Christmas Radio Online

Thomas releasing new music; chorus, the Rep seek members

A couple of weeks ago, I featured favorite local musician Michael J Thomas on the Buzzworthy page. Little did I know that a week later I’d receive even more buzzworthy news from him.

On Aug. 29, Michael will release the maxi-single “I Think about Amy” to the airwaves. This comes nearly a year since the release of Michael’s first single, “City Beat,” to smooth jazz radio in 2010.

“I’m very excited about my second release to radio under the label Woodward Avenue Records,” he wrote in an email. “‘I Think about Amy’ is my debut as a vocalist.

“It was written during a very diffcult time in my life and I felt it was too personal to let a guest vocalist sing.

“It turned out to be a good thing, and now I sing on my gigs as well. This vocal enables us to not only promote the single to smooth jazz radio but also attempt for a crossover into adult contemporary radio.”

Michael already has a follow-up planned. “Without You” was co-written by Michael and Shannon Wallace and will be produced by Grammy award-winner Paul Brown.

For this song, however, Michael is looking for someone else to do the singing.

“I’ll be flying out to Los Angeles to record this song as soon as we find the right guest vocalist to feature,” he wrote.

To top it off, Michael announced last Friday that one of his songs from the “City Beat” album, “Amante Del Vino,” is being used in the Matt Damon movie, “Contagion,” which is due out Sept. 9.

Coincidentally, I saw a preview for “Contagion” before “Cowboys & Aliens.”

Super congrats for all of your continued success, Michael!

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The Sugar Beach Chorus received such a wonderful response to their Christmas in July membership drive a couple of weeks ago that they’re hoping to continue the momentum.

The a cappella group has just started rehearsals for their Christmas repertoire and are eager to have any lady who loves to sing in four-part harmony to join them.

They rehearse every Monday night 6:30-8:30 at First United Methodist Church in Niceville, 214 S. Partin Drive.

And if your business or organization is looking for Christmas entertainment, the group is already accepting bookings for the holidays. Call 682-1416 or 862-9101 for more information.

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Band history

Formation

Dan Haseltine, Steve Mason, Charlie Lowell and Justin Gabriel formed Jars of Clay at Greenville College, in Greenville, Illinois in the early 1990s. Charlie Lowell first met Dan Haseltine after noticing that he was wearing a Toad the Wet Sprocket shirt. Pursuing a career in music together was not necessarily their original goal; some of the first songs they wrote together were for music and recording classes they were taking at the time. Their second guitarist Matt Bronleewe joined some time later, and drummer Joseph Quevedo occasionally joined them for some of their early public performances. While in college playing together at local Christian coffee houses, Jars gained quite a reputation for their very original arrangement of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” which had been deftly adapted to the tune of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.

In 1994, the band submitted a demo to a talent competition run by the Gospel Music Association and were selected as finalists. They traveled to Nashville to perform and won the contest. Back in Greenville, they self-released a limited-run of the same demo, which they named Frail, after their song of the same name. The buzz from their performance in Nashville and the demo’s popularity resulted in offers from record labels, so the band decided to drop school and move to Nashville. At this time, Bronlewee left the band to finish school and settle down with his fiance. He was replaced with Matt Odmark, Lowell’s childhood friend and fellow McQuaid Jesuit High School alum.

Jars of Clay performing at The University of Texas at Austin.

Jars of Clay & Drummer Boy EP

Jars of Clay signed with Essential Records and started recording their first full-length studio album, titled Jars of Clay. King Crimson prog-rocker Adrian Belew heard the band and offered to produce, leading to him producing two songs – “Liquid” and “Flood”. The band’s self-titled debut released in 1995. When the single “Flood” began to climb the charts on mainstream Radio stations, Silvertone Records (Essential’s parent company) started to heavily promote the song, turning it into one of the biggest mainstream hits ever by a band on a Christian label. The album has since reached multi-platinum certification according to the RIAA. “Flood” peaked at #37 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #12 on the Billboard Modern Rock chart, and was the band’s only secular radio hit.

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