2018 Entertainers & Performance Schedule
Alaska Thunderfuck
2018 Pride Festival of Central PA Headliner - 5:00 PM
A bizarre cosmic collision propelled Alaska Thunderfuck 5000 to Earth in March 1966… and on to the fifth season of Logo TV’s RuPaul’s Drag Race in January 2013. Still radioactive, no one knows who or what she is yet, but no one cares, as long as she never returns to her native planet. Her age and species remain unknown to the public, but a few of her enemies claim to hold copies of her spawning record and universal passport.
After her spaceship crashed in the Matanuska Valley, a remote part of south-central Alaska, the U.S. government recovered an emaciated… make that, an emancipated alien, with a 1972 issue of Vanity Fair and a can of Tab, or that’s how the story goes. Why she needed an Elmer’s glue stick, no one has determined. She refuses to acknowledge it was in her possession. Few believe the wreckage was really smoldering, since magazines tend to burn, and cynics wonder if she was actually held captive in a research facility, or entertained by the night watchman until he got bored with her in the 1980s. She’s supposedly on the run from officials, but everyone knows they take off their uniforms and sneak into the clubs where she performs. Some turned into groupies and hang around long after the shows are over.
A well-traveled, campy extraterrestrial does have her perks and her irritations. Transients and drifters are directed to the nearest black hole via her pre-screw-you GPS navigation, and drug-addled layabouts are allowed to create their own black holes. She promises to upload each and every one into the system. How dangerous can Thunderfuck be?
As dangerous as a black hole.
Watch this rare, magnificent being as she lights up televisions throughout the world on another of RuPaul’s extravaganzas. No, you won’t end up a cancer-stricken lab rat. The screen acts as a radiation shield to protect you from this renegade.
Be sure to visit alaskathunderfuck.com for tour dates, music, and more information about Alaska.
This is Alaska's first time performing at the Pride Festival of Central PA.
After her spaceship crashed in the Matanuska Valley, a remote part of south-central Alaska, the U.S. government recovered an emaciated… make that, an emancipated alien, with a 1972 issue of Vanity Fair and a can of Tab, or that’s how the story goes. Why she needed an Elmer’s glue stick, no one has determined. She refuses to acknowledge it was in her possession. Few believe the wreckage was really smoldering, since magazines tend to burn, and cynics wonder if she was actually held captive in a research facility, or entertained by the night watchman until he got bored with her in the 1980s. She’s supposedly on the run from officials, but everyone knows they take off their uniforms and sneak into the clubs where she performs. Some turned into groupies and hang around long after the shows are over.
A well-traveled, campy extraterrestrial does have her perks and her irritations. Transients and drifters are directed to the nearest black hole via her pre-screw-you GPS navigation, and drug-addled layabouts are allowed to create their own black holes. She promises to upload each and every one into the system. How dangerous can Thunderfuck be?
As dangerous as a black hole.
Watch this rare, magnificent being as she lights up televisions throughout the world on another of RuPaul’s extravaganzas. No, you won’t end up a cancer-stricken lab rat. The screen acts as a radiation shield to protect you from this renegade.
Be sure to visit alaskathunderfuck.com for tour dates, music, and more information about Alaska.
This is Alaska's first time performing at the Pride Festival of Central PA.
12:00 PM
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Suzi Brown
Suzi Brown is a well traveled and accomplished singer/songwriter, acoustic instrumentalist, and session musician based out of Harrisburg, PA. Having worked as a studio artist, singer/songwriter, and touring musician in many foreign nations she gained experience in connecting and communicating to a diverse crowd. Suzi's guitar work can be found and heard throughout the world on several different projects. An innovative unconventional approach to the guitar is a signature trademark to Suzi's live performance. Suzi is constantly reinventing her style and approach to playing the guitar. From the gained skills she has had as a session player, Suzi has learned how to accompany other artists not only in volume and control but in musical input for live and recorded accompaniment. Having also studied music abroad, she brings her ethnomusicology background into her melodic riffs, creating versatility in her sound. Suzi began her independent career in the United States after coming off of a band tour from the East coast of Australia. Immediately she took on working as a session player backing other artists in the studio, and also developing her own craft as a singer/songwriter and performer. Her career has truly developed, as her hard work has paid off with the high profile gigs she has been now landing. Open, honest, creative, authentic and genuine describes the approach that Suzi has to her live performance, as well as the character qualities she has when working with other industry professionals. Inspired by singer/songwriters as well as storytellers Suzi's performances are very personal and memorable, as she remains vulnerable and truthful for each performance. Suzi will take you around the world and even to your own backyard to where you are presently with her memorable melodies and truthful lyrics. Setting herself apart from most singer/songwriters and performers, Suzi is taking the unconventional and creating the conventional when it comes to venues. Suzi has been found playing in a gay bar in Bangkok Thailand as a venue to playing out on the sunny beaches of Byron Bay Australia, to playing in a prison in Central Pennsylvania. As a musician she has truly set herself apart in taking music where no other musician has ventured to go! To learn more about Suzi or to check out her sound, go to: suzibrown.net This is Suzi's first time performing at the Pride Festival of Central PA. |
1:00 PM
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Bumbada!
Bumbada! Women Drumming are the sirens of drum…they will lure you into the rhythms of the drum forever! The group is a Lancaster, Harrisburg, and Maryland-based women’s drumming adventure that is named after the sounds of the drum, boom, ba, da (Bass, tone, snap). Bumbada! plays West-African based drumming music, while adding its own feminine and powerful flair. You will get hooked, beware! Tammi Hessen is the musical director and lead of the group. Tammi is a Lancaster, PA-based drummer and percussionist who has been studying in the West African hand drum tradition of djembe/dununs. She teaches and performs, and believes that drumming can unite people from the inside –out. She has traveled to Africa to study drumming, and has studied with numerous teachers in the US. Tammi began teaching drumming classes in Baltimore Maryland in 2003, and continues to teach in the PA area. She also plays percussion with local musicians such as Bobbi Carmitchell and has recorded with Ubaka Hill. Tammi has performed at local and national festivals, produced ongoing weekend drumming retreats, organized festivals, and composed music on her drums and steel pan (which was her first love). She is an adjunct professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster PA where she directs the college’s African Drumming Ensemble and gives private lessons. To learn more about Bumbada!, go to: tammihessen.com/bumbada.html This is Bumbada's first time performing at the Pride Festival of Central PA. |
2:00 PM
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Jaremi Carey
Originally from San Antonio, TX, Jaremi Carey is better known as Phi Phi O'Hara, a nationally recognized drag queen and star of television's RuPaul's Drag Race (Season 4). In October 2016, Jaremi released his debut album, called Fever Heart, with "Play" as its lead single. To learn more about Jeremy and to hear his single, "Play," go to his website: jaremicarey.com This is Jaremi's first time performing at the Pride Festival of Central PA. |
2:00 PM
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Dani Fiore
Dani is a multi-instrumentalist and Certified Sound Therapist with a passion for drums, percussion, and bringing people together to make music! She got her start performing and teaching in the Asbury Park, New Jersey area before relocating to Central Pennsylvania in 2007. Dani has worked with some of the area’s most talented artists and bands, (on stage and in the studio), across a variety of genres including: Shawan and the Wonton, Carly Clark, The Wild Hymns, Tenny and the Headroom, Janie Womack, Julie Moffitt, Kevin Bock, Indian Summer Jars, Eskimo Wave, and more! On many Sunday mornings, she is joyfully accompanying David M. Glasgow at the Unitarian Universalists of the Cumberland Valley in Boiling Springs. There at UUCV, she also facilitates a seasonal drum circle where participants are encouraged to have fun, find relief from stress and anxiety, and practice fearless self-expression while exploring group music making. Dani also enjoys performing in musical theatre for Open Stage of Harrisburg and Capital Area School for the Arts. In 2015, Dani created “Life in Rhythm” - a program of hands-on, educational, connective group hand drumming experiences designed to benefit all people regardless of musical ability. To learn more about Dani or to check out her sound go to her website: danifiore.com This is Dani's first time performing solo at the Pride Festival of Central PA. |
3:00 PM
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Free Reign
Free Reign is a fine all-Women's driven four-piece band highlighting various musical genres such as rock and blues spiced with a touch of country and jazz in a fun and unique show.
Free Reign's strong rhythm section consists of Vicki Poole on bass and backup vocals with Jody Lee's beyond in-the-pocket, rather straight on-that-pocket drum style and vocals. Adding Mary Emelio's imaginative lead and rhythm guitar playing and vocals topped off with the distinctive lead and rhythm harmonica enhancements of Octavia to her powerful vocals, rhythm guitar and poignant song writing skills, this unique group will engage their audience to an indelible Female Infused Musical Experience Visit freereignband.com to learn more about Free Reign This is Free Reign's first time performing at the Pride Festival of Central PA. |
4:00 PM
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Brody Ray
Brody Ray, a Kearney, NE native, now lives in Nashville TN. The Nashville recording artist has released his first EP worldwide with a new Alternative Rock sound that’s full of life and energy. The EP was written and recorded on Music Row in Nashville, TN and produced by Ben Flanders. Ever since Brody could remember, music has played a major role in his life. Brody learned his first guitar strum pattern from his mother and started taking guitar and cello lessons at age 8. These were only some of the things his parents supported him in doing at such a young age. Brody’s life started out different from most. Brody born female, new that his body didn’t match what he felt on the inside, as young as a toddler. Brody’s mother remembers him kicking the back of her seat in the McDonald’s Drive Thru until he got the boy toy in his happy meal and jumping around in diapers and cowboy boots with a guitar singing at the top of his lungs, doing all the things boys did. As Brody got older his love for music grew as well as his desire to become the man he always felt he was on the inside. He worked towards a music business degree at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, but after 3 and a half years, something struck him and he knew that it was time to make some serious changes in his life if he was ever going to be happy. Brody dropped out a semester before graduating and started his transition to male, focusing on making his dreams of being a performer a reality. Brody got the top surgery and hormones he needed to complete the male image he had always seen himself having. During this process, TLC got in contact with Brody and they captured some of his most trying times going through this journey to become who he was inside, struggling with relationships, hormones, surgeries and family. Shortly after, Brody lost his voice while his body was adjusting to the testosterone injections once a week. Brody worked day and night on recovering his singing ability and is now able to sing and sound like he's always imagined sounding with a deeper more manly voice. He then auditioned for American Idol, making it through 4 auditions and earning a chance to sing in front of the celebrity judges, Jennifer Lopez, Steven Tyler and Randy Jackson. Over the last several years, Brody had put together several bands, started writing and recording music with his new and deeper voice that fit him better than ever, giving him the confidence to keep auditioning for as many opportunities anywhere he could. Brody auditioned for the Voice as well and made it to the Blind Auditions for season 7. He is currently working on getting his music to the masses. Brody has traveled to Belgrade, Serbia 4 times with Family members, completing 4 separate bottom surgeries and now has the complete male body to match the man Brody has always been inside. He also speaks, advocates and educates for the LGBT community, sharing his stories of transitioning, hormones effecting everything, surgeries in Belgrade Serbia and the struggles faced in everyday life. He speaks on College Campuses, for Law Reviews in South Dakota, Counseling Conferences across Nebraska and for TV and News papers locally. Brody has been traveling and performing all over the US and Canada singing at some of the nations largest Pride Festivals. Festivals include: Palm Springs Pride, Ontario Canada Pride, Kalamazoo MI Pride Rainbow Pride in Spokane WA, Roanoke, VA Pride, Mid-South Pride in Memphis, TN, Heartland Pride in Omaha, NE, Kearney, NE Pride and Milwaukee, Wisconsin's PrideFest. Visit brodyray.com to learn more about him and his musical journey. This is Brody's first time performing at the Pride Festival of Central PA. |
