Maurice Mattei and The Tempers CD Release Party
Saturday, May. 23, 2009
8:00pm
With special guests David Wolfenberger, Brandon Dawson, Sharon Udah, Mike Helm, and more. Maurice Mattei is a singer/song writer from Cincinnati, Ohio. Born in Italy, he immigrated to America as a child with his family. He started writing songs in his early teen years. After the release of his first recordings in 1983 and 1988 he abandoned music to pursue photography. His interest lay primarily in documentary photography and this led him into certain social circles (Bikers, Drug addicts, Debutantes, Wrestlers, Strippers, Socialites, Celebrities, etc.) that he found to be strangely new and oddly exciting. This vast and glorious parade of life re-ignited his desire to write songs.
myspace.com/mauricematteithetempersDon't Fear The Reverb CD Release Party
Saturday, May. 23, 2009
8:00pm
History of Don't Fear the Reverb - Don's point of view: One June, my wife spotted an ad in the "musicians wanted" section of CITY BEAT, `a free press paper native to Cincinnati, Ohio. I answered the ad and had a reasonably good conversation with Ralph Sweat, the lead guitarist. I thought I would "for sure" get a call. a week or so went by and I followed up on the call and found that they were having their first practice with their new bass player that evening. really and truly interested in this project, I convinced Ralph to let me come over and audition on electric rhythm guitar. The practice went very well and I was accepted on rhythm guitar with provisions of learning 25 new songs for next week. I must have fooled them pretty good because eventually I became part of the band which at that time had no name. I was now in guitar learning and buying mode and my wife, Beth, was in research mode. She was very busy finding out as much as she could about the music, the players, the surf culture, tiki life style, paradise moods of Martin denny, imagery of surf, sun, swimsuits and bikinis. I bought a Mosrite copy and a Hallmark Swept-Wing custom, built by the designers of the Mosrite. Together, beth and I came up with two names: Don't Fear the Reverb was one name and the other was Surfin' Tiki Bandits. Later on I found out by plugging in the names into Google that one surf group had written a tune called Don't Fear the Reverb. Clever name isn't it? Names not being copyrightable except by service mark and trade mark, we kept with it. So the DFR moniker was chosen and the STB moniker will be used on another project. We practiced hard and had our first public performance in August of 2005 at a street festival. Then, by that October our bass player quit just as we were about to perform a benefit concert at the Seasongood Pavilion in Eden Park in Cincinnati. So.... another bass player was recruited and worked out well and more videos were made. But.... after perform