Term 4 Wrap-Up

The final show for term 4 rocked the house on Sunday December 5th – the place was packed with about 150 or so excited spectators, and all three bands did a spectacular job. The night was enjoyed by all, here are some pics of each band enjoying their night. For more pics visit www.facebook.com/rockstarexp

Kickin' It

After the show - happy chappiesKickin' It

Rockin' Out

Awesome night, and now we’re gearing up for Term 1, starting Feb 18th and Feb 21st (two programs per term from 2011 – Fridays and Monday nights!). Check us out more at www.rockstarexperience.com.au and get in now before the price rise on January 31st…

Checking out until Feb 2011…have a great Christmas and New Year, see you on the other side…

Week 7 update

Yikes! How time has passed since I last wrote…naughty me. It’s been pretty crazy organising everything for the final performance, which is coming up on December 5th – just over a week from now! I always get a little nervous when I think about the show – will we get enough people there, will it all go smoothly? I don’t know why I worry as it always goes off with only very small (and forgettable) behind the scenes hitches.

So where things are at with our members at this point…our junior band “Pocket Rocket” is powering along – this is made up of four very talented 18 year olds who have worked their butts off and have a great set lined up. We are also very grateful to Mark Cincotta, one of our previous members, who stepped in at the halfway point to take over the drums for this band. Thanks Mark! Progress has powered ahead with Mark’s assistance and we can’t wait to see these guys play live on the 5th. We’ve been so impressed with Alyce on guitar – for her age she is an outstanding guitarist. Her friend Zarina (lead vocals) is working hard on some very challenging vocal parts – even attempting a Kelly Clarkson track! Chloe, our repeat bass player just gets better and better, and Jake, the young lead guitarist is really an outstanding player. I have no hesitation in saying that I would have him in a band with me any day – he’s very talented and deserves to go far.

Our middle band, “Alcorox” is made up of older members, and they’re a really fun group. There’s Rob on guitar, who did our last program. His playing has gone from strength to strength, and he’s really benefitting from some extra-curricular lessons from Paul, Rockstar’s guitar coach. Sue on vocals is also a repeat member who is very experienced having played in other bands, plus she does a lot of work for choral groups as well. Catherine is a first timer on c0-lead vocals. You wouldn’t know it to look at her, but she recently became a grandmother. As a singer, she has a really impressive low range, with a real bluesy quality. I’d really love to hear her do some Bonnie Raitt one of these days – her voice is perfect for it! James on bass has a very distinct style and is progressing beautifully with help from Daniel Lijnders, our bass coach. And finally, Chappy on drums has just turned 69! Chappy is a beautiful man who has put 150% into this experience. He’s listened to all the songs incessantly, has taken every bit of advice on board and his playing has advanced significantly as a result. He used to play (over 40 years ago!) in the Ernie Sigley showband, and we’re so excited to have him as part of Rockstar – he’s proof that age is no barrier to rocking out!

And finally, our more experienced members in “Shearwater” are doing an outstanding job with a really strong set list. We’re always rapt to work with solid musicians like Brad (Boofa) on guitar and Malcolm on bass, who have done all our programs so far. In addition we have Edie on vocals, another repeat member from term 2 this year, and the song choices are really working with her strengths this time around. Newcomers Andrew and Nick are also really solid players and we’ve loved getting to know them.

So we have just two rehearsals left and then the final show on the 5th…it always goes so quickly, and while it’s hard work, we always feel a little bit sad when it all finishes up. So I’m determined to savour all the moments of the next two weeks and can’t wait to see these three bands rock it out on stage…..if you can, join us on the 5th and see what we’re all about!

Ciao for now,

Leah

 

Halfway Post

We’re up to week 5 in the current program and we’ve almost sold out our next program. It’s funny how things come around – when we first started the business we were scrambling for participants, and now we’re having to put people on waiting lists!

Rockstar will stay an exclusive program in 2011 – a maximum of 3 bands per round works perfectly and gives all participants the best chance of a challenging and inspiring experience. But we will be adding other goodies throughout the year – an annual “Rock Retreat” being one exciting new event. This will be a three day”lock-out” where participants will jam in day-long sessions, head out on the town to see bands and then perform in a massive jam night. Past Rockstar members will receive priority placement for this exciting long weekend and we can’t wait to get that going! More info to come…we’re also working on an after school program for secondary schools, so big things are happening in 2011!

Meanwhile, we’re focusing on getting our current members up to speed. Two of the three bands have decided on a name – we have “Alcorox” and “Shearwater” on board now. It always feels like things start to crystallise even more once the band names are decided – it’s like each band starts to take on its own distinct personality and the members start to gel with that feeling. Rehearsal 5 should be lots of fun with invitations set to go out for the final show in just 4 weeks’ time! Looking forward to coaching in the area of stage performance from here on – the hard work of determining set lists and learning songs is completed, now it’s time to start visualising that live show.

More to come after rehearsal 5, for now lots more work to do in pulling together our next exciting addition to what we do – a regular podcast that will interview leading musicians to get their story on how they started in the industry! More to come on that shortly….

Ciao for now

Week 3 Update…

Week 3 rehearsal completed last night – this is the last weekend that Paul and I will spend pulling together songs, charts and other info for each band as their set lists are just about decided now.

Each week band members suggest ideas for songs they’d like to try. Saturdays are spent sourcing those songs in MP3 format, finding guitar chord references for each of them and then charting them out in a consistent format for everyone to understand. Then Paul checks through them on Sunday and we send them off to everyone on Sunday night so they can rehearse for the following week. It’s a pretty time consuming process when you add in the marketing side of things – social media updates, photo and video uploads and even just writing this blog. So for the first few weeks of doing a new Rockstar program, weekends are kind of non-existent!

So it’s now just after 1pm on Saturday – after a quite intense rehearsal last night in warm weather, set up and pack up of 3 full band’s worth of equipment and working since 9am this morning I’m ready to collapse on the couch! Bring on next week when we can just sleep in after rehearsal

All the bands are doing well and their set lists are coming together. The “junior” band – only named this way because they’re all teenagers – are pulling together a really contemporary set including tracks from Paramore, Kelly Clarkson and A Simple Plan. It’s been great to have young members playing some really modern tracks and we can’t wait to see them perform live. Our “intermediate” band – a group of older members who’ve been playing only a short period of time – is working on a set of classic pop and rock charts including songs from U2, Bob Dylan and T-Rex. And our “pr0″ band – more experienced musos and some regular past Rockstar members – are rocking out to Divinyls, Cheap Trick, Hole and The Stones.

It’s important that we determine all their songs early so the mid-term can be spent perfecting them. Then we get onto the fun stuff, like deciding on band names, figuring out stage moves and pulling the performance aspect together. The intermediate band are already champing at the bit to come up with their identity – last night they decided on “The Alcorocks” – let’s see if that sticks!

So at week 3, things still feel a little unsure in terms of perfecting beginnings and endings, arrangements, harmonies etc. But we know it all comes together in the end…it always does!

We’ve posted some pics from last night on our website here:

http://www.rockstarexperience.com.au/latestNews.php?id=54

and on facebook here:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mordialloc-Australia/Rockstar-Experience/78077362321?ref=ts

Check them out and stay tuned for next week’s update…

Until then, ciao for now – and to the couch I go.

2 Weeks In…

Week 2 rehearsal completed last night – a challenging one with our regular coach Daniel on leave to look after his wife Erin and new baby son Mason. Mason was born on Wednesday evening and is a beautiful little boy – our most sincere congratulations and love to both Daniel and Erin who are already parents to daughter Dusty. Great names huh?

We were lucky to have stand-in coach Oliver Jones, an experienced musician and producer who looked after our junior band. He did a great job and even got the band together with the song “Jenny Don’t Be Hasty”, which we’d thought might need to be dropped! A big thank you to Oliver for coming in at the last minute. Being a Rockstar coach is a pretty big job and it takes a certain type of person to direct a whole band. We look forward to working more with Oliver in 2011.

Paul also had a challenge on his hands with guitarist Rob away for a work function. He played with the band throughout the night and coached at the same time. But we’d never expect any less from Paul – he’s the ultimate dedicated Rockstar coach. Some nice, complementary vocals coming through from Sue and Catherine – two very different voices that really work well together.

The pro band had a few awakenings with our decision to drop “Bring Me Some Water”, one of their new song suggestions from last week. Sometimes songs just don’t work, and we have to move on. Well done to everyone for recognising this and agreeing quickly and professionally to choose something else. Their developing set is really starting to rock, and we’re working on two newies for next week – Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Feel Like Makin’ Love – the Bad Company classic.

Next week we’ll also have some pics to display…

Understanding Adversity

Sometimes life throws you something that looks awful at first glance. But move far enough away from it, and you can see its beauty. That’s how I look back on our “near-birth” experience. After I’d dug myself out of the void, I threw myself behind Rockstar like never before. I got the fire back that I’d had when I first launched the business. I knew there was something there, I knew I could do it and I knew I wanted to. I also knew that I’d gone through this gut-wrenching experience for a reason. Without this little flash of an alternate existence, I don’t believe that I would have had the drive to give it just one more go. Maybe I’m completely wrong on that, but I choose to see it that way and I’m grateful for what it gave me.

After a conversation with my sister, who suggested treating Rockstar more like a “weekly lesson” opportunity, something clicked. I re-formatted and finessed the offer, coming up with our current model. The new 8 week program focused on the stuff that really matters – playing, progressing and performing. We stripped back the price to a fraction of the original, knowing that it’s the playing that matters – not the bling of hotrods and makeovers.

I put it out there, did some Google Adwords, and before we knew it, we had enough people signed up to complete two full bands in our first proper course! Since then, we’ve completed that course and have just commenced our third (Term 4, 2010) with three full bands. A total of 6 members out of 16 are repeat participants, who signed up as soon as it was open for registration. We are so proud of what we’ve managed to achieve so far, and are even more excited about 2012. We’ve just announced that we are now open to younger students, with out teenage programs (ages 12 – 17) now available alongside our standard program.  

We can also chirp about some of the brilliant achievements from our ex-members.

Tony from our May 2010 band “Zero 2 Hero” bought a drum kit after completing the course. After a 30 year lay-off, he has now joined a 1950′s rock’n'roll band and his first gig is this month.

Ben from our May 2010 band “PlayBack” is in a band which is supporting Australian chart topper Michael Paynter this month.

And Cameron and Luke from our 2008 band “Payload” went on to form their own cover band “Stimulus Package”. In September 2010 they won the Melbourne “Calling All Coverbands” competition, and took home a $10,000 prize along with residency offers.

These are just some of the success stories and transformations we’ve achieved, and it’s all I ever wanted. So I guess that ends my history lesson, it feels good to have annotated everything we went through to get here! From here on in we’ll be reporting on the progress of our current members, who started their 8 week journey last Friday, October 15th.  Thanks for listening, and please, post comments!

Awesome first night with 16 new Rockstar members. From our youngest member (17) to our oldest (69), everyone had a blast. Can’t wait for next week and two new songs!