The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Staff Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

HOLDING firm on its charge to reboot the local entertainment scene, the No Hit Wonders team is back with another secret offering.

"It's about subculture; we did the Dubstep Secret Party and we want to continue pushing that forward, bringing a kind of flash-party where you don't know where it is but you know it's going to be cool," said RAPP Quelle, vice president, public relations.

"To us the scene is dead; the scene is one scene with a bunch of different names depending on what song is out. Unlike most attempts in the past to do something different, where we feel it comes off as pretentious to the public, or elitist, that's why the tickets are at $10 and $20," said RAPP Quelle.

"We're not going to class you; whatever class you're in and you feel its your vibe and you want to experience something different then you are a wonderer," he said.

Using the success of January's Secret Party as a litmus test, No Hit Wonders (NHW) has thrown itself back into the event foray.

In keeping with the collective's mission to uplift underground music and emerging artists, Battle of the Band contenders The Illest and The Truth dominate the preliminary lineup. The concert will also serve to debut Atlanta-based alternative rock band Cloudeater to the Bahamian audience.

"They're a phenomenal band; they've worked with a lot of great bands and a lot of great artists in the Atlanta area. It's (American hip hop rapper) Wale's favorite band and he performs with them. They're sound is an alternative rock, kinda grungy, kinda new age," said RAPP Quelle.

"On Wale's album, the song Sabotage sung by Lloyd and rapped by Wale is originally [Cloudeater's] song that they gave to Wale," he said.

The collective formed last year in response to what they describe as a "hunger" for sub-culture pathfinders in the Bahamian night-life and social spheres.

Arthol 'DJ Ampero' Gibson, NHW operations manager, said: "[NHW] is a brand; it's more like a collective of our individual influences. Quelle came to the table with Stomping Ground Music and his artist profile; I came to it from the DJ side of it, from the media production side of it; and we also have a journalist on the team who is actually more of a media savant."

"We're trying to do it seasonally, like one every quarter and on top of that we're trying to broker deals where we can do the secret concert as a yearly thing and a summer jam kind of thing," he said.

Future plans include documentaries, mixtapes, smaller interactive events and a solar power awareness campaign.

RAPP Quelle said: "Whatever is going on in the culture that we identify with, we will tap into that, and present it to the Bahamian market. Whatever's new and cool. We have the respect of predominantly every genre of musician from jazz to DJs and we work cohesively and organically with all of them."

"Our campaigns aren't only based off events; it's the entire holistic livelihood of a human being. So we're discussing now putting together a campaign for awareness of solar power energy," he said.

Tickets go on sale this week at Audio Plus and Airbrush Junkies, with more locations to be announced.

The NHW crew have sworn to keep the venue a secret until the day of the concert, June 16, but party-rockers can start demanding updates on Twitter at #secretconcert and Facebook.com/nohits.