Golden Hour with Charlene Kaye – Details, episodes & analysis

Season 3 finale! Charlene and Dave talk to the talented, hilarious, and charismatic hip hop artist Bohan Phoenix. Dialing from Chengdu, China, where he now resides, we get into his origins coming to the US when he was 11 years old, his rise in the New York City hip hop scene, and his return to China and being rap artist overseas. Listen to Bohan Phoenix's latest album 你的骄傲 Make You Proud on Spotify. Follow Golden Hour podcast on Instagram.

Today on the pod: Charlene and Dave share their first concert experiences. Then, they talk with Ashrita Kumar, the captivating frontperson of the punk band Pinkshift. Ashrita shares stories from their med school experience, the band’s pandemic-era origins and ascent, and how writing music brought them out of the darkest of days.  Find Pinkshift’s newest EP Suraksha on Spotify. Find them on Instagram @pinkshiftmd. Follow Golden Hour on Instagram @goldenhourpod. 

Yvette Young plays guitar like no one else. A self-taught virtuoso, Yvette started on classical piano and violin and was subjected to a brutal practice regimen, which ultimately led her to an eating disorder in order regain some control over her life. She ultimately fell in love with music again, and the world is better for it. As the principle songwriter of the band Covet, Yvette has come to define a singular style of progressive rock that is only made better by the joy she spreads watching her play. Host Charlene Kaye and Yvette get into her atypical childhood, her love of all things butt rock, and the biggest challenge she still faces as an Asian woman in music. --- Listen to Covet's most recent track, Firebird, on Spotify. Find Yvette Young on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/yvetteyoung/ Find Covet on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/covetband/ Follow Golden Hour podcast at: https://www.instagram.com/goldenhourpod Follow host Charlene Kaye at: https://www.instagram.com/charlenekaye Follow producer Dave Yim at: https://www.instagram.com/dave_yim

Kim Villagante, AKA Kimmortal, is a Vancouver-based, queer, non-binary, Filipinx rapper, singer, actor, activist, visual artist and all-around badass. Today on the show, host Charlene Kaye gets into it with Kim on being a multidisciplinary artist, their fraught relationship with the word "community," and what they said to Thundercat to make him laugh.

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Listen to Kimmortal's most recent track, This Dyke, on Spotify.

Find Kimmortal on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/kimmortaltheartist/

Follow Golden Hour podcast at: https://www.instagram.com/goldenhourpod

Follow host Charlene Kaye at: https://www.instagram.com/charlenekaye

Follow producer Dave Yim at: https://www.instagram.com/dave_yim

On today's episode, Charlene catches up with her former Scottsdale, Arizona schoolmate-turned-rock-star, Jess Bowen. Jess, who is half Filipina, is primarily known as the drummer of the pop punk quartet, The Summer Set, which formed when the members were still in high school. The band broke up in 2017 and reunited just last year, 2022, to release their 5th studio album, Blossom.

Now in her thirties, Jess shares everything she's learned about being a female musician in a male-dominated genre, how she used to make herself small, and how she has learned to take up space. Jess also talks about her experience jamming with Chad Smith in the Netflix documentary Count Me In, the moment her Filipina mother accepted her drumming career, and navigating social situations as a half Asian person who appears white. 

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Listen to The Summer Set's most recent album, Blossom, on Spotify.

Find Jess Bowen on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/jessbowen/

Follow Golden Hour podcast at: https://www.instagram.com/goldenhourpod

Follow host Charlene Kaye at: https://www.instagram.com/charlenekaye

Follow producer Dave Yim at: https://www.instagram.com/dave_yim

Today on the show, Charlene talks with singer-songwriter Lea Thomas. Born on the island of Maui in Hawaii, the half Japanese musician remembers writing her first songs about her childhood banyan tree with her beloved first guitar. Later, she dove into the music industry and city life in New York, only to find herself burnt out, yearning for spiritual power of nature. Now based in the upstate New York, Lea's music travels between wall-of-sound indie, to country-infused folk rock, to ambient shoegaze, yet it's always grounded in her intimate, warm vocals.

Stay tuned to the end of the episode for an exclusive acoustic performance of Lea's song "What Did the Music Sound Like," off her 2021 album Mirrors to the Sun.

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Listen to Lea's most recent album, Mirrors to the Sun, on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/3gaxiMrzBfbqwygpq8hRgG?si=UBLiu-IqS5C5WYkalZt2jA

Find Lea on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/lealeathomas

Follow Golden Hour at: https://www.instagram.com/goldenhourpod

Follow Charlene Kaye at: https://www.instagram.com/charlenekaye

Follow producer/guest host Dave Yim: https://www.instagram.com/dave_yim

Get tickets to Charlene's one-woman show Tiger Daughter on Jan 20: https://arsnovanyc.com/charlene-kaye-tiger-daughter

Sameer Gadhia is the powerhouse vocalist of the alternative rock band Young the Giant. For over a decade, the Indian American singer and songwriter has helped lead the seminal group through multiple gold and platinum singles and five full length albums, the latest, American Bollywood, was released in late 2022. 

Today on the pod, Charlene gets in deep with Sameer, discussing Young the Giant's early formation, his cultural awakening during the Trump years, his Sirius XM show Point of Origin, and the stories behind this next era of Young the Giant.

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Sameer Gadhia on Instagram: @sameergadhia

Young the Giant on Instagram: @youngthegiant

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Follow us! @GoldenHourPod on Instagram

Host @CharleneKaye on Instagram

Producer @Dave_Yim on Instagram

Email us your thoughts at goldenhourwithkaye@gmail.com

On this episode, Charlene is joined by Emma Lee and Jamee Lockard of MICHELLE. Emma and Jamee are two of the four lead vocalists in one of the most buzzed about bands to come out of the New York indie pop scene in the last few years. Both are Korean American and New York City natives, who write songs that you can either serve up a Gen Z dance party, or cry alone in your room to, with lyrics touching on themes of heartbreak, home life, and their own racial identity.

On the pod, Emma and Jamee discuss their mixed race anthem FYO, what it's like to collaborate in a six person band, and whether Jamee should bring her black belt recorder skills to MICHELLE writing sessions. 

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 Follow MICHELLE on TikTok and Instagram: @wearemichelle

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Follow us! @GoldenHourPod on Instagram

Host @CharleneKaye on Instagram

Producer @Dave_Yim on Instagram

Email us your thoughts at goldenhourwithkaye@gmail.com

Today on the pod, an in-person conversation with Charlene and Ellie Kim, aka SuperKnova. Ellie is a Korean American transgender artist who writes, shreds guitar, produces, mixes, and masters all her own music. Her highly personal music aims to put the queer experience front and center. She also details the experience of her own transition and celebrates the complexity of being many different things at once. And before becoming a professional musician, Ellie actually completed med school, at one point advocating for her hospital to change their policy on performing surgery for babies born intersex. 

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Connect with SuperKnova at https://vibe.to/superknova

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Follow us! @GoldenHourPod on Instagram

Host @CharleneKaye on Instagram

Producer @Dave_Yim on Instagram

Email us your thoughts at goldenhourwithkaye@gmail.com

Apl.de.Ap's journey from a poor farming community in the Philippines to a member of the one of the best-selling musical acts of all time is nothing short of miraculous. To give him better opportunities, his mother sent Apl, whose real name is Allan Pineda, to Los Angeles to live with an adopted family. Homesick, Apl would soon meet another young boy who shared his love for breakdancing. That friend would become his lifelong collaborator and co-founder of Black Eyed Peas, will.i.am. With their third member, Taboo, Black Eyed Peas would go on to win six GRAMMY Awards and sell 35 million albums. 

In this episode of Golden Hour, host Charlene Kaye talks with the hilarious Apl about his humble beginnings, having to support himself working as a telemarketer, and navigating an eye condition that left him legally blind.

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Find Apl.de.Ap and Black Eyed Peas on Instagram

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Follow us! @GoldenHourPod on Instagram

Host @CharleneKaye on Instagram

Producer @Dave_Yim on Instagram

Email us your thoughts at goldenhourwithkaye@gmail.com