Dave Kline featured on new Rednex release as another of the band's tracks goes viral [Spotlight]
Apr. 28—Rednex, a Swedish band best known for its 1994 take on the traditional song "Cotton Eye Joe," which topped the charts in nearly a dozen European countries, recently released a new track called "Another Round" featuring lead vocals by Berks County native "East Side" Dave Kline.
The track is an upbeat party song with a music video depicting octogenarians getting barbarously drunk.
Kline recorded at Gangsta Beagle Studio, Mount Penn, and then sent the vocal track to Rednex producer Pat Reiniz, a founding member of the band who performed as Mup in its early days, who created the final track.
Rednex, whose sound mixes traditional American folk music with Eurodance, boasts an ever-evolving roster of musicians who embrace stereotypical American redneck personas.
Kline was recruited to record with Rednex by Reiniz, who first connected by email. Kline said it was hard to believe the inquiry was legitimate. As a frequent traveler to Europe, he has been a three-decade-long fan of the group's music.
It all seemed surreal until Reiniz invited Kline to call him in Thailand, which Kline did. After an engaging conversation, the deal was made and Kline began recording for Rednex soon thereafter.
The release of "Another Round" coincides with other, bigger Rednex news, as new cover versions of "Cotton Eye Joe," called "Gedagedigedagedago," have become a viral streaming sensation. The new versions insert the nonsense word "Gedagedigedagedago" for the song's opening lyric.
The sensation was triggered by the Danish singer Razi Irawani, whose 2023 video cover of "Cotton Eye Joe" recently resurged on YouTube following a remix in which a chicken nugget and wing sing the song. That video garnered 23 million views, and now the phenomenon has exploded into millions of meme-filled versions, including 450 videos on YouTube with more than 1 million views each.
All together, they attained a record 3 billion views in just 28 days. According to Rednex, the count is 20 times as high as the top music video on YouTube, 12 times greater than the leading hit on Spotify, and twice as high as the most viewed artist in the world, Alka Yagnik.
"A paradigm shift is happening where we're asking: How is music success best measured?," Reiniz said in a press release. "This event was created thanks to millions of video creators generating billions of fragmented plays of Rednex's music, as opposed to the traditional way of listening. It will be a challenge for the music industry to reflect these various counts into charts and measurements and even leads to the question of: 'Is the basic use and concept of music itself changing?"
The official video for the new Rednex track, "Another Round," has been streamed more than 44,000 times on YouTube since being posted two weeks ago.
With its sample-friendly catchphrases and copycat videos already being created and circulated, Rednex is hoping it develops into another viral streamer.
Concerts
ASM Global has announced five new shows coming to Reading's Santander Arena and Santander Performing Arts Center.
Megadeth will bring its "Destroy All Enemies Tour" to Santander Arena on Sept. 9, with support from Mudvayne and All That Remains; Killers of Kill Tony, featuring stand-up sets by "Kill Tony" podcast regulars Kam Patterson, David Lucas, Hans Kim, David Jolly and Jetski Johnson, comes to the Santander Performing Arts Center on Sept. 21; Christian country singer Anne Wilson brings her "The Rebel Tour" to the Santander Performing Arts Center on Oct. 11; Mania: The ABBA Tribute comes to the Santander Performing Arts Center on Oct. 22; and Norteno singer-songwriter Ramon Ayala brings his "El Principio de Un Final Tour" to the Santander Performing Arts Center on Oct. 26.
For tickets and more information, see santander-arena.com.
----The Reading Choral Society will present a concert featuring Johannes Brahms' Liebeslieder Waltzes & Edward Elgar's From the Bavarian Highlands next Sunday at 4 p.m. at the Scottish Rite Cathedral, West Reading. Led by music director Dr. Graham Bier, RCS will be accompanied by Mary Bishop and Ya-Jhu Yang on a 9-foot grand piano.
The Waltzes are a collection of love songs for voices and piano four hands. From the Bavarian Highlands is a set of choral songs written in remembrance of a holiday the Elgars had enjoyed in Upper Bavaria.
Bishop received a bachelor's degree in Music Education and a Master of Music in Piano Accompanying from West Chester University, where she studied with Benjamin Whitten. She is the K-5 general music and chorus
teacher at Shiloh Hills Elementary school in the Wilson School District. She has been Reading Choral Society's accompanist since 2008.
Yang started the piano study at age 5, flute at 10, and composition at 14. She was the pianist for the YinQi Orchestra and Chorus in Taiwan through her college years, where she played major works such as German Requiem, The Messiah, Mozart's C minor Mass and John Rutter's Magnificat, among others.
In 2013, she became the Pennsylvania Girlchoir's accompanist and was asked to be the conductor for the high school age group, Motet, in 2018. She is the associate music director and Motet conductor of the Pennsylvania Girlchoir and the music director and organist at St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Lafayette Hill.
During the concert intermission, awards will be given to high school students. Scholarships will also be awarded to high school and college students.
Tickets cost $15 in advance, $20 at the door and $10 for students, and can be purchased at www.readingchoral.org.
Lecture
The Reading Symphony Orchestra League, in conjunction with the Penn State College of Arts and Architecture, will present final Know Your Symphony lecture for the 2023-2024 season on May 8 at 7:30 p.m. in the Highlands, 200 Cambridge Ave., Wyomissing. The lecturer will be Dr. Daniel Immel, professor of music at Kutztown University. The lecture will serve as a preview to the May 11 Reading Symphony Orchestra concert at the Santander Performing Arts Center, Reading.
