“With a fiery ukulele and a red-hot jazz guitar, Victor & Penny put the swing, the jump, the dance and the roll in early twentieth century rock and roll. This Kansas City based duo brings antique pop to life with their sonic archeology as well as creating clever original songs. They impress and delight with charm and hot licks – they are “…an absolute rollicking blast.”
V&P is Jeff Freling of the Chicago Blue Man Group and who attended Berklee School of Music; and Erin McGrane of the cabaret group Alacartoona and George Clooney’s, “Up In The Air”. The duo was recently awarded a 2013 Escape To Create artist residency in Seaside, FL and has been touring the US for the past 2 years.
Victor & Penny is Jeff Freling and Erin McGrane.
Erin has been an active performing artist in the KC arts and music scene for many years. She currently divides her time equally between Chicago and Kansas City, but calls KC home. Erin is a film, theater and commercial actress; a musician and songwriter; and one of the co-hosts of the new TV program CINEMAKC. Most notably, Erin appeared in the Emmy-winning web series THE UNREAL HOUSEWIVES OF KANSAS CITY and in the Oscar-nominated film, UP IN THE AIR alongside George Clooney. Look for Erin this year in the soon-to-be-released thriller feature film NAILBITER. As chanteuse Ruby Falls, she fronts the cabaret act Alacartoona who was awarded a 2009 Inspiration Grant from the Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City. She is proud to say she mis-spent her youth singing in a rock band and was named Kansas City’s sexiest musician in the Pitch Magazine’s “Best of KC 2005”.
Jeff, originally from Kansas City, calls Chicago home most of the time where he performs regularly with Blue Man Group, Tributosaurus, Mar Caribe, the Tom Waits tribute band B1G T1ME, and has performed alongside Doug Gillard (Guided By Voices). He began furiously studying the guitar at the age of 10 when he first heard Jimmy Page’s guitar solo on “Whole Lotta Love” and has considered himself a guitar geek ever since. In the late 80s and early 90s Jeff was the guitarist and co-songwriter for two of KCs favorite bands: The Mongol Beach Party and Grumpy. He studied at the Conservatory at UMKC and at the Berklee School of music in Boston.”