JayRock Concert Blog

Meet The Headliner: Generationals!!!

2010-02-11T22:53:00.001-06:00

When the JayRock5 Committee began to plan the concert, the goal was to grow the concert, to make it even bigger and better than it had been in past years. But to do so, there needed to be a headlining band that could draw even more interest and put on a big-time show. That band is Generationals!

Grant Widmer and Ted Joyner became friends as science partners at Jesuit High School in New Orleans. Before long, they were making bright indie rock that has a genuine quality that seems to have floated up from the middle of the 20th Century. They were featured in the New York Times' "Nifty Fifty" of America's up-and-coming talent, joining only three other musicians on the list.

Their debut album Con Law was recorded in analog fashion, with all sorts of details intentionally engineered to give the tunes an old-fashioned feel that makes the listener wonder if this is an "up-and-coming" band or some long-lost Simon and Garfunkel treasure. The result is a unique brand of music that is nothing short of addictive.

JayRock5 is thrilled to have Generationals anchoring the concert, and the audience is truly in for a treat. This duo is going to have the Uptown rocking TONIGHT, so don't miss it! Doors open at 7, music starts at 8!

Read more and Download FREE mp3s of "When They Fight, They Fight" and "Wildlife Sculpture", from the Con Law album HERE! And don't forget to check them out on MySpace!

Sponsor Shout-Out: Vista Condominiums!

2010-02-11T21:44:00.000-06:00

We are proud to call Vista Condominiums our principal donor for the JayRock 5 concert!

Located on the corner of 39th and Rainbow Boulevard, The Vista consists of 167 newly-renovated studio, one- and two-bedroom condominiums. Though The Vista is open to anyone, it is a particularly compelling option for medical students, residents, and physicians due its proximity to the University of Kansas Medical Center—The Vista is actually closer than some of the KU Med parking lots!

Because The Vista sells condominiums instead of apartments, it’s a great way to build equity during four years of medical school or the many years of residency. The Vista also offers new amenities like a billiards room, a yoga and pilates studio, a party room, new covered parking, and a renovated pool with sundeck! Each residence offers granite counter tops, new stainless steel appliances, ceramic tile or hardwood flooring, and all are pre-wired for cable TV and high-speed internet.

First-time homeowners are eligible for a tax credit of $8,000 and The Vista is offering an $8,000 incentive, making each residence $16,000 off! Moreover, as a part of the Wyandotte County Neighborhood Revitalization Tax Rebate Program, buyers will only pay 5% of the increase in taxes over the next ten years.

Interested buyers should contact Lee Hayes at (816) 289-6101 or visit vistacondoskc.com.

We thank Vista for their commitment to improving the Kansas City community and for working with us to bring The Generationals, Thieves, and The Dead Girls to the Uptown Theatre tomorrow night!

Check out the great view of KU Med from Vista Condominiums!

The Vista also has a great view of downtown KC!

Our logo creators and friends: bottlegreen*

2010-02-11T16:41:00.002-06:00

If you're reading this blog, you've surely visited the JayRockConcert.org website or seen the JayRock5 logo on a t-shirt, sticker, advertisement, or promotional card. What did you say to yourself? You said, "Self, that is a sharp logo!" or "Self, that is a slick website!" But did you ever stop to think where that logo came from, or who designed and implemented that website? Or even, how much it cost for all that design work?

bottlegreen* design company is the source behind the beauty that is the JayRock5 website and logo. That stuff is not cheap, and Bottlegreen* donated ALL OF IT. Seriously, we can't thank these guys enough for their contribution to JayRock5.

bottlegreen* offers a plethora of services, to help businesses create a unified face in print, web, and brand identity. These services include brand development, print advertising, graphic design, web development, illustration and photography, and much more. They especially take pride in the seamless integration of these different media into a powerful end-product. They boast an impressive list of clients, making their selfless generosity toward JayRock5 all the more impressive. Please be sure to visit their website to learn more!

Once again, we would like to extend our gratitude to the fine folks at bottlegreen* design for all they've done to make TOMORROW'S concert the best one yet!!!

Meet the Music: Thieves

2010-02-10T23:05:00.000-06:00

If you haven’t heard of Thieves yet, you haven’t been paying attention.

Listeners of 96.5 The Buzz have heard either the stormy “Mecca” or screamer “Swan Song” blasting every week on Homegrown Buzz. Even if your commute is too short for the radio, you’ve seen their faces on the cover of the January 5th Pitch, or maybe attended their sellout show at RecordBar.

Salar Rajabnik, Ryan Hiser, Chet Kueffer, and Wayne Zimmerman formed Thieves a year ago in Olathe. In November 2009 they released their debut EP “Divider,” legally available for free download here. It’s loaded with layered, crystalline alternative rock punctuated by soaring guitars and glitch-inspired beats.

Check it out so you can be ready to rock out Friday, February 12 at the Uptown!

Mammoth Media

2010-02-10T18:31:00.006-06:00

Justin Roberts, Austin Goldberg, and Trevor Hawkins hadn’t even graduated high school when they began doing freelance film media projects in 2003. Seven years later their youth didn’t stop them from officially creating Mammoth Media in January 2010. And they’ve been successful from the get-go, probably because their reputation for doing quality work long preceded the official establishment of the company. They love their work, and it shows. “We’re living the dream, basically, because we’re our own bosses, and we get paid to do what we love,” said Hawkins.

Mammoth primarily does television and commercial film production, but also design and photography, branding and marketing, and motion graphics (Do it. Hit the link. It's neat.). They have filmed and produced several music videos, the most recent a song called “La Marcha” by a band (ironically) named “Making Movies,” available for viewing on their website later this month. In the future they are looking to amp up the music video aspect of their business and even add feature films to the repertoire. Judging from the samples on their website, it will only be a matter of time before Mammoth Media is making mammoth movies (ah puns, how I do love thee).

Mammoth’s next project is one near and dear to the hearts of JayRock followers… it will be a video highlighting JayDoc Free Clinic as well as the bands and festivities at the concert THIS FRIDAY. The video will be posted on the JayRock website for concert-goers to reminisce, and for those who didn’t attend to see how much fun they missed.

Be sure to check out Mammoth Media on the web, and their JayRock video will be on JayRockConcert.org in the weeks following the show!

Meet the Music: Dead Girls Update!

2010-02-10T10:37:00.000-06:00

The Dead Girls performed on 96.5 The Buzz this morning! You can hear them play "You Ignited" on the Buzz's website here.

Meet the Music: The Dead Girls

2010-02-09T18:12:00.003-06:00

NEWSFLASH: Be sure to listen to 96.5 tomorrow morning, when The Dead Girls play an acoustic set on Afentra’s Big Fat Morning Buzz!

Fresh off of opening for KISS in Kansas City and winning The Pitch’s “Best Pop Band in Kansas City” award, The Dead Girls will be our second performers at Jayrock 5.

Nick Colby, Eric Melin, JoJo Longbottom and Cameron Hawk are reunited members from the bands Podstar and Jayrock 4 opener Ultimate Fakebook. Together they write infectious, exciting power pop.

This Lawrence foursome is fueled by killer hooks and stomping beats; inspired by past masters like Brian Wilson, Hüsker Dü, and Thin Lizzy (a Thin Lizzy tribute band is a side project) while keeping a finger on the pulse of modern rock. Though the breadth of their influences makes The Dead Girls hard to categorize, drummer Eric Melin is proud his band writes music that can “easily fit anyone.” He directed the video for their song “All is Forgotten,” an homage to '80s John Hughes teen films available on YouTube here.

They currently have two EPs out and have just pressed their new album, “Out of Earshot” with record label Rocket Heart Records.

You can listen to some great tracks from the EP ”Te Quiero” at their MySpace here or check out some other songs after the jump!

Bandwagon Merch

2010-02-08T13:52:00.000-06:00

You hear about this type of company every so often – like the tech companies that have an arcade in the break room and nap time for all employees. It’s the type of place that just sounds like they “get it.” They respect their employees, produce a first-rate product, and know that if they do business the right way, the company will thrive. You get that feeling when you talk to Ryan Hetu, co-owner of Bandwagon Merch. It takes some prying to get him to brag on his company, but when he talks about the way they do business, the facts do the bragging for him.

Bandwagon is a locally-owned printing company, located in Kansas City, Missouri. Ryan Hetu and Ryan Beye have worked in the screen-printing business for years, but in 2007 they decided to start their own company, and Bandwagon was born. Both are music buffs, and they wanted to cater to the market of printing T-shirts for bands and concerts, so the name “Bandwagon” made perfect sense. Today they do business not only across the U.S., but worldwide (Europe and Australia, for example). They don’t exactly fit the mold of international company, though. There are nine people on the payroll at Bandwagon, and that’s the way they like it. “We don’t mind being smaller, like a family business. We’d rather employ good people and treat them well than to just have a bunch of people doing cheap labor,” Hetu said. Hetu added that as a result, the company has even been able to thrive in the tough economic environment of the past couple years. “We pride ourselves on being a debt-free company, so we’re still doing well in this recession.”

Bandwagon prints more than just band T-shirts. They print on just about any type of “wearable” that you can think of – headbands, wristbands, hoodies, etc., supplying clothing to multiple well-respected and trendy clothing stores. ‘Which ones?’ you ask. Again, they didn’t want to brag, but I’ll just say—it’s the good ones. They also do flat stock printing, meaning they can print things like stickers, labels, plates, and signs. If you’ve spent any amount of time around KU Med Center, you’ve probably seen some of their handiwork. Whenever student organizations and groups around campus need quality printing at great prices, they turn to Bandwagon.

Given their love of music (Hetu is also the manager for JayRock5 band, THIEVES) and their commitment to the Kansas City community, Bandwagon was an easy choice to print JayRock5 T-shirts and promotional cards. But at its heart, JayRock Concert is a fundraiser, and we're only charging $10 for the shirts (look for them at Uptown on Friday!), so we literally could not have raised money through shirt sales if not for the good people at Bandwagon.

Intrigued? Check them out for yourself at BandwagonMerch.com... and be expecting a new and improved website coming March 2010.

Again, many thanks to Bandwagon Merchandise for the amazing work they did to help JayRock5 raise money for JayDoc Free Clinic!

Droppin' Some Knowledge About JayDoc Free Clinic

2010-01-18T21:39:00.010-06:00

What is JayRock all about? It's all about JayDoc Free Clinic! (See what we did there with the names? They sound similar, which is pretty clever.) We here at the JayRock Blog want to give you the readers a look at some of the reasons why JayDoc is so special.

You may have heard these things before…

JayDoc is the only free clinic in the United States operated 100% independently by medical students
JayDoc is available for anyone who needs medical care, regardless of income, insurance, residency status, etc.
JayDoc was created in 2003 by students at the University of Kansas Medical Center
JayDoc serves nearly two thousand patients every year

But do you really know JayDoc Free Clinic?
There are many unsung heroes of the clinic. So many, in fact, we can't help but "sing some heroes" as we educate you about the clinic.

Who's that lady always walking around in scrubs during JayDoc clinics?

That's Dr. Sharon Lee of Southwest Boulevard Family Healthcare, otherwise known as the Saint who so graciously allows the JayDoc staff to use her facility for our clinic Monday through Wednesday evenings. Without her generosity, I'd be studying right now, because there might not be a JayDoc Free Clinic.

How can medical students possibly handle the administrative stuff that goes along with running a medical clinic?

Good question, Walter Cronkite. The JayDoc Free Clinic Executive Board is a group of 12 students who apparently don't ever have to study for medical school, because they put in A LOT of time oiling the machine that is JayDoc Free Clinic – and it's a well-oiled machine. These people bust their humps and don't get the recognition they truly deserve.

How do medical students do all this on their own? They aren't yet fully trained physicians, right?

True, the more medical students learn, the more we realize how much we still need to learn. The clinic couldn't exist without the physicians who donate their time in order to ensure that the Greater Kansas City community receives the medical care they need. These docs work long hours, and they work hard. So what do they do when they finish at their own clinic? Plop down on the couch and take a load off? Nope - they head down to JayDoc. Why? First, they have a true passion for serving the health needs of the members of their community. Second, they love to teach medical students. Third, free snacks. But mostly the first and second reasons.

Does JayDoc provide care to the Spanish-speaking community as well?

There is never a dull moment for the interpreter volunteers at JayDoc. These medical students and community members bridge the gap that stands between many medical providers and their patients. Since I'm not fluent in Spanish myself, I am fortunate to have an interpretor (my classmate) help me connect with my patients and provide the proper care and communication they need.

Does JayDoc Free Clinic serve as the primary provider for these patients?

Nope. JayDoc provides urgent medical care, not primary care. That's where the wonderful Social Services division really shines. They meet with nearly every patient that enters the clinic and one of their major roles is to connect patients with Safety Net Clinics where they can receive continuing medical care.

BONUS Did You Know? Tuesdays are specialty nights – Diabetes, Women's Health, Ophthalmology, and Physical Therapy.
DOUBLE BONUS: JayDoc Free Clinic provides HIV testing free of charge for any patient.

JayRock Benefit Concert is the #1 fundraiser for JayDoc. That's why JayRock is growing each year to be a Kansas City mainstay event. Musical genius provided by The Generationals, with The Dead Girls, and THIEVES.

You can expect much more on the concert, the bands, and the sponsors in the future. Be sure to check back with us soon and stay connected with what's going on by visiting jayrockconcert.org and "Follow Us" on Twitter & Facebook.

-JayDoc Student

We're live!

2010-01-11T15:54:00.000-06:00

Welcome to our first blog post of many to come....

Check back soon as we'll be updating with Band Bios, stories from JayDoc, pictures, information about our sponsors, and much more!

Be sure to book mark jayrockconcert.org to keep up with the latest news as we countdown to one of the largest benefit concerts in KC on February 12th. You're constant support will help JayDoc Free Clinic provide healthcare to many of the uninsured Kansas City residents.

Thanks and we'll see you back soon!

JayRock5