Blending dance and hip-hop, Scottsdale's Silver Medallion are headed to Los Angeles this weekend to see if they can jump from the Valley club scene to the national pop scene.
Singer Oren Schauble, a hipsterish young man from Hawaii with long blond hair, and emcee Abay Lattin, stage name Carnegie, an Arizona native with a fro-hawk and thickly rimmed glasses, have already generated a buzz in the Valley with their club gigs; local magazine spreads; their song “Scottsdale,” an homage to hedonism; and their compelling blog.
They're fresh off playing to spring breakers in Lake Havasu City with slacker-rocker Asher Roth and club kid-favorite LMFAO as part of shows put on by KEDJ, Edge 103.9.
But the 20-somethings are most excited about playing three 10-minute sets to about 2,700 people at the Vanguard Club as part of a music showcase called Culture Shock. They earned the chance to play by winning the MyStudio and Project Ethos Battle of the Bands.
Silver Medallion will share the night with fashion and art presentations as well as with a blues act and an electronica DJ, all vying for the attention of industry tastemakers.
To win, they created a bare-bones HD video of themselves rapping and singing along to their song “Gravity” using the MyStudio recording space at Scottsdale Fashion Square. The studio is a tiki-hut-sized, enclosed kiosk where anyone can record up to a four-minute video for $20. It's then automatically uploaded to the MyStudio social networking site, where users can order it as a DVD.
“This is a big stage for us,” said Schauble. “We've been working on our new show really hard. We've really tried to turn into a pop act now. I've never practiced this hard. It was about party and fun but not really music with longevity. We take it more seriously now and this is our first opportunity to put together a show that has depth, with different sets, costume changes, dancing, different moods, interludes and all of that.”
Their winning video is pretty minimal and the men are off-center in the frame for most of it. But they perform with charisma and confidence in front of a blue laser background, Carnegie in a baseball cap and a satin athletic jacket and Schauble in aviator shades and a T that reads “Slave to the City.”
The men are hoping to find industry help to release the album they just wrapped at a Chandler recording studio, or to help them book national gigs to support an independent release. To attract that help, the men have also used MyStudio to record videos of themselves discussing the inspiration and recording process for each of the 10 tracks. Schauble and Carnegie ramble casually on the videos, selling themselves and their music, but in a way that's not self-conscious or affected.
“We wanted to show people that we were serious and that we know how to dress right, act right, that someone could put us on TV,” Schauble said.
