Stokes talks about “fourth member of the band”

The Morning Call of Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley recently offered some insight on State Radio’s news and yet-untitled album during an interview with Chad Stokes:

The band has been hard at work on its third CD. The album, which could see a release by this fall, is being produced by Dominic Monk, who worked as producer Blake’s engineer on ”Year of the Crow” and has also been State Radio’s live tour engineer.

Stokes says the third CD will have songs with the harder rocking edge of ”Year of the Crow,” but the album also has a bit of a different vibe.

”I think it carries on with some of the ‘Year of the Crowness,’ but there’s something about it that feels even less, I guess, less thought out in a way. It just feels more like a band getting in a room and just playing together.

”We were nervous to record with Tchad Blake,” Stokes says. ”We knew that we were paying all sorts of money to be at Real World Studios for 10 days. There was a certain amount of pressure that made us be on top of our game. I think with Dom [Monk], and our relationship with him as our live sound guy, he’s more of a fourth member of the band.”

Dom Monks is currently mixing the album in Bath, England.

“Sonic disturbances in the medium of air particles”

Taken from Justin Baumann’s much-anticipated report from Australia: 

The evening’s treats included an unruly Barn Storming, which excited all of the carbon-based life forms in the room, causing uncontrolled gyration amongst the gathered masses (similar to an Elvis sighting probably). Arsenic and Clover was then distributed to the crowd via sonic disturbances in the medium of air particles at the speed of 1125 ft/s, inciting furious head bobbing and feet shuffling. And, finally, without warning, (and as all seemed in good health,) Mr.Larkin stopped by and punched each person in the ear hole, without an apology or regret.

You can read more about State Radio’s trip Down Under and their hometown weekend in Boston on Justin’s blog over at CallingAllCrows.org.  Cheers!

State Radio, Calling All Crows featured on BostonMusicSpotlight.com

This past weekend was a busy one for State Radio.  Not only did the band play a sold out show at the new House of Blues on Lansdowne Street, but Chad Stokes also led fans at four different environmental service projects in the Greater-Boston area,  Thursday through Sunday. 

Thanks to everyone who joined us at Hampton Beach, the Franklin Park Zoo, Mattapan Elementary School, and EarthWorks! 

BostonMusicSpotlight.com has a great article on this past “marathon weekend” of service:

Not every rockstar would spend his homecoming weekend cleaning up urban wilds, planting trees, and spreading mulch between shows, but that is what Chad and his partner Sybil Gallagher do in nearly every city they visit. They founded their humanitarian organization, Calling All Crows, as a way to mobilize musicians and their fans to get involved in public service and humanitarian efforts. Today’s event is the kickoff to the Serve America Challenge, a ten-day string of service projects to celebrate the passage of the Serve America Act. About two dozen State Radio fans have shown up at the Cooper Center, where the nonprofit Earthworks is based. Earthworks leads a variety of environmental projects around Boston, mainly community gardens and orchards. Today we’re doing a spring cleanup and getting the ground ready to plant trees in. Many of the volunteers were at the State Radio show last night, and most will end up the Paradise later for a solo acoustic show with Chad. But for now, they’re getting dirty.

Thanks to contributing writer Ethan Swann for getting his hands dirty and joining us in service on Sunday!

Obama to sign Serve America Act this afternoon!

This afternoon, at a public boarding school in Washington, D.C., President Barack Obama will make history by signing the Serve America Act and expanding the ranks of AmeriCorps from 75,000 members to 250,000 members annually.

The AmeriCorps program started by President Bill Clinton will triple in size over the next eight years, and tens of thousands of other Americans will soon see new opportunities to give back to their communities.

 It’s all part of a $5.7 billion national service bill President Barack Obama is scheduled to sign Tuesday to foster and fulfill people’s desire to make a difference, such as by mentoring children, cleaning up parks or building and weatherizing homes for the poor.

Bolstering voluntary public service programs has been a priority of Obama, who credits his work as a community organizer in his early 20s for giving him direction in life.

Pretty sweet that the bill signing falls smack-dab in the middle of the 10-day Serve America Challenge, huh?!  We love it!

Full story here…

Stokes on Service: “Amazing to meet people… doing real things and not just talking about it”

From an article in today’s Hampton Union via Seacoastonline.com:

“The beach is such a focal point of the community, and keeping it clean and safe is vitally important,” said (Chad) Stokes, who noticed the beach during a recent tour-stop at the Casino Ballroom.

Stokes said the best part about organizing events like Thursday’s cleanup was getting the opportunity to meet locals “doing their part to help keep their communities clean.”

“It’s amazing to meet people who are out there doing real things and not just talking about it,” said Stokes.

More on yesterday’s Hampton Beach cleanup here…