Learning music is easy for some, difficult for others … but getting better at it requires tough sledding at times. That’s why it’s often helpful to remind ourselves: It’s better to laugh than cry.
There are actually many benefits to maintaining a sense of humor while honing your musical skills. Here are five of them.
Read MoreArtist Thao Nguyen doesn’t mean to repeat herself, but she can’t help it. She’s happy. Or, more precisely, she’s relieved. Nguyen, who until quite recently fronted the project Thao & The Get Down Stay Down has since shed the extra words and is prepared to forge ahead as a musician under her own name. The change, which she posted about recently on social media, is both an essential subtraction and a symbol of larger shifts in Nguyen’s creative and personal life.
As much as any artist since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Nguyen has undergone new pages and chapters in her life, which have required deep self-investigation and public acknowledgment of her identity as a queer person. Nguyen married her wife in 2019. These aspects of identity are important to identify inwardly and outwardly. They are the threads of our personal tapestry. And this is what was on Nguyen’s mind as she reimagined the extra tracks on her new release, the deluxe edition of her acclaimed 2020 album, Temple, which is out today (October 29).
Read MoreLike many, Caneyville, Kentucky-born Elvie Shane grew up singing in church. But now, unlike many, Shane is singing around the world in front of thousands. The way Shane tells the story is that he was born on a Sunday and by the following week, his mother had him wrapped in a hymnal in a tiny church in his small hometown. But even before then, Shane was likely first introduced to music from the ‘90s country radio station in the car ride home from the hospital after he’d first arrived on earth.
Ever since, Shane has been singing hymns with his mother and listening to country music on the radio, especially on those occasions he’d join his dad, a professional mechanic, on jobs around the state. He remembers Steve Earle, Otis Redding, Dwight Yoakam. And it’s all this and more that binds the stories and songs on Shane’s newest LP, Backslider, which is out today (October 29).
Read MoreDrag has changed the world, especially recently. The centuries-old tradition has, of late, earned a significant number of eyeballs thanks to the surging popularity of the Emmy Award-winning television show RuPaul’s Drag Race. The program has made stars of dozens of drag queens since its inception in 2009. As such, the show has not only changed the world but it’s changed the lives of its annual crop of protagonists, many of whom have become globally known with millions of social media followers.
One of those famous drag queens is Alaska Thunderfuck (born Justin Andrew Honard), who distinguished herself on the show with elegant makeup, a regal persona, and wry humor. Now, though, Alaska is making a name for herself in new formats. She has a memoir out on November 9 and a new single, “Red,” out last month. The track portends both a new LP and music tour in 2022. Indeed, Alaska is involved in much, but it’s all sewn together by her love for the art of drag.
Read MoreThe founding members of the indie rock band, The Moldy Peaches, met at an open mic for middle schoolers in Westchester County, New York. Later, they formed a friendship and creative partnership in a record store in that same small town when Kimya Dawson was around 20 years old and Adam Green was about 13.
Despite their age difference, the two became pals. Dawson was used to being around kids as a summer camp counselor. Her mother was an elementary school teacher and her parents ran a daycare center in their home. Consequently, there were seemingly always children running around the house, even when Dawson was writing and recording her bedroom songs. In fact, some of her early solo work included kids humming along. Not to mention, she’s got a childlike spirit as prominent as any other feature.
For Green, he was in awe. Dawson, who had grown up locally, went to college on the other side of the country in Olympia, Washington, before moving back to New York State. She knew people he’d only read about in books, like Riot Grrrl Kathleen Hanna. But when they began plucking and plunking out little songs together in the record store, that’s when the real creative magic between the two friends commenced.
Now, fans of the acclaimed indie band can hear those early songs with the release of their new collection The Moldy Peaches – Origin Story: 1994-1999, which is out on February 25.
Read MoreRahill Jamalifard, lead singer and co-founder of the New York-based band Habibi, finds it difficult to call herself a musician. While she most certainly is one, of course, the feeling is understandable.
At first, Jamalifard was brought into music by others. Initially by her parents (and father, especially) and then later by guitarist Lenaya “Lenny” Lynch. The two former Michiganders met in New York City and bonded over a shared love of music, exchanged numbers, and later co-founded Habibi together in the Big Apple. Jamalifard’s entry into participating in music began with a love of lyricism and storytelling. These days, her popular band is writing its own story, touring the country, and earning attention from prestigious media outlets. Now, Habibi is set to release a two-song, pandemic-inspired, hip-shaking EP this Friday (October 29).
Read MoreFor some strange reason, it’s difficult for most people to appreciate the best things in life at the moment. It’s somehow easier for us to reminisce about them well after the fact, like, Oh, wasn’t it grand 10 years ago when we were traveling Europe together? Yet, it’s likely that a decade ago, that same speaker might have been worried about their sweaty clothes, a dwindling bank account, or the difficult job waiting back in the U.S. after the excursion abroad.
This phenomenon of appreciation is something that Dave Knudson, guitarist, and co-founder of the Seattle-born rock band, Minus the Bear, knows well. Knudson has lived it, and in a way, can now live it over and over again by listening to his band’s newest album, a forthcoming live compilation comprised of songs recorded in 2018 during Minus the Bear’s final tour together. The LP, Farewell, is set for release on Friday (October 29).
Read MoreDemi Demitro, frontwoman for Boulder, Colorado-born rock band The Velveteers, has a unique voice on the guitar. She has a power with the instrument. It’s as if it becomes dancing fire in her hands when she wields it on the band’s new record, Nightmare Daydream.
The new 12-track album rattles and shakes, and was produced by none other than Dan Auerbach, frontman, of course, for the blues-rock band, The Black Keys. Lately, Auerbach has been discovering and producing a number of acclaimed acts from his Nashville studio, from Yola to Robert Finley to now The Velveteers.
We caught up with Demitro to ask her about her relationship to the six-string, developing her skills as a teen, and how she and her band began to collaborate with Auerbach in Music City.
Read MoreGrammy-nominated songwriter and performer, Tori Amos, has learned much from fame over the years. Perhaps, first and foremost, she’s learned that it’s dangerous. But learning, itself has been integral to Amos’ life. In fact, it marks her life in each of its stages, from infancy when she heard her first songs to today as she readies herself for the release of her latest album, Ocean To Ocean, which is out Friday (October 29). For Amos, observation and practice have always been fundamental. Even when it feels difficult to do so, to undertake an examination of herself or the world at large. But that is exactly what Amos had to do to create her latest standout LP. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, she felt trapped, personally and spatially, so, Amos says, she wrote her way out of it.
Read MoreSeattle-based producer, Jake One (born Jake Dutton, aka “Snare Jordan“), is humble, the kind of guy to throw a hoodie on, stuff his hands in his pockets, and walk to the corner store for a bag of chips like any other fellow on the city boulevard. Yet, some of his closest friends and collaborators are Grammy Award-winners, platinum-selling musicians, and world-famous names. But Jake One doesn’t sweat all that. Flash isn’t his mission, it doesn’t stick to his attention. He cares about the next project and finding new, devastating inspiration.
In a way, he can trace it back to his school days. Back around 1991, he had a coveted Georgetown University Starter jacket. This was when the school’s basketball team was especially renowned with the likes of Alonzo Mourning. On the playground, he could feel his peers’ eyes on him, the heat of attention. So, the next day, he took it back to the store and exchanged it. Today, Jake One brings that same almost-anonymous comportment to his career, which has, nevertheless, garnered him millions of record sales and spins.
Read MoreJohn Linnell, co-founder for the Grammy Award-winning alternative rock group, They Might Be Giants, knows that process is as important as product, if not more so. For the band—which has released around two-dozen albums, recorded popular television show theme songs and impacted a globe of music fans, taking its time and remaining true to what makes it tick uniquely is paramount. This is especially true when it comes to They Might Be Giants’ new LP and accompanying tome, both of which are named BOOK, and both are out this Friday.
Read MoreWhen someone is first learning how to cook, along with stuff like measurements and following the general recipe outline, the advice they will inevitably hear from more seasoned chefs is, “Cook from the heart.” It’s the writer’s equivalent of, “Write what you know.” The idea is that the dish (or the story) must come from a true, authentic place, and should originate from something known, loved and even cherished.
Read MoreGrowing up, John Flansburgh, co-founder of the Grammy-winning alternative rock band They Might Be Giants, loved to tinker. He loved sound and he also loved new technology—rudimentary as it might have been, even at the time. For example, he loved listening to the radio in his parents’ car. He was “hypnotized” by Top 40 songs. As a kid, he also got into tape recorders and bought a three-inch reel-to-reel to play with sound. Later, his popular band became known for its “Dial-A-Song’ gimmick where They Might Be Giants recorded new songs and put them on an answering machine for people to call in to hear. Today, the band is continuously innovating, staying fresh. It’s part of their mission, evident by the group’s newest album and accompanying tome of the same name, BOOK, out October 29.
Read MoreWhen Richard Young, co-founder of the Kentucky Headhunters, was a boy, not even a teenager, he moved into his very own home. Along with his brother Fred and two cousins, Young lived in an old farmhouse that, at the time, felt like something of a clubhouse. But the boys didn’t waste the opportunity (and their parents weren’t far, living in a house nearby on the same plot). There, the boys played music, laughed, and farmed together. They were planting seeds, both literally and metaphorically, early on that would impact them the rest of their lives, which would later include a Grammy win and touring the globe. But one story in particular sticks out that sums up the origin of Young and his group, which has been going in some shape or another for 53 years, through today, with the release of the band’s newest LP, That’s a Fact Jack!. That story has to do with hard fieldwork.
Read MoreWhen artist and RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 11 winner Yvie Oddly has down time, she makes sure she doesn’t. Downtime isn’t really downtime, in this way. Instead, it’s just time to do or make something else.
When Oddly won the 2019 season (a truly coveted feat), she didn’t rest on her laurels, either. Instead, she went out and recorded a new album, Drag Trap, which she released a year ago (October 23, 2020). One might think that after achieving such a major milestone, there might be only parade floats and flower bouquets. But for Oddly, there was recording booths and turning lyric notes into full songs that would go on to earn millions of streams. Even today, as Oddly performs in a RuPaul’s Drag Race Las Vegas residency, she is working on creating and completing other projects when off-stage.
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