Is Violet Isle Local Now? (I think so)

I have been working hard to establish the name Violet Isle as a local band. Granted, I was living in Portland when we started VI. Now living in Salem, I have the strong desire to see my band as a part of Salem's growing music scene.

We first made our splash in Salem at the annual Oregon State Fair (which, technically, was our very first live show ever) in 2008. Our lead singer had been established as a solo act up until this point. There was a haze of confusion, due to miscommunication on both parts, which landed this full band with fresh music on the "acoustic stage" in the artisan village. Thus creating a lot of frustrated local artists desperately trying to talk, over our music, with onlookers about their creations. Before our set, we were warned to watch the volume of our performance and various times during our set we were reminded to do so with polite taps on the shoulder by vendors and verbal requests like, "Can you please turn down your drums?"

Our second time in Salem, we set up camp at The "Infamous" Space during the Cherry City Music Festival in 09' sharing the bill with Half Shark Half Jesus and two no shows. And again at CCMF in 2010, we were asked to play at a new metal venue called Wasteland. Seeing that we wouldn't have been a very good fit, I called Ike Box and asked if they had room to book us. We played a midnight show there to a dozen people; it was the good kind of intimate (I am grateful for you coming through on that one, Andrew). Our fourth attempt was when we released our first LP "i am ivy". We had a CD Release Party at Ike Box on July 10th 2010. It felt right and the crowd was lovely.

We have been through the up's and down's, in the place I now call home, and keep coming back for more. So I request this of you, Salem: go and have a listen, whether it's checking out the myspace.com profile, downloading the album at the Itunes store, watching a previously recorded show on youtube.com, stagedive.com, or even catching a show. Have a listen and see what one local artist is saying. I have a feeling you’ll like it!

Cheers,
Alva

Violet Isle's "i am ivy" is Available at Salem's Harvest Records and Ranch Records for $10 and you can also download it at the iTunes Store and will soon be available at Amazon.

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