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DMV Artists Add Bandwidth to Telecommuters

DMV artists are a versatile and helpful bunch.

Alchemical Records writer Kimberly Shires is teaming up with Instructional Designer Caryn Sever to launch a web portal to connect the DMV artist community with corporate employees who are currently working from home due to the COVID-19 quarantine. Working parents are currently expected to simultaneously work from home and home-school their kids, while also dealing with the anxiety that the current situation is imposing on the entire world. It is a lot to juggle under ordinary circumstances and nearly impossible under these extraordinary circumstances. Local artists have been confronted with cancelled shows and a shifting income paradigm.

There is a fortunate center of this VENN diagram. Parents need help schooling their kids and many artists have a great deal of experience working with kids. As it turns out several local artists are former teachers in the school system. Of those that are not, many hold graduate degrees and have experience teaching one-on-one music lessons both in person and online. This was a niche they were meant to fill. DMV artists could offer online coaching in a variety of subjects to the children of thinly spread working parents. After doing a little beta testing, Kimberly found there was quite a bit of interest for this win-win collaboration.

Kimberly recognized this connection right away. While she writes for Alchemical Records and is also a local musician, during the day she works for a large multinational bank based in Washington DC. One day, while on a conference call, Kimberly realized that her co-workers were facing a lack of bandwidth as they toggled between work demands and teaching their kids. 

Kimberly Shires, writer with Alchemical Records helps create connections for DMV artists
Kimberly Shires, writer with Alchemical Records

DMV Artists Helping DMV Commuters

Caryn Sever, founder of The DC Tutor Collective helps create connections for DMV artists
Caryn Sever, founder of The DC Tutor Collective

Through Kimberly’s initial interactions with the DMV music community she met Caryn Sever. Caryn joined in the pursuit to connect these two communities. Caryn is an Instructional Designer who works for one of the largest Community Colleges in the country. She is well connected in academia and has a strong passion for learning. Caryn is also an artist. She sings, plays keys and guitar and used to rock out at local DC venues like The Grog and Tankard, The Treehouse Lounge, The Red and the Black (The Red Palace), Jammin Java, and the Velvet Lounge. 

Caryn designed a web-based platform called The DC Tutor Collective to connect the DMV artist community and local parents on a new work-from-home routine. Artists can sign up to meet local parents through www.thetutorcollective.com. Parents can search the network for a good fit for their families. Win-win DMV!

Daniel Warren Hill

Daniel Warren Hill is an American musician, writer, and motivational speaker. He is best known as the frontman for Washington DC area Alternative Rock band YellowTieGuy, as co-founder of Capitol Groove Collective, and increasing the exposure of artists on a global scale through his work with Alchemical Records. 

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Foghat Sonic Mojo 2024 Tour. Fillmore Silver Spring, MD March 9
DMV

Foghat’s Roger Earl Refuses to Slow His Ride

By this point in his life, Foghat founding drummer Roger Earl has visited quite a few doctors. But what may be surprising is that the percussionist, 77, is quick to point out that many of the medical professionals who have worked on him also enjoy rocking out.

“Nearly all the doctors and surgeons I know, they all play something: trumpet, sax, violin, guitar,” Earl said recently. “There’s not too many drummers that are surgeons, there’s probably a good reason for that!”

Earl half-jokingly invites his surgeon-rockers to join him and the other members of Foghat onstage at the Fillmore in Silver Spring March 9, where they will be headlining the Rock and Roll for Children Foundation benefit for the Children’s Inn at NIH. Earl, the only original member of Foghat still in the band, will be banging the skins behind guitarist Bryan Bassett and other members Scott Holt and Rodney O’Quinn. “Slow Ride,” the band’s 1975 megahit, is all but assured to be on the setlist, along with tunes from Foghat’s most recent record, “Sonic Mojo.”

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