Back in early December of last year, NPR announced a contest aimed at finding new talent to play for its wildly popular Tiny Desk Concert series. These intimate concerts are held midday in the midst of office cubicles at NPR, and the crowd is a group of lucky producers, editors, reporters, and other NPR workers who get to spend a bit of their lunch with artists as diverse as Where We Live favorites Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill, the Sun Ra Arkestra, and The Pixies.
To enter, contestants just have to make a video of a performance of an original song. And -- oh, it has to be behind a desk of any kind or size.
Monday, January 19, is the last day to submit entries, so in case you've been thinking about it, fire up the iPhone and make a video! I'd really like to have bragging rights next time I'm at NPR HQ, knowing that a Connecticut artist took home the prize.
A few of the bands who've submitted videos so far? Well, there's our friends from Little Ugly. They played a show for Where We Live, live in a storefront space in downtown Hartford back in 2013.
Here's their contest entry, playing their song "Bring Your Broke."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ewmfyOw9tA&feature=em-upload_owner
Another favorite band of ours, Violent Mae, played live for us in December of 2013. Here's their submission, "Man in the Country."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_FwtH6V-kw
Tet Offensive is a band we haven't featured on WNPR yet. They're from New Haven and feature classical string players and singer Brian Robinson. Here's a nice write-up about their Tiny Desk submission from Brian Slattery of the New Haven Independent. And here's the final product:
http://vimeo.com/116759023
Finally, let's say your music isn't classical chamber pop, a guitar and drums duet, or unison-vocal folk rock? Like, let's say you're in a big brass band? Well, as the sonic travelers from Sun Ra's band showed us, you can fit a lot of sound behind one tiny desk!
In fact, here's one of my favorite concerts from the series, the NO BS! Brass Band. I was there live for this one, and they almost blew the windows out.
With that in mind, good luck to The Hartford Hot Several, who performed their tribute to Hartford, "8-6-0," in a classroom full of tiny desks. Full disclosure here, you'll notice our own Chion Wolf playing drums, and contributing producer J. Holt on trumpet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b7TqNVyWTo&feature=youtu.be
Good luck to all the Connecticut artists who enter -- but make sure you get the videos in by today. And if you want to share your submission with us, post it in the comments below.
