Music seems to be one truly important key to keeping the world sane during unprecedented times like the roller coaster that is 2020. It’s one part of our society that will never go away, and it will always be there to save the day. Through a whirlwind of cancellations of live music events across the globe, many musicians (especially electronic dance music producers) have been hard at work in an attempt to reach out to eager fans whom cling to every small glimpse of positive hope for a brief escape from a topsy-turvy world.
Evan Cazes, aka Evalution, has done just that with the release of his brand new EP titled Railhouse Rock, which is set to release Friday, July 10th on Power House Records.
In just 4 tracks, Railhouse Rock EP showcases a great amount of creative experimentation to drive home the raw musical talent Evalution clearly put on display. “I started the Railhouse Rock EP in July of 2019, and it’s the most cohesive project I’ve created to date,” said Cazes.
The mixture of wonky bass-wobs, smooth licks from his guitar, and clean vocals masterfully blended throughout the EP hits you right in the soul with funky good vibes. Each track has its own unique approach, “They are all reflective of the musical styles I was surrounded with from a young age.” There’s a moment when you dig right into an eclectic album or a playlist where you just immediately get that live music atmosphere feel, complete with a raging crowd full of energy. That is precisely what you get when playing Railhouse Rock.
Railhouse Rock wasn’t Evalution’s first release on Power House Records. Exactly one year ago his record “Get Down” brought to life. If you go back and listen, it’s like a precursor to his current project Railhouse Rock. This EP was Evalution’s first attempt at recording original vocals, which appear on the tracks “Feel Alright” and “Make It Loud.”
Check out the full EP of Railhouse Rock below, and grab your digital copy when you visit the Evalution fan link byclicking here. Without further adieu, it’s time to crank up the volume and get down to some funky, bluesy, wonky bass music from Evalution!
Imagine Music Festival 2020 New Venue Announcement
Glenn and Madeleine Goodhand make a major announcement for the future of Imagine Music Festival. This is good news the EDM community needs at this time with all the recent festival cancellations. This is the same site as the world famous Tomorrowworld Festival 2013 – 2015. We can’t wait to see the Aquatic Fairytale layout for Imagine Music Festival 2020 at Bouckaert Farm in Chattahoochee Hills.
Read what Glenn & Madeleine have to say about the Imagine Music Festival 2020 venue change.
Dear Imaginers,
Since the beginning, it has always been our mission to create a festival experience unlike any other, that blends multiple electronic music genres, personalities and tastes into one magical weekend. This perfect blend together with your love has created a beautiful Imagine Festival, built from the ground up with you at the center of it all.
After each Imagine Festival we look forward to receiving your feedback and implementing your suggestions into the fabric of the next event. While there have been tremendous strides over the past 7 years, we have also faced several challenges and set-backs at our existing location. After much deliberation, we are ready to make a positive change that will usher Imagine Festival into the next chapter. We have been approached by many venues eager to host our festival, but one has stood out in our hearts and minds over the years. It is with immense pride that we officially announce Imagine Festival will take place at the Bouckaert Farm, in the City of Chattahoochee Hills, Georgia.
We are thrilled about the new site and still in awe of it’s majesty, beauty and splendor. This site has a rich history with the electronic music community and the perfect home for Imagine Festival. Driving in makes you feel as though you are entering into a fairytale and we are excited for a new opportunity to transport you into an immersive experience, forged in nature.
We look forward to showing you the many improvements and future of Imagine Festival at Bouckaert Farm. Some of the new improvements to enhance your experience at this site include:
Newly paved roads for dependability and accessibility
Car Camping and RV Camping (primitive camping available as well)
Day Parking on site
Uber & Lyft (Rideshare) drop off and pick up on site
On site Shuttle Pick up and Drop off
Great communication and coordination with city officials to ensure a smooth arrival and departure
Condensed site plan for your convenience
We have poured our hearts and souls into this festival and, hopefully, inspired some along the way to go after your dreams and believe in yourself. Countless friends and family have been established with memories that will last forever. The potential is endless for Imagine, and we are excited about the journey and bringing you with us on this fantastic ride. Thank you for your incredible love and support over the years and for taking this exciting leap with us on our next chapter of the Imagine Festival saga. “We love you and it shows!”
The seemingly long, uphill battle continues for the live music and entertainment industry as more festivals and concerts are either postponing or cancelling their events altogether. As of Friday, April 10, Sunset Music Festival made an official announcement that they would be rescheduling to a future date, which will be on the upcoming 4th of July weekend. Although this can be frustrating times for those who have made plans that are now being disrupted, the festival is going to do their best to give fans a great festival while making sure its patrons, artists, and staff are safe. Here is the full statement from the festival below.
Sunset Family,
With all of this uncertainty in the world, we hope this brightens a little bit of your day as we announce our rescheduled dates for Sunset 2.0. We cannot wait to get back together with you and are hopeful we’re able to do this on Friday, July 3rd and Saturday, July 4th of this year. We understand that these are uncertain times and nothing is a guarantee. We would love to be able to celebrate life and the love we have for each other on our Independence Day weekend. We know you have many questions and we’ve outlined the popular ones below. If the situation presents itself, we will put on a safe festival & we plan on trying to be that shining light at the end of this dark tunnel we’re in. We’re working closely with local and city officials to ensure a safe and enjoyable festival experience for all. If you can’t join us on the new date and need a refund, or if you would like to pause your payment plan, please see the details below.
Sincerely hopeful, John, Donnie, & the Sunset Team
Now, don’t worry if you have already purchased tickets for the traditional Memorial Day weekend event, your tickets will transfer to the July event, automatically, at point of purchase. If your schedule unfortunately does not align with the new date and you want a refund, SMF will gladly assist you with that request. Below you can find the proper form to fill out to request a refund.
Brownies & Lemonade and Proximity’sDigital Mirage Festival is currently underway as of Friday, April 3rd, with its massive lineup of online streaming performances. For Friday’s lineup, you can see sets from Dab the Sky (Dabin B2B Said the Sky), Seven Lions, 12th Planet, Ghastly, Kaskade, Mat Zo, Yehme2, Arty, and so many more! The live stream can be viewed right here on this page, or you can visit the YouTube stream and join the live chat room. Above the chat room, you will see a donation widget where you can send money to the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund. The stream will go on until 2:15am PST. See the full lineup for today below!
DIGITAL MIRAGE. YOUR FRIDAY LINEUP
Dab the Sky (Dabin B2B Said the Sky) Sandro Cavazza Keys N Krates Seven Lions 12th planet Jason Ross Ghastly Kaskade Mat Zo Yehme2 Yetep Perto Nurko Mitis Mako JVNA Arty
Lightening in a Bottle Festival owned by LIB/Do LaB sent an email to ticket holders stating the event is cancelled do to the Coronavirus. They made it very clear they will not be refunding ticket sales. Email Screenshot Below…
COVID-19 might be cancelling all of the usual fun for the coming weeks, including local live music concerts of all genres. With so many DJ’s taking to social media to live stream what would be their live performances, it was a matter of time before promoters like Iris Presents would host a live stream extravaganza of their own.
On what would be a typical “Iris Day” on a Saturday night, Believe Music Hall would be packed with patrons ready to dance the night away in the multi-room venue. Now that COVID-19 has been grinding our world to a screeching halt, Iris wants to bring their signature Saturday night party to your living rooms.
Iris Presents and Imagine Music Festival owner, Glenn Goodhand, took to social media to announce the official live stream party would be happening on Saturday March 21, from 10pm-2am EST.
The even will feature some hometown favorites like Leah Culver, Eddie Gold, Mikes Revenge, and Wolfe. Iris Presents will put on the show just as you would see it any other Saturday night, the only difference is there will be no fans in attendance. Just the stage, production, and of course, the DJ. The promoter is also taking donations on their event page. You can donate to help out the show by clicking here.
You can view the live stream tonight on the Iris Presents YouTube page at youtube.com/ImagineFestivalTV. This is just the inaugural event for what should be more to come since the virus will potentially cancel the foreseeable future events in the coming weeks. The promoters plan to bring more and more production in the near future. Tune in tonight for some Iris style fun to get you through these strange times we’re living in.
The spreading pandemic that is COVID-19 might have caused several large-scale music festivals like Ultra, SXSW, Coachella, and more to pull the plug, Tampa’s own EDM festival Sunset Music Festival is still a go as of Saturday March 14th.
The festival announced Saturday afternoon on social media that they have met with local health officials along with the City of Tampa to take the necessary precautions to keep fans, performers, and the staff safe. For now, the festival is still going to happen this Memorial Day Weekend.
You can visit their website to purchase tickets by CLICKING HERE. As of Saturday morning, the festival also announced that they would have a price freeze, and will honor the current ticket prices through the weekend until Monday, March 16th at 11:59 pm EST.
(Miami, FL)–The Miami Herald has confirmed that the Ultra Music Festival will be postponed until further notice- effectively cancelling the 2020 edition due to the growing concerns over Coronavirus is slowly spreading to the states. This kind of cancellation of a large-scale music event, which people travel internationally to attend, is possibly not the first to happen for this year. At least, that is, until this virus is effectively neutralized.
Music festival insider Festival Owl was among some of the first few sources to make the news public.
I’ve just received confirmation that #Ultra WILL be cancelled due to #coronavirus concerns with an official announcement to come.
I do NOT have further details on refunds, possible postponement etc but the festival’s construction has been stopped.
The Miami Herald reports, The decision to postpone was made in a meeting Wednesday morning between Miami’s elected leaders and Ultra representatives, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. Before the meeting, Mayor Francis Suarez and Commissioner Joe Carollo told reporters they wanted to postpone the event due to concerns over the spread of novel coronavirus, or COVID-19.“
Sources also say that city officials have yet to announce details of the change because attorneys are ironing out the legal issues tied to the decision, including the length of the delay.
(Atlanta, GA)— From being the face of Spotify’s Friday Cratediggers playlist, to her live-streams on Twitch, if you follow electronic dance music, there’s a solid chance that you’ve seen the name JVNA recently, and for a good reason! With her mixes including tracks from artists such as Illenium, Slander, Excision and Wooli, it’s clear to see caught the attention of headbangers worldwide. But for every “top-10-banger” in her set you’ll also find an underground ID mixed in as she takes pride in finding the smaller artists that throw down just as hard! JVNA brings even more of a unique energy to her sets through her original tracks and remixes with her very own vocals, melodic bass, and futuristic vibes all throughout.
You can catch JVNA on her City Of Dreams tour all this spring as it makes stops all across the country. Whether you catch her at an intimate, club venue or maybe at festivals like EDC Las Vegas or Sunset Music Festival in Tampa, JVNA is sure to throw down a set you’re not going to forget!
RC: Let’s get some background to start. Where did you grow up and how did you get introduced to music?
JVNA: I studied piano my whole life and other instruments like the cello. Then I wanted to learn how to sing when I was 10. I took singer/songwriter lessons and my teacher asked if I would like to try producing. He taught me how to produce off of a program called Reason. It’s not popular now, but it was popular back in the day. I made very basic pop tracks, maybe just a guitar or a piano, vocals and drums, that’s it. Then I just kept messing around with whatever genres I wanted to do. Eventually I went to music school for classical music and I graduated last year.
RC: Oh, that’s great, congratulations.
JVNA: Thanks. I wanted to do film scoring and stuff like that, but while I was studying classical music, I thought it was boring. And then my ex boyfriend started taking me to raves. And at first I was thinking, “What the heck is this? This is so bad.” Then he broke up with me and I was so petty at the time. I wanted to learn how to make it, so I tried and it was so hard. This is so different than classical music. Then I ended up loving it and I started realizing that EDM is challenging to make.
RC: Who were some of your influences when you started and who/what do you look to for inspiration now?
JVNA: In the beginning I looked up to Mija, Alison Wonderland or Tokimonsta, all these female DJS. They are so cool and I wanted to be like them. I remember looking at videos of Alison or Mija at a festival, and they were doing their own thing. I’m thinking, “Wow, can I ever do that?” Nowadays I still look up to whoever inspired me back then; but now I’ve been looking for inspiration outside of electronic dance music. I listen to a lot of pop music or artists who aren’t really big yet. I like listening to music on SoundCloud because there’s so much creative talent out there.
RC: Yeah, you can run into some gold out there. Okay, name an artist you would love to collaborate with?
JVNA: Anyone?
RC: Yeah, it could be EDM related or any other genre
RC: Hell yeah! So your mixes are a vast combination of different genres from future bass to melodic dubstep. How do you choose tracks that go well together?
JVNA: Yeah, I’ve been wondering about that lately; because even with my set today, I’m just playing a lot of different genres. Part of me wants to stick to something; but the thing is, I truly like it. I have some stuff that’s not melodic bass or future bass, some mid tempo stuff. I do feel like the genre of melodic bass still resonates with me the most. But I don’t want to box myself into just a genre. I like trying to be open-minded.
RC: When I first discovered your mixes I felt that if I were a DJ, that’s the kind of music I would play. You literally play every single song that I love.
JVNA: Really? I don’t know how to pick a song that I don’t like….I just like it or not.
RC: You sing on most of your original tracks. Was that a natural progression or was that suggested to you?
JVNA: Oh, it was just something I always did. Part of it was just because if I was tone deaf at singing, I wouldn’t have attempted it. I thought I could sing somewhat, and all I had to do was process the shit out of the vocals. Then it eventually became my thing, and then I thought, “Okay, I should probably try to improve.” So I just practiced a little more, and I’m still practicing everything. I think the way my voice sounds, it fits the kind of sound style that I go for. I think I write music around the quality of the tone of my voice, because my voice is kind of airy and light. I like to contrast that sometimes with really heavy bass production, but with also melodic elements.
RC: So, let’s talk about your very first gig. What is something you remember about that experience?
JVNA: Oh, yeah, it was at a restaurant. Okay, three years ago, maybe two and a half actually. Back then I was posting videos of me on the Abelton Push, drum padding and stuff, and then this local group who hosted the shows every Friday asked if I wanted to play. I found out that my friends were doing it as well, so I thought it was a comfortable enough environment. I played only one of my own songs that I had out back then, and I remember being so nervous for it. I had to learn how to DJ for it, and there was only like three people in front of me. Like one of them was my friend and I was so nervous.
RC: How did it go?
JVNA: *silence* It was… okay… *laughs* It was one of those weird settings where it’s a restaurant, and people are just there eating doing their thing. For some reason or another they have EDM played at that restaurant. There was like three people raging in the crowd. It was one of those types of events! I loved that!
RC: As one of the top rising electronic producers, have you experienced any moments that have made you think, “This is what I do it for?”
JVNA: You know, I majored in music so I have no other choice. I don’t have a 9-5 job. I gotta have a degree in Math or English or Politics. I don’t really have anything to fall back on besides music. So it’s always been like that, even before I made a full-time living out of it. I’d say to myself that I had to do this no matter what. I don’t care if I have to teach piano, I don’t care. I’ll teach at a school. Whatever I do has to be music!
RC: That makes sense. I’ve heard that you like anime. Do you have a go-to?
JVNA: Obviously, I’ve watched all the classics like Naruto, Bleach, Death Note, and all that. Production-wise it’s Guilty Crown. I love the music. I like Guilty Crown because of the drawing aesthetics. The music is sooo good! Both the film score and the soundtrack by Supercell,
RC: I love Supercell!
JVNA: I want to say Guilty Crown because actually that whole style visually is similar to my tour style, my City of Dreams tour.
RC: That brings me to my next question. Which of your songs would you choose as an opening theme for Guilty Crown?
JVNA: Honestly, I don’t know if some of my songs fit, but I think “I’m with you” could fit. Definitely not like “Living in Hell!” I don’t know. Maybe it could be one of those endings.
RC: Okay, so, one last thing. I am going to name 9 artists that you play in your mixes, and you give us the first word that comes to mind for each.
JVNA: Uh, oh!
RC: Said the Sky
JVNA: Puppy!
RC: That is very true!
RC: Dabin
JVNA: Euphoric. He’s like the greatest person on earth… He’s Aight. Yeah, he’s aight. *laughs*
RC: Alright, that works. Crankdat?
JVNA: Dope af! All of his drops are so good.
RC: He was really good at this game. He was hilarious.
JVNA: He’s one of those artists where there’s not one song I don’t like from him, you know? Yeah, he’s great.
RC: Alright, Excision
JVNA: Dinosaur! I want to say he’s dope too! Bad ass!
RC: Wooli
JVNA: Awesome! Love him. Wooli is one of those other people, everything they put out is just so good! He’s a great dude too.
RC: Illenium
JVNA: *whispers* I was going to say EDM Jesus. But that’s cringe, and not one word. *laughs* I don’t know what to say to not sound weird.
RC: Next. Porter Robinson.
JVNA: Oh, feelzy.
RC: Kayzo
JVNA: Guitar! There is a lot of guitar in his songs.
RC: Okay. And one more JVNA.
JVNA: I don’t know. Nervous? *laughs* City of Dreams? Yeah.
