Busy, Busy, Busy

Wow, its been a while since our last blog post.  We've been so busy, we almost forgot about this thing. That being said, there is a lot to talk about.

This past Thursday, we were at Hebe Music in Mt. Holly as the spotlight artist for their open mic night.  As per usual, we kicked ass, despite the fact that Malcolm forgot to bring Andrew's cymbals, bass drum pedal, and drum sticks (oops).  Luckily, Andrew was able to find some sticks in his car, and made the best of the house drum kit. We played a solid half hour set of all originals and closed it out with Bring 'Em Back, which featured plenty of fog machine awesomeness, courtesy of the venue.

In addition to our performance, the venue itself was pretty damn cool too; 1/3 music store, 1/3 restaurant, 1/3 concert venue.  Great food and BYOB too! We will be sure to schedule some more shows at Hebe in the future.

Next up was Millhill Basement in Trenton on Saturday, another really awesome venue.  We've said before how much we love playing basement shows.  The Millhill Basement was no exception.  Imagine  a college party atmosphere at a legit venue with $2 PBRs all night.  That is the Millhill Basement.  By far, one of our favorite venues that we have played to date.  Small rooms packed full of people are the ultimate places for rock and roll shows.  Unfortunately, their PA was also a little small and couldn't quite handle our performance.  It held up for most of our half hour set, but blew up halfway through the last song, I've Seen The Way.  Needless to say, a new PA had to be located before the next band could go on.  Sorry guys!  Hopefully, we'll be invited back in the future anyway.

Speaking of the future, lets talk about the more immediate future of Jenny Crank.  We currently have 3 shows scheduled in the next two weeks.  This Friday, we are back at the ICAC for another kickass 10 for $10 show.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with these, it means that you get to see 10 bands for just $10.  Some of these shows can be absolutely miserable because they are genre-themed and every band sounds the same.  Lucky for you guys (and us), the show we're doing on Friday is not one of those.  That's because Pip's Booking set the show up. Pip's is really good about getting a mix of genres on each of their shows, which is why we love playing for them.  This particular show is shaping up to be one of their best with performances from Big Twig, Forever Vengeance, Stealing Home, and many more.  Of course, we will be opening the show up as usual to get things started with a bang.  We go on at 6 so make sure to get there early.

Our next scheduled show after that is at The Philly Homebrew Club's Winter Warmers : Chili and Holiday Ales Festival. It will take place on Sunday February 10 starting at noon and it is only $15 for endless samples of ale and chili! We played one of these back in October and it was a blast.  We're willing to bet that you'll have a blast too if you decide to come out.  Join the Facebook Event Page so you don't forget about it!

Only four short days after that, we are very excited to announce that will be be playing at The Legendary Dobbs on South Street in Philly.  Not only is this going to be our first ever show at Dobbs, it is also Valentine's Day!  The event is being billed as An Evening of Rockmance, and there will be awesome drink specials until 12am, as well as a door discount for couples.  However, if you're single and you wanna mingle, you should come out too.  Don't sit at home and cry about the roses you didn't receive.  Come out and have a great time with us!

What's to come after that? Nothing is currently scheduled. You'll just have to wait and see...

3 Shows, 2 Nights

Helllooo Jenny Crank fans! You guys were AWESOME last weekend!!!!! Thanks for coming out and having a great time with us (actually 3 great times).

Show # 1: ICAC Hall 7pm 12/14, Gloucester City, NJ

The mayhem began Friday night 12/14 at the ICAC in Gloucester City.  This was a last minute show we decided to hop because, "Why Not?" We always have such a great time at the ICAC, we couldn't pass up the opportunity, even though we already had a gig scheduled for later that evening (We'll get to that later on).  We kicked off the show promptly at 7.  Actually, it was more like 7:30.  The opening song of the set was All The Things You Do, which I don't think we've ever opened with before, but it worked so maybe we'll open with it again sometime.  We then went into What Happened to Your Love, a kickin version of Jingle Bell Rock, What I Think, and Bring 'Em Back; a great 5 song warmup prior to our massive Christmas Extravaganza at The Red Eagle later that evening.

Show # 2 : Red Eagle Tavern 10pm 12/14, Cherry Hill, NJ

In typical Jenny Crank fashion, we kicked off our Christmas Extravaganza at The Red Eagle precisely 45 minutes to an hour behind schedule.  We could have been more on time, but we needed to get in full Christmas attire and set up the fiber-optic poinsettia bush.  Much to our surprise, there was already a massive Christmas tree there, so we actually had TWO Christmas trees in our set!  How's that for Christmas spirit?!

Unfortunately, the camera didn't catch the fiber-optic poinsettia.

Once again, we divided the show into two sets, 13 songs in each; including a variety of covers and originals.  Our cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd's Simple Man made its debut during our second set to great audience reception.  Jingle Bell Rock was also a huge hit and many in the audience felt that our version "should be played on the radio, not that one they usually play. That one sucks, your guys' version is better."We agree! Let's get it on the radio!  As usual, Won't Get Fooled Again was a huge hit and people at the bar were begging for it the second we walked in.  We were kind to them and played it during the first set.  Our originals were also received well, especially I've Seen The Way.

Everyone in attendance really loved our set except for one very drunken patron who thought we "sucked," but everyone has a right to their opinion.  Although, the rest of the audience disagreed and told him not so nicely to shut his mouth because they thought we were awesome.  In fact, one audience member named Henry thought we were so good, he gave us $115 in cash to purchase new equipment!  We would like to thank Henry for his more than generous contribution.

Show # 3 : The Magic School Bus (Rutgers Basement) 9:40pm 12/15, New Brunswick NJ

Front Row View, Up Close and Personal

Party, Party, Partaayyyyyyy!!!! Basement shows are SOOOOO MUCCHHH FUNNN!!!!!!  This particular basement show featured entertainment from Mt. Hope, Merchant Copy, Ceilvino, and of course JENNY CRANK!  We went on third, so we were super pumped and "Ready to Go" by the time our set came around.  Naturally, we opened with Ready to Go/I've Seen The Way.  Ready to Go was complete with the standard beer bottle slide solo, but this time Malcolm got so excited he smashed the bottle immediately after the solo, much to the enjoyment of the crowd.  As we generally do at basement shows, we decided not to have a strict setlist and to figure it out as we went.  Its more exciting that way; even we don't know what's coming next!  After Ready to Go/I've Seen The Way, we went into Foxy Lady, which included an extended jam and teeth guitar solo in tribute to Jimi (visit our Facebook to see video footage).  We then followed Hendrix with Weezer; can't say we've ever done that before, but it seemed to work.  Next, we had absolutely no choice but to play What Happened to Your Love for an extremely excited Matt Genna, who could not wait any longer to hear his favorite song of ours.  At this point, we were notified that our time was almost up and that we could only play two more songs, so we had to choose wisely.  Of course, we had to go with What I Think so Andrew could do his always astonishing drum solo.  We then finished up the set with Whole Lotta Love.  As if that ending wasn't long enough, the crowd still wanted more.  As soon as we finished up Whole Lotta Love, the crowd started chanting "ONE MORE SONG, ONE MORE SONG!!" So we did the only thing we could do in that situation, we played the longest song we know: Won't Get Fooled Again!

Awesome Show, Awesome People, can't wait til the next Rutgers basement show.  It WILL be sooner rather than later. Thanks to JL and all the other residents of The Magic School Bus for hosting the event and risking their house and reputations in the process.  Also, thank you to all the other bands for making this event happen!

Drummer's Eye View Looking out at our Amazing Fans!

Hurricane Sandy Benefit Shows

This weekend Jenny Crank played two benefit shows for victims of Hurricane Sandy.  Friday night we were at the ICAC in Gloucester City. We opened up with What You Bargain For, followed by 206.  Then we went into Bring 'Em Back, which we generally close with, but we figured we'd change it up a bit.  Next was What I Think, followed by our closer Empty Shells.  The whole set went over really well, and the crowd loved it.  Thanks to everyone who came up to talk to us after the show! We really appreciate the feedback.  It was a great show overall with a lot of other great bands as well; some of whom, we will have the pleasure of playing with again at the ICAC in a few weeks! That's right!!!! Jenny Crank will be BACK at the ICAC on November 30 for another awesome show!!!! It's gonna be a great time, so definitely come out.  They have a bar with cheap drinks, why not come?!

In addition to the gig at the ICAC, Jenny Crank hopped on a benefit show up at Rutgers New Brunswick on Sunday afternoon.  We decided to do an acoustic set due to time constraints.  Since there were so many performers, each group was limited to a 10 minute set.  The acoustic set allowed us to spend less time on setup and more time on playing.  We opened up with What You Bargain For, followed by What Happened To Your Love, and closed with Never Be Together.  The set went incredibly well, especially considering we'd never played any of those songs on acoustic before.  But everyone enjoyed it, and it actually fit the atmosphere of the event much better than an all-out rock and roll spectacular.  There's even some fan-shot footage of the event that will be posted soon. Stay tuned!!!!

Hell of a Halloweekend

What a weekend!!! Jenny Crank invaded the great city of PHILADELPHIAAA this past Friday and Saturday.  Friday night we were at the most awesome venue there is: a scummy basement with a ceiling so low you could hardly stand up.  It doesn't get more rock and roll than that.  Needless to say, in that kind of atmosphere, we were in rare form and ready to ROCK!!!  And that is just what we did.  We started up around midnight with Ready to Go/I've Seen the Way.  That was as much as we planned for the entire evening, though.  We decided to take a new approach and plan the setlist as it happened; one song at a time.  Interestingly enough, it was probably the best setlist we've ever put together.  Too bad none of us remember it exactly. I'm pretty sure we played all our originals except for Never Be Together and Give Your Love Away (all to great audience reception).  As far as covers go, we did some Hendrix, some Zep, Chili Peppers, and even some Green Day and Weezer.  Around 1:30ish, we wrapped things up and handed the reigns over to Scott, Sean and Will, who kept the crowd entertained with some great punk cover songs.  After they finished up, we were about to do an encore of Highway to Hell, By the Way, and possibly even an old original song called Shove It.  Unfortunately, 5 cop cars showed up.  Apparently, some people don't think 3am is a great time to play rock and roll at high volumes.  We disagree.  As a matter of fact, Mike didn't even know the cops were there. One of the best scenes of the evening:  Mike drinking a beer says "What cops? There's no cops here!" Police officer comes out of nowhere and knocks Mike's beer out of his hand with a nightstick.  Needless to say, we didn't get to play our encore.  Even still, it was the best show we've ever played.  Great time, AWESOME crowd!!!!!!!!! Thanks to Sean and whoever else lives at that house for making it happen!!

So that was Friday night; actually Saturday morning if you want to get down to it.  Fast forward about 7 hours and we were at our next gig.  Slightly hungover? Possibly, but still ready to go for Philly Homebrew Club's Simply Succulent Swine Festival.  Luckily we didn't go on until 3, so we had some time to chill out and enjoy some of the awesome homebrews beforehand.  There was even a pumpkin beer in an actual pumpkin with a tap!!!!! AWESOME!!!!  Of course, there was a hog roast too, which was excellent.  The beerfest was definitely a different kind of crowd from the night before, though, so we adjusted the setlist accordingly.  We actually planned it out this time.  We focused mainly on classic rock covers and avoided some of our more intense originals like 206.  Not that the people there wouldn't have enjoyed them, but we didn't want to make anyone get too rowdy and get kicked out.  After all, people had to pay $25 to get in.  We opened up with Rock and Roll by Zeppelin followed by our original All The Things You Do.   We also did some Hendrix, AC/DC, and The Who. While, it may not have been as wild and insane as the night before, it was still a really solid set and everyone in attendance had a great time.  Thanks to the Philly Homebrew Club for having us; any future events, feel free to contact us!!

Jenny Crank Cranks Up The Heat at The Stone Pony

Cold, miserable, rainy Sundays in October are not generally when one would think to journey down to the Jersey Shore.  Nonetheless, there was plenty of reason to head down to the Stone Pony in Asbury Park this past Sunday, October 7, 2012.  The legendary venue was hosting a Rock to the Top event showcasing all kinds of local acts from around the area; Jenny Crank being one of them!!!!  Our set kicked off at 6:20pm. Once again we started off with Ready to Go and segued into I've Seen the Way.  Even with the outdoor section of the venue wide open, we all broke a sweat before the first chorus of Ready to Go.  Nothing like a little adrenaline to get the blood flowing.  After I've Seen the Way, we changed up the set a bit and launched into Empty Shells (Andrew probably wants to let you know that Empty Shells is really fun to play).   After Empty Shells, it was All The Things You Do, What I Think, and Bring 'Em Back.  Another relatively short set by Jenny Crank standards, but a great time nonetheless.  Thanks to The Stone Pony for the opportunity; we will be back again in the next few months!!! In the meantime, let's tackle the New Brunswick and Philly basement show scenes...

Live video of Ready to Go from The Stone Pony:

Jenny Crank Tears It Up at the Jumpzone

Yello!!! Huge thanks to Jumpzone Shows, Felicia, all the bands, and everyone who came out to Sicklerville last night!!! We had a great time playing and getting to meet everyone afterwards.  For those of you who couldn't make it or got lost on the way, we will recap the show for you.  We started at 6:30pm Rock and Roll Standard Time (it was about 6:45).  Once again, we kicked off the show with the one-two punch that is Ready To Go/I've Seen The Way.  Those two songs just seem to get the crowd and the band warmed up in no time.  After a quick guitar switch, we went right into the always funky All The Things You Do.  Next came What I Think.  Due to time constraints, there was no drum solo in this particular version, but it is still such a kickass song we couldn't leave it out of the set.  To finish off our presentation, we launched into the craziness that is Bring 'Em Back.  Of course it wasn't just a standard performance of Bring 'Em Back, it was the final song of our set, so it was complete with a crazy rock and roll ending full of wild drums and crazy guitar and bass solo nonsense.  There is no other acceptable way to close out a show.

No covers you ask???!!! It is a rare occasion indeed when Jenny Crank does not throw in a classic rock cover or two.  However, with the time constraints, we thought it would be best to showcase our original music.  Gotta say, it feels pretty awesome to play a set that is all original music and have people enjoy it. Thanks Everyone, see you soon!!!!!

Below are two pictures: The top picture is the Jumpzone before we played.  The bottom is a picture of what remains standing after the show...

Jenny Crank Kicked Ass at The Red Eagle

Yooooooo Everybodddyyyyy!!!! First of all, thanks to everyone who made it out to Saturday's gig at the Red Eagle in Cherry Hill. For those of you who couldn't make it, we will fill you in on what went down. The evening started out with a one-two punch of Jenny Crank originals. Ready To Go came first, and included a beer bottle slide guitar solo by Malcolm Hazel. The band then immediately segued into I've Seen The Way before the crowd even knew what hit them. Foxy Lady came next in the set, and was the first of many great cover songs. The evening continued in similar fashion, following the lead of bassist/frontman Mike Wall, until finally wrapping up around 1am. The set was actually finished around midnight, but the crowd wanted more, so the band kept playing. We ended up playing Won't Get Fooled Again by The Who probably 3 times. Other cover songs from the evening included Sharp Dressed Man, Whole Lotta Love, By the Way, Are You In, Young Lust, and even a rockin version of Daytripper. On top of all that was the always incredible drum solo during our original What I Think by the one and only Andrew Countryman.

This was actually the longest, most extensive show any of us have ever played. However, we are going to continue building up the setlist so we can play even longer shows!!!! We are currently working on new original music and taking any requests you might have for covers. Jenny Crank at the Red Eagle is going to become a regular gig. We'll see you at the next one.

Peace, Love, and ROCK AND ROLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!