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>>December 12, 2009. Oceans performs at
Philippine-Minnesotan Medical Association
>>October 3, 2009. Oceans stages successful
comeback at O'Gara's!
>>October 3, 2009. Oceans releases
"Live Sessions" CD
>>September 22, 2009. Oceans performs at
Twin Cities Radio broadcast live in the internet.
>>August 28, 2009. Oceans surges back into
the music scene.
>>June 2009. Oceans announces the
search for new singer is over!
>>November 11/08. The Oceans interview
Leave a message!
Oceans performs at PMMA induction ball
Oceans performed at the Philippine-Minnesotan Medical Association induction ball held at the Mississippi at the Gray Cloud Island in Cottage Grove on December 12, 2009. The band performed some of its rock songs before and during the program. The band's lead singer, who is a member of the Filipino physicians' organization, also opened the program with a vocal rendition of the Philippine National Anthem, later followed by a rousing band performance of the Star-Spangled Banner.
The band was able to raise some funds through sales of its CD "The Live Sessions" during the event. The money raised was immediately handed to the organization's treasurer as donation for its medical mission in the Philippines in January 2010.
Oceans stages successful comeback at O'Gara's (Oct. 3, 2009).
After a brief absence from the music scene, Oceans came roaring back with a well-attended performance at St. Paul's popular O'Gara's Garage club. The band's concert featured the debut performance of its new frontman Leo Aguilar. Leo joined the band in June and replaced Rhea, who left the band in March after an 18-month stint as its lead singer. The all-original Oceans was billed alongside two cover bands Suburban Hero and American Spins.
The band's concert performance included songs from its first EPEndurance, thrilling the crowd with old favorites such as "Tall and Bulletproof" and "Nightingale" among others. It also featured a new arrangement for "Princess" and the initial club presentation for the band's new materials, the epic "Play" and the hard-rocking "Fortress." >>
Leo, who had never sung in any band prior to joining Oceans, showed none of the nervousness that usually accompanies a singer's first-ever live club performance. He attributed his confidence to his experience singing in a radio show just the week before.
"If you passed the test singing in front of music and broadcast professionals, your confidence just goes up several notches. Singing in front of a party crowd is a lot less pressure in comparison to that," declared the lead singer. "Still, it was a big relief to get over that huge hurdle of singing professionally for the first time in front of a big crowd."
The band's performance has been praised for its high energy and original sound. Band leader and guitarist Davide Raso founded the band about 5 years ago then later joined by bassist Pauly Hansen, drummer Mark Jacobson and guitarist Paul Pederson. The band's unique sound has been variably described as a variant or fusion of progressive, alternative, powerpop and art rock. Leo is fifth in the band's line of lead singers, but he hopes to stay with the band for a long time.
"I am having fun and these guys are awesome musicians. Joining Oceans has injected excitement to my otherwise very ordinary life," Leo said. A great number of his friends and co-workers were in attendance to show support in his debut. The dance floor filled up with fans as the band swiched to high gear with fast beat tunes such as "Heaven," Blueprint for Perfection" and "Fast Life" as its finale. All in all, the band performed 11 songs.
The band has performed at O'Gara's numerous times over the past few years and has been one of their favorite concert venues. (Click here for the photo gallery.)
Oceans rocks the internet at Twin Cities Radio (Sept. 22/09).
After a few months hiatus, Twin Cities rock band Oceans kicked off its return to the music scene with a live radio show performance at Twin Cities Radio (TCR) on September 22, 2009. Davide (guitar), Mark (drums), Pauly (bass) and Paul (guitar) introduced their new lead vocalist Leo, who was performing the band's set for the first time.
The set included original compositions from the band's first EP "Endurance" as well as brand new songs that will be included in the band's next studio album. "Play" is a 9-minute epic collaboration, and "Fortress" is a remake that marks Leo's first lyric composition for the band. "Fast Life," as has been the tradition, was the band's show-ender, a rocking finale to their 50-minute performance. JazzyJ, station owner and show host, interviewed the band members and expressed his admiration for the band's music, particularly "Tall and Bulletproof" which is his personal favorite. >>
Leo confided that he had been beset by laryngitis for a few days prior to the show, but his vocal cords warmed up as the program progressed and performed the vocally challenging set without a hitch. Listening to the recorded concert after the show, the band admits that instrumentally this was probably one of their best-ever performances.
TCR (www.twincitiesradio.net) is an internet-based radio station that exclusively features independent artists and is broadcast all over the world. The show, hosted by Jazzy J, reached audiences worldwide, with viewers logging in from the US, UK, Sweden, South America, and Germany, to mention a few.
The band plans to release their TCR live performance as "Oceans: The Live Sessions," a CD project that aims to raise funds for charity. (For details of this project, click here.)
Click here for the
photo gallery.
Friday, August 28, 2009
We are back! Hi Oceans fans!
Yes we are back with a lot of news! There are so many good news that we can't wait to tell you about them.
Let's start off with SHOWS! Yes we are going to perform live again!
Our very first show will be on September 22, and the great thing about it is that you don't have to leave you house for it! We will play a show from the brand new broadcasting studios (studio A440) of Twin Cities Radio on the net. We will take part in the "Live sessions with JazzyJ". All you need to do is to navigate to www.twincitiesradio.net and click the listening button. Oh, and we almost forgot. They will also video stream the performance. Yes you can see us perform as well! We can't wait to introduce to you our new singer and member Leo Aguilar, who took over the duty of lead vocalist 3 months ago.
Also we wanted to thank JazzyJ, owner of TCR, for giving us this opportunity. Again September 22 live on the internet from A440 Studios! The show starts with Vicky Emerson at 8pm and Oceans at 9pm (US central standard time, which is 4:00 AM on Sept. 23rd in Europe.)
Well we wanted also to introduce Leo to you with a live performance where you actually can see us all in the same room!
Also, Oceans goes "home" once more on October 3rd at O'Gara's in St.Paul! Please stay tuned for more information!!
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"The world will be listening to us in the internet!"
There is more news. We are also heading back into a recording studio to record two new songs. And we are thrilled to announce Owen Sartori (www.owensartori.com) as our producer for this project. We are looking forward to work with him and can't wait to capture a small amount of new music we have been working on since we recorded "Endurance".
We will book more shows in the fall but mostly we will continue to work on new songs that could become the follow up of "Endurance." Hopefully can start to record next spring!
Thanks for sticking with us! And see you again soon!!
OCEANS
http://www.twincitiesradio.net
http://www.owensartori.com
Oceans introduces Leo Aguilar as band's new frontman
Oceans is proud to announce the addition of Leo Aguilar (a.k.a. Leon) as their new frontman. Leo has been writing music and lyrics for the past few years and has had the privilege of collaborating with music professionals at the popular musician's website Macjams. He has a wide range of musical interests, having written songs and performed vocally in various genres such as rock, R&B, pop and even techno and dance. He also plays guitar but admittedly his main instrument is his voice, which is widely praised at Macjams for its range and versatility. His musical influences include Journey, Foreigner, U2, Stevie Wonder and Billy Ocean to name a few.
His preference for progressive rock and his vocal style was what convinced us to work with him.
In his own words:
I make music to balance the left and right sides of my brain. Arts and music have always been my area of strength, but unfortunately my day-to-day adult life now revolves around the mechanical rituals of science and the coldness of technology . I still manage to do some fine arts as a hobby, but it is music that more often soothes my ruffled emotions and augments the sensation of my inured mind.
I discovered my voice back when I was a teenager but had been lost over how to put my creative energies into use. I had some skills in playing guitar and I have always imagined creating my own songs and arrangements, even just as a means of recreation. I wrote and arranged my first song about 5 years ago when I was introduced to Garageband on a Mac. Life has been a lot more interesting since then.
Recently, I have been looking for ways to add spice to my life and move it up to the next level. I have always thought that music is a potent force that could make a difference. Joining a "real" band has been a lifetime dream that I have sought to fulfill. Taking on this commitment to become Oceans' frontman is both an ambition and a challenge that I know will bring out the best in me.
Here is a link where you can listen to one of his co- written compositions:
http://www.macjams.com/song/31520
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Interview with Perfect Porridge!
This is our intervierw with Twin Cities own blogoshpere in music, published on October 10th 2008.
www.perfectporridge.com
Minneapolis adult alternative rock band Oceans play their EP release show tonight at O'Garas in St. Paul.
We had the opportunity to chat with the band this week, talking about their new concept EP, how the band formed and how they fit into the Minneapolis music scene
Who is Oceans?
We are a 5-piece band hailing from Minneapolis, With Rhea as lead vocalist, Paul Pederson for guitars, vocals and keys, Pauly Hansen for Bass, Mark Jacobson for drums and percussion, and then myself, Dave Raso for guitars and backing vocals.
How long have you been around? What's your story?
Oceans was conceived by "mistake" almost. 3 Years ago, Dave was looking to put a U2 tribute band together and one guy responding to the ad was Eric which was also a guitarist. So Dave and Eric Danielson felt that they could work together on an all original project, instead of the U2 project. Eric then knew some people from the Area 52 musicians cooperative and Pauly Hansen (bass) and Chris Hagen (drums) were there from the beginning. It was a rough start for us and members started to leave, first Chris when he announced to leave the States for Panama and later that year Eric left as well.
To replace Eric and Chris we found later Paul Pederson (guitars, vocals, keys) and Mark Jacobson (drums) and we finally started to work on songs which ended up later on our EP "Endurance". But the new year was as tough to go on as the previous one and due to differences with then singer Danny Melgarejo, everyone in the band left except for Dave. At that time we just moved in a new practice space and so it was hard for him to keep going except he convinced Paul and later Pauly and Mark to continue this journey and keep going with writing.
Six months later Oceans or what was called back then SH/VR found in Lorenzo Michelutti the new vocalist and main lyricist. Almost all the lyrics on "Endurance" are penned by Lorenzo. We had a few show with that line up, but right before we started with recordings for "Endurance" Lorenzo obtained the opportunity to front the well known local band Concentual and left the band. So we were again without a singer. In the mean time we moved like another 2 times our practice space.and we were in the brink of disbanding and let the project goAfter several auditions and a short stint with Robert Powers it took us 8 months to find our current vocalist Rhea. So we resumed recordings and finished our EP 18 months later.
How would you classify your music?
We believe that our music is hard to classify, due to our influences such as Pink Floyd, U2, Muse, Coldplayso it's hard to say we are rock, alternative or progressive.but Paul likes to say we are Powerpop. But maybe a good fit would be melodic rock/pop.
How do you guys fit into the Minneapolis music scene?
With a shoe-horn! The Minneapolis Music scene is huge to say the least. There are lots of cover bands, and the hard-rock and metal community is pretty big as well. While what we are doing isn't groundbreaking by any means, we feel that our sound is something that not many bands are doing currently. We draw our influences from a more classic-rock background (U2, Pink Floyd, Journeyetc) and we put a lot of thought and craft into the songs arrangements and structures. It's not "bubble-gum" pop music by any means, but it has hooks and enjoyable melodies.
The people in the scene are all good people and always try to help each other even with bands that are starting right now. They try to put bills together and support each other with going to their shows. We mentioned Area 52, which is a musician cooperative in Northeast Minneapolis. This is a place where musicians come on each Friday night and jam together, network and socialize!
Endurance is a bit of a concept album, right?
Well, very loosely. It didn't start out that way as a "goal", but after looking at the song subjects, we picked a select bunch and saw they could carry some cohesive themes and ideas.
As we were working on "Endurance" we discovered that it would be eventually a concept EP, about "Mr. and Ms. Nightingale"'s disturbed and estranged relationship. The first track, "The looking Glass" is an instrumental intro to the second track, which represents the sunrise and the early morning of Mr.Nightingale, where he wakes up next to Alice, his wife..The story continues on "The Other Side" where Nightingale looks into Alice 's eyes as he wakes up and sees himself through a looking glass, with the meaning that he looks at himself through his wife's eyes and all he wants is to look into the looking glass from the other side so he could see his wife again "Blueprint for Perfection" reveals the compulsive obsessive Nightingale, where he drives to work everyday, taking the same route, even though he passes many crossroads and dreams of taking one of those roads one day..so he can just break through "Tall and Bulletproof" tells about Nightingale's confidence and arrogance at the same time. He thinks he's the top of the office that nothing could take him down
In "Heaven" Nightingale walks into a bar for happy hour, and the songs reminds him how good we have it here while we are kicking back and toasting to our friends, while our soldiers are fighting a war..In "Blood from a Stone" Mr. and Ms. Nightingale decide to seek counseling and look to save their relationshipbut they both give up..the story ends with "The Nightingale" a self portrait of the man , who was letting himself go, night after night, falling asleep in front of the TVknowing that he won't wake up next to Alice .because she's long gone.but his schizophrenia allows him to see Alice through the looking glass on the other side.
Ever think of acting out the plot on-stage?
It's not THAT epic of a story! We're not The Who presenting "Tommy" by any means! But if there is a Film maker and a screenwriter we would sure working with themHAHA!
I saw one of your songs made it to Australia. What was that and how did that happen?
Well the contact emerged through our Myspace site. Andrew has a Myspace site of his "3rd ear" weekly show on FM 97.9 in Melbourne Australia and he liked our music so much that he decided to play it on his radio show. So we were thrilled that he did it. We haven't heard back since then but he was trying to get us outside of his show as well!
You guys have a couple of shows coming up. Tell me about them.
Well tonight we are playing our CD-Release party at O'Garas in St. Paul. We are so fortunate and thrilled to have the following supporting acts to celebrate with us: The Dregs, The New Monarchs, Owen Sartori and NemoJoe. After this show we are going to open for Stellar Vector and the Godddamn Gallows on October 25th at Club Underground.
What does the future hold for Oceans?
Well it took us 18 months to record and finish "Endurance". Rhea is a brilliant songwriter and she wasn't able to show that on our CD, because the songs were already written and mostly recorded. We started to work on new songs already and we finished two which we will play tonight as well. There are already several demos and bits that we already have worked on and we are looking forward to work on the follow up of Endurance. In the mean time we hope to play shows in the Cities and going out to Mankato, St.Cloud and Duluth.
