ABOUT

April 10th, 2012 The Counting Crows album, “Underwater Sunshine” premiered at #11 on the Billboard top 200 chart, #3 on the Billboard Top Rock and Top Independent Albums charts, and #4 on the Billboard Top Alternative Albums Chart. The album was envisioned, created and produced as a homage to brilliant songwriting and a heartfelt dedication to all of the amazing music that had influenced not only Adam Duritz, but generations of music lovers alike. In short, it’s a beautifully curated album that features Adam’s personal take on the music that has consistently inspired, influenced, and driven his love for music, and that is the exact spirit Underwater Sunshine Fest embodies.

The festival itself is intended to be the next logical step in wanting to curate and produce an amazing, immersive music experience aimed at passionate music lovers. Underwater Sunshine Fest seeks to directly lift the same spirit from the original album and apply it to a live event featuring the newest, brightest, independent music artists that Adam and the larger team of producers can find.

Beyond the curated talent and incredible performances, the event desires to create a warm, familial, fun, and comfortable environment in which attendees can feel free to fully immerse themselves in the music. Multiple stages, multiple genres, and an eclectic group of artists provide a tapestry of artistry that invites the attendees to go through their own journey of discovery - to curate and craft their own perfect experience, and hopefully find their next favorite band or artist or song.

The Team

It takes a village, and below are the village people. (But not those Village People.)

Featured

Adam Duritz, Founder

Adam Duritz co-produced The Outlaw Roadshow music festival for seven years alongside Ryan Spaulding, Barbara Garrett, and Frank Germano before helping to found the Underwater Sunshine Fest this year. He loves music more than his phone and he loves his phone more than most people. In all honesty...it’s not really close. He also runs the Underwater Sunshine Podcast with his pal, journalist and author James Campion. In his spare time, he still likes to watch movies, write songs, sing on friend’s records, and plot world domination for Counting Crows.

Barbara Garrett, Co-Founder

Barbara started her music career working as a producer/booking agent for BalconyTV.com in Austin, Texas. During this time she helped produce The Outlaw Roadshow as well as some unofficial SXSW events. This lit a fire under her desire to advocate for musicians, joining the “Leaders in Austin Music” program and an appointment to a seat on the Austin Music Commission.

Lindsay Nie, Senior Producer and A&R

Lindsay is passionate about art, music, science and spending time outdoors. During the day she blends her marketing and technology expertise, creativity and inner gadget-geek to create memorable brand experiences. The rest of her time is spent crafting, hiking and rock hounding around New England, and listening to often over 300 new artists a week! A little known fact about Lindsay, she studied Planetary Science and Astrophysics at MIT.

Zoe Mintz, Social Media Manager

Zoe is a writer and performer currently studying film at Hunter College in New York. In recent lives Zoe was an art model for internationally-renowned fine artists, a two-time AmeriCorps member, an operations manager for a large nonprofit, a project associate for a very small nonprofit, and for a couple of years staffed information desks and gift shops at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There, Zoe received world-class training on directing tourists to the bathroom. She also once found it herself.

Holly Perry, Events Planning Manager

By day, Holly is a non-profit extraordinaire. By night, she is a writer, lover and supporter of all things music. (Kind of like Hannah Montana but less likely to burst into song.) A music industry survivor, she has had the opportunity to work with or interview many of her idols such as Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Garth Brooks, Jewel, Kelsea Ballerini and more. She's also a proud member of a faux-band called The Silence - the best band you've never heard. When she's not taking pictures of her dogs, she's probably hiking, studying for her MBA or telling someone how much she loves living in Los Angeles. (Confession: she does prefer Shake Shake to In-N-Out though.)

Frank Germano, Creative Director

Design, art, branding, storytelling, community, culture, making, drawing, painting, finding, doing, trying, failing, learning, and feeling… Locked in the never-ending pursuit of an elegant narrative, and devoted to helping humans connect through art and design. ( mofdesign.com / @mofdesign )

James Campion, Co-Host of the Underwater Sunshine Podcast

James Campion, co-host of the Underwater Sunshine podcast with his friend Adam Duritz, both of whom are currently working on a book together, is a syndicated columnist and contributing editor for the pop culture magazine, The Aquarian Weekly (inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame archive 2012), where he’s reported on and interviewed dozens of singer-songwriters and musicians and reviewed concerts and albums for over twenty years. His work has appeared in NY Newsday, North County News, Hackwriters, Huffington Post, among other periodicals and webzines, including the official KISS site, KISS Online. He is the author of six non-fiction works; Deep Tank Jersey: A Journey into the Soul of a New Jersey Club Band (Callalloo Press, 1996), Fear No Art: Observations on the Death of the American Century (BLAZO! Publishing, 2000), Trailing Jesus: A Holy Land Journal (Gueem Books, 2002) and Midnight for Cinderella: The Reality Check Papers – 2000-2005 (Booksurge – 2006), Shout It Out Loud – The Story of KISS’s Destroyer and the Making of an American Icon (Backbeat Books - 2015), Accidentally Like a Martyr – The Tortured Art of Warren Zevon (Backbeat Books - 2018) and one novel, Y (Gueem Books, 2013).

Ehud Lazin, Video Producer

Ehud created and runs the Garden Sessions. He is also the video producer for the entire festival. Outside of his video work he is also a father and husband. His favorite mode of transportation is by scooter.

Katie Mullins, Executive Writer

Katie was raised a record store crate-digger in Dallas, Texas, by two parents who had managed record stores before she was born. She’s currently an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Evansville, and has been fortunate enough to start a “How to Write about Music” course. She also teaches fiction and poetry. There is a very good professional picture of her at a radio station, taping a show with headphones on, but she has opted to use this photo of her at sixteen, which is indicative of both how she is surrounded by music and what a dork she is. She has an amazing husband and stepdaughter, and is grateful that they are both music junkies too. If you see her at the festival (red hair now), ask her about her David Bowie tattoos!

Felipe Molina, Fine Art

Felipe is a fine artist born in NYC and educated in NY and South Florida. Felipe has exhibited in Europe and America and currently exhibits in California, Connecticut and NY. He has worked with Counting Crows as fine artist and media designer, and has been involved in the art and music scene for over 30 years. He continues to work out of his Lexington studio and is currently part of the Underwater Sunshine design and production team.

Diego Molina, Graphic Designer

Songwriter, band leader of Romantic Relevance, and visual designer. Loves colorful shoes, pepperoni pizza, pop music, and bad dancing.

Gus!

PRESS

Featured

On The Scene: Underwater Sunshine Festival Slays With Killer Lineup

On the weekend of April 5 and 6, The Underwater Sunshine Festival began with a bang at Bowery Electric in the East Village.

The creators of the festival, Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz and co-founder Barbara Rappaport delivered a sensational set list in an intimate and cool venue. In addition to the festival nights on Saturday and Sunday, Jesse Malin will also kick off the weekend with a VIP set on Friday night.

Adam Duritz’s Indie Music Underwater Sunshine Festival Reveals 2019 Line-up

The Underwater Sunshine Festival is returning to New York for 2019 this weekend. Underwater Sunshine is curated by Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz and co-founded with Barbara Rappaport.

Duritz and Rappaport founded the festival to pair independent music artists with passionate music fans. “It’s honestly my favorite time of year. I love when everyone shows up in New York and, for a week or so, I get to just drown in great music,” Adam said in a statement.

Counting Crows’ Adam Duritz on 2019 Underwater Sunshine Festival and Bar Mitzvah Memories

.Underwater Sunshine — also the name of Counting Crows’ 2012 album, which debuted at no. 3 on the Billboard Top Rock chart — is name of the music festival run by him and co-founder Barbara Rappaport. The Underwater Sunshine Festival launched last October with a two-day event, and will be returning to New York City’s Bowery Electric for two more days of programming on April 5th and 6th. Among the participating artists for the April 2019 edition are Jordan Klassen, Eric Hutchinson, Red Wanting Blue, Amy Vachal, Maria Taylor and Roan Yellowthorn.

Hollis Brown (with Cyndi Lauper), Jesse Malin, Wild Pink, Bear Cub, Amy Vachal, Fort Francis, Roan Yellowthorn, Wilder Maker, Fairhazel & more @ Bowery Electric

This is day one of two of the free-with-RSVP Underwater Sunshine Fest at Bowery Electric, and there’s some cool stuff like the legendary Cyndi Lauper guesting with Hollis Brown, NYC punk lifer Jesse Malin, rising NYC indie rockers Wild Pink, and more.

NBC SANDIEGO: How Adam Duritz Learned to Grow in a Shrinking World

“Counting Crows' Adam Duritz doesn't need much of an introduction -- and neither does his songwriting. Duritz has long been lauded for his confessional poetics -- a lyricism that ranges from agonizingly beautiful to torturously transcendent. Much of the early expressiveness of the Counting Crows was rooted in Duritz' internal struggles with a dissociative disorder that he's since managed to tamp down. But the craft is always there.”

METRO WEST DAILY NEWS: MUSIC SCENE: 25 years and counting for Adam Duritz and his Crows

As it happens we are chatting with Counting Crows singer and songwriter Adam Duritz on the very day that the parade is scheduled to celebrate the latest NBA championship by his beloved Golden State Warriors. As it happens the Los Angeles area-based frontman, originally from Berkeley, opted to avoid the victory parade, but he is eager to discuss basketball.

CHICAGO SUN TIMES: Counting Crows celebrating everything after ‘Everything After’

“Is there a shelf life for bands when they reach a certain age? As the acts and seminal albums of the early ‘90s start marking their quarter-life anniversaries, it’s a question that clouds over the steady pour of reunion tours, reissued albums and other celebratory ephemera of a scene that can sometimes seem like one more trick to ride out fame.

But it just feels different with Counting Crows. Perhaps because the milestone is nothing the musicians ever cared to be cognizant of and one they could have just as easily glossed over with a steady career since day one.”

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25 Years and Still Counting Crows: Interview with Adam Duritz

“There’s a number of advantages to having a 25-year career in music. For starters, it’s a solid indicator of stable employment. It’s also damn good way to turn a summer road trip with your buddies into a cross country tour. For several years running, Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows has parlayed his summers into something approximating work. “It’s great to get paid for your road trips,” he says. “I’ve been on the same road trip for 25 years now. As a musician, that’s always extremely doubtful, so whenever you can have it, that’s a big positive.”

ROLLING STONE: 10 NEW COUNTRY ARTISTS YOU NEED TO KNOW: AUGUST 2018

So proud to see Underwater artist “Hawks and Doves” featured by Rolling Stone this past week! “…Anderson wrote half of his new album, From a White Hotel, while still in prison, making peace with his past along the way. Released this summer, the record tackles social oppression, personal demons and the darkness that haunts all of us, offering apologies one minute and anthemic rock the next. Although recorded with his new band Hawks & Doves, From a White Hotel shines its spotlight on a new, improved Anderson: sober, sharp and ready to make up for lost time.”

FORBES: "Who I Am: Counting Crows' Adam Duritz Talks Hip Hop, Immigration And Art"

“It’s been 25 years since Adam Duritz and his Counting Crows band mates released their brilliant debut album, August And Everything After. In the quarter century since then, the Bay Area band have sold over 20 million records and toured the world over probably hundreds of times.”

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