The Chaser Archives

Straight No Chaser in perfect harmony

By Alicia Blaisdell-Bannon
Cape Cod Times
July 31, 2012

...mostly the group played it, well, straight, with no chaser. Their perfect voices blending seamlessly, their joy at being on tour evident in their body language, they sent a Cape Cod crowd home happy, even as a cold rain misted through the night.

Straight No Chaser founder is behind new YouTube sensation

Dan Ponce has been working with (not singing in) a new a cappella group for the past year called "Gentleman's Rule." June 18th they launched their first music video and it has since gone viral! I imagine this must be quite a feeling of déjà vu for Dan, in the best possible way! Also, I must say that the Ponces are an amazing family! And so are the Mechlings, who appear to be "taking over a cappella," as Charlie tweeted the other day. That's because one of the basses in Gentleman's Rule is his brother, Luke.

**********

By Tom Alvarez
Examiner
June 24, 2012

Did you conceive the video?

(Dan) Yes, the video was my idea. I had arranged the song “Pachanelly Canon,” which combines Pachelbel’s “Canon,” the song that people know from weddings, and “Ride Wit Me” by Nelly, the hip hop artist from St. Louis. The two pieces of music go together very well. I thought it would be fun to shoot it in Chicago, where the group is based out of, and to recreate a wedding. We had the outdoor ceremony, then the wedding party on a trolley and then the reception. I had arranged the “Pachanelly Canon” a while ago and had always envisioned making a music video just like this. I am so happy with how it turned out.

Read more: http://www.examiner.com/article/straight-no-chaser-founder-is-behind-new-youtube-sensation

Hat Tip: @DanPonceTV

Check out the video for yourself. - 184,822 hits at the moment! Although I'm not crazy about the lyrics to the song (I do appreciate the effort to clean them up), I am head over heels for their sound and I can't wait to see what comes next! The video is a lot of fun to watch, too.

Gentleman's Rule "Pachanelly Canon":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzbiqPJBATc

Find them on Twitter: @GentlemansRule
and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/GentlemansRule

For Bookings contact Parallel 49 Agency: http://www.p49agency.com/new-act-announcement-gentlemans-rule/

Straight No Chaser has record-fast sellout at Allentown Symphony Hall; 2nd show added

By John J. Moser
The Morning Call
May 15, 2012

(Edit: The link is no longer active, so the full text appears below.)

Tickets for hit a cappella group Straight No Chaser's Christmastime show at Allentown Symphony Hall sold out in a blink of 41 minutes when they went on sale Friday -- a likely record for the venue and so fast that a second show has been added.

Straight No Chaser, which gained attention more than four years ago with its YouTube performance of "The 12 Days of Christmas," will play a show at 2:30 p.m. Dec. 23 in addition to its previously announced 7:30 p.m. show that day.

Tickets to the early show, at $39.50, $49.50 and $59.50, go on sale at 10 a.m. Tuesday at http://www.allentownsymphony.org, 610-432-6715, or the box office at 23 N. Sixth St., Allentown.

Those prices represent a small discount from the evening show, which sold out the 1,200-seat theater, said Symphony Hall Marketing Director Lucy Bloise. She said it was the fastest sellout in the 11 years she's been with Symphony Hall, and it's likely a record.

It's the second regional venue at which Straight No Chaser has set a ticket-selling record. In 2009, the group sold out the 1,065 seats at the Sherman Theater in Stroudsburg in a single weekend -- four months before its show. That record was broken in 2010 by Grateful Dead legacy group Further, which sold out the Sherman in eight minutes.

It will be the first Allentown show for the group -- whose primary frontman and singer, Jerome Collins, is an Allentown native and Allen High School graduate, and whose musical director, Walter Chase, is a Forks Township native.

The Allentown shows will close the group's fall tour, according to an itinerary released by the group's label, Atlantic Records.

It will come soon after the release of a new Straight No Chaser album -- its first since its Top 30 "With a Twist" in 2010. Atlantic Records says Straight No Chaser will go into the studio this summer to record its fourth full-length album, which is set to be released this fall.

The 10-man group became a hit when a member posted a video of it performing "The 12 Days of Christmas" mashed up with Toto's "Africa." It was intended to be a guide to help members of the group prepare for a 10-year reunion. The group was made up of classmates at Indiana University. The video went viral, and Atlantic signed the group.

The only time the group played the Lehigh Valley was in August, when it drew more than 5,000 to a headlining show at the new Sands Steel Stage at Bethlehem's Musikfest.

The group also has played Reading several times, including to a near-sellout crowd of 3,000 at the Sovereign Center's Reading Eagle Theatre on April 27.

The new tour opens Oct. 24 and also includes an Oct. 27 stop at Wilkes-Barre's F.M. Kirby Center for the Arts.

Straight No Chaser's popularity has also resulted in two-show stops in Chicago on Dec. 9, Cleveland on Dec. 16 and at Hershey Theatre on Dec. 22.

Hat Tip: @ShainaEng

UPDATED: See how fast Straight No Chaser sold out Allentown Symphony Hall

By John J. Moser
Lehigh Valley Music Blog
May 14, 2012

The new date comes after the original show sold out the 1,200-seat theater in a blink of 41 minutes, said Lucy Bloise, Symphony Hall's marketing director.

Bloise said that was the fastest sellout in the 11 years she's been with Symphony Hall, and it's likely a record.

Compelled to a cappella (Randy)

By Bernard Perusse
Postmedia News
May 14, 2012

Read more: http://www2.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/artslife/story.html?id=e9bae6f8-dcec-4674-a0a3-4101285317c0

This article also appeared in the Montreal Gazette under the title "Giving 10 voices to the people; Straight No Chaser's colourful repertoire spans the genres, and its appeal spans the generations." That link is no longer active, but it had an additional bit that I liked after the last paragraph, which this version has deleted. Text appears below.

"We all have in-ear monitors, which helps us to be able to hear ourselves from different parts of the stage. That's what's important to us: to be able to hear ourselves and sing as if we could be singing off mic," he said. "Occasionally, if the crowd's really into it and we come back out for an encore and the room is appropriately sized, we'll do a song without microphones. It breaks down a wall."

And the gesture always proves to others what is obvious to the singers, Stine said. A man in the audience, he said, recently asked him how they sync up all the tracks they sing to. Stine, baffled, asked him what he meant and the man referred to what he called "the drum and bass stuff."

"I said, 'That's just us. There's nothing going on except us singing,' " Stine said. "Sometimes, when there are microphones or any kind of sound production involved in general, people have this disbelief that what we're doing is real or actually sung. They'll say, 'How did you make the drum noise?' Or 'How do you make the bass noise in Billie Jean?' I say, 'I just sing it.' And they say, 'Really? That was you?' And I'm like, 'Yeah.' So sometimes, it's refreshing for us to sing off mic and it allows you to prove yourself to the audience, who might think it was some kind of trick or something."

Hat Tip: @ShainaEng