Join us Sunday evening, April 22 for the next Inside Lands music party featuring Bay Area songwriters Austin Willacy and Ira Marlowe.
<span style="background-color:transparent">This music party will take place in an intimate listening room in Berkeley, the ideal setting for an intimate acoustic show—but that means space is limited. So be sure to </span>reserve your spot<span style="background-color:transparent"> with an advance donation here on Ticketleap.</span>
PLUS!! This music will include an OPEN MIC at the beginning of the show. If you'd like to be one of 8 people to play a song before the featured acts, send me a note to sign up.
Open mic starts at 6pm. Featured performances begin at 7pm.
Hope to see you there!
Drew
NOTE: Sad to report that Rachael Sage will not be able to make it to Berkeley on April 22. If you have made an advance donation and would like a refund, let me know at [email protected].
<span style="background-color:transparent">ABOUT THE ARTISTS</span>
AUSTIN WILLACY
Rootsy. Soulful. Hypnotic. Lush. Groovy. Intense… “From ecstasy to eloquence and at once edgy and elegant, Willacy has arrived” “an edgy adult contemporary sound that goes down easily and speaks to the heart”… these are just some of the ways critics are describing Austin Willacy and his music. Raised on blues, soul, old school r&b and 70’s era rock, Willacy fuses the genres unlike others before him. His lyrics and his voice alternately soothe and savage their way through a myriad of emotional landscapes with breathtaking ease and efficacy.
IRA MARLOWE
His songs have been described as "four-minute movies", known for a rare combination of lyrical wit and emotional impact. Marlowe grew up listening to his parents' jazz and show tunes, begged for guitar lessons at eight, finally got them at thirteen, experienced a high school conversion from folkie to rocker, and at nineteen started penning songs that sounded somewhere between Daltrey and Townsend and Lerner and Loew. While the label "folk-rock" is useful as a ballpark description, Marlowe's writing swings from funny to sad to poignant to political--often within a single song. His range as a songwriter and the sheer entertainment value of his shows make him a delight to audiences wherever he goes.
He's won numerous awards, including the SF Weekly "Best of the Bay" song contest, the Napa Valley Music Festival, plus a half-dozen Northern California Songwriters Association competitions. In 2004 his song “The Wish” was selected for the Songs Inspired by Literature CD and appears alongside songs by Tom Waits, David Bowie, Steve Earle, Roseanne Cash and other people more famous than him.
In 2005, burnt out after a series of fizzled major-label deals, he was performing in a San francisco cafe when he was approached by the director of The Learning Company, the world's largest producer of education software for kids. Hired on the spot to write a series of songs their new release, Marlowe took an anything-goes approach to his task and started having FUN again. He soon his own kids' music label, BRAINY TUNES--"Smarter Songs for Smarter Kids". In the past five years he released six CDs, won the coveted Parents' Choice and Mr. Dad Awards, and sold thousands of units, mostly to schools and libraries. But though he loves writing kids' music and usually enjoys performing for children, he never felt at home with the smiley, squeakly-clean persona required for the job. Having recently teamed with a partner to handle to business aspects of BRAINY TUNES, Marlowe has returned headlong to writing and performing for those big kids known as adults.
In June of 2012, Marlowe opened The Monkey House, a cozy nest for thoughtful performers of all stripes: singer/songwriters, storytellers, comics, magicians and more. Seating about fifty--with lights, sound system, stage, and black velvet curtain--it will soon be home to an effort several years in the making, “Tales from Varley Mansion”, a spooky stage show for kids. Stay tuned.