Maine Independent Folk Music Goes National - Vanessa Torres and Touching Ground at the National Folk Alliance and SXSW!
Buy a new demo CD to support Vanessa Torres and Touching Ground by emailing Vanessa at touchingground@yahoo.com ! Or, buy her first CD at CD Baby !

Come to a special benefit house concert at 44 North Street, Apt. 2, in Portland, on Thursday, March 8 at 7:30, admission is $3.00 ! Vanessa and the band will play a great set, plus, Samuel James opens!

Vanessa Torres and Touching Ground

Vanessa Torres and her band, Touching Ground, are an example of the many Maine performers and songwriters who are helping to build a reputation for Portland, and for Maine, as an incubator for great independent music that is headed for national recognition. You have an opportunity to help Vanessa and her band capitalize on their hard work and their savvy, by helping them get to Austin, TX later this month.

This wonderful Portland band just returned from the National Folk Alliance conference, in Memphis, TN, and they made the most of that trip by impressing some key players in the national independent music scene. The result was an invitation to perform on one of the showcase stages at the incredible gathering of independent music industry mavens that takes place each year in Austin, TX, called the South by Southwest Music Conference (SXSW).

Vanessa describes her Folk Alliance Experience as “an incredibly inspiring journey”. She got the opportunity for the band to play at a showcase at the conference through her use of the band’s “Electronic Press Kit” on Sonicbids, an on-line community and utility that helps independent musicians and bands promote themselves and find gigs.

Through Sonicbids, Touching Ground was selected for two slots in a Folk Alliance private showcase sponsored by Go Girls, another on-line community that helps independent female acts develop their music, promote themselves, and learn about the music industry.

Vanessa enthusiastically describes the scene at the Folk Alliance conference: “The (Memphis Marriott) Convention Center was filled with thousands of talented folk musicians playing their hearts out for five days! At any given moment, there were multiple shows in all of the big conference rooms, for the larger names in folk music, and then upstairs, there were three floors of hotel rooms filled with private showcases. Everybody promotes themselves shamelessly, and the idea is to get heard by as many people as possible!”

Their final showcase, at 1:00 AM on the last night of the conference, was a huge success; they packed the room for a five song un-plugged set of their killer harmonies and courageous, politically-charged lyrics, and the reception by the audience was exhilarating to the band. The founder of Go Girls, Madalyn Sklar (who is also an independent music industry coach), was in the room during their set, and asked Vanessa to bring the band to SXSW and play at the Go Girls showcase at Austin Java. This Go Girls gig opened the door to two other showcase performance opportunities in Austin during the conference: another set at Austin Java, and one at Ruta Maya’s.

Madalyn Sklar, Indie Music Industry Coach and Founder of Go Girls

The SXSW MUSIC AND MEDIA CONFERENCE showcases hundreds of musical acts from around the globe on over fifty stages in downtown Austin. By day, conference registrants do business in the SXSW Trade Show in the Austin Convention Center and partake of a full agenda of informative, provocative panel discussions featuring hundreds of speakers of international stature. SXSW Music 2007 will take place March 14 - 18, 2007. Other Mainers attending the conference include Emilia Dahlin, who is performing, and Bob Ludwig of Gateway Mastering Studios, who will be sitting on a panel discussion.

Vanessa Torres and Touching Ground is Vanessa Torres, her sister Tamara Torres (who provides beautiful backing vocals), Lauren Snead (percussion on djembre and ashiko), and Rae Criscithello (banjo and vocals). These talented women are extremely excited about the opportunity that the showcases at SXSW represent for their career, and are working hard to put the trip together. You can help – here’s how:

The band has put together a seven-song demo CD of new material; they’d love you to purchase the disc for $10 (and they won’t mind if you tack on a small extra donation!) to help them raise the money they need to get everyone down to Austin later this month. You can email Vanessa to make arrangements to buy the CD at touchingground@yahoo.com .

I have listened to this CD, and it is every bit as impressive as the band’s first self-titled CD, and then some. Lauren’s relentless rhythms drives the music in a way that keeps it very tight, and the tone of her exotic drum resonates deep inside some primal part of who you are. Rae’s banjo playing, especially on the second cut, “Hero’s Parade”, has such clear tone, and her phrasing is so well executed, that is sometimes sounds more like a steel drum. But the lyrics and harmonies laid down by the two sisters, Vanessa and Tamara, are what make these recordings so special. Vanessa’s heart is strong enough to write and sing about the political and social issues of our time, when many folk musicians these days will not take on that responsibility. Tamara’s backing vocals highlight these messages in a way that sound like our own thoughts coming back and reverberating inside out heads, as we try and sort out what these ideas mean to us personally as human beings.

“Caterpillars make good butterflies
But me I’ve got no cocoon, I’ve got no good place to hide
And So I’m gonna let this rain take me in”
- from the first cut, “Saturate”

They also have scheduled a special house concert for this Thursday, March 8, at 7:30 PM at 44 North Street, Apt. 2, in Portland (in the East End). Admission is just $3.00, and snacks and drinks will be provided (you can also buy the demo CD at the concert!) As if you needed any further reason to go, the great local bluesman Samuel James will be playing an opening set!

Vanessa and her band are working hard to bring their music into the national spotlight – this helps all Maine musicians and anyone who enjoys or supports Maine folk music. Buying the demo CD, going to the concert, or making a donation of money, airline frequent flyer miles, or other support, would go a long way toward helping this very deserving band capitalize on the good work that they are doing to bring their plans to fruition. It’s great music – I recommend that you listen to it, and do what you can to keep it flowing!

All the best to you
Bob McKillop

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