We saw Minimum Wage a few years back at the West Coast A Cappella Summit. Very funny. Legitimate performers. And their beatboxer Charlie LaGreca is the real deal. Now they’ve got an off-broadway musical in New York City!

If you’re in the NYC area any time soon, check it out. $35 for the most expensive seats. Variety.com just laid down this review:

A LaGreca Brothers presentation of a musical in one act by Charlie and Jeff LaGreca, with music by Sean Altman, Charlie LaGreca and Jeff LaGreca. Addional material by Mike Gribbin and Rob Utesh. Directed by Guy Stroman. Musical director, Will Bryan.

Bradbury - Bill Caleo
Hux - Jeff Lagreca
Orewell - Charlie LaGreca
Piercy - Elena Meulener
Titus - Tony Daussat

“When we sing, we are not losers,” croon the cast near the end of “Minimum Wage.” Truer words were never spoken: this sometimes infuriatingly confused little 100-minute musical sports a plot-free book full of embarrassing improv-y set pieces. But a surprising number of songs in the tuner, which played in the 2006 New York Intl. Fringe Festival, legitimately kick a**… Continue reading.

“The votes have been tallied and the results are in – an a cappella group from Rexburg will travel to New York City for a chance at the grand prize of Nabisco’s Oreo & Milk Jingle Contest.

The Kreamy Krunchies are a group of four current and former students of Brigham Young University-Idaho who got together to enter the contest last year. The group advanced last month to the top 10 of the competition and were recently voted by the public as…”

Continue reading the article at acappellanews.com

Somebody apparently stumbled upon BeatOutsidetheBox.com the other day and really liked it. The subsequent traffic and visitor response has been a sight to see. Thanks for all of your suggestions and comments.

One visitor, Yonatan, suggested that I highlight Take 6, one of America’s premier a cappella groups. Take 6 has been nominated for 18 Grammys and won 10. Here they are picking one of their songs apart and putting it back together live. This is a classic example of vocal percussion being used in an a cappella setting.

Dave Baumgartner strikes me as a vocal percussionist more in my stream of experience. This solo doesn’t have a lot of popular sounds like nose growls and vocal scratching that so many hip hop beatboxers boast in their repertoires these days, but it does have some impressive sounds and tricks combined with obvious skill and dexterity. I may be wrong on this one, but he strikes me as an a cappella vocal percussionist that has learned to be a soloist as opposed to simply a solo artist. Dave, my hat’s off to you. This solo is great.

Filming for a new television series centred around the real life stories of one of Vietnam’s favorite pop groups, AC&M, is set to begin by the end of this month.

Director of the 25-episode series My Khanh said the show, to be screened on HCM City television, is the first in Vietnam to use the lives of a pop band to propel the plot. “It is based on real stories of each member. We will be focusing on vocalist’s lives, their passions and daily trials,” the director said.

Read more at acappellanews.

Vocal Point, Brigham Young University’s premier a cappella group, is releasing a new, much-anticipated album this fall (watch for it sometime in November). It will feature songs from their international championship set in 2006, along with all of their most popular hits from the last three years.

In the meantime, to pique our interest, they’ve released their A Cappella version of the Spider-Man Theme (complete with a live recording of their awe-inspiring THX “deep sound” and Fox Fanfare in concert), which will also be on the CD. It’s available right now on iTunes! Just search “vocal point.” Here’s a video of 2006 Vocal Point performing Spiderman live at the Marriott Center for BYU’s Homecoming Spectacular.

Noteworthy, an all-female a cappella group from BYU, has been around for 3 1/2 years now. They’ve had guys from Vocal Point serving as directors and advisers for the last few years, including Dave Brown, Dan Dunn, Ghoti and me. This year they broke free from masculine oppression as Catherine Papworth graduated from performer/arranger to director/arranger/renaissance woman.

Noteworthy has competed in the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA) each year since their inception. In March of this year, they took first place at the Western Regional Semifinals, beating out reigning champion Vocal Point (my alma mater) and landing them a spot in the International Finals in New York City’s Lincoln Center in April. My wife and I drove out to watch BYU’s groups compete. We were floored by both groups, but Noteworthy’s performance took it to another level. Their choreography, musicality, repertoire, energy and confidence were off the charts.

“Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing” has been stuck in my head for weeks at a time.

As you may have guessed from the title, Noteworthy blew away the judges at the finals as well, bringing back to BYU for the second year running the title of International Champions of Collegiate A Cappella! Big props to them for representing both BYU and women’s a cappella with grace, dignity and knock-your-socks-off performances.

Their rendition of How Great Thou Art, arranged by Catherine, is one of the best I’ve ever heard.

And this was their encore, “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield.