Fall 2010 College Fest To Welcome Students Back

09/08/10 — Event Features Recording Artists Carolina Liar, The Consumers and Kooley High

Note: SMC students can get their tickets from student activities and leadership development director Kim Day.

SPARTANBURG, S.C. - The ninth annual College Fest event will be held from 7 to 11 p.m. Friday, Sept. 17, at Denny's Plaza in downtown Spartanburg, featuring Atlantic recording artists Carolina Liar, local recording artists The Consumers, and hip-hop/R&B artists Kooley High. The event coincides with the beginning of the school year and welcomes local college students to the Spartanburg community.

College Fest is a yearly event targeted to college-age students and presented and hosted by College Town of Spartanburg, a consortium of the six colleges in Spartanburg (Converse College, Sherman College, Spartanburg Methodist College, Spartanburg Community College, University of South Carolina Upstate and Wofford College) and in partnership with the City of Spartanburg. College Town was initiated by former Spartanburg Mayor Bill Barnet in 2003 with the goal of collaborative social and academic programs to showcase the institutions of higher education in the community.

Several local food vendors will be on hand at the event providing free food to students with valid tickets, including Bull Hawgs BBQ, Papa John's Pizza and several others. Admission to the event is free. Spartanburg college students may pick up free food tickets for the event from their respective student activities offices. Vendors at CollegeFest will also accept cash.

 This year's musical guests bring a diverse array of music that will appeal to all of Spartanburg's college students.

Headlining the fall 2010 College Fest is Carolina Liar, a rock band with roots in Charleston, S.C., and connections across the Atlantic with famed Swedish producer Max Martin. South Carolina native Chad Wolf, a singer, songwriter and guitarist, moved to Los Angeles at the age of 22, earning a living doing whatever odd jobs he could and eventually landed an internship with songwriter Diane Warren, who helped Wolf refine his writing skills. The story might have ended there if Wolf hadn't agreed to housesit for a friend who just happened to know famed Swedish record producer Max Martin. Martin heard one of Wolf's songs and asked to hear additional samples, and soon Wolf found himself in Stockholm recording an album with one of Europe's biggest pop producers.

Carolina Liar's debut album, "Coming to Terms," was released by Atlantic Records in 2008. The band's single, "I'm Not Over," was used in commercials for the ABC series "Eli Stone" and included in the Ashton Kutcher/Cameron Diaz film "What Happens in Vegas." The song "Show Me What I'm Looking For" appeared in FOX Sport's commercials for the 2009 MLB All-Star Game. The band includes Wolf on lead vocals, Jim Almgren Gandara on guitar, Johan Carlsson on keyboards, Rickard Goransson on guitar, Max Grahn on drums, and Erik Hääger on bass. Find them online at http://www.carolinaliar.com/ or http://www.myspace.com/carolinaliar.

The Consumers, formed in December 2005 during a 10-song performance at Miyako Sushi Group in Spartanburg, is a band that has drawn influences from such artists as The Beatles, Radiohead, Jeff Buckley, Red Hot Chili Peppers, CCR and "anything else that wouldn't quite fit together in a mix-tape." Soon after that performance, the band put together 30+ ear-catching covers and began scheduling regular gigs in Spartanburg before hitting the road throughout the Southeast. The band enjoys playing at local hang-outs like Sonny's Brick Oven Pizza, Club 229, Mad River Bar & Grill, Wild Wing, The Cellar, Lil' Dz, and many more, but has traveled as far as Murfreesboro, Tenn., to get their sound out. After months of discovery and collaboration, The Consumers released their first self-titled EP in March 2008. The band's most recent release, "Profiteering," is a full-length album and "a creation we're proud to hang our hats on," according to members Joe Power, Mark Miller, Casey Burgess, Wes Gosnell and Louis Myers. Find the band online at http://theconsumersrock.com/ or http://www.myspace.com/theconsumersroc.

Kooley High is composed of six former N.C. State University students, who met on the campus bricks by way of hip hop. What started out as a student-run hip hop organization, known as H2O, soon turned into a fresh factory of beats, rhymes, and life. The North Carolina group is made up of three emcees, Charlie Smarts, Tab-One and Rapsody; two producers, Foolery and The Sinopsis; and a deejay, DJ Ill Digitz. According to URB Magazine, "Kooley High combines traditional hip-hop and R&B with a modern freestyle that traverses effortlessly between not only genres, but also generations. The result is a three-dimensional concoction that envelops listeners in a sound that is as smooth as The Fugees and Common, as passionate as Mary J. Blige and as intelligent as Hieroglyphics." Their most recent album is "Eastern Standard Time." Find Kooley High at http://www.kooleyhigh.com/ or http://www.myspace.com/kooleyhigh.