Rockwood represents the following artists (click to jump to descriptions below):
The Sexy Champions \/\ The Crooners \/\ The Monkery \/\ Gabeba Baderoon
NOW PLAYING: "Don't Stay Away" by The Sexy Champions
"Sexy Champions are a pop gem in the waiting. Jennifer Deveau’s sexy swagger and sassy good looks are enough to get your attention. When she sings, she instantly reminds me of a younger, sexier version of Christie Hynde."
- Crashin.com
"Jennifer Deveau soaks her vocals with a fem-rock attitude that hasn’t sounded relevant since the late ‘70s."
- Splendid
Truly an example of life imitating art, the Sexy Champions are climbing the ladder to mainstream success, fast. Within eight months they have been featured in an MTV2 commercial, were crowned #1 new band for four consecutive weeks on nextbighit.com, posed for Italian Vogue’s music issue, and appeared in the hit internet sitcom, CEThe Burg.
When MTV Director Jessica Burstein brilliantly paired Seth Misterka and Jennifer DeVeau of the popular electro-punk band Dynasty Electric, with guitarist and vocalist Rob Norris, saxaphone/keyboardist Jeremy Wall, bassist Gabe Fonorow and drummer Tiffany Almy, young fans began inquiring: who was this band? where could they buy the music? when was the next show? Practical strangers, the six-piece of incredible talent and energy decided to make it official, and the Sexy Champions were born.
The Sexy Champions, whose sound is best defined as electro-pop rock, launched their career at a showcase for Headroom Productions, attracting the attention of New York Noise producer Rick DePofi, who will be producing their new EP, "Explode." The band has since played in Jezebel’s benefit showcase at Northsix, which raised over $8,000 for the homeless. They are devoted not only to playing great music with mass appeal, but to championing world causes.
For more information, and all upcoming events, visit: www.myspace.com/sexychampions
"Because you can't really feel the blues until you're playing the streets of Paris with cleaning implements, Brooklyn roots trio The Crooners add to their clean guitar sound the homegrown rumble of a washtub bass. Theirs is a sound that is really, really American, like surf rock born in the Midwest, or like The Beatles after they got big in America. Their song "New Kind of Blue" certainly is, because it sounds like that first moment when the smoky blues joint became, through a few quick guitar riffs, the first rock club."
- Style Weekly
"One of Brooklyn's finest [...] a harmonizing roots-rock act with accents of Brit pop and '60s sounds, and tuneful guitars."
- The New York Post
"The Crooners, a trio of blues street musicians who, banging on a washtub bass and vintage guitars on the sidewalk, played the best set I saw this year. Sometimes, you don’t even have to go into a club to see the best that SXSW has to offer."
- Ft. Worth Star Telegram
In their five year existence, The Crooners have brought their interpretation of roots-rock to 11 countries and 14 states. Combining American traditions of blues, swing, folk and country in a performance that is pure rock ‘n’ roll, the group has hotfooted around the globe gaining fans everywhere from street corners, to cafes, to concert halls.
Longtime friends since 1998 where they met at Cornell University, Nyles Fitzgerald (washtub bass), Kevin Denton (guitar), and Chris Merkley (guitar & harmonica) trained under Danny Fitzgerald, Nyles’s great-uncle, and the undisputed European “granddaddy of the buskers” Leaving the rue Mouffetard for Union Square, the band continues to tour and record, but has never left the street corners where they started out.
For more information, and all upcoming events, visit: www.myspace.com/thecrooners, or www.thecrooners.com
"A post-punk band that’s creating a sensation"
- The Montclair Times
"Great musicianship and a tight relationship among the band members create a cohesive sound."
- Williams College Record
Reuniting after hiatus from former band One Blue Link, singer Stu Warshawer, guitarist Phil Enock, drummer Jeremy Da discovered new bassist Adam Davie to complete The Monkery. This resurrection is the product of destiny. Like those who enter a monastery in search of discipline and truth, this band has returned with tenacity and the desire to fill you with unabashed rock madness. And Kung Fu.
After their full length album of 2003 as One Blue Link (distributed by Rock Out Records), the band members traveled individual paths. Trials, tribulations and training sequences transpired, all leading the members to realize their common musical destiny. Many protagonists undertake this kind of monastic retreat and return, (à la Karate Kid, or any Bruce Lee or Van Damme movie) this is "monkery." The band, having traveled this path, pays homage to this concept.
Responding to Fall Out Boy's recent wave of post-punk sounds and Coheed & Cambria's wailing guitars, The Monkery fuses unexpected Sublime/Red Hot Chili Peppers elements with a touch of the Spin Doctors' impulsive vocal stylings. Their unique brand of monk rock pushes today's new punk sounds beyond power chords. With a smirk and a Chuck Norris roundhouse jump-kick, they'll take you on journeys within. At times punk, at times rock, always monk rock.
For more information, and all upcoming events, visit: www.myspace.com/themonkery, or www.themonkery.com
"...one of the best and most promising debuts in decades. ... Baderoon is a new kind of imagination in South African poetry."
- Volksblad
"There can be little doubt that Gabeba Baderoon's debut collection demonstrates that she has mastered the lessons of keen observation, acuity of vision and symmetry... But she is not only a skilled craftswoman; her work is infused with compassion and wisdom that bodes well for her future writings."
- Feminist Africa (Issue 4, 2005)
Gabeba Baderoon is a South African poet. She is the author of three collections of poetry - The Dream in the Next Body, The Museum of Ordinary Life and A hundred silences. Her poems have appeared in journals in South Africa, Europe and the US, including Fidelities, New Contrast, Carapace, Chimurenga, New Coin, Karavan, Matter, Illuminations, Sable, Sentinel, Post Scriptum and Meridians. Gabeba is the recipient of the DaimlerChrysler Award for South African Poetry 2005 and held the Guest Writer Fellowship at the Nordic Africa Institute in Sweden in 2005. She is the recipient of a Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship. Her debut collection, The Dream in the Next Body (Kwela/Snailpress, 2005), was named a Notable Book of 2005 by the Sunday Independent.
For more information, and all upcoming events, visit: www.gabeba.com