This quarter’s Rockcital will take place in the same place as the first Rockcital and I’ve been getting a bit nostalgic thinking back on the history of Rock ‘n’ More and our Rockology class. There are enough memories to fill a large book and I think I’ll write about some of the memories over the course of the next couple weeks for those who may find it interesting or nostalgic. I would also love to hear some of your memories from past Rockcitals. Please leave memories in the comment section or you can email me at dace@rocknmore.org.
Did you know:
The very first Rockcital took place in October of 2005 at the Maple Valley Community Center. It was about four months after the official start of the business.
At the time of the very first Rockcital, the name of the school was “The School of Rock”. I later found out that was the name of a music school over in New York. Not wanting to be thought to be affiliated with that business, I changed the name of my business to “U of Rock”. Then we became affiliated with a non-profit and changed our name to their name, which was “Rock School.” Rock School was a really cool music school, but we eventually went out on our own and, by 2008 we became Dace’s Rock ‘n’ More Music Academy and, shortly thereafter, became a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
The first Rockcital consisted of five bands and lasted for just about an hour. I remember, at the end of the show saying, “this is just the beginning, we’ll have more bands in the future.” And we did. For virtually all of the next 14 years we had 8-15 bands every quarter. There became far too many bands and fans for the Community Center to hold. We had to find other spaces!
Over the next 14 years Rockcitals were held at Studio 7, Hell’s Kitchen, Kirkland Teen Union Building, The Maple Valley Creative Arts Center, The Lake Wilderness Lodge, The Hard Rock Café, Jazzbones, Chop Suey, Ground Zero, Luther’s Table, The Berliner, The Skylark, El Corazon, and our favorites, The Chalet, and The Swiss.
Am I missing any? Fill me in if I have.
More memories in a bit to answer questions like: “Has anyone ever thrown up due to nerves at a Rockcital?” And “what was going through Arielle’s head when she tripped onstage at The Swiss in front of 300 people?”