Giving this Giving Tuesday? How about the Valley Music Hall of Fame?
Plus, some reader mail.
It’s the first of the month, which, in the past, meant this week’s newsletter would be my curated list of upcoming musical happenings. I’ve decided to outsource that work to people who are doing it better and more consistently (right now, that’s Valley Echoes, Rad Music and from time to time, the Fresnan. Tag in with others if you know).
But, I can’t not mention:
Tower Theatre is going three days of local programming for its 85th Anniversary, this weekend.
Friday is comedy night, with a full lineup hosted by Mike Wooten.
Saturday night the theater put together a concert. Headlined by The Box, it features an eclectic lineup of openers including Danielle Rondero and the Nitty Gritty, Dying Suns, Seven Asterisk and Green Giant. Show starts at 7 p.m. Tickets are $20 plus fees.
Sunday is a matinee screening of “The Wizard of Oz.”
Fulton 55 has a short run of shows this month, but there’s a few doozies, most notably the X Christmas show Dec. 14, and Nate Butler’s Mmm Mmm Christmas the following night.
Guaya’s doing their 5th Annual Christmas Shabang at Strummer’s, Dec. 14 with Cheridomingo, Shop Dog and Beach Fiction
Valley Music Hall of Fame + Giving Tuesday
Forgive me for soliciting, but Giving Tuesday happens this week so it seems like the perfect time to make a call out for the Valley Music Hall of Fame.
For those who haven’t been following, the Valley Music Hall of Fame honors (and also celebrates and chronicles) the musical heritage of the Central Valley (centered in Fresno, but expanded north and south down Highway 99).
It has installed four classes of honorees since 2020.
For local music nerds like me, it’s building up a wonderful clearing house of cultural history and knowledge. How else would one know about the likes of Dick Contino or Ann Leonardo Thaxter or Dave Stogner (or the Big Fresno Barn in ancillary)?
The board is currently accepting nominations for the 2025 class of inductees, which you can read about here.
It’s also (always) accepting donations, both to help forward its mission (and eventually have a physical space) and for the Jeff Hall Memorial Scholarship, which helps gets middle and high school students into music (by paying for lessons, instruments, workshops and the like).
For sake of transparency, I am on the hall’s advisory board.
From the emails, RE: Burger Records, the Directions
After last week’s post on the Party in the Tower compilation, Blake Jones wrote in to tell me when he knows about Fresno’s connection to Burger Records:
“I believe that the two Bohrman folks were father and son. One or the other of them ended up on the Central Coast. A cool record store in Pacific Grove (Vinyl Revolution) I think it still exists ... for awhile it was on Lighthouse St. in Monterey ... not to be confused with the other store on Lighthouse that I think is still there (Recycled Records) ... used to carry Burger releases.”
He also gave me this bio on The Directions:
“The Directions self-released on EP on vinyl, ‘Rockin’ Jave Revue’ in 1983. They were a sort of jaggedy pop/new wave/ band that I liked a lot ... They came out of Hoover High.
Paul Ruxton keys/Mickey Goodenough guitar/John Paulsen drums/Danny Zingarelli percussion, mostly frontman/Todd Memmott bass.
With a bit of personnel juggling and a sort of smoothing out the sound a bit, they became Procession. Vince Warner joined, either at this point, or a little later. They relocated to Monterey. They eventually all pursued their own music, mostly in the Central Coast/Bay Area.
There are principal players still floating around to give you better/in-depth bio stuff. I was writing as a fan ... like: ‘member the time I screamed so hard at that party for a third encore of your version of the Dickies version of the Banana Splits song?”
That’s it for this week. Remember you can now hear me on the Homegrown Show Sundays at 8 p.m. on New Rock 104.1 FM. Follow my other writing at The Fresno Bee. If you have anything you think I need to be looking at or listening to, feel free to let me know: jtehee@gmail.com