“New Aquinas coaches fit right in - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin” plus 4 more

New Aquinas coaches fit right in - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Low-key musician doesn’t need to be a big rock star - HamptonRoads.com
Carmen Reece and Mark Feist Team Up For Love In Stereo - andPOP
Britney Is So Keen About UGG Classic Mini - Salon
Britney Spears pregnant ? - Mister-info.com

New Aquinas coaches fit right in - Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

Posted: 12 Oct 2009 10:49 PM PDT

When Aquinas senior volleyball co-captain Samantha Kirtley found out who her new volleyball coaches were going to be, she admitted to being a little frightened.

"When I heard, I was kind of scared because they are 100 feet tall," Kirtley said. "I remember them at Cal State spiking the ball on people and I was a bit scared because they were intimidating."

The "they" that Kirtley referred to are former Cal State San Bernardino volleyball players Jessica Granados and Sara Rice. At this time last year, the 6-foot-1 Granados and the 6-foot Rice were star players on a Coyote team that made it to the Division II national championship game.

Neither one of them imagined they'd be coaching high school players a year later. But the 21-year-old Granados, a Beaumont native, was hired in June while the 22-year-old Rice, a Yucaipa native, joined her former roommate as an assistant coach shortly after.

"I expected to come in and be an assistant coach, just something to do while I finished up my degree," Granados said. "But the old coach resigned and they hired me to be the head coach. I was pretty nervous about it because I've never really done anything like this.

"This is so much fun ... I can't believe I'm getting a paycheck from doing this. I never thought I'd ever be a coach, but I am so happy that I decided to do this. I enjoy coming to the gym every day."

Aquinas has a history of taking fliers on young coaches. It hired two-time CIF

championship football coach Josh Henderson at age 25 and his replacement Nick Matheny at the same age this past offseason. So it's no surprise it went young with the volleyball positions, although Rice and Granados barely are older than some of the girls they coach.

"It's pretty funny," Rice said. "I was turning in some paperwork in the front office the other day and the secretary was like `Oh, I thought you were a student.' I smiled and said `Thank you.' "

The outside-the-box hiring seems to be paying dividends for Aquinas. The Falcons have a 9-0 record going into tonight's match with Western Christian and are ranked No. 10 in the latest CIF-SS Division 4-AA poll after defeating defending Division 4-A champion Riverside Notre Dame and rival Big Bear along the way. And the atmosphere the new coaches have developed is a big reason why.

"It's just fun," said the other Aquinas co-captain, Natalie Roquet. "Jessica is so funny and Sara can be pretty goofy, too. They are pretty relaxed and pretty positive and it makes it really fun.

"I was excited when I heard (they were hired). We all watched them play at Cal State and we knew how good they were. They were really good playing at a high level of volleyball, so we knew that they were going to really help us out."

Granados and Rice have helped despite their previous coaching experience consisting of counseling at Cal State volleyball camps. But being a head coach of a high school program, with the daily interaction, the massaging of personalities and the dealing with parents, was something that was a concern to Granados after accepting the position.

"The thing I was really nervous about was dealing with parents," Granados said. "I felt pretty confident about dealing with the girls, but I was scared of the parents asking me about their kids' playing time.

"When I first got here I got a coach's handbook with a list of responsibilities and No. 5 said "Do not discuss playing time with parents." I was like `Yes!' That was definitely something that relaxed me."

The addition of Rice, who is finishing up her degree along with Granados at Cal State, has been a great help. Rice serves as an assistant on the varsity team and co-coaches the junior varsity with Granados, and the chemistry that came from being teammates and roommates has translated to coaching.

"She was my roommate the last few years, so we talked about it after I got the job," Granados said. "I wanted someone that I was familiar with and that knew my style and what we wanted to get done here. Who better to do that than your roommate?"

While both coaches like to keep things fun and relaxed, Rice typically is the one who brings things back into focus when needed and serves as the heavy when need be.

"I can get pretty intense," Rice said. "Jessica is kind of goofy and I'm pretty goofy at times, too, but when I need to be serious, I can be serious.

"Sometimes Jessica will be in the huddle, get distracted and start joking around, so that's where I come in. People are surprised by that because I'm usually quiet on the court, but it's a normal part of my personality."

The intensity is rare, as the coaches generally are as fun-loving and carefree as the teen-age girls they coach. While Granados has a pink book of notes and tries to occasionally play the serious role her Cal State coach, Kim Cherniss, played with her, it doesn't always work out that way.

"I try to give inspirational speeches to try to pump the team up, but half the time they laugh at me," Granados said. "I'm like `This is serious, don't laugh,' but they'll keep on laughing. Guess I have to work on that."

Of course, you can only take a coach whose favorite artist is Britney Spears with a limited amount of seriousness. Granados' love of Spears' music is one of many sources of entertainment for the Falcons, who have a team-bonding exercise devoted to it.

"We are going to make a Britney Spears video because Britney is Jessica's favorite singer," a laughing Roquet said. "We don't know what song yet, but it'll be funny."

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Low-key musician doesn’t need to be a big rock star - HamptonRoads.com

Posted: 12 Oct 2009 09:52 PM PDT

He's not a star in the music business, but he's helped many artists as they made it big. Now, Virginia Beach businessman and musician Michael Marquart is taking a rare, quiet turn in the spotlight.

He's flown more or less under the radar for the better part of a decade, and that's fine by him. He's proud of his new CD, "Simple Rhymes," but isn't checking the sales figures every hour.

"His influence on the area has been really significant," says Bill Reid, co-owner of The NorVa in Norfolk. "He's sort of done it all. But he's been the kingmaker as opposed to the king himself."

Marquart (pronounced Mar-kwart) landed in Hampton Roads 21 years ago. A gifted drummer back in his hometown of Fort Atkinson, Wis. - "a small hick town" he calls it - he taught himself the guitar and, following stints in his school band and choir, was performing in bars by 16. Once an adult, he was on the road as much as 28 days a month, including a time as drummer for the new-wave group A Flock of Seagulls.

Later his wife, Winnie, started informal conversations with a high school friend who was married to Reid about coming to Virginia. Reid and Michael Marquart began throwing around ideas and soon decided they would work together to find artists, package them and send them on tours.

So Marquart, his wife and their just-born baby packed up and moved to Virginia Beach, where he and Reid began a partnership that would eventually make him one of the region's most important music figures.

Reid, who at the time was working with the Cellar Door promotional company, and Marquart would put groups together and ship them out on tour. "It was like an assembly line," Marquart says. Business was booming.

Things got even better in 1989, just as Reid parted ways with Cellar Door. Marquart had by then built the state-of-the-art Windmark recording studio, and Virginia Beach had become a hotbed of musical activity. Teddy Riley was luring major names in hip-hop and R&B to record here, and he was in such high demand at the time that he couldn't do it all himself. Marquart's Virginia Beach studio served as an auxiliary space.

"We did work for each other," Marquart says. "I got a lot of spillover work from them."

Not long after, two musicians whom Riley mentored, Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams, broke out as musical stars. By the late 1990s, the duo known as The Neptunes had become recognized for the unique electronic stamp they put on hip-hop and R&B records. By the early 2000s, The Neptunes were working with some of the biggest names in music, from Jay-Z to Usher to Britney Spears. And some of that work was done at Windmark.

Marquart went to work every day at Windmark, but his job wasn't entirely glamorous. He opened the doors. He booked limos for the stars and got them whatever else they needed. And anyway, Marquart's a low-key guy who'd already had his own recording and promotion career. So when he oversaw sessions around 2000, when The Neptunes recorded major pop albums including Justin Timberlake's "Justified" and Britney Spears' "Britney," he wasn't exactly star-struck.

"I've been doing this my whole life," he says. "None of that impresses me. I'd get there at 9, work till 5, see who's on the work order, see what time they start." He'd bill studio time at about $350 an hour; Timberlake's album, he says, took about two weeks to record.

These days, Marquart has come back home to the creative side. His second album, "Simple Rhymes," comes under his band-slash-alter-ego name A Bad Think, which got considerable attention in underground electronic-rock circles with its first, self-titled project in 2006.

"Columbia called four months ago," he says. An intern had found him on MySpace, and they were interested in hearing the band. But there was just one small misunderstanding. "I told him there isn't a band. Ninety percent of it is me."

Marquart wasn't worried as he let the young man down. "I really don't need a label," he says. He has Windmark Records. "This is more of an art for me."

"Simple Rhymes" is an almost-melancholy album of introspective musings couched in breathy vocals, simple guitars and distant electronica. The album is an invitation to look at life's complicated and tragic issues through a positive lens.

"Some of the lyrics are a little disturbing," he says, "but the message is that bad things happen to all of us, but we can be positive."

Marquart acted as a one-man band on the project, playing keyboards and guitars and singing; daughter Samantha also contributed vocals.

Making music is, for him, less a hobby than it is a release of something inside he can't exactly turn off. The day his album was released, he didn't have a big splashy party. "That's kind of an ego thing. I'd feel very uncomfortable doing that." Instead, he was in his studio, working.

Having had his hand in a number of lucrative deals, Marquart does not need to tour or doggedly promote his album in the hopes of becoming a big, rich rock star. He did this just because he wanted to.

"It's something I have to do. I can't explain it. The creative floodgates have opened."

Malcolm Venable,

malcolm.venable@pilotonline.com,

(757) 446-2662

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Carmen Reece and Mark Feist Team Up For Love In Stereo - andPOP

Posted: 12 Oct 2009 08:26 PM PDT

Carmen Reece is what you would call the epitome of the term, "triple-threat." The 22-year-old singer/songwriter/pianist/dancer boasts an impressive musical resume, and is emerging as a serious presence with the upcoming debut of her album, "Love in Stereo."

The talent Reece has demonstrated is a product of hard work and natural ability fused together. The soul singer began playing piano and flute at the age of seven, earned a place in the National Children's Orchestra of Great Britain at 11, and entered the prestigious Brit Performing Arts and Technology School at 16. Along with Reece, The Brit School has consistently provided society with world-class artists such as Adele, Leona Lewis, Imogen Heap, and the paparazzi-ridden Amy Winehouse.

"From an early age I've always been crazy about music, and my parents always said that my ear pricked up listening to anything on the radio, and I was always singing around the house," Reece tells andPOP. Of her admission into the Brit School, she says "it was wonderful because I got to work with a lot of students that were very talented, recording, writing, and that kind of set me up for breaking out [into the industry] and recording with professionals and writing."

She's not just talking about any other professional either. Reece has teamed up with Mark Feist, a multi-platinum producer-songwriter with a world of impressive experience. Having worked for the likes of Beyonce, Celine Dion and Natalie Cole, Reece is working with the best in the business.

Four years after meeting Reece, Feist still remembered the blue-eyed singer from London. In need of a demo singer last year, he decided to pursue her musical talent on MySpace.

"I really thought we would get in the studio and produce a whole bunch of existing songs that I needed cut, and she turns up on my doorstep with her computer and I asked her what she'd been doing, and she said, 'well, you know, I've been really focusing on my writing and I've got a few things,'" explains Feist. "I sort of skeptically said, 'well you know, let me hear something.'"

Feist's skepticism quickly turned into excitement as he recognized what a rare gem Reece was in the industry. He confirms that "it's very rare that you find someone that sings like Carmen that also can write and really understand the whole concept of composition because it's a whole another bag." This quality of Reece's, combined with Feist's unique hands-on approach to producing, created a chemistry that has already resulted in a top-3 hit with "Right Here" on the Billboard Top 40 Dance Chart, and a number 10 record in the club charts.

This recently quick rise to success has been a dream come true for Reece. Already drawing comparisons to Beyonce, and Mariah Carey (an early role model for the artist). "The biggest influences were through my early teens to late teens, which were Mariah, Whitney, Celine, Toni Braxton, basically all the big diva's. I was drawn to the strength in their voice and their range, and the feeling that they put into the songs," Reece elaborates.

Reece definitely isn't lacking in any feeling when describing her upcoming album release. Though a release date has not been set yet, fans can expect an announcement fairly soon. "My sound, I'd like to think that every song I've written, whether they're slow or fast, or a dance track or ballad, that you're going to feel something from it emotionally and it takes you on a journey," raves Reece.

"Love in Stereo" brought in an impressive roster of additional writers, including Wayne Hector (Pussycat Dolls, Britney Spears), and Rose Marie Tan (Danity Kane), but Feist promises a real glimpse into who Carmen Reece is. "I will say that the record really is a true representation of Carmen because a lot of the ideas start with her, she brings them to me, and I just polish it up, and coax the best out of it. Definitely the whole album is a real reflection of who Carmen is musically."

"People love to hype things, and it's very rare that you have a product that lives up to the hype, and all I'm going to say is that the critic and the public and the radio is going to be the ultimate test here," Feist continues. "But I truly believe that there isn't one song on this record that is better than the other. They're all really solid, and they're all very different, and we touch on so many different topics musically."

Love in Stereo embraces a three-dimensional feel that hits the listener musically from all sides. The track lineup includes songs with just piano and vocals to songs with massive background vocals and huge rhythm arrangements. As Feist puts it, "'Love in Stereo' really does sum up the whole flow of the record because there are a lot of love songs on the record, but also sonically, from a production and musical point of view, the record has a wide variety of different sounding tracks."

However, with its variety in mind, Reece and Feist have achieved a consistency in their finished result. Feist attributes this theory to the achievements of the late Michael Jackson, as well as his family members. "One of the things I've tried to do on this record is bring it back to a little bit of those Jackson times, even the early Janet Jackson, or a lot of the Jackson records and Michael records – there was a common thread in terms of the sound," he explains.

"We wrote 30 to 40 songs and narrowed it down to 13 and we've really tried to keep a common thread through that. With Michael and with Janet, that's what kept the consistency going album after album, because they never left that basic core. It kept going but there was still a consistency in the foundation of the music they had originally created so that's something I'm really proud of with this record because there is a common thread, but every song does not sound the same, it's very well thought out."

Reece hopes that this consistency will carry her through to a successful future in music. Her passion and dedication to her craft are evident in her complete immersion in the music world. When asked where she would like to see herself in five years, Reece answers, "I would like to think that I'm on [whatever] album, and people are still feeling the music and I'm creating more, and better songs. Mark and I are planning to work together for a very long time, so I just hope that my music continues to get better and I reach out to people and make memories, make them laugh, make them smile, that would be amazing."

She adds to aspiring singers and songwriters to "stay strong, stay focused, keep practicing, and perfecting your craft. At times you may feel down and think, 'where am I going,' but you never know what's around the corner. That's exactly what happened to me, Mark was just around the corner, and if only I'd known that a few years before, I would have had a huge smile on my face but you just have to stay strong and if you're meant to do it, you're going to do it. Stay positive, and practice, practice practice."

This emphasis on practice is sure to be represented in Love in Stereo. Fans can follow Reece and Feist's latest accomplishments on her MySpace page, as well as follow the cheerful singer's blog on the site. Reece's outlook and accomplishment are the results of where hard work and perseverance can take you.

As Feist logically puts it, "stay true to who you are, and always do the best you can. If it doesn't work, you can always turn around and say, 'you know what, I gave it my all.'"