The Congregational Church of Birmingham               United Church of Christ                                1000 Cranbrook Rd.                         Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304                              Phone #: 248.646.4511                            Fax #: 248.646.9375           Church Email: ccbchurch1000@sbcglobal.net

 

Wallet Hurting? Isn't everyones? Need a Distraction? Red Comma Cafe remains committed to bringing in only top notch talent! However, we know times are tough. We also know how important it is to relax and enjoy some of the pleasures of this life... like great music.... especially during tough times! Throughout this series we are taking some risks and offering a few free-will or deeply discounted tickets. That means we want you to come and pay as you are able. The musicians always have to get paid (it's how they put food on their own tables) so if you are able please pay the full ticket price of $15 and maybe even consider an extra donation. We will post ticket amounts as we go along. If your wallet is toast and you need a lift, don't worry... come and enjoy this fun music community anyway! Read our Mission Statement in the side bar to the right   Next show Saturday November 29 Sunshine Cadavers   Host: Colin Wilson The Sunshine Cadavers are an incredibly talented one of a kind sound Jazz/fusion/ experimental/ progressive .... Check it out on youtube.com A great Red Comma discovery! Free Will Donation Show starts at 8:00pm No open mic for this show    scroll down for details and the complete 2008-2009 lineup   TO ORDER TICKETS   248-646-4511 or  e-mail ccbchurch1000@sbcglobal.net. Tickets are priced per concert map OPEN MIC Beginning at 6:30 p.m. before our main stage concerts, Red Comma Coffeehouse hosts a free informal Open Mic Stage which is open to all performance styles. Poetry, comedy skits, any kind of music, literature readings, you name it—for 10 minutes, the stage is yours, but please keep the material within the PG-13 range. This also may lead to being invited back for a future performance. It’s fun for the audience too, so come early and enjoy the variety. Bring your friends and fans. The coffee and snacks, available for purchase, are great—and the company is, too! Canned Food Drive We will be collecting canned goods and school supplies at all of the concerts. For each item you bring your name will be entered into a drawing for a CD of the featured performer. Recipient organizations include Pontiac Lighthouse, Ruth Ellis Center and Starr Commonwealth Red Comma Extras Sometimes excellent musicians come to our attention after the line up is announced so.... keep an eye out for Red Comma Extras. Make sure to get yourself on our e mailing list. Contact ccbchurch1000@sbcglobal.net. This is also the place where we will highlight promising up and coming performers. Volunteers Interested in helping behind the scenes with Red Comma cafe? Contact ccbchurch1000@sbcglobal.net Please.. really there is a lot to do!!! Want to advertise you business in RCC bulletins? Interested in becoming a Patron or corporate sponsor? Request more info at ccbchurch1000@sbcglobal.net.  Very affordable... like so affordable you can't not do it!     2008-2009 Event Line Up     September 27 Red Comma Cafe is very excited to introduce the Michigan debut performance of The Ramblin River Road Show Hosted by Matt Watroba Featuring Miss Kitty Donohoe The Raisin Pickers and the hilarious family humor of O.J. Anderson The Ramblin’ River Road Show will sweep you back to a time in America when entertainment meant a lively array of performances suitable for the whole family. You will smile, laugh, sing along, and tap your feet to a simpler kind of fun all but forgotten in this high-tech, digital world. It's a family friendly show, so  bring the kids! Tickets ADULTS $18 / STUDENTS & SENIORS $15 Concert starts at 8:00pm Open mic at 6:30pm     Saturday October 25 Lesley-Anne Graham with special guest David Mosher of the Raisin Pickers Host: Mark Stone Urban Folk Free Will Offering Concert (Please consider a $5 minimum donation) Open Mic at 6:30pm     November 15 Red Comma cafe is thrilled to bring to our stage for the very first time SUNKWA Host : Mark Stone 8:00pm     Sunkwa was established in 1999, with the objective to developing a first class performance group, to explore Jazz, pop and world music foundations of World music. The group comprises of six-seven musicians, all of whom are master musicians in their own rights. Sunkwa’s instrumentations are combined with traditional instruments from West Africa like the Gyil (Ancient xylophone from Ghana), saxophone, trumpet, keyboard, acoustic/electric guitars, electric bass guitar and drums. The music has its roots in Ghana, but also draws on other international styles of music. Sunkwa has tunes that fuses world xylophone music traditions from various part of Africa, and have compositions commingling world beat rhythms. As a group, Sunkwa represents an honest reflection of peace and unity through music. It's a unique combination, an ancient mallet keyboard and a modern team of dynamo performers. This is a  Free Will Offering Concert Show starts at 8:00pm open mic at 6:30pm   Saturday November 29 The Sunshine Cadavers Phenomenal Jazz Fusion Hosts: Colin & Greg Wilson This is a Red Comma Benefit Concert Experience the band at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_RmsWqSrUA Again at RCC... ...exceptional talent doing extraordinary things. 8:00pm in the coffeehouse (gotta have dancin' space for this one) No open mic     December 6 Red Comma welcomes back the hilarious and entertaining, one & only Don White 8:00pm Don calls himself a singer-songwriter, author, folk artist and the like. We call him the most hilarious thing to hit our stage! One minute Don has you laughing so hard you can't breathe and in the next he delives a ballad that brings the room to complete silence. He's fabulous and we are happy to have him to Red Comma again Tickets are $15 open mic starts at 6:30pm How Appropriate that Don's concert is an annual fundraiser to send our teen-agers off to... WORK CAMP!!!!! If you don't know why that's just flat-out hilarious come and see Don, you'll get it.      January 9 Slow down from the hectic holiday season with the steel drum sounds of SouthPaw Isle Host: Jeremy McCloud 8:00pm   While rooted in Caribbean pan tradition, Southpaw Isle continually stretches the limits of the steelband sound. The group's repertoire includes jazz, classical, samba, calypso, and original compositions. As the only non-Caribbean ensemble to perform at the 2004 World Steelband Festival in Trinidad, Southpaw Isle is truly dedicated to this amazing melodic-percussion instrument. Ticket Price to be Announced open mic at 6:30pm   February 21 For the very first time at the Red Comma Claudia Schmidt   Host: Matt Watroba   A musician who has always hated categories, she describes herself as a "creative noisemaker,"which has irritated some critics but delighted many audiences, who learn to expect anything at aSchmidt concert, hymn, poem, bawdy verse, torch song, satire, and the gamut of emotions. Her live performances are not to be missed. Her musicality is astonishing. Her joy and love of performing arecontagious. She can weave the elements of music and stage into a program so unified and full of lifethat one critic has described a Claudia Schmidt concert as "....a lot like falling in love. You never know what's going to happen next, chances are it's going to be wonderful, every moment is burned into yourmemory, and you know you'll never be the same again."   "Schmidt's shows... are a lot like falling in love.  You never know what's going to happen next, chances are it's going to be wonderful, every moment is burned into your memory and you know you'll never be the same again." - San Francisco Bay Gaurdian (San Francisco, CA) Ticket Price to Be Announced Open Mic at 6:30pm       March 20 Announcing exceptional talent on the RCC stage Imaginary Homeland Host: Lesley-Anne Graham This acoustic jazz quartet takes a global view, with talking drums, African rhythms, and fiddle music of the Sahara. Led by the "visionary jazz and world-music saxophonist" David Rogers (Hartford Courant), the band’s sound has been called “a fusion masterpiece” (AllAboutJazz). Jazz composer David Rogers left his Missouri roots and his music conservatory training in the States to spend two years living in the home of master drummers in rural Ghana. Living in a thatch hut through dust storms and rain seasons, he studied the native drum language and history of the talking drum. When he returned, he formed Imaginary Homeland with three other American musicians whose combined experience stretches from Ghana and Uganda to the hills of West Virginia and downtown New York. Marlene Rice's soaring violin and Matt Pavolka's acoustic bass find the string sound in each of these traditions, while percussionist Mark Stone drives the rhythm. Ticket Amount to be announced OPEN MIC AT 6:30PM   April 17 Spoken Word Debut Host: Jeremy McCloud Event Announcement Pending Details     May 9 8:00pm Danny Schmidt     "Everything about the man is gentle, except his capacity for insight, which is crushing.” - Songwriter Jeffrey Foucault   with Special Guest Matt Cifaldi Host: Matt Watroba Austin, TX-based singer/songwriter, Danny Schmidt has been building an enthusiastic (nearly cult-like) following while simultaneously inspiring the admiration of his fellow artists and critical acclaim from industry professionals. He is the real deal, an authentic timeless troubadour in the tradition of Townes Van Zandt, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Dave Carter, who delivers his craft with a quiet power, a level of complexity, and an underlying humanity that is truly rare in this age of sound bite marketeering.   It's his songwriting which won him the prestigous Kerrville New Folk award, but it's his intense live performances that leave listeners with a sense that each of his songs is necessary, plain and simple. His guitar work is effortless and sparkling, his arrangements are fresh and unpredictable, his voice ageless. Stylistically and musically, Danny’s writing spans an impressively diverse reach, from deeply-rooted Appalachian mountain gospel to haunted English balladry, from syncopated Piedmont country blues to vagabond 60’s protest folk-stumpery.    He tackles universal themes of love, loss, and longing . . . restless discontent and grateful joy. And he captures both the sorrow and the beauty inherent in our everyday lives with the wisdom of a perceptive, compassionate elder and with the innocent awe and tenderness of a child.    In the words of Sing Out Magazine: "He is perhaps the best new songwriter we've heard in the last 15 years." And in the words of Texas Monthly: "With seductive simplicity, his music simply demands your attention."   This is one show not to be missed Ticket Amount to be Announced Open Mic at 6:30pm     June 6 Best of Open Mic Host: Lesley-Anne Graham 8:00pm more details to come          Spring 2007 Concert Series Josh White Jr Robert Jones and Matt Watroba Red Comma Folk Festival Order tickets by calling 248-646-4511 or e mail ccbchurch1000@sbcglobal.net with concert name in the subject line. Purchase  all four concerts for the price of three! If reserving after 3:00pm on the Friday prior to the concert or  the Saturday of the concert, please call 248-417-4427.   Josh White Jr in Concert at the Red Comma Café  Saturday, April 26, 2008 at 8pm.   Josh White Jr is an artist born in New York. He plays music in the pop, jazz and folk genres and is entertainment no matter what your age. Josh White Jr has accomplished a lot his lifetime and earned himself many awards including Michigan Man of the Year in 1984.   To learn more about Josh White Jr and his music and life accomplishments check out his website!   Detroit's own Lesley-Anne Graham opens the show!             Join us for an open-mic session starting at 6:30pm!    top   Robert Jones & Matt Watroba May 17, 2008 at 8pm at the Red Comma Café   These two performers have a grasp on the roots of American music and perform it just as excellently. They've worked in libraries, schools and in communities spreading their enthusiam. So come sit back and get lost in their beautiful melodies. More Information.    Join us for an open-mic session starting at 6:30pm!     Red Comma Café Folk Festival! On Saturday June 14 , 2008 at 7:00pm Join us for an open-mic session starting at 5:15pm! Join CCB for a night of folk music and fun! Anne Hills, the Raisin Pickers and more will be performing on this evening.     top    Anne Hills is a folk singer from NY. Her voice is beautiful, and her lyrics original. To learn more about Anne Hills visit her website.                 The Raisin Pickers are a band with three members that play traditional folk music. They are a whimsical string band tied to all the roots of american music, with beautiful performing talent. To learn more about them visit their site.              And                   Mustard's Retreat!          top          The Red Comma Café hosts an eclectic line-up of musicians and entertainment throughout the year. The café has hosted folk, blues, classical, rock, world beat, pop, and even a garage band or two. The common theme is lots of fun, friends, and community. Summer concerts are often held outside in our comfortable garden setting. Snacks and beverages are available for purchase.