|
Winner, Best New Band at the 2010 Northwest Arkansas Music Awards
National Women’s Music Festival 2011 Winners
Big Bad Gina! ~ fun and funky Goddess folk fusion with a soulful, jazzy flair. From chant to reggae, jazz to rap, to folkin’ rockin’ and danceable disco, Big Bad Gina spans a myriad of genres and styles with knee buckling 3 part harmony and multi-instrumentalism. Big Bad Gina is the 2010 winner of “Best New Band” and nominated for Best Party Band in the Northwest Arkansas Music Awards. They have headlined regional festivals on the alternative spirituality circuit leaving their audiences exhilarated and asking for more.Their first CD release, “Amazon Warrior Princess” features 10 original tracks with songs written by each of the three band members and the title track is the 2009 Goddess Festival winning theme song.
Big Bad Gina is: Jori Costello, Renée Janski, and Melodie Griffis
Jori Costello, singer/songbird, guitar groovin, percussion pounding Goddess. Renee Janski of UU choir fame, amazing Amazon arias and multi-faceted musicianship. And Melodie Griffis of U of A jazz combo talent with an Angelic Cameroon croon keeping it rockin on the bass and jazzin it up with her ultra fine guitar riffs ~ Add a slew of instruments, some kickin original tunes and select scintillating covers, and you have Big Bad Gina! an all womyn’s band based in Fayetteville, AR and ready to rock the region and nation with their award winning “Amazon Warrior Princess” Goddess Groove! It’s Folkin’ Rockin’!
Melodie Griffis
 A native of Fayetteville, Griffis was raised in a musical family. After graduating from Fayetteville High School, she went on to study guitar, voice, arranging and composition, completing a degree in music from the University of Arkansas. Griffis was a featured arranger at the UA Women’s Festival, guitarist for the University of Arkansas’ jazz band, and played saxophone in the marching and Hogwild bands. She was a member of the Schola Cantorum, as well.
Since graduating from the U of A, Griffis has performed professionally in musical groups throughout the United States and internationally, including such locations as Austin, TX, Denver, CO, and in Cameroon, West Africa, where she joined a traditional African group, “Afrika-Ba’a” during her three year stint as a health volunteer in the Peace Corps. Combining her love of music and her passion for activism, Griffis organized and directed the 2001 Cameroon World AIDS Day Music Festival and HIV/AIDS Peer Educator Training, which had a potential outreach of 200,000 residents of the least developed Eastern Province.
Griffis resides in Fayetteville and has recently completed her Master’s degree in Sociology at the University of Arkansas.
Renée Janski
 Janski, originally from Conway, Arkansas, began playing piano at the age of four, and joined her school orchestra in sixth grade. After graduating from Conway High School, she earned her degree in Opera from UCA, studying under Dr. Martha Antolik. Janski has performed operatic pieces internationally and played regionally with various folk and jazz ensembles. She received first place in the opera category for the National Society for Arts and Letters. Janski has owned her own music studio, The Janski Studio, for 19 years. She teaches piano, guitar, fiddle, banjo and voice, and has had many students that have gone on to have major musical careers. Janski loves teaching and hopes to keep doing so for many years to come. Janski has also been teaching yoga since 2004 and believes that it has a huge influence on her life and music.
Currently serving as the Director of Music at the Unitarian Universalist Church, Janski resides in Fayetteville with her partner and her twin sons.
Jori Costello
 In the beginning, a Missouri girl – born in St. Louis and moving to Kansas City on her own in her teens. Joining choirs and bands a plenty, guest starring, open micing, vacationing with guitar in hand, playing many a benefit for many a good cause, Costello just loves to sing!
With an innate gift of rhythm, she started out playing recorder and flute in school bands and soon moved on to guitar and joined her first band at 19, “Harmony” in KC, MO. She doesn’t even know when she started playing percussion, perhaps shortly after coming out of the womb. Now versed in several instruments, having fronted her own “Jori Costello Band” and collaborating with long time musical meistro, Angela “Oxygen” Edge in their folkin’ rockin’ funky, punky duo, Jorian Oxygen, Jori has something to sing about.
Among her accomplishments, she’s received winning recognition in the Ozark Music Awards “Folk Artist of the Year” for 2002 and “Best Solo Female Singer/Songwriter” for 2005’s Northwest Arkansas Music Awards’. Jori’s first CD, “Home Grown” was nominated “Best CD” in the Ozark region. Featured on many compilations including her song, “War Games” on the OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology Peace CD, harmony vocals on Strange Heroes’ “Aid to the Nation” benefitting the Democratic Party, and “Past the Pain” featured on Band Together for the Arkansas Children’s Shelter. Her songs are about womyn’s issues, hope, positive change, and acceptance.
Thanks for supporting live music and especially girl rock!
Peace thru music!
|
