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Local group Abe Parker Band to play twice at Ichthus in Wilmore

June 13, 2011|By Jonathan Kleppinger | jkleppinger@jessaminejournal.com

Photo by Zach Wilson

While dozens of Christian bands converge on Wilmore from all over the nation for Ichthus each year, one band this June has a very short drive.

The Abe Parker Band is fronted by its namesake, a recent Asbury University grad who sings and plays guitar. Completing a core trio are bassist and fellow Asbury grad Tyler Young and drummer Robbie Goins or Nicholasville. Seventeen-year-old guitarist Sam Jones of Lexington also plays with the band, and Asbury student Amaris Blevins will sing with the guys for the first time at Ichthus.

The Abe Parker Band is scheduled to play on the Galleria Stage on Wednesday at 6 p.m. and on the same stage Saturday at noon.

Parker has played at Ichthus in Wilmore twice before with the band Rookie. His current band has come together within the past year as his musical taste evolved.

“I was playing with some other guys for a while, and I decided that instead of playing punk rock and classic rock, I wanted to play ‘girl songs,’” Parker, 22, said. “I knew Tyler from the Vineyard (Vineyard Community Church in Lexington), and we’d met some other places too. Tyler recommended Robbie, and we jammed together, and the first time, they were like, ‘Yeah, let’s do this; this sounds great.’ I was pumped; they sounded really good.”

For the members of the band, original songs are what sets the Abe Parker Band apart from other outfits they have played with.

“We’ve done everything from country to funk, and this is whatever genre they’re calling it — it’s a really different, creative blend experience where you don’t get bored with one type of music,” Young, 24, said. “Even every song is different; you can go from an R&B song to a little bit of a punk rock, pop rock, chick rock, that kind of stuff.”

Parker described the sound of his band as “rock-a-booty.”

“Like rock and booty-shaking music, rock-a-booty music,” he said.

The band has not played at Ichthus in Wilmore, but Young, Goins and Parker played together at the Ichthus Fort Wayne festival in Fort Wayne, Ind., in September 2010.

“We got to go up there and play on one of the small stages, and it was a ton of fun,” Young said. “It was a way different feel — all parking lot, not a camp.”

Goins, 25, has played on an Ichthus stage before and said he looks forward to another opportunity to perform at a festival he has attended regularly since he was 12.

“I usually went to see all the big names that would come in and check it out; I think the first time I went was in middle school,” he said. “That was 13 years ago, that first one, and I’ve pretty much been going here and there ever since.”

The band recently shot an eight-song DVD at Asbury University’s Miller Center for Communication Arts. The show raised nearly $1,000 for the Salvation Army, and DVDs should be available at Ichthus.

“It was a really great production,” Parker said. “It was all student workers; we had 60-plus workers in the brand-new Asbury media-comm building, which is incredible.”

The group is also working on a CD that Parker hopes to have ready in the fall. The frontman said he is encouraged by the success the band has had in its short existence.

“Less than a year together, and we still don’t hate each other,” he said.

For more information about The Abe Parker Band, go to www.purevolume.com/abeparker.

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