MOUNT VERNON -- Pandemonium, the popular steel drum band at Cornell College, will soon release its second CD, "Organized Chaos," with songs by Carlos Santana, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Duke Ellington, Stevie Wonder and Roy Orbison.
The band has scheduled two concerts to celebrate the CD's release: 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 26, and 5 p.m. Friday, May 28, both on the steps outside Cornell's Youngker Hall. Cornell's Calypso Singers will join the band in concert. In case of rain, the concerts will move to the Orange Carpet inside The Commons. Admission is free.
"Organized Chaos," recorded in King Chapel on campus and at Trilogy Production Studios in North Liberty during spring break, features 14 tracks arranged by music professor and director Martin Hearne, including his original "Ubeque Samba." Other songs include "La Bamba," "Congo," "Steel Ellington," Santana's "Flor D'Luna," Lennon and McCartney's "Blackbird," Orbison's "Pretty Woman" and Wonder's "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing."
Pandemonium debuted in March 1997, released its first CD, "Six Layers of Shrimp," in spring 1998 and has performed in France, along the Mississippi from St. Louis to New Orleans, in Kansas City and at several area elementary schools. Current members of Pandemonium and the Calypso Singers are students, two alumni and geology professor Paul Garvin, on the bongos.
"Organized Chaos" will be available in the Cornell Bookstore.
