The album is finished and sent out to the wonderful folks at ELS Productions to be turned around a sealed up! A few boxes of fresh 'Tones should be at Music Media Productions Monday afternoon.

"Oh no!" loyal 'Tones fans may say, "when can I hear this beautiful peace of work?!?"

Great question. I'm SURE all of you already have tickets to the Iron Horse show Monday night (if you don't call the box office now now now!!), but you'll have a sneak preview chance Monday morning. Colin, Rachel, and I will be appearing on Bill Dwight's morning show on 1400 AM at 9:15, so tune your radios and mark your calendars. We will be releasing the first ever 'Tones single!!!

See you at the Horse,
Simon and the 'Tones

As we gear up to say goodbye to the eight graduating seniors, we are working hard on the new album. Simon, Rachel and Colin hope to be heading into Bill Dwight's studio at WHMP with a track from the CD before the Iron Horse show, so keep checking the calendar page for more info!

-Rachel and The Northamptones

No word yet on radio appearances, but for those of you who listen to the Bill Dwight show, keep your ears open for a possible single to be premiered on his morning show!

Also, the calendar is about as full as its going to get and it looks like the big one this year will be at the Horse, so remember to get your tickets. All 'Tones will have tickets available to sell, so if you know one of us better than the route the NBO downtown, give us a shout. Please don't hesitate to email us at thenortamptones@gmail.com if you have ticket requests or questions!!!!

Last but not least, the NHS Darfur Benefit was a monstrous success and we'd like to thank all who attended and supported such a worthy cause. Big shout out to the Amnesty team (woot Annie, Em-c, Adam, Rebecca et al.)

-Simon and the 'Tones

The Iron Horse has graciously allowed us to give forth our musical efforts on Monday, May 21 at 7:00 PM. Our dear old friends The Dadz were looking forward to lending us a seasoned-performer's hand, but will be without their full entourage that evening. Nonetheless, we've never been averse to guest appearances.

In that light, look for a special performance -to be kept secret for now- to open the show and a thrilling, eye-popping, gut-wrenching, sure-to-blow-your-mind performance from the 'Tones, as we'll no doubt pull out so many stops Bach will roll over in his grave.

We're looking at a dinner show folks, so line up early to be let in at 5:30. Bring the kids, grab a burger and a plate of nachos for the kids, and make sure to bring a few extra bucks so you can buy the NEW ALBUM.

Tix will be available for $15 in advance (from an individual Northamptone or at Northampton Box Office on Main St.) $18 at the door.

So at long last (after having gotten into college), I am writing an update and posting some music! There are a ton of new recordings on the cd page here. They're some from the Iron Horse, the Winter Concert, JFK and other places..

Check them out..!

**
We'll try and keep everyone updated! We go into the recording studio next Wednesday to start work on this year's album!

Ben

Also, we're headed to the studio for March 28th, so look for a new CD in early May.

Ta for now,
Simon and the 'Tones

We can now say that our performance season is really under way, as we prep ourselves for the onset of the National Championship of High School A Capella, a competition that accepted us in early December. We are waiting to hear from organizers from the event staff, but for brief overview of the kind of odds we're looking at, make sure to check out http://www.nchsaonline.com (I think we're competing Feb. 10)

I can't say anything else about big upcoming shows, only to hint that we may have our own show at a certain local venue in the spring.

Last, but not least, I'd like to say that Ben and I have been making our best efforts to get the site up and running again, and have even started to edit out last years bios! Keep checking back for more juicy news about the 'Tones as the season progresses.

For those of you who know me, and many of you who know OF me, Rachel Messeck is never speechless. And I truly was when I stepped out last night and saw how many people had come to support us at the show. It was completely overwhelming. I think that the whole group shares my sentiments when I say that it was the best it could have been because of all of those who came to see us.

So on to bigger and better things... hopefully! We've been accepted into a competition and we're waiting on the dates for that... If we get to the national finals we go to Disneyland!! Stay posted for other performance dates on the Calendar page. Anyway, thanks for your never ending enthusiasm, and we hope to see you very soon!

-Rachel and the Northamptones

We'd again like to welcome our new members, Garrett Keefe (T), Leah Jacobson-Hardy (S), and Stephan Weener* (B), they're already show fantastic promise and adding their own flare to rehearsals!

Ben should be cleaning up around here with a little help from yours truly and a few other group members, so make sure to stop by in the near future for calendar updates!

See you all in November!

-Simon and the 'Tones

*I feel like I butchered your name, sorry about that.

While I hope all of you faithful visitors to our humble site are staying dry, an important tidbit to those of you who long to get your hands on a nice shiny copy of "Secrets":

The NHS office is open all summer, so purchasing options are still the same! CDs are available from the wonderful office staff until 3PM!

And for those of you who would like to buy another copy but already have 7 for each day of the week, our new DVD from the Iron Horse show in May (a hardy helping of thank yous to Barbara Allen and Clarice Anderson for this one) is also available in the office for the low low price of $16!

Yes, media remains for our fans who devour anything we offer.

As always, questions and comments should be emailed to "thenorthamptones@gmail.com" and are welcome, so please do no hesistate!

Have a wonderful summer everyone!

-Simakahn5

A.) Funkytown was played on the radio the other day, and it wasn't just any radio.. it was Mix 93.1! Wow. Thanks Dan and Kim!

B.) We sold all of our first 200 CDs! The next batch should be arriving any day now. Get yours fast before they all disappear again!

C.) The winter concert was fabulous! Everyone was incredible. You should all go out and buy the 2006 Chamber Choir CD. It's freaking awesome.

D.) Yay for Northamptones 2007! We're going to rock everyone's socks. I'll be sure to post when we update the bios page.

E.) Come see us at awards night and graduation. We've got a little twist planned for graduation, plus we'll be recording at awards night.

F.) I finally got Beau's address working! You can reach her at beau@thenorthamptones.com. Comcast is really whiney/annoying.

G.) Rachel has joined our "News Team" (heheh, yes we do have positions... NOT!) and we look forward to her wonderful blog entries.

This may or may not be the last post for a while..
Have a wonderful summer!

Ben

p.s. GRADUATION will be taking place at SIX PM this year, NOT EIGHT!

--rachel

And to Garrett Keefe, Stephen Weiner and Leah Jacobson-Hardy, congratulations!! We are all looking forward to the year ahead of us and we're so excited to have you! Get ready to work hard, because we're determined to win some competitions and kick some butt next year!

To those of you that check out the site once in a while, email us with some songs you'd like to hear us do! We're just getting ready to pick material for the upcoming year and we'd love to get some ideas. Email us at thegroup@northamptones.com

And last but not least, your final chances to see the a capella group of '05-'06 will be Senior Awards Night at NHS on Thursday, June 1 at 7:00, and at the Class of 2006's graduation at 6:00 on the athletic fields.

Thanks for a fabulous year, and here's to the next!

-Rachel

Some thanks are in order:

Though she spent practically all night the recipient of thunderous rounds of applause, we must thank again our mind-blowing director, Beau Flahive. Her encouragement and constant dillegence as a thoughful and tenacious director have guided us through this monumental year.

Surely, he is hard at work on many other projects by now, or at least putting a dent in the hostess cupcakes we bought him, and we would like to graciously thank the resourceful and generous Wes Talbot. Wes made it possible for us to record in the first place and further extended his hospitality and technical know-how to our eager and shifting editing/mixing team of various group members. Man, he is good looking too.

A thanks to The Dadz for getting us involved in these NEF fundraisers and giving us a chance to play at a space like the Horse. More specifically a large thank you goes out to Peter Bigwood for his suprisingly entertaining schtick and multiple plugs for our CD.

Of course, we would be nowhere without the love and support of our biggest fans (yay parents!) and loyal friends who came tonight and to any/all of our other shows, you guys are why we keep performing!

Last but not least, a personal thank from myself to all my fellow members for making this the best year in the group yet for me. Everyone has put tremendous effort into whole days worth of practice time and many performances, more still to come!

Thanks again so much to all of you.

Your elated and humble typist,
Simon, and of course the entirety of the 'Tones

Also, so everyone knows. The Northampton Box Office gave out 25 unauthorized comp tickets to the Iron Horse show (which is now sold out!). We don't know who it is, but would very much like them to either pay for the tickets or return them. We'll have to pay the Iron Horse over $300 for the tickets if they don't return soon. It's a major bummer. We won't be getting money from this show (except for CD sales) it all goes to the Northampton Education Foundation. So.. come and buy CD's!

I will say the album art on the CDs is pretty cool. Rachel and I spent ours slaving over photoshop. We also had a fun time sneaking onto the roof at school (NHS administration don't get mad!) to take some cool pictures of the group.

Alright, see everyone Monday night!

It's an understatement to say that much of our sweat and blood went into this thing! We've been slaving away in the studio with Wes for a while now and frankly, it sounds pretty freaking awesome.

Coming soon: Promo tracks and photos!

It's at the Iron Horse on May 1st, so the easier way might just be to find it from the main page of the site. You can also head over to Iron Horse site too and get it that way.

We've had several very successful concerts in the last month or so! We discovered people like it when we dance, so we've been adding lots of moves to some of the songs we sing. The Iron horse is going to be pretty great. We've already got a couple juicy surprises! You have to get tickets fast, because this things sells out. It's an NEF benefit. Tickets are available online or, cheaper, at the Northampton Box Office (413) 586-8686. The chamber choir (in all their sweat-shirted glory) will also be performing! They sound amazing this year.

Last of all, we recorded our CD a couple weeks ago. The day was basically surreal. I think everyone at some point in their life should take a day off and sing for seven hours. It's good for you. Anyway, the recording was great and we'll start mastering this week. Remember to bring money for a CD to the Iron Horse! (It is our CD Release concert.)

I have also been messing around with homemade recordings, and today we were able to slap together this. It really came out pretty awesome, and I think we'll be submitting it to Fenway as a demo tape.

We recorded the track in an abandoned room off of the teacher's lounge at school. I spent my free period hanging curtains to deaden the room, and I think it really paid off. You'll hear only 100% artificial reverb in these cuts! We also did our first multi-track recording that we were able to master later rather than a "live" studio recording. That way I can make parts quieter or louder later if they back off or pounce on the mics.

Keep in mind while you're listening that I have not done anything to the track except change the volume and add reverb. There is no pitch correction! We really sounded that good! This is a preview of more things to come. Eventually, we'll have a whole CD that sounds this good!

Also, the Dadz Iron Horse concert has turned into the Northamptones Iron Horse concert featuring the Dadz! We'll have another group opening and then we'll split the remaining time with the Dadz instead of only opening for them. If all goes well, that'll be our CD release concert too!

Ok, enough!

In other news, after the disappointment at ICHSA, it looks like we're still pretty good; 5th best in the nation to be exact. That's pretty cool! The 18 Wheelers are still ahead of us, but only by 9 points (out of 400ish).

Also, the sound was incredible! I was able to get a direct line (digital!) right out of the board and record the whole show. It's sounds about as close to studio recording as you can get, which is cool, considering we were totally live. I'll get some recordings up as soon as I can.

The next day, there was a huge picture on the front page of the gazette of us all looking entirely stupid. I've come to the conclusion that photographs and singing are just about the worst combination ever. Add choreography and you have quite a disaster on your hands. Damn you, Toxic!

So, we've got a bunch of new stuff in the works. Stay tuned!

We now have RSS syndication. This only really means stuff for Apple users. You now get that little blue RSS button in the address bar. You can syndicate the site more easily and view it with RSS feed readers. Which means, fancy screen savers! Yeah..

I took down my rant on sound because it was quite negative, however, I've had a couple requests(?) for it to come back. Here's a quick summary:

Some people don't know what they're doing, nice theaters have gizmos (VCA groups, scene recall) that make some stuff easy to mix, while other stuff becomes much harder, and folks, don't run your sound system untuned, it's like unprotected sex. (Can you say feedback?) I also said that the jugdes were good enough to hear through the bad sound, so really all of it was a moot point anyway. That's all there was. Yay!

-Ben

P.S.- 5-Alone is a fabulous group (and a bunch of really nice people). Also, there may or may not be joint shows in the future. Keep your eyes open!

P.P.S.- SilverChord, much? Come see us! Tickets are available for $10 at the following locations, $12 at the door. Hey, you should also drop us a line and tell us what songs you want to hear! thegroup@northamptones.com

I posted a link to google maps on the calendar page, as well. They have fairly detailed driving directions. It's a little bit of a shlep, but we're totally worth it!

Oh, and last but not least, I installed a stat counter last week. We've had over 500 page hits since last Friday! That's pretty good!

Tufts Beelzebubs, Dartmouth Aires, Virginia Sil’houettes, Mt. Holyoke M & C’s, Smith College Vibes, Boston College Bostonians, and the NYU NHarmonics.

the info:

Emcees: Smith President, Carol T. Christ and Northampton Mayor, Mary Clare Higgins
Sunday, February 5th, 2 pm
At John M. Greene Hall, Smith College.
All seats $10 in advance; $12 at the door, day of show

This is straight from the Northampton Arts Council site, check out www.northamptonartscouncil.com for more.

See you on February 5th!

We also have some group addresses, the main one being "thegroup@northamptones.com" that you can use for contacting the entire group. If you'd like to get info on cd's you can also email "getmeacd@thenorthamptones.com." Keep in mind that northamptones.com and thenorthamptones.com are always interchangeable. Pick whichever you like best!

Competition's on Saturday! We're all only going slightly batty. Finals, school shows, competitions, and college stuff all at the same time are enough to make anyone go insane. Hey though, we've got some intense coreography ready to go for the weekend, come see us!

Anyway, everyone come to the Silver Chord Bowl! We like you guys. A lot.

This is to replace the slightly-crappy recordings that we had originally posted. They were from the very beginning of the year when we had only been together for a couple weeks. No good. Anyway, I hope you'll agree that these are much better! You'll need the latest Quicktime or iTunes to view the files. Have fun!

In better news, a devoted fan wrote a nice letter to the local paper about how she enjoyed our first night performance! Thank you Susan Adelson of Florence!

If you have a gazettenet account, you can also look at all our coverage in the gazette here.

-Ben

February 4th, we'll be performing at a fundraiser for Jackson St. School at the Garden house @ Look Park, more information to come.

February 5th, as many of you know, is the Silver Chord Bowl and this year promises a special opening guest...The word was supposed to be mum, but we figured the whole city will find out before long, so I break the news here:
The Northamptones are performing at the Silver Chord!!

It's just one song, but if you had any thoughts about not going, now you have an even better reason to come!

-simon

P.S.- Mwahaha! I'm hijacking this post! Hi guys, Ben here. I have some more info on the Silver Chord Bowl. For tickets, call (413) 587-1269. $10 in advance, $12 at the door. This show ALWAYS sells out. So get tickets fast! Here's a quick list of the other groups performing:

• Tufts Beelzebubs
  
• Dartmouth Aires
  
• Virginia Sil’houettes
  
• Mt. Holyoke M & C’s
  
• Smith College Vibes
  
• Boston College Bostonians
  
• the NYU NHarmonics

-Simon

"On a day when many of the city's newly elected officials received handshakes and warm rounds of applause, the biggest ovations came for the Northamptones, an a cappella group from Northampton High School that captivated the audience. More than a few city officials could be seen rocking side to side in their seats on stage as they sang.

"'Are you sure these aren't professionals dressed up as kids?' [Senator] Rosenberg joked at one point."

In the evening we were also on TV! I guess good things come to those who show up on snow days. We were sure to thank the superintendent for the day off!

Have a happy snow day tomorrow! (And come see us!!)
-Ben

Happy 2006
-Simon and the 'Tones