Hello and welcome to:
chrismckenna.com
If you've been redirected to this website when looking for the gg1band website, rest assured, you're in the right place.
Okay okay, I'm taking way too long on a new website but I'm BUSY writing music. Things are moving along with the new one but in the meantime I'll at least be posting gig flyers and any news as to keep the informed. See below for GIGS and such...
This is ONE PAGE so please scroll up and down for more info.
Chris at the very nice Steinway D at Savidge Library,
MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, New Hampshire
New Demos of the songs from "A Thousand Embers ". I hope you enjoy them.
06 Shining and Wonderful-Sep 07
Above are a few demos of the new music I'm working on from my spring/summer residency of last year at the MacDowell Colony, in Peterborough New Hampshire. Here's a little description of the work in case you're curious.
A Thousand Embers-A Song Cycle by Chris McKenna
1. Description of the work:
"This work is a suite of songs presented as a character study of both the people and times of depression era America (1933), set along the route of one of the major rail arteries of the day, the Santa Fe. This work is about the land, the people, the struggle that the great depression precipitated and reflects upon the legacy that the "conquered frontier" represents. It is really also a veiled commentary about what is happening today. I believe we are now in the grips of a national depression of the SPIRIT and I use the theme of the economic depression of the 1930's as a prism with which we can look ahead, backwards and sideways.
The songs, linked together (much like a train) endeavor to evoke the spirit of the times, to explore locales along the route, to celebrate the uniqueness of the route’s topography, its extremes of climate, its commingled ethnicity, it's astounding contradictions and most importantly, to present the struggles and triumphs of the various personalities in a time of economic and social distress. America's late adolescence, so to speak.
These characters are constructed as ANTI-MYTHIC rejoinders to common assumptions about the settling and development of the United States and they remain vigorously themselves, not ossified into clumsily constructed revisionist statues depicting the "lonesome prairie". These characters move about and around the railway and reflect upon and explore the American scene, experiencing the universal yet-personal extremes of stability and restlessness, prosperity and indigence, confidence and despair."
Blah blah blah!
It will be better to just listen when I'm all done, I promise....
Also, Chris is playing shows on drums with both the Ribeye Brothers and Lunar Ensemble. These shows we be listed as they come up.
Upcoming PERFORMANCES :
Tuesday evening August 19
8:45PM
Chris plays drums for Lunar Ensemble
@the Saint in Asbury Park New Jersey
Friday evening September 12
9:00PM
Chris plays drums for the Ribeye Brothers
Maxwells, Hoboken New Jersey
ALBUM REVIEWS (re: Soundtown)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Some Past Performances :
Saturday July 26, 2008
Chris McKenna & his band
Outside @ the Dublin House, Red Bank, NJ 11PM
June, 7 2008
Chris w/Ribeye Brothers:
at Maxwell’s, Hoboken NJ 11PM
A passel of Chris's poster Art provided for your perusal (in random order)
from past show of last summer:
Chris & band welcome back GG1 guitarist Kim Rausch for the night
from past show of Friday EVENING May 23:
Chris drumming for Lunar Ensemble at the Brighton Bar in Long Branch New Jersey :
. . .9PM show
2. Lunar Ensemble Tuesday (Feb 12) evening at the Saint :
.
December 8th 2007 in Griggstown, New Jersey in an acoustic duo setting (Chris McKenna's band)
Chris with Lunar Ensemble Thursday (Dec 13) evening at the Knitting Factory, NYC
