People,

Only one day left to get your ticket to Spaghettifest 6 at the presale price!  After that you can only get one at the gate for full price.

This year, we've arranged for an optional shuttle service between the JMU Bookstore and Spaghettifest.  If you live in Harrisonburg and need a ride out there, now you've got one.  Shuttle tickets and the full schedule are online.

Want to see what Spaghettifest was like last year?  You can watch the full documentary of Spaghettifest 5 for free online.  There's featured performances from The Pietasters, Freekbass, The Afromotive, Murphy's Kids, over 20 bands in all.

This is our biggest event of the year.  If you only see Midnight Spaghetti once, Spaghettifest is the place to do it.  Hope to see you there!

SPAGHETTIFEST 6
September 26-28, 2008
Natural Chimneys Park - Mount Solon, VA
3 days of independent music in the woods
spaghettifest.com

--- PERFORMERS ---
Scratch (of The Roots)
Midnight Spaghetti & The Chocolate G-Strings
The Afromotive
Murphy's Kids
Future
40 Dollar Mule
The Accordion Death Squad
The Awesome Few
Barling and Collins
Birdlips
Blatant Vibe
The Brooms
Cheryl Sule presents: SP511
Christopher Hall
DJ Maskell
DJ Finks
Eliott Currie
The Falsies
Fistful of Fifties
Funnel
The Green Boys
Heart Gets Monkey
JimiBeckBlues
Junk Science
Kristoffer Wright
Mental Flossing
Old Grass Review
Pablo! & The Dregs
Post-Apocalyptic Blues Band
Red River Rollercoaster
Righteous Friendz Band
Ripe
Rubberlegs
Ryan Villanueva
Secret Ninja Death Squad
Shave The Kitty
Sherry
The Transmitters
Trees On Fire
Unfortunate Sons

Cheers,
Midnight Spaghetti & The Chocolate G-Strings
midnightspaghetti.com

Midnight Spaghetti Productions and Cave House Studios announced limited theatrical screenings of "Spaghettifest 5: A Music Documentary", the feature-length video of the 2007 music festival. Additionally, the full video will be available to view free of charge or to purchase on DVD at the Spaghettifest website (spaghettifest.com). Currently, a trailer and selected excerpt, Midnight Spaghetti's performance of "Me on My Own", are available for viewing. The full video will be available after the last screening on September 12.

"This project is all about the music. We tried to capture the vibe from the entire festival, " said Mike Frank of the Cave House team. "The video is practically non-stop performances from over two dozen bands with some extra backstage and fan footage for good measure." The video runs approximately 90 minutes and features a satisfying blend of funk, reggae, ska, rock, bluegrass, hip hop, and electronica.

Spaghettifest is one of the great home-grown music festivals of the Shenandoah Valley. Hosted by the funk mob Midnight Spaghetti & The Chocolate G-Strings, the annual charitable event brings together a thriving community of music lovers and outstanding bands of innumerable genres. The monumental rock formations of Natural Chimneys Regional Park provide the perfect setting for a weekend of camping, friends, and great performances.

The bands featured in the documentary include:

• Midnight Spaghetti & The Chocolate G-Strings
  
• Freekbass
  
• The Afromotive
  
• The Pietasters
  
• Murphy's Kids
  
• Shane Hines
  
• The Transmitters
  
• These United States
  
• Jounce
  
• Future
  
• Rubberlegs
  
• Ryan Villanueva
  
• JimiBeckBlues
  
• The Nationwide
  
• DJ Maskell
  
• McLaws Drive
  
• Unfortunate Sons
  
• Electric Baby
  
• Dangus Khan & The Tornadoes
  
• Intense City
  
• The Dixie Jims
  
• Red River Rollercoaster
  
• Richmond Afrobeat Movement
  

This year's festival, Spaghettifest 6, is just around the corner on September 26-28 back at Natural Chimneys Park. Headliners for this year include Scratch of The Roots, The Afromotive, Murphy's Kids, and of course, Midnight Spaghetti & The Chocolate G-Strings. For a full schedule of all 40 bands at Spaghettifest 6, please visit spaghettifest.com.

For an advance copy of Spaghettifest 5: A Music Documentary for review purposes, please contact mfrank@cavehousestudios.com or funk@midnightspaghetti.com.

DA NORTH TOUR starts tomorrow, which means that Midnight Spaghetti is coming to a venue near you.

That is, of course, if you live in one of these areas:

Thu Jun 12, 2008
Fat Tuesday's
10673 Braddock Road, Fairfax VA 22032
$5 21+
with Fistful of Fifties • Ryan Villanueva

Fri Jun 13, 2008
Bube's Brewery
102 North Market Street, Mount Joy PA 17552
10:00 pm FREE!

Sat Jun 14, 2008
Appalachian Brewing Company
50 N. Cameron Street, Harrisburg PA 17101
11:00 pm $8 21+

Tue Jun 17, 2008
Harpers Ferry
158 Brighton Avenue, Allston MA 02134
door 8:30 pm, music 9:30 pm, 18+
with Fred

Wed Jun 18, 2008
Nectar's
188 Main Street, Burlington VT 05401
9:00 pm, 21+ FREE! (18+ $5)
with Turkuaz

Fri Jun 20, 2008
Red Square
388 Broadway, Albany NY 12207
18+
with The Gamblers

Sat Jun 21, 2008
Fontana's
105 Eldridge Street, New York NY 10002
9:00 pm $7
with Rubberlegs • Cold Flavor Repair

Please tell your friends about these shows and bring them out, we need lots of support while we're on the road.

Keep on truckin',
- Midnight Spaghetti

The Capital Scene is a weekly podcast featuring music from bands performing in the DC/NOVA/MD area. We've got top billing this week, go check it out. Bonus points if you can identify the venue at which their selection was recorded!

Directed by Ryan Poe on Vimeo

We'd like to give a big thanks to Ryan Poe for his excellent work in directing this music video. Please check out his other music videos on his Vimeo channel. We had a lot of fun making this, we hope you enjoy watching it just as much! If you do, please leave a comment on the Vimeo page.

MIDNIGHT SPAGHETTI BRINGS FUNKY SAUCINESS
Everyday desk jockeys lead double-lives as off-the-wall funk band Midnight Spaghetti
Date published: 3/13/2008
BY JONAS BEALS

Seth Casana unzipped a padded nylon case.

"I’m an excellent women’s bowler," he said. "And I can prove it."

He removed a ’70s-era motorcycle helmet from the case. It was painted matte gray with Day-Glo orange flames on the side. Trophy parts, including a pair of lady bowlers in mid-roll, were bolted to the crown of the helmet.

Casana’s eyes lit up. "It’s the ’Power Helmet’--it gives you power," he said. "It’s been the symbol of the band from the very first show."

One man’s social kryptonite is another man’s cape and spandex jumpsuit. During the day, Casana is the mild-mannered University of Mary Washington webmaster. But when he dons the power helmet and a pair of aviators, he becomes a musical superhero. Looking like Peter Fonda’s "Easy Rider" character escaped from arts-and-crafts hour at Bellevue, he leads one of the area’s hottest funk bands: Midnight Spaghetti and the Chocolate G-Strings.

Funk has always been the eccentric uncle of R&B, with a long history of platform shoes, reckless dance moves and costumed performers. For many of funk’s greatest practitioners (George Clinton comes to mind), the visual experience is as integral to the music as the bass groove. Midnight Spaghetti is no exception in that regard, and their shows have become noteworthy--not only for tight dance tunes, but for thrift-store suits, Spider-Man costumes, eye makeup and the power helmet.

An explosion of artistic freakishness, Midnight Spaghetti will light up Brock’s this Monday and Hard Times Cafe on Saturday, March 22.

"Our shows don’t translate to just audio," Casana said. "They’re visual, they’re kinetic. There’s a lot going on."

Which explains the video camera during a recent meeting. Casana and the rest of the band were at the Fredericksburg Athenaeum’s Third Floor space on Caroline Street, gearing up to make a video for the song "Rat Fight" off their debut album, "Velour On The Floor." It’s the first time they’ve tried to make a music video.

"It’ll help with promotions, and it just seems like one of those things every band has to do," drummer Ryan Hale said. "Make a video? Check."

More than that, it will reveal another facet of the band’s creativity to the Internet world. If it matches their audio output, it will be worth watching.

Casana will be the focus of the video, playing the part of a working stiff, tormented by the rest of the band as he goes through the paces of a normal day. It’s not a stretch to call it autobiographical. Casana can’t seem to keep music from bursting out of him, whether it’s onstage or in an interview, and it’s hard to picture him behind a desk all day. He transmits a palpable energy.

"Think about your favorite song, and think about how amped you get listening to it," he said, describing the boost he gets when he performs. "Imagine actually playing that song and having a ton of people watch you play it."

Production ran behind schedule during the meeting, as everyone waited for the stragglers to roll in. It’s no easy task to get all eight members in the same place at the same time--some live as far away as Gaithersburg, Md., and Harrisonburg--but the atmosphere was surprisingly stress-free.

"All of us have day jobs and normal lives," Casana said. "We get together on the weekend, play kick-ass music and make people’s lives better."

What: Midnight Spaghetti & The Chocolate G-Strings hold a St. Patrick’s Day bash.
Where: Brock’s Riverside Grill, 503 Sophia Street
When: Monday, 8 p.m. Cost: $8
Info: 540/370-1820
Web: brocksgrill.com

Jonas Beals: 540/368-5036
Email: jbeals@freelancestar.com

http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2008/032008/03132008/362900

Spaghettifest 6 will be happening at Natural Chimneys Park in Mount Solon, VA from September 26-28, 2008. Spaghettifest is Midnight Spaghetti's annual charitable music festival promoting live, original, innovative music from the Mid-Atlantic region. Band submissions for this year's festival are now be accepted. All genres from all localities will be considered.

To be considered for Spaghettifest, bands must sumbit the following:

• CD with five original songs performed by the band
• Physical presskit
• List of all performers and staff that will be attending
• Contact information including phone, email, and mailing address
• 8"x11" stage plot diagram and input list
• $10 submission fee payable to Midnight Spaghetti Productions

Mail all of the above items to:

Midnight Spaghetti Productions
Attention: Spaghettifest 6 Submission
730 Wyndham Woods Circle
Harrisonburg, VA 22801

In an effort to promote more awesomeness in the Universe, I'm pleased to announce the creation of the Power Helmet Posse.

This is a collection of photos of people who have built their own power helmets and wore them to shows. I know there are members who are not reflected in the current collection, so if you have a photo of yourself in a power helmet, please email it to funk@midnightspaghetti.com, you'll be added to the album.



Cheers,
Midnight Spaghetti & The Chocolate G-Strings

Sonicbids is a terrible service and we knew it from the beginning. The only reason we signed up was because we were applying for festivals that insisted we use Sonicbids as they claimed that it was the only way to be considered for the event. In the overwhelming majority of cases, this turned out to not be the case and was instead a means to generate revenue through application fees. In spite of your seemingly extensive music industry connections, no opportunities have ever been presented to our band that were not previously secured through channels independent of your website.

Your business model encourages promoters to advance false opportunities since it generates revenue, both for the promoter in the form of application fees and for yourselves in the form of subscription fees. Well-established bands do not need your services, and everyone else will invariably encounter rejection in return for their dollars. In short, no band should use Sonicbids under any circumstances.

Sincerely,
Midnight Spaghetti & The Chocolate G-Strings

Ok, lots of people have been asking about the Five Years Of Funk poster, so I went ahead and had them made special for the house party on February 8th.

They're full color, full bleed, 11"x17" real deal posters printed on heavy cardstock. There's only going to be 100 of these bad boys printed and the first place we're going to have them available is this show, not online, you got to get it from me personally. Thanks for all your support, see you at the party.

-Midnight Spaghetti

PS - All the info for the party is here.