A while back, I did some short interviews with local girl drummers whom I admire. I’ve been sitting on these thinking I’m going to do something huge with them, but I’ve come around to thinking I should just post them! … Read More
December ’11 update: We were very honored to have TIME Magazine Online select our video as No. 6 (we see what you did there) in its Top Ten Creative Videos of 2011 List – TIME LINK July 11 update: … Read More
June 30th we headed down to Porter Belly’s to check out Northampton band, Bunny’s A Swine – as part of Local Music 101‘s podcast series. Video 1, 2, 3. 7/14 we caught the I, Pistol CD Release at TT the … Read More
Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling and Parlour Bells are playing tomorrow at The Lizard Lounge, Cambridge MA and we decided to collaborate on a cover song – it was all supposed to be a delicious secret, but in … Read More
Go “like” the OTTwMD facebook page! OTTwMD plays local Boston music and is on every Wednesday from 9pm-Midnight and almost always features a live band around 10:30 – it’s on 91.5 WMFO – http://wmfo.org. Send your CDs to the station … Read More
Last month we were very pleased to release our epic Prisoner-recreation music video for Episode 1: Arrival (read about it here and here). Watch that video here. Michael & Glenn hard at work microfilm props! But last July we were … Read More
Sophia Cacciola and Michael J. Epstein spent an hour talking about all of their projects and playing special ukulele versions of songs from Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling, The Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library, and Space Balloons on … Read More
Last night we hosted On the Town with Mikey Dee for the very first time! The show has been on for 22 years and every one of our bands have played on it (and, many, many other bands) so it … Read More
Thursday, Doomstar! and DNFMOMD have the pleasure of opening up for White Fence (Tim Presley of DARKER MY LOVE/THE FALL) and The Strange Boys at Church Thursday, June 23rdChurch of Bostonwith: Doomstar!, White Fence, The Strange Boys$10adv/$12 day of, 18+, … Read More
We explain a bit about the origin of Space Balloons here. The characters were created for Rob Potylo‘s children’s show, Worried All the Time. While napping after a particularly hearty meal of grapes, Balloononians Sophia (Sophia Cacciola) and Michael (Michael … Read More
Glenn DiBenedetto (Killer Suit Creative) recently took a spin (via the Globe Bar) to the English countryside with Sophia. They talked about the Rumble, The Prisoner, our upcoming video, and Sophia shared her (no longer)secret recipe for the Do Not … Read More
Participating in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Rumble this year was an amazing experience – so much hot music, new friends, and great times. Here’s a round up of photos/video/and press regarding Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling’s appearance in … Read More
Tanya quizzes Sophia Cacciola…
This one is going to be short and sweet since I just want to get these videos posted! Every single band in the Rumble semi-finals was total awesomeness! From Semi-Finals Night 1: Spirit Kid – video 1, video 2Sidewalk Driver … Read More
Last night was the final night of preliminaries of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Rumble! Cradle to the Grave began the night with the most rocking fiddle of the week! AND they all wore matching western shirts. Video 1, Video 2. The … Read More
So, Night 5, my band Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling got to go to bat at this “competition” (while there is a “winner” every night – the real excitement of this is seeing new bands, seeing everyone play … Read More
Rock ‘n’ Roll Rumble Night 4 was the most raucus yet! Tons of people and the single-craziest set I’ve seen so far! It was my first time seeing TRiPLE THiCK and I thought they were awesome – though I have a big soft … Read More
Holy cow are we ready for the day of rest! Night 3 of the Rumble was just as rocking as the previous two! Things started up with The Autumn Hollow Band (whose singer played barefoot – an offense that always … Read More
It’s only Night 2 and this Rumble is kicking my butt…with so much awesome! Full Body Anchor started the ROCK right at 9 Video. Tijuana Sweetheart then charmed TT’s with their all-girl punk rock – Video 1, Video 2. A … Read More
Sophia’s Rock Beat is devoted to taking video of local bands and posting it. Read previous Rock Beats HERE. It has been a busy couple of weeks since returning from Austin for SXSW. Our first stop was the BUFF (Boston … Read More
The Rock ‘n’ Roll Rumble is back and in a big way! There has been some great press leading up to the start:The Boston Phoenix (with a lot of trash talk from Michael J. Epstein’s Mustache)The Weekly Dig FlipbookThe Boston … Read More
Space Balloons is the children’s songs project from Michael & Sophia (see previous bit about it). It was created as part of the pilot for a new show by Rob Potylo called Worried All the Time. They just released a teaser … Read More
This post is a little outside of my intended use of “Sophia’s Rock Beat” but I thought it was the best place to discuss all of my thoughts on SXSW in general. Here is the link to the post where … Read More
Sophia’s Rock Beat is where I blog video of local Boston bands that I saw the week before. (previous Rock Beats). This week is a bit of a departure because I’m going to include video of all the bands we … Read More
Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling has been very busy in the studio these past few months working on 7 new songs (previous post with video of me singing in the studio) – we’re releasing these at a very … Read More
Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling is excited to announce that we’ll be participating in the 2011 Rock ‘n’ Roll Rumble! If you don’t already know all about The Rumble it is a Boston institution – read the wikipedia … Read More
Last October, http://blog.michaeljepstein.com/2010/10/most-epic-video-shoot-of-all-time-with.html I gave an update on the bulk of the shooting for our epic music video that recreates the opening sequence of The Prisoner. We’ve had several days of shooting since then. We spent two days shooting the resigned cabinet … Read More
Special Friends is coming! In addition to our musicalious opening – 2 teaser clips have popped up on the interwebs this week. Find out what it means…to be special: and, Goddamn Glenn:
videoing Boston one show at a time. Sophia’s Rock Beat – the mission is simple – go to as many shows around Boston as possible and take video then post it here. Previous Rock Beats are here! Another slim rock … Read More
Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling was back in The Moontower (in Q Division) studio with Mike Quinn this week recording bass and vocals for our forthcoming EP, Questions Are a Burden to Others. We recorded drums ALL THE WAY back in … Read More
Space Balloons is yet another project from Michael J. Epstein and Sophia Cacciola. This one, though, is for the kids. We’re working on a collection of children’s songs, primarily on ukulele. Space Balloons was created as part of a TV … Read More
This week’s edition of Rock Beat is, sadly, very slim. Sophia’s Rock Beat happens every Monday and is a repository for all of the video of local Boston bands I saw the week before. Previous Rock Beats are here. This … Read More
As always, you can find other weeks of The Beat here. This week started out with Boston Band Crush’s One Night Band night at the Enormous Room. The ladies from my One Night Band from last Summer (10 Hours of … Read More
In case you missed it – this is the column (this is the third installment!) where I talk about all of the shows I saw the week before and post video. You can read the previous two by clicking right … Read More
This is the second installment of my new column, Sophia’s Rock Beat. The point of this is to highlight the shows I saw the week before and the video I took at those shows. Here’s last week’s (which recapped most … Read More
Special Friends: Five friends. One show. Zero chance. “What Does It Mean to Be Special (Special Friends Theme)” My Friends are special. What does it mean to be special?Let’s look and see…
The situation is that Michael and I go out A LOT to see our fellow local rockers, well, rock out. And, because we’re awkward and we need to be doing SOMETHING with our hands while being rocked we take a … Read More
We’ve been going through some artifacts from our youth for a top-secret The Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library surprise and I found a letter from my French pen-pal. I must have asked her if they have to wear gas-masks in … Read More
I found this in an old journal of songs I wrote circa 2001-2004. I guess it needed a diary lock. Michael is obsessed with monkeys, just consult the tribute page to his monkey mug for evidence. I think this proves that … Read More
Sophia (right) with Erica enjoying someRock ‘n’ Roll at Church Here it is! All of the local Boston artists that I saw in 2010, plus some videos that we took of them! This is my list, but Mike probably saw … Read More
DNFMOMD on TOUR!photo by Kelly Davidson The Prisoner- top still from our recreation- bottom I’m breaking this up into groups – starting with my reason for justifying how I live my life, Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling. 2010 was … Read More
The following are all of the year-end lists that Mike or Sophia or any of our projects were mentioned: hacked together Phoenix cover with Local Music feature The Boston Phoenix – Boston Rock’s 2010 in Review (by Michael Marotta) – April, … Read More
still of Mike in a Quiet D episode. It’s a fairy tale story of the local youtube reality-sitcom that makes it to TV! The brain-child of Rob Potylo, Quiet Desperation will debut on MyTV (Channel 18 in Boston) at 11PM … Read More
photo taken by the talented and beautiful Kelly Davidson Mike “Agent” Bishop, our longtime merch-guy, tour manager, our boy-Friday is leaving our little fold to concentrate on his new position as an official Outback Juggalo Hunter. We thank him … Read More
‘Round October I had decided that DNFMOMD would take a break from shows until 2011 – after all, we’re working fairly constantly on 2 music videos (here and here) and will be recording another EP at the end of December … Read More
We’re super excited to be playing this show celebrating Rob Potylo’s new CD _Something happened at Horse Lake_ and the debut of Quiet Desperation (which we have had small cameo roles on) on TV – more info at December 2, 2010 … Read More
my MJEML bandmate, Rachel Blumenthal caught this awesome moment Nate Greenslit (of HUMANWINE) and Vessela Stoyanova (of Goli) just launched their brand new project, Bury Me Standing with a month-long residency at the Lizard Lounge. I liked the band name … Read More
(I had originally posted about the event here.) Let me just start with, a HUGE thanks to: Agent Mike Bishop, Leesa Coyne, Veronica Dale, Kelly Davidson, Sophia Cacciola, Jen Johnson, Tad Mckitterick, Kate Murdoch, J-Krafty, Sarah RabDAU, Matt Graber, Peter Moore, Eric … Read More
Final video info / screen shot comparisons / video itself (6/9) here!!! 3/13/11 Update (last 3 days of shooting and preliminary screening info here!) Around this time last year, Mike and I approached Theodore Cormey of Lost Jockey Productions about … Read More
Here is the first in a series of posters for The Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library.