NEWSLETTER
VOLUME 1 | ISSUE 7

Included In This Issue:

• Know Your Aura: Brother Love Productions (BLP) Stage
• Artist Spotlight: An Interview With Todd Stoops of Kung Fu
• Northern Love: The Werks
• On The Radar: Former Champions
• Hey DJ: Ancient Intelligence
• Featured Bands - Upcoming Tour Dates

**PRESALES ALERT** Be sure to pickup your tickets today to guarantee yourself a spot at AURA 2012. For only $30/day, you can see over 40 bands, camp in a beautiful setting for three nights, and have one of the best weekends of your life. Don't delay! (AURA is great for Spring Break!) Tickets Available Here

Know Your Aura: Brother Love Productions (BLP) Stage

If AURA had an aura, it would be a brush stroke of clear red and vibrant pink. These colors represent love and energy - the combined forces that go into painting our festival setting. This year, we have partnered with a group that defines that synergy and infuses the characters and events that complete the creative canvas. On the surface, Brotherly Love Productions is a South Florida-based talent organization, but with that mission, the minds behind these efforts have built a strong, tight knit family of music fans and supporters. That brotherhood of love is the catalyst for handing over our new campground stage to them to be their very own. Locals and friends of Florida will be an overarching theme for the BLP Stage, whether it is the funky blues rock from Jacksonville's Saltwater Grass, Asheville's solo-looperNick Noyes mashed with Connecticut's Third Nature teaming up on experimental livetronica or South Florida's very own artist/musician Marc Paper Scissor throwing down an acoustic set with his pals. Of course, we also have a laundry list of all-stars on board to fill the slots from morning to night, so be sure to stop by throughout the weekend and join the family.

Learn more about Brotherly Love Productions here: www.BrotherlyLoveProductions.com | www.Facebook.com/BrotherlyLoveProductions

Artist Spotlight: An Interview With Todd Stoops of Kung Fu

As a premier super group with chops for days, Kung Fu seems like a fitting band name. How did that particular moniker come about?
I was actually on the phone with our bassist, David Livolsi, throwing around different band name ideas while my toddler son Oskar was watching Kung Fu Panda..... the idea just kind of came to me. I thought it was a pretty "kick ass" name for a band.

The band boasts a genesis from a single jam session in 2009. How did you manage to get that much talent in one place at one time given your affiliation with other touring acts?
That's a misconception of sorts. During mid-October of 2009, a good friend of mine brought me to a club where Dave was playing with another group that included some other friends. I sat in for a tune and at the end of the night, we exchanged contact info. We spoke within a few days, and he told me that his friend had opened a small club in New Haven, CT that was looking for a band to host a Monday night residency. And that is how it started. Dave and I immediately wanted Adrian Tramontano and Tim Palmieri from the Breakfast. Dave recommended Kris Jensen, who would be replaced within a year by our current tenor sax-man, the Brass Tongue, Robert Somerville.

Dynamically speaking, Kung Fu doesn't necessarily fall in line with each of your other music projects. Was this blend of jazz-funk fusion something you all secretly wanted to do all along or did the sound come to you organically as the jamming progressed?
It's a genre of music that we all have wanted to perform in the past, but our other projects were going in different directions. When we first started playing, we came up with a list of artists and specific songs that we wanted to bring to the project. They were all pretty similar. What we created out of those influences happened pretty much organically after that.

Although this sub-genre has many great names attached to it, Kung Fu seems to be building a buzz and reputation for a unique delivery, and this has happened in a short amount of time. What is it about the band's chemistry that makes your specific sound so appealing?
We are starting to grow into our own shoes, so to speak, as far as creating a new niche for ourselves. The idea is cerebral musical concepts that make people dance. We all love the energy a dancing crowd gives back to the band. It energizes you and helps you to perform differently than you ever would otherwise. As far as our chemistry, we are all extremely rhythm-based musicians, and that helps to create a pretty serious groove. That's what I think we bring to the table that sets us apart from other funk-fusion acts.. our groove is serious business!

Is this becoming less of a side-project collaboration and more of a permanent project for you guys that will go the distance?
Kung Fu has now become all of our main focus, and we are dedicating ourselves to growing it to the best of our ability.

Your other bands have always been well received in Florida. How do you feel about bringing Kung Fu down to party with us this March at AURA?
We feel fucking fantastic about it! Seriously! We can't wait to rage with you guys, our other friends that are in bands playing there and to turn on a whole new group of people to our sound. We are really humbled and excited to be invited to play, and we are coming to blow that place up!

• Website: http://www.KungFuMusic.com/
• Facebook: http://www.Facebook.com/KungFuTunes
• Twitter: http://www.Youtube.com/user/KungFuTunes

Northern Love: The Werks

When you want it all on one plate, this is the band to come feast on. With a name like The Werks, it makes sense that these guys tour constantly and had a festival rap sheet last year that included Electric Forest, AllGood, Summer Camp, Wakarusa, Camp Bisco and The Big Up. With deep roots in the Midwest music scene, the quartet is an amalgamation of pre-existing staple local bands. They have combined forces to push a regional sonic Renaissance that claims the likes of Umphreys McGee and Papadosio. Anyone familiar with the audio transmissions of these high caliber artists knows that their approach involves patient, full band build-ups, technical instrumental odysseys and captivating releases of tension. The result is often danceable and glittered with texture and recognizable fills.

Lately, the guys have teamed up with some Georgia veterans and took the Eastern jam to the Western Rockies to support the Perpetual Groove boys. Now coming back down from the mile high, they return east for a run from North to South playing late night for Lotus and throwing down with AURA bands The Heavy Pets in Raleigh and Kung Fu in Philly, Richmond and Athens. Proponents of festival throwing themselves as direct contributors to The Harvest Festival and their own The Werk Out, these guys turn music into a labor of love that the AURA family is sure to reap the benefits of.

• Website: http://thewerksmusic.com/band/
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheWerksMusic
• Soundcloud: http://www.Soundcloud.com/The-Werks
• Werk Out Festival: http://www.TheWerkOutFestival.com

On The Radar: Former Champions

"Polished in practice yet full of a welcomed grit, much like their hometown" describes the electro-rock put forth by the Former Champions. Claiming Virginia's major music hub, Richmond, the Champs have been cutting their teeth all over the South for years. A famed residency at Cary St Cafe built a loyal home base of fans that has landed them slots at top regional festivals like Camp Bisco, Amberland and Camp Barefoot. Now we are inviting them to bring their synthetic-laced live electronica to the Forever Florida Ranch.

Switching from dreamy vocal lead compositions to hard driving peaks and then back into a harmonized pocket of boogie-worthy rhythms is not just the norm, it is what makes the Champs one of the best bands in Virginia. Expect strategic odes to dance music's biggest players like Daft Punk and nods to rockers like Nine Inch Nails to be peppered throughout a wild run of originals that will get the party going early on.

• Website: http://www.FormerChampions.net
• Facebook: http://www.Facebook.com/FormerChamps
• Archive: http://www.Archive.org/details/FormerChampions

Hey DJ: Ancient Intelligence

Jared Parfrey, aka Ancient Intelligence, is everything that bassheads love. Finding his muse in what he describes as a "primal intergalactic shape-shifting starship" that is Charleston, SC, the producer/DJ divvies out heavy doses of intelligent dance music, hints of dubstep and far out psychedelic instrumentals. His priority is thumping bass, and at the right volume, it goes as deep as a black hole. Smooth drum grooves run through distorted synthesizer filters and lay the backdrop for intergalactic bells and vocal samples. Easily danceable but more geared towards a journey hell bent on "wiggling your skin right off the bone," prepare to expand your mind as Ancient Intelligence taps into your genetic predisposition to dance to the beat.

• Website: http://www.Facebook.com/Ancient.Intelligence

WHERE CAN YOU SEE OUR FEATURED BANDS?

Kung Fu On Tour

• 3/1 The Blockley Philadelphia, PA w/ The Werks
• 3/2, The Canal Club Richmond, VA w/ The Werks
• 3/3 Visulite Theatre Charlotte, NC
• 3/4 Martin's Downtown Roanoke, VA w/ Freekbot
• 3/6 Georgia Theatre Athens, GA w/ Brock Butler & Friends
• 3/7 The Pourhouse Charleston, SC w/ The Werks
• 3/8, Freebird Live Jacksonville Beach, FL w/ Rebirth Brass Band

The Werks On Tour

• 2/25, Southland Ballroom Raleigh, NC w/ The Heavy Pets
• 3/1 The Blockley Philadelphia, PA w/ Kung Fu
• 3/2 The Canal Club Richmond, VA w/ Kung Fu
• 3/3 The 8x10 Baltimore, MD w/ Jesters of Kindness
• 3/6 Georgia Theatre Athens, GA w/ Brock Butler, Kung Fu and Consider The Source

Former Champions On Tour

• 2/25 Breakers Sky Lounge Herndon, VA
• 3/8 New Earth Music Hall Athens, GA