The 10,000 MANIACS, the nationally-known band that traces its roots to Jamestown and Jamestown Community College, will return to JCC to play a benefit concert on Saturday, October 22nd.
The concert is scheduled for 8PM in the JCC Physical Education Complex. Tickets are on sale at the JCC Box Office, the Reg Lenna Civic Center and the box office at SUNY Fredonia. Pre-sale ticket prices are $8.50 for the general public. Tickets will be available at the door.
Net proceeds from the concert will benefit Bill Carpenter, a friend of the band members, who was seriously injured this summer in a boating accident on Chautauqua Lake. Carpenter remains hospitalized at the Erie County Medical Center.
The band's most recent album, In My Tribe, has earned a gold record, with sales of more than 750,000. According to band member Dennis Drew, the Maniacs began their tour to promote that album in Jamestown in August 1987, the last time the band played in their hometown. Since that time, the band, which features JCC graduates Natalie Merchant and Rob Buck and former JCC students Drew and Steve Gustafson, has toured Europe and the United States and has appeared on Late Night with David Letterman, The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live. The band has been on the Billboard charts for more than a year, and its video, Like the Weather hit number three on the national video charts. The band's fifth member is Jerome Augustyniak.
Drew said he and other Maniacs met Carpenter while they were students at JCC during the early 1980s. A fellow musician, Carpenter and his bands frequently played concerts with the Maniacs at JCC and elsewhere in the area. He opened as a solo performer for the Maniacs during their last performance at the Civic Center, Drew said.
Opening for the Maniacs during their JCC performance will be The Billups, the Buffalo-based band Carpenter played with before his accident. The Billups, whose members include former Maniacs John Lombardo and Bobby Wachter, play a mixture of modern pop and folk rock, Drew said. The other opening band will be the Jamestown band Cruel Shoes, a rhythm and blues group.
The JCC concert will include some of the band's first performances of music from their upcoming LP, scheduled to begin recording on November 14th. "It's our third LP for Elektra Records," Drew said. "There's a lot riding on it."
Material for the new album represents every facet of the 10,000 Maniacs sound, Drew said, "from danceable to frightening, from pop to dark ballads.
"It represents what we are about," he said. "If anything, it will be a little darker (than In My Tribe) but it won't be a drastic change. We just wanted to make a record for after dark, a sunset record."