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Von Cello on TV
The videos may be viewed with Real Player. If you need to download it, click on the Real Player image link below.
VON CELLO ON GOOD DAY NEW YORK!
Good Day New York is one of New York's most popular morning news shows. It used to have a very funny segment with Gordon Elliot (a lively Australian television personality), in which Gordon would knock on people's doors as they were getting ready for work and barge into their homes creating funny situations.
Gordon wanted to do something involving a classical cellist and his people approached Yamaha. Yamaha had recently signed Von Cello as a Yamaha Artist and the Yamaha people pitched the idea of doing a segment with a cellist who can play like Hendrix. Gordon's people came up with the idea of having Von Cello set up in the middle of an intersection on a sleepy street in Long Island (a suburb of New York), and wake up the neighborhood playing the Star Spangled Banner! Of course, Von Cello was happy to oblige and the rest is history.
Yamaha figured Von Cello might get a few minutes of air time. As it turned out, the segment was so much fun, that the show returned to Von Cello ten times! Said Von, "It was a bit of a goof, but everyone had a great time. Years ago, I wrote a song called Cello Man, about a cellist rocking out in the middle of the street attracting a big crowd. Who could have known that years later I would actually live the experience in front of millions of people on live television?!"
VON CELLO ON FOX AND FRIENDS!
Looking for another way to promote it's Silent Electric Cello, Yamaha approached Von Cello about performing on the nationally broadcast, "FOX and Friends" morning news show. Von came up with the idea of having the Von Cello Band play silently out in the street, and FOX ran with it. Unfortunately, more time was spent talking about the instruments than playing them, but it was still a lot of fun. Much to the dismay of the publicity agents for Yamaha, FOX decided to post Von Cello's URL rather than Yamaha's. The folks in the control booth must have been impressed! (Actually, some joined the Von Cello email list!)
VON CELLO ON ASSOCIATED PRESS!
To celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the original Woodstock Festival, another "Woodstock Festival" was planned with the big groups of the late 1990's. Having heard about Von Cello, Associated Press decided to invite Von Cello to be interviewed and to perform his Hendrix style Star Spangled Banner in honor of the festival. The gist of the story was that thirty years after Hendrix, there is now a cellist playing the Star Spangled Banner, carrying on that tradition in an untraditional way.
A quick filming session turned into a two hour marathon, as the AP reporters realized that they had a very interesting story here. Von Cello was interviewed several times and filmed playing the anthem over and over again from every conceivable angle. They expected this news piece to be picked up by stations all over the world. Who could have known that the kids at the festival would freak out and set the place on fire?!
As it turned out, due to the coverage of the fires, the Von Cello piece was only picked up by a hand full of stations. Ironically, Aaron's comment about another "three days of love and music" turned out to be premature. Nevertheless, this video remains as an interesting time piece and it gave Von Cello the opportunity to speak out on camera about his memories of the original Woodstock and his mission to make the cello a popular instrument.
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