Hello Madeira friends!
Wow, another half a year flew by! The Madeira has been keeping busy playing shows in Chicago and Champaign, IL, as well as our first visit down South for two shows in Atlanta in late May (including the too-much-fun Bubbapalooza event held at the famous Star Bar, with the great Dex Romweber Duo also on the bill!). We also played the Indy premiere of the film “Ultimate Wave Tahiti 3D” at the IMAX in mid-June, and they’ve returned the favor by playing the “Carpe Noctem” CD, as well as a short video clip plugging our band, before each showing of the film, so if you go see the movie there this summer, you’ll get to hear us on their amazing sound system accompanied by three-story-high pics of the band! (Brrrr – frightening!!)
When we found the time, we worked on new songs, two of which (Witch Doctor and Green Hell) we have been playing out already, and the third (Cities of Gold) we expect to premiere at our next show at the Melody Inn on Friday, August 13th. We’ve also been working on four other original songs plus two covers, so the next album is coming along very nicely, hopefully to be recorded and released next year.
Two of us have also been busy with other musical projects, Patrick mostly with the Shake Ups (who just returned from an East Coast tour) and Destination: Earth!, but also a brand new band Five Year Mission (stay tuned for more info about them), whereas Ivan reunited with his old surf band the Space Cossacks for their first shows since the year 2000, in Baltimore and Arlington, VA in May. The Cossacks are playing five more shows this summer, including three in California (one of them being the Third Annual Surf Guitar 101 Convention on Saturday, August 7th in Los Alamitos, CA) and two in Indiana and Ohio.
This leads us to the main point of this announcement: we have two VERY special shows coming up in just over two weeks. First will be “The Madeira All-In-The-Family Surf Explosion” show at our beloved Melody Inn on Friday, August 13th (brrr-frightening!!). This will be an once-in-a-lifetime event: the Madeira hosting an evening of surf music with special guests the Space Cossacks (featuring Ivan on lead guitar), Destination: Earth! (featuring Patrick on lead guitar) and the Troubadours (featuring Ivan on the lead guitar and Dane on the drums)!! This has never happened before, and probably never will again! We also have a few special tidbits planned for this show that will hopefully make it utterly unforgettable. The Indianapolis free weekly city paper Nuvo will be running a feature story on the Madeira the week of the show, and we greatly welcome and are very excited about this bit of publicity! The day after this show (so, Saturday, August 14th) the fun will continue in Dayton, OH at the second annual Surf Ohio FesTiki festival! The FesTiki is an all-day, family-friendly celebration of all things Exotica, held at the gorgeous and historic Old River Park – Dayton’s “vintage playground” – a 33-acre park encircled by a 1.5-mile scenic lagoon. There will be seven bands in total between 2 and 11 pm, playing surf, rockabilly and Polynesian music – the Madeira will be playing at 6:30 pm and the Space Cossacks will be headlining at 9 pm. There will also be hula and fire dancers, tiki carvers, retro vendors, a giant sand sculpture, tropical-themed bounce houses, vintage hot rod displays, and a cruise-in for pre-1970s cars, motorcycles and scooters, plus Polynesian-style cuisine and – of course – many coldm fruity drinks! There will be some serious press promoting this event and the organizers expect several thousand people to attend throughout the day! (Check out their website for any other info you may need.)
These two events are sure to be the best time you will have all summer long, so we really hope you can all join us for them! You will NOT regret it!
Finally, we already have some plans for this Fall, including playing in Cleveland for the first time (in October) and returning to Lafayette, IN (in November), so hopefully we’ll also see some of you at these shows. Who knows, we might unveil some more new songs and you wouldn’t want to miss that, right? ;)
We hope you are all enjoying the summer and to see you soon!
Best regards,
– The Madeira