Tag Archives: Riffmaster & The Rockme Foundation

Rockme for the Holidays!

The Practical Theatre Company’s hard rocking house band — Riffmaster & The Rockme Foundation — are coming to Chicago to play two fabulous, frenzied dance parties this holiday season.

Riffmaster Peter Van Wagner & The Rockmes are rocking the wrap party for The Vic & Paul Show at Mayne Stage on December 30th.  There’s no charge for those who buy a ticket to see The Vic & Paul Show that night – and there’s just a $10 cover charge if you show up after the show for the rock & roll dance party with the band at 10:30 pm.

It’ll be a rocking closing night bash to remember!

The next night, Riffmaster & The Rockme Foundation will be playing a New Year’s Eve rock & roll celebration at The Prop Theatre.

There might be a cheap cover charge, we might pass the hat – but either way, it’ll be the most cost-effective way to rock in the New Year that you can possibly imagine.  If you truly love rock and roll, and you want to dance ‘til you drop – there can be no better way to ring in the New Year.

Riffmaster & The Rockme Foundation.

Two great gigs in two nights.

A rock & roll marathon you’ll never forget.

Be there – or be square.

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Retro Rockme…

(Left to right) Ronny Crawford, Tom Larson, Larry Schanker, Rush Pearson, Peter Van Wagner, Casey Fox, Tom Kalicky, the author, Brad Hall.

ROCKME PHOTO FUN (Circa ’82-’83)

On a sunny day in 1982 (or perhaps the spring of ’83), the members of Riffmaster & The Rockme Foundation gathered for a photo session in the park next to the house I was renting on Sheridan Road in Evanston. (Someone will, no doubt, recall who the photographer was, so I can give him/her credit.) Luckily, theses photos are sharper than my memory.

Update: Rush Pearson informs me that the photographer was none other than Suzy Crawford!

In the photo above, we give joyous physical expression to our band’s motto: “Make the kids jump!”

In the photo below, we attempt our own version of a classic Beatles album cover.

And in this final photo, Riffmaster Peter Van Wagner proves that, yes ladies, sometimes a man’s guitar IS an extension of his……talents.

In the coming year, The Rockmes plan to return to SPACE in Evanston for our annual Rock & Roll Reunion. Stay tuned.

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Yowza! Yowza! Yowza!

My daughter Emilia and her friend Jesse have been chosen as the emcees for the 2011 Northwestern University Dance Marathon.

You can get more details by clicking here or on the graphic above. One of the largest college charitable events (if not the largest) in the world, The NU Dance Marathon was established in 1975 – and it was one of the very first venues (if not the first) that Riffmaster & The Rockme Foundation played publicly in 1981.

It’s a big deal.

Congratulations, Emilia and Jesse!

Or, as Gig Young’s Oscar-winning dance marathon emcee character  in “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” liked to say…

“Yowza! Yowza! Yowza!”

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More Thrills & Glory…

THRILLS & GLORY: THE BRIEF, BLESSED HISTORY OF THE PRACTICAL THEATRE CO.

Part Three: A Tale of Two Spaces

To read the latest chapter in my personal history of The Practical Theatre Company, click here.

After you’ve read our ancient history, you can check out video clips of far more recent PTC-style comedy if you click here.

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Rockme Music Goes Online!

Make the kids jump at CD Baby!

Just in time to fill those 2010 Christmas (or Hanukkah or Kwanza) stockings — the newest Riffmaster & The Rockme Foundation tunes — and a collection of all-time Rockme classics — are now available online at CD Baby:

Click here to be a part of Digital Rockme-mania…

http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RiffmastertheRockmeFoundation

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