~~ Midwest Rock Band ~~ Progressive Rock ~~ Indie ~~ Metal ~~ Alternative ~~
About Me
- Blue Haven
- Blue Haven formed in May 2011. Our members include Maggie Bonecher on vocals, Ben Evans on lead, Chris McGovern on drums, Charlie Porter on bass, and Eli Cox on rhythm. Our sound varies from progressive rock to indie to metal, with the occasional ballad thrown in for revenge. Check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Reverbnation, and our official website is under construction.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Gah! Haven't updated in a long while. Sorry about that. Been insanely busy. We finished our music video and got word from Red Hawk that they're finished with edits. We'll have the digi file in a day or two, and we'll be able to post it on Facebook, here, etc...very exciting because this was such a fun project. Red Hawk looked at a number of bands to do a couple of videos with, and we were lucky enough to be chosen (go, Stardust!). Not sure if it was Charlie's good looks, Chris's charisma, Ben's fantastic sense of humor, Eli's puppy-dog stare, or Maggie's seductive awkwardness, but whatever it was, it worked. We had a month or so of shooting in rain, lightning storms, uncooperative lighting, a green room under construction, pictures flying off walls at us, and equipment moving in and out at lighting speed, but we ended up with the tongue-in-cheek mini soap we wrote and wanted. I can't go into details until we put the video up, but suffice it to say it was a blast. The project was a cooperative between us, Red Hawk Video, and Winterset Art Center, and again, thank you to both. It was so much fun!
Additionally, Stardust, the single is available on Bandcamp. We haven't jacked around with the pricing yet; it's set at default, which I think is $1. Bandcamp is amazing, and we can't say enough about it. In our opinion it's the easiest to use, gives the artist the most control (we can even give out free promos, etc...), and jacks the artist for far less of their money. If you're a band, we recommend checking them out. We found it to be superior to any other *cough* tunes-selling site. We plan to put our EP up on bandcamp in June, and we're fairly certain that's where we'll sell the CD when it's complete.
In other news, apparently we have to sign up at bandzoogle. Not looking forward to that. It's not zoogle itself, it's a great place to go for simple websites, but we looked into it several months ago and found the format wasn't really what we were interested in for communicating with people. We prefer a real approach, where you can contact us directly, blab at us, comment, criticize, praise, or give us death threats in real time. But apparently we need to have a URL pronto, and our pay-for website won't be done for a few more weeks. Which leaves us with bandzoogle. So off we go this afternoon to sign up there. Once our professional site is up and running and all the bugs are worked out, we'll point the zoogle to it.
We're on the last stretch to IARocfest. The band has plans to hole up in the same house for 9 days and do nothing but write, record, and rehearse music. It's going to be awesome, like our own Woodstock. Except we'll wear clothes. Maybe. Probably not Charlie. But the rest of us will. Maybe. You can see a link to IARocfest below. It's a massive 3day 32band outdoor concert over in Fort Madison. A three-hour drive for us, but we're always up for a road trip. We hope you will consider making the trip. There will be camping, tons of merchandise and cool stuff, and most of all, 32 fantastic bands. A whole weekend pass is only $30. Can't beat that with a drumstick. If you need tickets or information about carpooling to the show, contact us. There's a link below for that, too. It says, as you might imagine, Contact Blue Haven.
Our video will be up here in the next couple days, stay tuned. In the meanwhile, check us out on Facebook and Twitter (links on the right), and be sure to sign up to follow our blog here. Rock on!
~ Blue Haven
Additionally, Stardust, the single is available on Bandcamp. We haven't jacked around with the pricing yet; it's set at default, which I think is $1. Bandcamp is amazing, and we can't say enough about it. In our opinion it's the easiest to use, gives the artist the most control (we can even give out free promos, etc...), and jacks the artist for far less of their money. If you're a band, we recommend checking them out. We found it to be superior to any other *cough* tunes-selling site. We plan to put our EP up on bandcamp in June, and we're fairly certain that's where we'll sell the CD when it's complete.
In other news, apparently we have to sign up at bandzoogle. Not looking forward to that. It's not zoogle itself, it's a great place to go for simple websites, but we looked into it several months ago and found the format wasn't really what we were interested in for communicating with people. We prefer a real approach, where you can contact us directly, blab at us, comment, criticize, praise, or give us death threats in real time. But apparently we need to have a URL pronto, and our pay-for website won't be done for a few more weeks. Which leaves us with bandzoogle. So off we go this afternoon to sign up there. Once our professional site is up and running and all the bugs are worked out, we'll point the zoogle to it.
We're on the last stretch to IARocfest. The band has plans to hole up in the same house for 9 days and do nothing but write, record, and rehearse music. It's going to be awesome, like our own Woodstock. Except we'll wear clothes. Maybe. Probably not Charlie. But the rest of us will. Maybe. You can see a link to IARocfest below. It's a massive 3day 32band outdoor concert over in Fort Madison. A three-hour drive for us, but we're always up for a road trip. We hope you will consider making the trip. There will be camping, tons of merchandise and cool stuff, and most of all, 32 fantastic bands. A whole weekend pass is only $30. Can't beat that with a drumstick. If you need tickets or information about carpooling to the show, contact us. There's a link below for that, too. It says, as you might imagine, Contact Blue Haven.
Our video will be up here in the next couple days, stay tuned. In the meanwhile, check us out on Facebook and Twitter (links on the right), and be sure to sign up to follow our blog here. Rock on!
~ Blue Haven
Monday, May 7, 2012
In addition to the exciting news about our radio play and interview, we wanted to let you know we'll have t-shirts out shortly. A little over a week, I believe, along with some other merchandise. Will post as soon as it's available. In the mean time, enjoy this pic of Ben, lead guitar, like a boss! He's single at the moment, ladies!
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Hi Minions,
It's been a great weekend so far. We have a good, long practice scheduled for tonight following a new photoshoot for the band for an Omaha magazine. That will be pretty exciting! We're also going to start thunking up an idea or two to give away a couple of tickets to IARocfest, so stop back here often and check in.
We just put up our Request Glossy link, and we got 7 requests in 3 days. That's pretty damn cool. Of course, the requests were for pics of Maggie, but can't say we blame them. One request was from Sidney, Australia. How cool is that?
We are currently in the middle of booking a pretty sweet gig. Can't divulge the details until they announce who has the spot, and we've only made it to the final cut. There are a ton of talented bands vying for the same spot, so if we don't get it this year, we'll get it next. It is an honor just to have had the chance.
Speaking of gigs, turns out we're going to be doing a bit more traveling in July than initially thought. That's cool with us. Gonna love chillin in the SUV eating bologna out of our hands because we had to choose between gas money and bread. lol. Sleeping all over each other and waking up with Chris or Eli's stank feet in our faces. Anyway, apparently we'll be spending a good deal of time in Omaha in July. We initially thought to just do a gig or two there so we could visit family along the way, but one contact led to another, and...
Want to also say THANK YOU to all of you for sharing the site. I can see you're too shy to comment (Come on, do it, everybody does it!) but our site visits jumped by over 300 since Tuesday. That's good stuff. Keep on spreading the word.
Everyone have a fantastic weekend. Stop in tomorrow and there will be new photos and bios up. In the mean time, don't forget the link on the right where you can ASK US ANYTHING! And keep on sharing our Facebook page and this site. We appreciate it more than you know!
~ Blue Haven
It's been a great weekend so far. We have a good, long practice scheduled for tonight following a new photoshoot for the band for an Omaha magazine. That will be pretty exciting! We're also going to start thunking up an idea or two to give away a couple of tickets to IARocfest, so stop back here often and check in.
We just put up our Request Glossy link, and we got 7 requests in 3 days. That's pretty damn cool. Of course, the requests were for pics of Maggie, but can't say we blame them. One request was from Sidney, Australia. How cool is that?
We are currently in the middle of booking a pretty sweet gig. Can't divulge the details until they announce who has the spot, and we've only made it to the final cut. There are a ton of talented bands vying for the same spot, so if we don't get it this year, we'll get it next. It is an honor just to have had the chance.
Speaking of gigs, turns out we're going to be doing a bit more traveling in July than initially thought. That's cool with us. Gonna love chillin in the SUV eating bologna out of our hands because we had to choose between gas money and bread. lol. Sleeping all over each other and waking up with Chris or Eli's stank feet in our faces. Anyway, apparently we'll be spending a good deal of time in Omaha in July. We initially thought to just do a gig or two there so we could visit family along the way, but one contact led to another, and...
Want to also say THANK YOU to all of you for sharing the site. I can see you're too shy to comment (Come on, do it, everybody does it!) but our site visits jumped by over 300 since Tuesday. That's good stuff. Keep on spreading the word.
Everyone have a fantastic weekend. Stop in tomorrow and there will be new photos and bios up. In the mean time, don't forget the link on the right where you can ASK US ANYTHING! And keep on sharing our Facebook page and this site. We appreciate it more than you know!
~ Blue Haven
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Yesterday's video shoot went remarkably well, considering how intensely awkward it must have been for certain members of the band (you'll know what we mean when you see it). We had a few mishaps, including but not limited to: pictures falling off the wall. Six times. Glass that broke. Glass that wouldn't break. Inappropriate touching. Oh. Wait. That was on purpose. A Master of Puppets-infused trip to the square. A disappearing drummer. Another awkward photo shoot, which will likely be up on the Art Center's site soon. A little trouble getting off the make up. Other than that, it went swimmingly. The band members in question handled everything like the pros they are, and despite the few setbacks, everything went perfect due to their hard work and enthusiasm. And we really can't say enough about how Tom and Red Hawk are made of AWESOME. What an experience this has been. Wish we could post more pics from the shoot, but if we did, it would just give everything away. We're sworn to secrecy until the production company gets the edits done and releases it to us. So, we wait. Patiently. *tap...tap...tap...*
Now that we're finished with that part of our journey (for now, we'll do another video soon!), it's time to get back in front of the crowd. Got some live shows coming up, you can check the link to the right for definite dates (you don't want to miss IARocfest - link at the bottom of our site! Going to be an amazing show), and we have quite a few more coming up in June and July that we haven't gotten on the calender yet. Will post when we nail the dates down. In the mean time, you can enjoy our shennanigans on Facebook, here, Twitter, and if you'd like a photo of the band or any band member, there's a link on the right for that, too. Click, send us your address, it's as simple as that!
~ Blue Haven
Now that we're finished with that part of our journey (for now, we'll do another video soon!), it's time to get back in front of the crowd. Got some live shows coming up, you can check the link to the right for definite dates (you don't want to miss IARocfest - link at the bottom of our site! Going to be an amazing show), and we have quite a few more coming up in June and July that we haven't gotten on the calender yet. Will post when we nail the dates down. In the mean time, you can enjoy our shennanigans on Facebook, here, Twitter, and if you'd like a photo of the band or any band member, there's a link on the right for that, too. Click, send us your address, it's as simple as that!
~ Blue Haven
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Tomorrow marks the final shoot of the music video for our original song, Stardust. We'll be shooting on set. It's going to be exciting. Maggie gets to smack Charlie upside the head. We get to shatter glass. Breakin' stuff is always good.
This has been an amazing journey. When we first decided to do this, we met with the video production company, and we were complete noobs. We were thinking something along the lines of We Get Up There In Front of the Camera and Jam, the Crowd Goes Wild, Confetti falls, Explosions ensue . . . and HEY! COOL! We have a music video! Well, there's a little more to it than that. The production company is fantastic, and Tom walked us through it like the pro he is. This guys knows his sh...stuff. He's worked on some well-known films (The Crazies, for one), and been on projects with some pretty amazing actors (Forest Whitaker, for one). So this is no home-made 8mm looking job.
The first thing Tom talked about what our vision for the video (um...yeah...rock out, confetti, explosions?). He'd listened to the song ahead of time and read through the lyrics several times to get a feel for it. Then he asked us about our script.
Uh...our what?
Tom was a good sport. He laughed, then gave us a lot of examples. We went back home and brainstormed. The whole band had some fantastic ideas. We had to keep in mind, of course, that the song is only three-and-a-half minutes long. But we came up with a good story that fits the song and was a ton of fun to shoot.
So we went back with the script. Tom read it over and liked it a lot. He added some great suggestions, told us what to take out to make sure the video was more about the band than the story, and just pretty much made our first experience in video filming AwSoMe! We love Tom.
Can't give away the details, because we're not releasing it until it's finished and Tom is ready to debut it on his TV station. But some fun factoids are we did, as a band, decide to do our filming in local areas. This is where we're starting out, and we wanted to pay homage to the place that brought us all together and the people who have been cheering us on all along. Also, as mentioned previously, Maggie gets to deck Charlie, so if you see him wandering around town with a black eye on Thursday, be sure to high-five Maggie.
And as soon as we can, we'll get it out for everyone to see. We hope you like it. This is our first, but it definitely won't be our last. Now that this will be finished, we can finish all our originals - which we already have the lyrics for and the music for a lot of them - and get our CD recorded in studio. We'll also have time, finally, to do live shows, which is really what this is all about. Can't wait to get out there in front of all of you and share the music.
~ Blue Haven
Friday, April 27, 2012
Today was a good day. Of course, it's Friday, so that helped. We have an announcement to make: bassist Charlie Porter will be in the play tonight at Winterset High School. It's going to be amazing, so head over and see it. $5 for adults, $3 for students. Show starts at 7:00pm.
Additionally, we'd like to thank the powers that be that tomorrow night is finally, once again, Guys' Night. This is a long-held tradition of our closest friends and all our band members (Yes, Maggie, too. She was officially recognized as an Honorary Bro recently and has been granted access to Guys' Night and all our deep, dark, secret rituals.) This isn't exactly music related, but in a way it is because this is one of the many important ways we blow off steam. All of the band has been working harder than hell both in band life and in our personal lives. Maggie has an art show coming up in June (you'll be able to buy her amazing paintings, details soon), Charlie has been rehearsing (and rehearsing) for the play, Ben has been pounding the pavement in search of a job (which as finally, we think, paid off - good luck, Ben!), Eli just started a new job, and since he's the new guy, they're working him like crazy. Chris has been helping with the website and working his tail off on organizing and learning all the covers for IArocfest and catching up on all the work he missed while he was sick.
Then there's the band. Doesn't feel like work, doesn't look like work, but in reality, being in a band is hard work. There's the booking of gigs, practice, PR, the filming of our music video, writing and composing all the originals for our CD, preparing for IARocfest and the July tour, as well as volunteering for the Arts. Add to that the day-to-day strains of family life, education, and everything else, and it doesn't leave for much free time. It's good to get together now and then, swear off work for a whole day and night, and just get goofy. Tomorrow night we join with several friends outside the band as well as all of us for the ever-awesome Guys' Night, Edition IV, wherein we have epic sword battles to near-death, eat copious amounts of bacon, drink ourselves stupid on the bug juice, run through the woods in a survivor-hunger-games-style war, and basically burn off steam and have an amazing time.
So, if we live through all that, it's back to the grind on Sunday with practice and finishing picking up and building the rest of the props for the (FINAL!) music video shoot on Wednesday. I say "grind," but I tell you, it's no burden. Not many people are lucky enough to be doing exactly what they love with such an amazing and talented group of people. But, hey, Blue Haven is! And life is good.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Additionally, we'd like to thank the powers that be that tomorrow night is finally, once again, Guys' Night. This is a long-held tradition of our closest friends and all our band members (Yes, Maggie, too. She was officially recognized as an Honorary Bro recently and has been granted access to Guys' Night and all our deep, dark, secret rituals.) This isn't exactly music related, but in a way it is because this is one of the many important ways we blow off steam. All of the band has been working harder than hell both in band life and in our personal lives. Maggie has an art show coming up in June (you'll be able to buy her amazing paintings, details soon), Charlie has been rehearsing (and rehearsing) for the play, Ben has been pounding the pavement in search of a job (which as finally, we think, paid off - good luck, Ben!), Eli just started a new job, and since he's the new guy, they're working him like crazy. Chris has been helping with the website and working his tail off on organizing and learning all the covers for IArocfest and catching up on all the work he missed while he was sick.
Then there's the band. Doesn't feel like work, doesn't look like work, but in reality, being in a band is hard work. There's the booking of gigs, practice, PR, the filming of our music video, writing and composing all the originals for our CD, preparing for IARocfest and the July tour, as well as volunteering for the Arts. Add to that the day-to-day strains of family life, education, and everything else, and it doesn't leave for much free time. It's good to get together now and then, swear off work for a whole day and night, and just get goofy. Tomorrow night we join with several friends outside the band as well as all of us for the ever-awesome Guys' Night, Edition IV, wherein we have epic sword battles to near-death, eat copious amounts of bacon, drink ourselves stupid on the bug juice, run through the woods in a survivor-hunger-games-style war, and basically burn off steam and have an amazing time.
So, if we live through all that, it's back to the grind on Sunday with practice and finishing picking up and building the rest of the props for the (FINAL!) music video shoot on Wednesday. I say "grind," but I tell you, it's no burden. Not many people are lucky enough to be doing exactly what they love with such an amazing and talented group of people. But, hey, Blue Haven is! And life is good.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Welcome to our humble abode, wherein we will share all things Blue Haven.
We are a Midwest rock band with rock, indie, metal, and alternative influences. We are currently filming our first music video (our last day of shooting is Wednesday - YES!), writing and composing songs for our first CD, preparing for our first outdoor concert at IArocfest, and getting ready to go into the studio to finish our EP. We have a tour upcoming in July with shows all over Iowa and Omaha, which we may need to extend into August to get in all the places we'd like to play.
Our band members are:
Maggie Bonecher - lead vocals
Ben Evans - lead guitar
Chris McGovern - drums
Charlie Porter - bassist
Eli Cox - rhythm guitar
On this site we will share band news, trials and tribulations, upcoming events, interact with fans, and promote the local music scene. As we've just started it, there isn't much on here yet, but we'll be adding new stuff daily - bios and photos of band members, links to local events, new bands to check out, etc...stop by frequently, comment if you like because we'd love to hear from you, and if you have a band or site you'd like us to check out, please let us know.
Thanks for stopping by and keep the music alive!
~ Blue Haven
We are a Midwest rock band with rock, indie, metal, and alternative influences. We are currently filming our first music video (our last day of shooting is Wednesday - YES!), writing and composing songs for our first CD, preparing for our first outdoor concert at IArocfest, and getting ready to go into the studio to finish our EP. We have a tour upcoming in July with shows all over Iowa and Omaha, which we may need to extend into August to get in all the places we'd like to play.
Our band members are:
Maggie Bonecher - lead vocals
Ben Evans - lead guitar
Chris McGovern - drums
Charlie Porter - bassist
Eli Cox - rhythm guitar
On this site we will share band news, trials and tribulations, upcoming events, interact with fans, and promote the local music scene. As we've just started it, there isn't much on here yet, but we'll be adding new stuff daily - bios and photos of band members, links to local events, new bands to check out, etc...stop by frequently, comment if you like because we'd love to hear from you, and if you have a band or site you'd like us to check out, please let us know.
Thanks for stopping by and keep the music alive!
~ Blue Haven
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