It’s been a busy summer for musicians at Dace’s Rock ‘N’ More Music Academy and it all culminated in an epic party and fundraiser Aug. 28 on Lake Sawyer.
This year the non-profit music school celebrated a milestone at the event, dubbed the Rock ‘N’ Roll Five Year Anniversary and Summer Throwdown.
Dace Anderson, founder of the school, landed the emcee from the throwdown throw a series of interesting events.
In June his band Sealth, which formed at the school, played at the Seattle True Independent Film Festival after writing songs and creating a movie to perform as part of a multi-media extravaganza.
The band had hoped to find someone to make a music video but instead, Anderson did an introduction to a music competition where he did an imitation of hair metal band front man and reality show star Brett Michaels.
Red, the host of the morning show on 107.7 The End, was a judge at the competition, Anderson explained.
“I heard that she really liked my performance as Brett Michaels,” he said. “I wrote to her to say thank you and she wrote back to say she’d like to be a part of what we’re doing (at Rock ‘N’ More).”
Anderson asked Red to emcee the throwdown and the DJ agreed.
A few days before the show, Red had students from the school along with Anderson and Arielle Young, his second in command at the school, come into the radio station to record some music and interviews about the event.
“Everybody got there early,” Anderson said. “Red was really nice. It ended up being good. The kids sounded good. It was a great experience for the kids.”
Young said it was fun to watch the students as they got a tour of the radio station and got to check out the signature room where big name rock stars have signed the walls, much like a room at Rock ‘N’ More in Maple Valley.
“They had these big smiles,” Young said. “It was cool watching all the kids go in there with these huge eyes taking all these pictures.”
But the throwdown went even better.
“Last year’s throwdown was more of a party,” Anderson said. “This year we got a lot of parents of students involved and they wanted it to be more of a fundraiser. I think that they really hit the nail on the head. There weren’t really a whole lot more people that went, but, we raised twice as much money as last year.”
Young said, “We charged at the door, which made a huge difference, we made it very clear it was a fundraiser.”
With the money raised, Anderson said, the school can continue to offer its tuition assistance program as well as acquire more equipment.
“For anybody who needs it, we charge on a sliding scale so that we don’t have to turn anyone away due to ability or inability to pay,” he said. “That’s the big thing.”
And he was really pleased to have Red host the throwdown.
“She was nice as can be,” he said. “She was really personable.”
And Sealth performed at the event as well as showed their superhero-themed multi-media extravaganza, Young said, “because we really wanted to show our students the movie so they can see what they can do.”
Next up for Rock ‘N’ More students is the quarterly Rockcital set for Saturday, Oct. 2, at Chop Suey in Seattle.
For more information on Dace’s Rock ‘N’ More, log on to www.rocknmore.org
or send e-mail to uofrock@hotmail.com or call 425-413-2165.
