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Press Release
Tolkien connection pays off for Bay Area fantasy-rock band Avalon Rising
“It’s a great time to be a geek” says bassist Mark Ungar as band preps for Hollywood Oscar party gig
San Francisco, CA February 10, 2004: Bay Area Celtic fantasy-rock band Avalon Rising (www.avalonrising.com) is on its way to Hollywood! New Line Cinema’s official Lord of the Rings Fan Club (www.lotrfanclub.com/) has invited the band to perform at their Oscar night party (www.intothewest.net/), to be held at the elegant Hollywood Athletic Club on February 29th. Says club moderator Rosie Gagnon, “We’re all hoping for a Best Picture win for Return of the King, with lots of the actors showing up after the awards.” For the past two years, Oscar parties hosted by the huge online fan group OneRing.net have attracted thousands of fans, with several actors from the epic Peter Jackson film trilogy putting in personal appearances. While not making any promises, Gagnon hopes for similar celebrity attendance at the LOTR Fan Club event, which was created when this year’s OneRing party sold out in 15 minutes. “At the very least we expect Sean Astin, who plays Sam Gamgee in the films – he’s a big supporter of Reading Is Fundamental (http://www.rif.org/), whose Southern California chapter will receive all proceeds from the event. We’re also expecting Dominic Monaghan (Merry Brandybuck).”
Gagnon found Avalon Rising while searching online
for appropriately fantasy-themed entertainment. Founders Kristoph Klover
and Margaret Davis, who are the group’s vocal core as well as playing
harp, flute, recorders, electric and acoustic guitars and octave mandolin, are
already familiar names to serious fans
of J.R.R. Tolkien (author of the Ring trilogy) for their 2002
limited-edition release The Starlit Jewel, officially licensed by the
Tolkien estate. The CD is a collection of Tolkien’s song lyrics set to original
melodies by Klover, Davis, and the late fantasy writer Marion Zimmer Bradley,
author of the popular The Mists of Avalon, which provided partial
inspiration for the band’s name. The band will be performing selections
from the album, as well as new material from Storming Heaven, their new
CD slated for a mid-February release. The 5-piece band, which also features
electric violin, bass and drums, brings
a unique, fantasy-oriented sensibility to their progressive rock music, which
is a refreshing, rhythmically compelling blend of traditional Celtic, Medieval
and original material with psychedelic jam band underpinnings. “I like to call
it fantasy music, in the way that fantasy literature is fantasy literature; it
evokes this certain magical feel of another time and place that may or may not
have ever existed...” is the way Davis explains it.
Besides original songs composed by Klover, the band’s
repertoire includes several by Cynthia McQuillan, well known within the
sci-fi community for her songs based on Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover
novels. Other repertoire includes French Medieval songs – sung by Davis,
who holds a degree in music of the period – as well as several hard-rocking
sets of Irish fiddle tunes and covers of Jethro Tull and The Who.
Marin native Scott Irwin, besides bringing the funk from his seat at the drums, is also a skilled craftsman with expertise at recreating props such as phasers and tricorders from the various Star Trek series. Bassist Mark Ungar has, by his own conservative estimate, read The Lord of the Rings 30 to 40 times since age 12; Marin native Cat Taylor (electric violin), when not pillaging Stevie Nicks’ closet for black velvet and lace, enjoys watching Stargate SG-1.
This year has been something of a watershed in the annals of geekdom, with the release of the final chapter of the epic LOTR trilogy giving vast numbers of people access to the iconography and passions of geekhood as never before. For those engaged in jumping on the bandwagon, it's nice to know that there's an actual band already there. Yes, now it can be revealed: the members of Avalon Rising are geeks - and have been for years! ...and it’s finally paying off.
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