Since I’m sick of looking it up every time a band asks me, here is a fairly complete list of Chico’s press and radio contacts as of 4/15/09.

www.Chicolist.com
Chico Independent & Underground Music Scene

Jason Cassidy, Arts Editor
Chico News & Review, 353 E. 2nd St., Chico, CA 95928
Phone: (530) 894-2300 ext. 2242; Fax: (530) 894-0143
E-mail: jasonc@newsreview.com
Web: www.newsreview.com/chico

Christy Pryde, Calendar Editor
Chico News & Review, 353 E. 2nd St., Chico, CA 95928
Phone: (530) 894-2300 ext. 2243; Fax: (530) 894-0143
E-mail:christyp@newsreview.com, chicocalendar@newsreview.com
www.newsreview.com/chico

Jake Sprecher, Managing Editor
Synthesis Weekly, 210 W 6th Street
Chico, CA 995928
530-899-7708
jakes@synthesis.net
www.synthesis.net
blog.synthesis.net

Serena Jennings, Calendar Editor
Synthesis Weekly, 210 W 6th Street
Chico, CA 995928
530-899-7708
calendar@synthesis.net
www.synthesis.net
blog.synthesis.net

The Orion (Chico State Student Newspaper)
Editorial: (530) 898-4033
Business: (530) 898-4237
Fax: (530) 898-4799
Mailing address:
The Orion
Department of Journalism
CSU, Chico
Chico CA 95929-0600
Managing Editor
Nicole Williams managingeditor@theorion.com
Entertainment Editor
Eric Wendt entertainmenteditor@theorion.com
Features Editor
Sonja Kydd featureseditor@theorion.com

107.5 The Point
Jeremy V
1459 Humboldt Rd, Suite D
Chico, California 95928
Business Office 530-899-3600
Request Line 530-342-5775 & 342-5778
Jeremy@107thepoint.com

106.7 Z-Rock KRQR
856 Manzanita Court, Chico, CA 95926
Office Phone: 530-342-2200
Office Fax: 530-342-2260
Request Line: 530-342-SLAM
Randall - PD randall@zrockfm.com
Matthew Reisz -WebMaster mreisz@resultsradiomail.com
Bueller bueller@zrockfm.com
meatwad meatwad@zrockfm.com

KCSC Student Radio
kcscradio.com/
CSU, Chico Chico, CA 95929-0950
Spencer Beavers – Programming Director - pd@kcscradio.com
Robin Bacior – Music Director - md@kcscradio.com
Juan Gomez Jr. – Local Music Director - local@kcscradio.com

KZFR Community Radio
www.kzfr.org
341 Broadway Street, Suite 411, Chico, CA 95928
Office: (530) 895-0706
Fax: (530) 895-0775
Studio: (530) 895-0131
OnAir Line: 530/895-0167
janb@kzfr.org - Jan Bielfelt Oceans of Rock & Roll
bill@kzfr.org - Bill Deblonk Playing Dead and Creole Stomp (jam / groove)
radioinfernofm@gmail.com - Marshall Elliott – Radio Inferno (Metal/Underground/DarkWave)
jeffreyh@kzfr.org - Jeff House – Random Pick (odds & sods, underground rock)
barbara@barbaramanning.net - Barbara Manning – Radio Detour (indie & odds & sods)
djspenny@kzfr.org - DJ Spenny - Wax On and Kid Universe
aarony@kzfr.org - Tazou Yamaguchi (aka DJ X) - Chico Butter (local music)

Luis Dubuc, the brains and brawn behind Texas’ The Secret Handshake,
has been putting out some quality electronic pop-rock since about 2004, and it looks like there’s no stop to his current project anytime soon. Dubuc is just about ready to drop his latest release,y Name Up In Lights, which is set to come out on April 21st via Triple Crown. Appropriately, he’s heading out to spread his love in early May for an East coast tour.

As Luis Dubuc aka The Secret Handshake prepares to release his sophomore record My Name Up In Lights (Triple Crown Records - Out April 21st) - he’s also announced preliminary dates for his headlining “No Parents, No Rules” tour which kicks off May 3rd in Waco, TX. More dates will trickle in over the next week or so too including a Dallas, TX release show/party.

The elements that comprise The Secret Handshake’s new album, My Name Up In Lights, aren’t complicated or out of the ordinary. Instead Dallas musician Luis Dubuc has built a collection of songs that embraces an unabashed pop sensibility, drawing on the ‘90s to inspire the disc’s feel-good energy and playful mood. The record follows the success of The Secret Handshake’s previous album—2007’s One Full Year—with more streamlined intent and clarity of vision. “My first record was 14 songs and it was all over the place,” Dubuc says. “It was like looking in my brain. It was full of ideas and all the songs sounded different. This record is really narrowed down. It’s really influenced by Family Matters and Step By Step and the Ninja Turtles and Len and Spacehog and awesome ‘90s radio music. I just narrowed all those influences down and put them into a record.”

The video for “All For You,” the first single off My Name Up In Lights was shot in Brooklyn this past weekend with Chell Stephen and is a tribute to Luis’ obsession with 90’s pop and TV culture. Look for the video to drop in early May.

On another note, Dain brought in ribs today, so +1,000,003 internet points to him.

Tour dates after the jump.
(more…)

Practice has gone smoothly down here in Rocktropolis, the new material is coming along nicely. Here, for your education, are some upcoming tour dates for Fortress Of Attitude’s upcoming assault on the southwest.

And just in case you do NOT think Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer” is one of the most essential songs in the history of rock:

Written by Dustin Bennett in November of 2008

The house was almost empty—random items strewn about, half-packed boxes and a few pieces of furniture still lingering. The setting very much fit the part of a house being moved out of. But on this particular afternoon, it also happened to be a very quiet, practical place to have a conversation. As notebooks and tape recorders were being cracked out, the four members of Chico’s Amblers began to make themselves comfortable in the house’s living room, sitting on whatever couch-space or oddball cushions they could find. (more…)

If you’ve been hiding under a rock recently, let me give you a little insight into what’s absolutely raping the music industry at the current moment.  No, this isn’t a Major v. Indie thing, it’s not about file sharing and it’s not about Chinese Democracy; it’s about the discovery of a piece of software generally called Auto-Tune. A some years back, engineers and producers would use this tool as a form of pitch correction on vocalists, improperly set up guitars, etc. The system worked, because there was still a small credibility to the artist’s ability to actually hit notes. In 1998, Cher released a song called ‘Believe‘, in which she purposely effected the vocals with the effect to give it a different sound. The single became a hit, and everyone saw it that song with that cool voice thing. Everything was fine until some hip-hop/pop/rock producers heard the results and got a huge hard on, knowing that they could abuse the effect to hide a vocalist’s performance under the manipulated sounds…

Fast forward to the modern age in the music industry. Producers like T-Pain and who ever’s been touching Britney’s last couple of albums have been exploiting the hell out of it, calling it their signature sound. One of these new Auto-Tune producers, Kanye West, has started incorporating it into his most recent efforts. It works well to get the records up the charts, but then all of a sudden you have to perform live… then this happens:

Kanye, being the ‘trend setter’ that he likes to think of himself as, decided to bring a mix of the effected vocals (as a backing track) and his strait vox when he sang on SNL this weekend. The results speak for themselves: Kanye can’t sing, and moreover made a complete ass out of himself for making the poor judgment not to know his limits… besides, it fucking sounds like bad karaoke.

On a side note, the more I keep watching this video, the more I realize this is the single worst/most painful performance I’ve ever watched from SNL, and that’s including anything with Jimmy Fallon and the embarrassing Ashley Simpson ordeal.