creativity

Ithaca, Oswego, and Zink!

We had an amazing weekend playing music in upstate New York! A Friday night gig at Lot 10 in Ithaca, a Saturday art and music exhibit at Zink Tees screen print shop in Oswego, and lots of pretty fall tree colors, tasty apple harvest fest treats, and visits with good friends in between 🙂

We pulled into Ithaca Friday afternoon, as the annual Apple Harvest Fest was in full swing. Perfect timing to get that fall apple pie fix before heading straight to Lot 10, Ithaca’s hip downtown bar and venue on Cayuga St. It sure felt like it had been a while since we last played music there and it was great to be back!

Saturday was our very first trip to Oswego. Aaron Z. Lee, who is a talented graphic designer, hosted a ‘Month of Halloween’ art and music exhibit. Everything took place in the ‘Darkroom’, a cozy gallery and performance space within Zink Tees screen print shop. With comfy couches opposite the stage, a rug in the center of the floor, cool screenprints hanging on the walls and quirky decorations placed about the room, the Darkroom has to be the most unique and comfortable venue I’ve ever played! And who goes to a screen printing shop without printing some tees?? Not us! 🙂 We got the chance to print our own shirts after the gig. Glen, the man behind the Zink, gave everyone a behind-the-scenes look at the screen printing process and taught us the magical ways of making band shirts. Thank you!!

Music, Uncategorized

Grassroots Festival 2014

‘It’s that time of year again!’ is what I say to myself around mid July every summer when the Trumansburg Fair Grounds transform into a festival.

For the past
..wow I think it’s been 10 years, the Grassroots Festival has been more than a time to party, listen to awesome music and dance for four days straight. For many who once lived in upstate New York, its the time of year they come back to visit, a chance to reunite and let loose with old friends. That’s why I was so happy when Diwas invited me to play guitar during his set. The crowd was filled with so many friends and it felt amazing to share that musical experience with everyone. I’m crossing my fingers that next year The Rungs will get accepted to play!! Even though we weren’t on the schedule this year, we managed to squeeze a few songs in during the Diwas Gurung set 🙂

Music

Interview w/ Azltron Music Blog

Earlier this month, we had the pleasure of meeting the man behind the Azltron Music Blog at the Ithaca Festival. Today he shares an interview covering the formation of our band, how we write songs and what’s in store for us this summer. Check it out here!

Hailing from Oswego, Azltron is a major supporter of the upstate NY music scene. The blog covers photos and reviews of live shows in nearby cities, band interviews, and music reviews. June marked the beginning of a music series organized in partnership with ZINC Shirts, a screen printing shop and live music venue in Oswego. We will be heading up to Oswego to participate in the series this fall and we are super excited!

Now, since I’m a plant science nerd, let’s say that music blogs today are the soil and all of the unsigned indie bands are the plants. Without the support of blogs like Azltron, we would just be shriveled seeds!

That is why we are super thankful for this interview and the other bloggers that have supported us since the release of our EP in January. (aka nurtured our root growth, if you know what I mean – winky winks 😉 )

Now where you come in – you can be the water. Tweet this interview, or support Azltron music blog however which way you desire, and let’s keep this little music ecosystem alive!

Music

Not your usual Sunday night

We invited our friends Linus in the Sapphire from Philadelphia to come up to Ithaca and join us this past weekend for the Chapter House’s Sunday night music series, free live music every week 7-9 pm. The timing was perfect, as it worked out to be the last stop on their one-week winter tour. Since they are also a male-female duo, we decided to make it a night of duos and invited two pals, Zac & Elly, to join the bill as well. A night of duos!!

It was great to get some friends from out of town up to Ithaca. Even in the winter, this is still such a cute place to visit and I love hosting! The local music scene always benefits from bringing in new sounds and Linus in the Sapphire are an awesome psychedelic audio chameleon. We first met them at an Elephant Talk Indie music festival in Atlantic City back in May and we’ve been talking about getting them up here ever since.

Little did I know that I would also be blown away by Zac & Elly’s performance. Elly’s voice, with no exaggeration here, is comparable to Christina Aguilara. She is a total diva! Her voice just shined through the room and immediately captured everyone’s attention. Amazing. Her and Zach are currently forming a full band in Ithaca with a bass player and a drummer. They plan to get out and start performing by the summer and I can’t wait!

The Rungs, Linus in the Sapphire, Zac & Elly

So yeah, February was kind of a crazy month and I didn’t really get a chance to update the blog 😦 but the show last weekend brought us together with such good friends and such a good time! It made up for all of the craziness of February 🙂

Music

A benefit January 25th

It seems that I am now playing double bills every show! On January 25th, The Rungs will play a benefit for Educate the Children, a not for profit organization that provides education and skill development programs to women and children in Nepal. The benefit will be held from 4-8pm at Lot 10 in Ithaca. Immediately afterwards, I will head over to another venue, The Haunt in Ithaca, to sing with my fav band, The Sutras! What are the odds of both shows happening in the same night? Lets just hope my crazy cold goes away by then!

Lyrics, Music

My First Lyrics Video!

A change in arctic winds has brought super cold air down to the northwest.. and it is unbearable! It finally got the best of me and I’ve been knocked out with a bad cold the past few days. To help make the most of it, I made my first lyrics video while laying in bed with hot tea.

I really enjoy singing along to lyrics videos, and I always look for something basic, just the lyrics, clear and easy to read, so this is what I wanted to go for. I chose ‘Confluence of Anomalies,’ since it seems to be my favorite song off of our recent EP right now.

Not being the most skilled in video making, I started very basic, using iMovie on my MacBook. I created an image in Photoshop with our logo and the song title, and another image that was all black, to serve as the background for the lyrics. I dragged the images and the mp3 file into iMovie, and typed the lyrics in white font using the text boxes. It was easy to increase or decrease the duration of each text box so that they lined up with the song.

Here is the final video:

Now the weather is looking much warmer today, the snow is melting away, and I’m starting to feel a little better.

Music

Emerging indie bands

A talented writer and indie music supporter at emerging indie bands music blog reviewed The Rungs EP! It brightened up our day to read such beautiful words about our music, and we’re feeling very thankful for the indie music support that websites like this create.

Check it out the review because it is a good read! http://emergingindiebands.com/the-rungs-synth-dance/

When we started playing our first shows a little over a year ago, I wouldn’t have predicted us evolving into a ‘real band.’ I guess it all depends on what you define as a band, but now we have an EP out, a real music release! And I have stickers now. Band stickers! So based on the music release and sticker scale, I’d say we’re getting pretty close to real band material.

Boy were those first few shows rough. I made silly mistakes, forgot chords, mumbled mixed up lyrics, and the list of goofy errors goes on. Thankfully, Diwas exercised the most amazing patience with my newbie musician growing pains. Because you have to start somewhere right?

Okay lets be real here, I still do all of those things at our live shows, but at least less frequently!

The point is, if any closet musicians are out there reading this, then run out to your nearest open mic! Don’t be afraid of sharing your music because releasing it to the world and letting go of the hesitations is one of the most rewarding feelings! Take it from me and my new EP 🙂 And take it from folks who are supporting indie musicians, like our generous emergingindiebands.com reviewer.

Music

The Debut EP!

Happy New Year everyone! We are kicking off 2014 by self-releasing our debut EP!

Thanks to all of our old and new friends, 2013 was filled with fun live shows, lots of inspiration to create new music, and most importantly, good people to share it with. These songs are for you!

https://soundcloud.com/the-rungs/sets/the-rungs-ep

If you like what you hear, help us share our songs and connect with us via our social media pages here on the left and right menus.

Bloggers – We are looking for bloggers to help review our EP. Feel free to email me at mandy@rungsrungsrungs.com and I will gladly send you song downloads and any information you’d like about the band.

Thank you and best wishes to all 🙂

We are The Rungs. Thanks for supporting our music 🙂

Music

A Halloween Haunting

This will be my most memorable Halloween yet!

When All Hallows’ Eve rolls around, the local rock shows get spooky.

While the Rungs did not have a Halloween show, I did get a chance to be a part of one with The Sutras! They are the only band in town that rocks out with a theremin, the instrument behind the creepy flesh tingling whistling sound featured in countless sci-fi and horror movie soundtracks.

The instrument was invented by Leon Theremin in Russia in the 1920s, after he worked as a radio engineer for the Red Army and developed a specialized antenna to serve as a motion detector. He noticed that when he moved his hand around, the pitch produced by the ‘Radio Watchman’ changed, and it could be used to play songs!

For The Sutras, the theremin’s quivering notes are the perfect addition to their complex, psychedelic arrangements, adding a haunting touch to the high energy jams that the audience gets lost in.

On this particular night, creepy and unexplainable things began to happen when the theremin’s blood chilling sound filled the air. Diwas was in the audience and managed to capture a photo of the madness that ensued…

We also managed to sneak my ipod in for a video, before the creatures came out of the woodwork!

Music

Ithaca Porchfest 2013

Porchfest is a neighborhood festival where bands use porches as stages. It takes place each year in September for a full day of music and dance through the streets of Ithaca’s fall creek neighborhood. This year, over 100 bands spread out on porches across the neighborhood and rocked out as audiences walked, biked, and danced up and down the streets and sidewalks. From classical to roots rock to country to pop to reggae to punk rock and from Appalachian to Brazilian to Irish to Swedish to Zimbabwean, porchfest celebrates all types of music.

We played on a particularly special porch. It was the house that we first lived in together when I moved to Ithaca and the house that we started playing music in together! Coincidentally, at the very time that we moved out, one of our friends moved in. So, when Porchfest rolled around, our friend was kind enough to open the porch up to our music.

The weather was sunny and cool, our friends filled the street in front of the porch, and we blasted our tunes through three little amps. Porchfest is something I look forward every year as the summer ends. It is a sign of fall, a chance to share our music with new listeners, meet new people, discover new bands, and play on a porch! Who doesn’t want to rock out on a porch?!

Porchfest is catching on in other towns! See if your town is one of them or learn how to start one in your neighborhood! http://www.porchfest.org/porchfests-elsewhere/