The members of the Tacoma-based band, Enumclaw, consider themselves a working-class group. They have slogged in minimum wage jobs, rehearsed in basements and enjoyed their fair share of “tall boy” cans of beer belly-up at a dive bar. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with any of this. But the band members also dream bigger. Part of their identity entails a grind, a push for more, to make for higher ground when the time is right.
Read MoreTo listen to the new album, The Million Masks of God, from the Atlanta-based rock group, Manchester Orchestra, is to inhabit a cathedral-like building and let your ears take in each swell, each ring and each echo as the vibrations subsume and the medicine of music takes hold. The forthcoming record (out April 30) is spacious. It’s like wind and chimes but if they occupied a symphony. But these qualities make sense when you consider the earliest memories the band’s frontman and principle songwriter, Andy Hull, has when it comes to music. As a kid, Hull’s mother would play classical music at night to help him fall asleep. He’d drift toward slumber as the compositions of Chopin or Bach unfurled. Now, the music Hull makes is similarly epic-yet-tasteful. It’s a fine line to walk but one he and the band’s co-founder and guitarist, Robert McDowell, traverse expertly.
Read MoreAs an artist, Marie Ulven (a.k.a. the popular musician, girl in red), lives a dichotomous life. In one sense, she has a rather uneventful day-to-day in her home country of Norway. She grew up in a small Norwegian town, she really likes fingerboarding and she walks her dog regularly. But in another sense, Ulven lives a very engaged life with music and fame at her fingertips. Today, she has millions of fans and even more video and song streams. Since releasing her smash 2018 hit, “I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend,” Ulven’s career has continued to take off thanks to her devastating honesty, eclectic sonic sensibilities and knack for saying just the phrase to perk and ear or raise an eyebrow. This week, Ulven will release her debut LP, if I could make it go quiet. The album, which begins with brash statements and keen personal insights, should continue to garner Ulven a large following while still continuing to allow her to live the life she’s always dreamed.
Read MoreIllinois-born, Los Angeles-based songwriter and performer, K.Flay (born Kristine Meredith Flaherty) has never been afraid to show a little teeth. Whether listening to her snarling, Grammy-nominated hit, Blood in the Cut, or the boisterous tracks off her forthcoming five-track EP, Inside Voices – out June 11 via BMG – K.Flay’s music bites with a force bolstered by sharp, scathing lyrics and often riff-heavy production.
With Inside Voices, the Billboard chart-topping artist will release her second record in about a year. She released her EP, Don’t Judge A Song By Its Cover, in 2020. But her new collection is some of her best work to date.
The album includes the acerbic tracks, Four Letter Words and Good Girl, along with powerful and percolating TGIF, which boasts Rage Against The Machine guitarist, Tom Morello. Also featured on the album is Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker on the song, Dating My Dad.
We caught up with K.Flay to ask her about her entrance into music while attending Stanford University, how her late father influenced her love of guitar, the instruments and pedals she can’t live without and what it was like to work with Morello on the new EP.
Read MoreLos Angeles-based R&B singer-songwriter, Asiahn (born Asiahn Bryant), remembers the many Greyhound bus rides she took from her then-hometown in South Carolina to the creative hotspot of Atlanta, Georgia. From nine years old, Asiahn knew she wanted to sing and perform for people. So, by 15 she was taking the 300-mile often-overnight Greyhound bus trips every other weekend to A-Town to learn the ropes, to write and record. When not in transit, however, Asiahn would continue to work. At home, she’d film herself singing in-performance with her family’s handheld video camera, critiquing a high note or watching how she moved with a microphone in her hand. It’s not that she was obsessive, exactly. It was more than that. She was determined to be better. These days, Asiahn is working even harder, inspired by a session with the famed singer, Jennifer Lopez.
Read MoreAs described in Part 1 of this two-part series, being a musician today often means you’re also a small business owner, requiring that you undertake hours of promotion, marketing and administrative work to get a leg up.
In Part 1, we provided tips for getting your music played on the radio, placed in TV spots, featured online and in livestreams, as well as offering some common-sense approaches for getting publicity and finding a manager.
In this installment, we’ll talk about how to distribute your music (including getting it pressed on vinyl) and land it on prestigious playlists, along with getting exposure on social media. Last, but by no means least, we’ll discuss how you can protect your work and advance your career by finding a qualified entertainment attorney.
Read MoreComedian, Erica Rhodes, cares about the things she says. Growing up, her mother cared obsessively about grammar. Her father was witty, sharp, and made people laugh. Early on, Rhodes realized the power communication can have between people—whether that meant bursts of laughter or depth of a conversation. Today, Rhodes, who has appeared in shows like New Girl and Modern Family, brings that same level of care to her standup comedy. Sometimes she even takes it directly to sentence parsing and grammatical choices with jokes that dig into the difference between “lay” and “lie,” for instance.
Rhodes, whose new special, La Vie en Rhodes, premiered on Amazon Prime and other outlets this past Tuesday, brings this deep care and consideration for communication to her work. The funny thing about the new special, though, aside from the multitude of Rhodes’ jokes, is that her audience is in their cars, socially distanced. Removed are the sweeping claps, replaced with honking cars. We caught up with the comedian to ask her about her first great laugh, who in her family is funny, what she loves about language, and much more.
Read MoreIf you were to examine the record collection of Finnish musician, Jesse Markin, you’d inevitably encounter a veritable library. The artist digs it all, from progressive rock to pop to hip-hop, jazz, funk, soul and trap music. Indeed, the vast assortment that is Markin’s albums is an indication both of his eclectic tastes as a listener and of his creative music-making philosophy. When listening to Markin’s songs, you hear a wide swath of genres—There’s 808s & Heartbreak-era Kanye West, there’s Gorillaz, Arcade Fire and the Fugees. In a way, to listen to Markin is to put on a blindfold and walk through a neon midnight blue cavern, lit and warmed by the various songs and sounds you hear along the way. Markin takes pleasure in providing you this journey and on his forthcoming LP, NOIR, the artist is sure to attract many interested in signing up for his signature adventures.
Read MoreWhen an artist represents both the nostalgic and the brand new, she has something that makes a home in memory. When she can imbue the numinous and demand immediate recognition, she is assuredly of some special stuff. The music of Sharon Van Etten offers this strangely familiar ethic and aesthetic. She is Patti Smith finishing a pint of Pilsner as the pool cue cracks in the back of the dive bar. She is the next star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Van Etten’s newest release, epic Ten, is unlike any other. In one sense, it’s a reissue of her 2010 sophomore record, Epic. But it’s also much more. The reissue includes covers of each song from the original release from such heavyweights as IDLES, Lucinda Williams, Courtney Barnett, and Fiona Apple. In this way, epic Ten is two albums at once in a compact 14 tracks, ranging in creative impact from Van Etten’s ghostly harmonies to IDLES’ industrial wallop.
Read MoreIf a friend called one day and said, “Look, I need you to write a song for Michelle Obama,” what would you do? Likely, you’d have to stay up and work for weeks, writing and rewriting drafts to eventually send your music to one of the most famous and regal people on the planet. But Riki Lindhome and Kate Micucci didn’t get that advance notice. In that way, the duo, known for the songs they write under the moniker, Garfunkel and Oates, was spared intense anxiety. But when they found out that a silly demo they’d written about a tomato had found the former First Lady, there was a moment of sheer surprise. Friend and show creator, Jeremy Konner, called to say that Mrs. Obama loved the tomato track he’d asked them to write as a favor weeks prior. But there was more good news. Mrs. Obama’s approval portended the new Netflix food-centric kids puppet show, Waffles + Mochi (out now), and Lindhome and Micucci were tasked with writing its child-friendly songs.
Read MoreAmerican roots singer/songwriter, Rhiannon Giddens, has, together with the help of her musical and romantic partner, Francesco Turrisi, written and recorded a new album during the COVID-19 pandemic that she and Turrisi have released today. The album, They’re Calling Me Home, features haunting vocals that harken to centuries past. It features banjo, guitar, flute, fiddle, and other instruments. It also features components less familiar that Giddens and Turrisi have explored throughout their decades as nuanced, precise players like Scottish or Gaelic songs. Giddens, who grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina, later studied at Oberlin College’s Oberlin Conservatory for music in Ohio. Since, she’s been recognized by prestigious prizes and earned a Grammy for her work with the roots group, The Carolina Chocolate Drops.
We caught up with Giddens to ask her about her experience becoming a musician later in life (she only started playing instruments in her 20s) and writing an album with T Bone Burnett in her late 30s. We also asked her about her relationship with Turrisi, how it got started and how it manifested to now two fantastic LPs.
Read MoreDave Navarro is a guitar fanatic. He’s also one of the instrument’s most prolific and well known players. Navarro, who rose to fame in the rock band, Jane’s Addiction, has also famously played with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and numerous other all star acts. But these days, Navarro is taking time from his busy schedule to celebrate the giants of the guitar who have come before him via guest DJ sets on a limited-run new SiriusXM Guitar Greats channel, which launched Monday and will run through April 19th.
Other guest DJs include Nancy Wilson and Keb’ Mo’. Navarro, whose set will run through Sunday, will celebrate legends like Jerry Cantrell, Mick Ronson, Eddie Van Halen, Lou Reed and many more. For the guitar great, the DJ sets are especially meaningful. Navarro, who has suffered some unthinkable tragedies in his life, has used the guitar to both prosper and process deep emotions. As you’ll see below, Navarro considers the instrument to be an extension of himself, another limb.
We caught up with Navarro to ask him how his love for guitar led him to work with SiriusXM, how his relationship with Jimi Hendrix’ music buoyed him in touch times and what his relationship with the instrument is like today.
Read MoreIn a way, longtime comedian Eddie Griffin is the King of the Colloquial. Listening to the man talk or watching his new comedy special, Laughin’ Through Your Mask, which came our last week, one gets the sense that Griffin cares deeply about the (his?) idea of common sense. Griffin, who grew up first in Kansas City, Missouri, and later moved to Compton, California, has seen a lot. He’s also starred in movies like Undercover Brother and played roles in Armageddon and A Star is Born. Over the course of his life, he’s lived in dangerous areas and mansions. Doing so, one picks up on a through line to the world at large and Griffin does his best to express what he sees and what he knows of this thread.
But all that isn’t to say that it’s not brusque, at times. It’s easy to think that many in today’s culture might be put off by what Griffin has to say. But Griffin makes fun of everyone, from people who look and act like him to people who look and act quite differently. Everything is fair game because, as Griffin says below, the point of comedy is to induce laughter. Plain and simple. We caught up with the comedian to ask him how he came to the world of joke telling, what inspired his new special and tour during the COVID-19 pandemic, and what he loves most about entertaining.
Read MoreBeverly Glenn-Copeland, the Philadelphia-born multidisciplinary artist who has lived and worked for decades in Canada, is experiencing fame for the first time now at 76 years old. Glenn-Copeland, who for years identified as a lesbian woman before learning about transgender language and now identifies more accurately as a transgender man, is enjoying a new sense of fame and adoration thanks to the recent rediscovery of his nuanced 1986 electronic album, Keyboard Fantasies. New audiences are flocking to his work, which also includes writing he has done for kids shows like Sesame Street and Shiny Time Station and the records he released in the ‘70s and ‘80s. This week, on April 9, Glenn-Copeland will officially re-release his 1986 record, which, the artist says, originally came to him more as a transmission from above rather than an unearthing or physical labor.
Read MoreThe story of the 77-year-old gospel singer, Elizabeth King, is the story of a life of hard work. King, who grew up on a Tennessee plantation, started working at five years old with her father. At nine years old, she began picking cotton and chopping corn. She worked so well with her brother that they earned adultpay, $3 a day, instead of $2. Later, working for a florist in Memphis the day Elvis died, King drove back and forth from her shop to the world famous singer’s mansion delivering bouquet after bouquet. Flowers from every state in America came through her place of business.
Throughout her life, King has attended church devoutly. Her relationship to a higher power remains central to her life, even today. King, who cut singles in the ’70s, stepped away from formal recording for more than four decades afterwards. In that time, she raised kids, sewing their school’s uniforms. Now, she’s back in the public eye thanks to her new record, Living In The Last Days, out today. The debut LP boasts her timeless, remarkable sound.
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