Here are bands and artists you may not have heard of yet…but they have major potential and you get to read about them here, right before they make it big! And “Graduates” are musicians we highlighted in past issues whose careers, as we predicted, have really taken off!

Band: Sound in Stone
By Bruce Sullivan

Hot Damn! Don’t look now, Worcester, but you’re home to the roughest, rowdiest bunch of rambunctious pickers of good-timey music since the Soggy Bottom Boys were still stormin’ the countryside. Did you think that great home grown players were a thing of the past? Well, don’t get your knickers in a bunch; Sound in Stone are here to heat this scene up to a boil. Do you like tubas, banjos, and rock-n-roll? Then you’re gonna love Worcester’s talented group of bearded hell raisers.

Sound in Stone, a six piece circus train who’ve been together just over a year, are led by the singer-songwriter tandem of Mark Leighton and Chris McNamara. This pair, who each plays guitar, banjo, keys, and harmonica, writes music that is an organic blending of folk, rock, blues, and bluegrass, but with a real pop sensibility. Larry Wilson’s horns and signature tuba, along with Amanda Day’s mandolin, add a unique quality to the band’s authentic sound. Drummer Derrick Mead keeps this runaway train on the tracks.

While most one year olds are still in diapers, Sound in Stone is stealing Daddy’s Cadillac convertible and hitting the open road. The band has toured up and down the east coast, but Worcester’s Raven Music Hall remains home base for the band, who play there again on 12/9 for the release of a new six song EP, just months after they dropped their debut CD Van Candy. Songsmiths Leighton and McNamara have been wildly prolific since the band’s inception, and actually wrote the stand-out track “Skip Skip” the very first night they were together. The rest of Van Candy, including live favorites “Rowdy,” “Carry Me Home,” and “Fool’s Gold,” was written in just a week.

Now they’re back on the road and… Damn it, these boys are a hit or my name isn’t Pappy O’Daniel. So, if they’re willing to put their rambunctiousness and misdemeanoring behind them, let’s go on and give ‘em a chance. Check out Sound in Stone at The Raven on 12/9 or at www.soundinstone.com.

CD: Levi Schmidt’s Like Water
By Tom Cadrin

There’s something beautifully organic when a human and his or her instrument come together in expression. One picks up where the other has left off; there’s a seamless interplay between the two. Massachusetts’ singer songwriter Levi Schmidt (a recent MIT grad with a degree in mechanical engineering) has just that kind of symbiotic relationship with his guitar. Mixing folk, funk, R n’ B, soul, blues, rap, smooth croon and social awareness, Schmidt produces a melodious and unique take on the world around us.

The solo singer-songwriter strapping himself to a guitar and producing a CD of predictable, artistically tepid music has become all too common a trend. But Schmidt’s recent debut release, Like Water, gloriously bucks this trend; his pristine harmonic and melodic sense place him far ahead of the pack (and here it’s interesting to note that Levi started his musical journey as a drummer, migrating to the guitar during high school). Delicately arpeggiated chords wrap their arms around his voice to create simple and solid soundscapes. Tight rhythms and infatuating hooks beg for a foot to be tapped. And Schmidt’s sense of the blues is vibrant. Whether it’s time for some good ol’ porch sittin’ or a session of deep thought and pondering, Like Water is the perfect soundtrack.

With moments of angelic beauty, Like Water establishes Schmidt as a talented musician and sets the stage for him to take his music in any of a hundred directions…and we’ll eagerly wait to find out just what he decides to grace our ears with next.

Be sure to catch Levi Schmidt playing around the greater Worcester area and Boston this fall. And if you’d like to learn more about ~ and hear more from ~ him, head to www.myspace.com/levischmidtmusic and check him out on iTunes as well.

BAND: My Own Exile
By Sam Blier

Craigslist has been the conduit for many nefarious things as of late. It’s time to add Massachusetts metal band My Own Exile to that list. New England natives John “Bo” Boroyan (vocals), Erik Markarian (guitar), Brian Huberdeau (bass) and Ron Santiago (drums) met each other at one time or another via Craigslist ads for musicians. The band finally formed about a year ago and they’ve been playing shows all around the Boston area. They just brought their signature loud, fierce riffs and heavy, aggressive vocals to the stage at the local stop of the 2010 North American HardDrive Live Tour in Fitchburg. Sevendust is headlining the tour, which is fitting because My Own Exile counts them as an influence on their sound.

Other influences evident in My Own Exile’s heavy sound are bands like Mudvayne and Disturbed, with hints of European bands like Soilwork and Mnemic. Fans of any of these bands will surely find themselves rocking to My Own Exile’s grinding guitars and pulverizing drums. Bo’s gritty lyrics and howling vocals pull listeners right into the mosh pit, exactly where this music can and should be enjoyed.

A band truly on the verge but waiting for the perfect moment to strike, My Own Exile has been peddling their demo at all their shows. This is precisely how they’ve gotten the attention of area promoters like the one that put them on the bill with Sevendust. My Own Exile has been recording new material with the goal of adding to their demo and re-releasing it as an EP before the end of the year. They already have enough material for a full album but are biding their time until the perfect opportunity arises to record it just right. ‘Til then, they’ll keep faces melting at their live shows, something they already do right.

Visit My Own Exile’s MySpace page to listen to their demo: www.myspace.com/myownexile