Joe Newtz launches his Beaver County Unplugged Summer Tour this Thursday at Kelly's Riverside Saloon in Bridgewater.
The Vanport Township singer-songwriter will take the stage at 7 p.m. and play a 90-minute acoustic-based set that includes tracks from his “Crossing Over” album, as well as a few new tunes from his next release.
"I’ll also play a few cover songs, but be expected to get hit with a heavy dose of original music in a format similar to the popular MTV 'Unplugged' shows," Newtz said.
His other tour dates:
June 22 — J. Kells Front Door Tavern, South Beaver Township.
July 6 — Wooley Bully's, New Brighton.
Aug. 3 — Seven Oaks Country Club, Ohioville.
Aug. 31 — J. Kells Front Door Tavern.
Sept. 1 — Kelly’s Riverside Saloon.
Sept. 14 — Wooley Bully's.
Newtz also booked a July 27 show at Steamworks Creative in Hampton Township.
Signed to Big Noise Records, Newtz lists influences as far-ranging as Genesis, the Outlaws, Luther Vandross and Incubus but says his sound is most similar to another of his favorite bands, Toad the Wet Sprocket.
Over the last year, Newtz said, he's received requests about performing stripped-down versions of the songs from “Crossing Over,” released in May 2015.
"I reached out to some local venues that seemed excited about doing acoustic shows that run a little earlier than the traditional local rock shows that typically go from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.," Newtz said. "There are folks that want to go out after dinner and check out a more intimate show that doesn’t keep them out all night."
More on that below.
Ezra's Influence
Rocco Longo, frontman of the East Liverpool cover band Ezra's Influence, responded recently to my March 3 column in which I suggested improvements for the Beaver County music scene, including earlier start times to spur a larger turnout.
"I agree with a lot of what you're saying, including the start times at venues," Longo said. "We've broached an earlier start time at numerous venues — suggesting 8 p.m. even — and we've been flat out told 'no way.' That's frustrating in that we see even the most engaged crowds starting to tire at 11 p.m. It would behoove venues to start earlier, as I'm certain people would stay longer."
I enjoyed Ezra's Influence rocking sound and swagger at last year's Beaver County Boom! fireworks preshow at Thursday's in Bridgewater, so I was interested to hear Longo's take on how to boost the local music scene.
"While bands can oversaturate an area ..., I'm finding more and more venues do next to nothing to promote events at their club," he said. "There needs to be an excitement about a club or venue. A club needs the reputation that it is the place to be. Clubs do themselves zero favors when their marketing is a single Facebook post one week before an event." (He gives Jergel's Rhythm Grille in Marshall Township as an example of a venue that promotes itself well.)
"Another issue is creativity — both venue and band related," Longo said. "What is preventing venues from getting unique at the door — $5 or $7 cover comes with a drink chip or a percentage off your dinner bill? As for the bands, be different. We consider ourselves somewhat of a unicorn in that we do not take intermissions. We play a solid three-hour show. When we started, we found 15- or 20-minute breaks in the music gave people the opportunity to leave, and it was really hard to regain any momentum we built up before the break. We decided if Springsteen can do it for three straight hours, why couldn't we?"
Radio makes good read
You'll learn a lot from "Behind the Microphone: The History of Radio in Beaver County," a new book by Mark Peterson, owner of the simulcasting WBVP in Beaver Falls and WMBA in Ambridge.
The 268-page paperback taught me that Tony Bennett made a 1950s promotional stop at WBVP's studio and that horror film star Vincent Price showed up there on a publicity tour and took listeners' phone calls. After signing on in 1948, WBVP became the first radio station to have a full-time woman's director, Gertrude Trobe, in charge of special programing aimed directly at the female market.
"The History of Radio in Beaver County" chronicles the colorful stories of how WBVP and WMBA, located above a noisy tire store on Merchant Street, engaged in a healthy, spirited battle for advertisers and listeners from 1958 until 2000 when they merged.
The book outlines the brief but memorable existence of WBVP's FM sister station WWKS-106.7 before it moved up the dial to 105.9 and became the Green Tree-based WXDX-FM. Readers learn what made local radio stars out of unique personalities like Jim Reynolds and Chuck Wilson, and a spotlight is shined on DJs and sports announcers who learned their craft on Beaver County's airwaves before achieving significant success elsewhere, such as Jim Merkel, Guy Junker, Mike Romigh, Julie Bologna, Chris Shovlin, Carl Anderson, Rob Pratte and Dan Dunlap, whose voice-over career includes that Tincup Whiskey mountain climbing commercial.
"Behind the Microphone" details the two times WBVP made national news: when President Ronald Reagan granted the station his first interview since surviving an assassination attempt and when WWKS flipped its format from soft rock to hard rock by having Baden DJ Bill Cameron (now a long-tenured WDVE staffer) pretend to barricade himself in the studio and play Def Leppard's "Rock, Rock 'Til You Drop" nonstop for 48 hours. Listeners thought Cameron's rebellion was real, so he had to be sneaked into the station and holed up inside the studio (the book includes a Nov. 18, 1993, Times photo of Cameron defiantly gazing through the locked studio's window.)
Buy a copy of "Behind the Microphone" for $15 at WBVP-WMBA's Beaver Falls office or for as little as $6.97 on Amazon.
Three Rivers Arts Fest recap
Another year of free Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival concerts is ready for the history books.
Lukas Nelson and opening-night headliner Mavis Staples generated the most buzz for the June 1-10 event. Nelson will be back our way Sept. 7, joining his dad, Willie Nelson, Van Morrison, Sturgill Simpson and Brandi Carlile at KeyBank Pavilion in Burgettstown.
Festival organizers wisely brought back the giant video screen for a second season, so festivalgoers could still feel part of the action while waiting in line at the food booths.
I made it out to the festival for Valerie June on June 8. The critically acclaimed roots rock/country artist got a little too chatty in my opinion, dragging the momentum of her set. She and her band fared better last year ripping through songs at Farm Aid in Burgettstown.
Still, I appreciated the chance just to stand in that Point State Park concert setting, with all its wonderful people-watching opportunities.
Final word
So, I'm standing at the Greek food festival in Aliquippa last Tuesday, and a column reader, also named Scott, comes over to introduces himself and urges me to keep pushing for local bars to schedule earlier start times for bands. He said a lot of people like him enjoy local music, "but we don't want to be out after 11, especially on a weeknight."
I didn't set out to make this my crusade, but there seems to be a lot of interest in bumping up the traditional 9:30 p.m. start time for bands.
Scott Tady is entertainment editor at The Times and easy to reach at stady@timesonline.com.