The John Lennon Education Tour Bus

Next Destination: Diablo Valley College

Pleasant Hill, CA

 

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Lennon musical rover lets rockers learn the trade

Geoff Cunningham Jr. - Foster's Daily Democrat


Dominic Orlando is a 17-year-old aspiring rock ‘n’ roller so it was only fitting he was among the first to step aboard a John Lennon Educational Tour Bus that is essentially a $2 million rolling music recording studio.

The giant, fully equipped Lennon rig with the Beatles legend’s face emblazoned on the side spent time Thursday parked in front of Daddy’s Junky Music on Woodbury Avenue.

The bus goes to schools and campuses across the country to let aspiring musicians learn what its like to use state-of-the-art music and video production equipment.

The nonprofit mobile recording studio is sanctioned by Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, and travels around the country giving youths a chance to play music, write songs, shoot photos, engineer recording sessions and produce video projects.

Inside the bus is the studio where the Black Eyed Peas, Justin Timberlake and Natasha Bedingfield have all laid tracks, but Lennon Bus representative Seamus Harte said its primary mission is to reach out to aspiring high school musicians.

On Friday groups of Seacoast residents got the chance to tour the bus and take in its audio and visual potential.

Harte said the bus is split into three sections that house everything from a audio/video recording area to multimedia production studio.

The bus began touring the country as part of a John Lennon songwriting competition for youths, but the program has morphed into a more far-reaching experience that allows Lennon Bus representatives to reach out to artists.

When the bus visits schools for an entire day students are able to develop and record songs with videos.

Thursday’s visit allowed Orlando of Kittery, Maine, to get inspired about his musical aspirations.

Orlando resides at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and attends high school at Traip Academy. Though he said he’s more of a Paul McCartney fan he wasn’t going to miss the chance to check out the bus considering he wants to produce his own music as a career.

“I’m into the old rock ‘n’ roll like Led Zeppelin ... I want to bring it back,” Orlando said.

Joe Lombardi, 13, of Kittery visited the bus “just to look around.” Lombardi plays a double-neck Gibson electric guitar in a middle school band called the “Little Amps.” He said the band dabbles in “this and that” and sometimes plays its own original tunes.

“We try, but sometimes it goes badly,” Lombardi said.

Daddy’s Junky Music spokeswoman Candi Bramante said the store learned about the John Lennon “roving recording studio” during a National Association of Music Merchants Convention in California and signed up to have it come to Portsmouth.

“I got a tour of the bus and I was blown away by it,” she said.

Bramante said children get a real hands-on experience in music production on the bus, which is headed to Massachusetts today for additional stops at a Boys & Girls Club and another Daddy’s Junky Music location.


“This is precisely the kind of project John Lennon would have loved.”

- Yoko Ono Lennon

The Headlines

  • Stanford University “Game Day”

    The Bus will lead its 2nd "Game Day" with Learning Games Network at Stanford University from Feb 11-13, bringing high school students together to develop an iOS app with Stanford undergrads and the JLETB engineers. The Bus will be open to the Stanford community from noon-4pm on Feb 13.

  • Live with Bootsy at NAMM

    Friday night at NAMM the Lennon Bus hosted an event to commemorate the launch of the 2012 tour, capped off with a funktastic performance by Bootsy Collins and Verdine White. The Bus produced a live webstream of the event using our new TriCaster 850 Extreme and TodoCast satellite connection; if you missed it live you can still catch it on the DVR here: lennonbus.org/live. Stay tuned for future live events, happening regularly!

  • JLETB’s 15th Year Anniversary

    The JLETB kicked-off its 15th year of bringing music education to students nationwide, with a special birthday party at the 2012 NAMM Show. The Bus unveiled a new arsenal of equipment for the 2012 year, including Avid® Pro Tools®|HDX, and live streaming capabilities made possible by NewTek and TodoCast that will allow the whole party to be seen live via www.lennonbus.org. Learn more here.

Video aboard the Bus

The increasing accessibility of digital technology has led to an amazing expansion of opportunity in the art of digital storytelling. The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus has been at the forefront of this new media explosion, having produced daily video projects with students since January of 2001. The Lennon Bus puts state-of-the-art digital video equipment into the hands of workshop participants and teaches the entire digital workflow from storyboarding to web publication and DVD burning. Students leave the experience having shot, chopped, scored, and (most importantly) finished an entire digital video production. Using the latest cameras and professional hardware/software solutions including Avid Media Composer and Pro Tools, participants are exposed to the exciting world of digital videography and learn hot techniques of the trade. The accessibility of professional-quality technology is making it possible for millions of new voices to be heard and the John Lennon Bus is putting these tools into the hands of tomorrow's great digital producers. Subscribe to our Youtube channel so you never miss any of the amazing videos produced on the Lennon Bus.