#67 Anthony Almonte- Percussionist for Little Steven & The Disciples of Soul, Grupo Arcano & More!
Anthony Almonte is our guest this week. He is currently on tour with Little Steven & the Disciples of Soul.
Our educational spotlight centers around PASIC. Registration for that starts on May 1st. You should be a member of PAS first. If you're looking for a place to stay in Indy, you can start HERE. AirBnB is also a viable option. The deadline for a couple of the upcoming competitions is April 30th, 2018. There are also multiple scholarships available to help you out. To see when upcoming "Day of Percussion" events are happening and if they are near you, click this link HERE.
For gig alerts, Marcos will be playing at West Gate in Nyack, NY this coming Sat April 14th at 11pm. On Monday April 16th Damon will be playing at the BB&T Center in Sunrise, FL at 7pm for the "From Broadway with Love" concert for students and families of Parkland. There are three fundraising pages associated with this event. The GoFundMe for the victims, a page set up by the drama students of the school, and the page set up by producers of the event to help victims (and you can get a copy of the concert). May 26th will feature the Greenwich Town Party music festival and the lineup for that has been announced.
J.J. Johnson introduced Damon to the Worth and Worth company in NYC by Orlando Palacios for great handmade hats!
For our product review, Marcos talks about the Moperc Percussion Company and some of the instruments they make.
For our social sound byte, you can click on this link HERE and see a video of Mauricio Herrera absolutely abusing the congas at Guantanamera restaurant in NYC. The video Marcos talks about with Charlie Donato Y Su Orquestra from the 80s is HERE.
A few of the outlets that you can get merino wool clothing are HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, & HERE.
Music News for this week......
From friend of the show Suz Paulinski (of the Rock/Star Advocate), 6 apps to run your music career like a boss. The new Apple iOS 11.3 update has bugs. Don't download it just yet! The music modernization act is supposed to be introduced into congress as of Tuesday April 10th, 2018, and aims to help music and content creators compensated fairly. Friend of the show, Ari Herstand (who also has the blog, Ari's Take and writes for Digital Music News) did an investigative report on Manimal PR and their predatory techniques. This was some of the follow up for further caution. Lastly, Tiffany Haddish reports that Sanaa Lathan bit Beyoncé in the face.
One of the places Anthony got some early tutelage was from the Harbor Boys School in Spanish Harlem. Also, shoutout to Angel Rodriguez of Boca Raton for the many years of percussion (and life) lessons au gratis.
Some of the artists that helped guide Anthony's musical taste were: James Brown (& the J.Bs), as well as Maceo Parker, The Gap Band, La Sonora Ponceña (which may be the best salsa band out of Puerto Rico).
Anthony credits Dave Valentin with being one of the first people to inspire his singing when he started singing "Pio Pio".
Day one of the Little Steven gig/tour started "like a Boss"
TBD on who Anthony actually signs with in regard to percussion endorsements, but in the meantime you can see him perform on tour with Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul. He is in talks with Toca Percussion, Zildjian Cymbals, Latin Percussion, Pearl Percussion (thanks to Jesus Diaz), & Ultimate Ears.
