are unfortunately 21+, but you just wait a tiny bit longer and we’ll make it up to you and then some)

Later!
Jon

A cell phone picture of Scott (right) working hard on the wireless mic setup. Coach Infa on the left.

Yesterday Scott, Steve Infascelli and I spent the better part of the afternoon at the Reggie Lewis Center doing the first of what will be a few test runs for our big Nike Indoor Nationals sound production gig. For those of you who don’t know, the Reggie is an indoor track/giant athletics field house at Roxbury Community College. We’ll be producing the sound for the big national high school indoor track meet there on March 12-14, which is sponsored by Nike. So yesterday we fiddled around with a bunch of wireless mic stuff, a ducking system, and the giant expanse that is the Reggie Lewis Center, and surpisingly, pretty much on the first try, everything sounded great even with the wacky acoustics.

So that’s the Nike Indoor Nationals update for now. We’ll take lots of pictures and tweet and blog about our experience and such when the meet comes around.

And remember, we’ve got TONS OF SHOWS coming up in March so don’t miss them.

- Jon