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Explore every episode of the podcast Independent's Day
Dive into the complete episode list for Independent's Day. Each episode is cataloged with detailed descriptions, making it easy to find and explore specific topics. Keep track of all episodes from your favorite podcast and never miss a moment of insightful content.
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Episode 225: ID FFWD with Steve Dawson | 05 juin 2024 | 01:01:43 | |
Steve Dawson first joined us on Independent's Day almost exactly ten years ago for episode 112. He has been a busy guy in the interim; continuing to teach at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music, releasing albums with his Funeral Bonsai Wedding project, and continuing to produce a string of excellent solo albums. His newest, Ghosts, mines the pliable human perception of time and finds Dawson backed by some of Chicago's best musicians. The overall effect of Ghosts is as if James Taylor and Jackson Browne shacked up in a house in Memphis or Muscle Shoals, grinding out catchy, breezy songs with a healthy helping of blue-eyed soul. | |||
| Episode 224: ID FFWD with Freedy Johnston | 07 sept. 2022 | 01:16:58 | |
Freedy Johnston’s Can You Fly album landed on a number of 1992 best-of lists, with legendary music critic Robert Christgau calling it "a perfect album” and penning the following about the record: “Contained, mature, realistic in philosophy and aesthetic, its every song a model of open-ended lyrical detail and lithe, sly melodicism, it's a flat-out monument of singer-songwriterdom--up there with Randy Newman's 12 Songs, Joni Mitchell's For the Roses, and other such prepunk artifacts.” Not too shabby. But the peak of Johnston’s fame came with the 1995 single “Bad Reputation” from the follow-album, This Perfect World, produced by Butch Vig (Nirvana, Garbage, Smashing Pumpkins, Sonic Youth, et al). Johnston has been out there slogging it out ever since, releasing an ongoing career’s worth of albums filled with incisive songs delivered in his trademark reedy tenor voice. Johnston first joined us on Independent’s Day for episode #62 in December of 2012, and he was kind enough to return just in time for the release of his brand-new album, Back On the Road to You (Forty Below Records - 9/9/22). Joe and Freedy had a wide-ranging discussion that ranged from the making his new album, the perils of social media in a divided society, and how eager he is to get back on the road to play shows after being sidelined by the Covid-19 pandemic. He also treated us to three exclusive live performances of “There Goes a Brooklyn Girl,” “Somewhere Love,” and “Tryin’ to Move On” - three new gems from Back On the Road to You. | |||
| Episode 223: ID FFWD with Dan Navarro | 24 août 2022 | 00:51:41 | |
Dan Navarro had just launched his post-Lowen and Navarro solo career when he first joined us on Independent's Day for episode #103 back in March of 2014. Now he's back with his second solo album, Horizon Line. Between dates on his never-ending solo tour and a stop by The Grammy Museum for a special Q&A show, he dropped by the ID World Headquarters to tape a new FFWD episode in order to share some stories and a batch of new songs. Dan is never at a loss for words, and there is a lot to be learned from his approach to life and music. | |||
| Episode 222: The Whitmore Sisters | 19 janv. 2022 | 01:45:21 | |
Perhaps there exists nothing more beautiful than when beauty is mixed with sadness. Add in some world-class musical talent, the type of harmony singing only possible between siblings, and the benefit of the 10,000-foot view of life gleaned by formative years in flying machines and you have a starting point for The Whitmore Sisters. The elder, Eleanor, has been making music for years as one-half of The Mastersons and performing and recording as a member of Steve Earle’s band, the Dukes. The younger of the pair, Bonnie, has been making a name for herself with a number of solo albums full of fearless songwriting and tours with the likes of James McMurtry. Although close, the Whitmore sisters hadn’t recorded together in an official capacity until the Covid-19 pandemic presented a silver lining opportunity in the form of a self-imposed Covid bubble of isolation and time away from their normally-busy schedules as working musicians. With music touring, recording, and nearly everything else shut down, Elanor’s husband, guitarist Chris Masterson, challenged Elanor and Bonnie to use the break wisely and finally get to work as a duo in order to feature their ample talents. With Masterson producing, The Whitmore Sisters conjured their debut album, Ghost Stories, in the midst of shutdowns and once-in-a-century uncertainty, and the results are self-evident and reflective of both their upbringing and their status as roots rock royalty. The Whitmore Sisters’ father was a Navy pilot and folk singer, and the album’s opener, “Learn to Fly,” reflects life as experienced in the unmatched freedom and peril of flight. As for the other half of their family tree, their mother was an opera singer, which makes for the perfect bloodline to imbue the real-life tragedy of the loss of a pair of Bonnie’s former romantic partners - one of whom was singer Justin Townes Earle, who died of an accidental drug overdose in 2020 - into songs like “Friends We Leave Behind.” There is also a take on their friend Aaron Lee Tasjan’s “Big Heart Sick Mind” and a cover of the Paul McCartney-penned and Everly Brothers-sung “On the Wings of a Nightingale” to complement their original compositions. Ghost Stories has the beauty, the sadness, the wings, and the joy of life in its eleven songs, standing as a strong and long-overdue debut from The Whitmore Sisters. | |||
| Episode 221: Elizabeth Goodfellow | 22 déc. 2021 | 02:18:23 | |
Drummer, percussionist, and multi-instrumentalist Elizabeth Goodfellow has built a career for herself out of playing with an ever-growing number of innovative artists. You may have seen her onstage or heard her on records by Iron and Wine, Madison Cunningham, Calexico, Orkesta Mendoza, the indie-pop supergroup called boygenius made up of Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus, the New York-based jazz ensemble The Hot Sardines, and the recently multiple Grammy-nominated Allison Russell. She brings a creative approach and a studied work ethic to her collaborations that are rare in the music industry, and indeed nearly any other discipline. When you’re as good as Goodfellow is, people take notice – and it’s the kind of devotion to her craft that earned her a feature in Modern Drummer magazine in 2018. And if that’s not enough, she has more recently added the titles of singer, songwriter, and composer to her impressive list of talents. Her compositions feature the marimba, angular vocal melodies, and personally fearless lyrics, as well as exploring the creative possibilities of audio looping and sampling technology in a whole new way. Utilizing the ability to layer sounds in real time during a performance, it would be easy to overlook the degree of difficulty in Goodfellow’s mesmerizing percussive soundscapes. But go ahead and get lost in her songs. It’s a hell of a ride and it’s worth every mallet strike. She released a vinyl single in 2021 called “Terror and Trust,” a title that could serve as a mission statement for her unique and courageous approach to making music. She makes it look easy, but it is assuredly not. | |||
| Episode 220: Leeann Skoda | 05 nov. 2021 | 01:30:02 | |
Nashville is a town filled with great singers and great songwriters, and certain rare artists are endowed with exemplary gifts in both endeavors. Leeann Skoda is just that kind of artist, and although she’s from Arizona and currently calls Los Angeles home, she chose Nashville as the setting to record her new EP, Lucky Penny. While it’s true that Skoda cut her teeth singing choral music and the kinds of country standards that comprise the foundation of every storied building on Music Row, her musical evolution on Lucky Penny reveals that her palette is infinitely more varied than yet another cookie cutter country singer in a sequined shirt. Sure, she can pull off a convincing Emmylou, Maybelle Carter, or Sheryl Crow - and she’s been doing so for years both with her own songs as well as a hired gun session singer - but the adventurous soundscapes of her new direction are more indicative of a Fumbling Towards Ecstasy-era Sarah McLachlan or even Radiohead’s pioneering The Bends or OK Computer albums. The five gems on Lucky Penny were written during an especially inspired artistic period fomented by a month-long songwriting challenge with a friend, and the self-imposed ambitious parameters of turning out new songs day by day paid off in spades. Skoda makes both the writing and the singing sound easy, but they most certainly are not. Making rare gifts sound easy is the hallmark of a true artist. | |||
| Episode 219: David Burchfield | 03 juin 2020 | 01:24:17 | |
Anyone who has ever attempted to entertain an audience with only their voice and an acoustic guitar faces a daunting task. Both the guitar and the human voice to be sure are versatile and dynamic instruments, but it can be a serious challenge to pique and retain the interest of listeners without the driving beat of a drummer or the pyrotechnics of an accomplished lead guitarist or saxophone player - especially in the Internet age, when performers find themselves competing with a world of entertainment options in their listeners’ pockets. Solo performers had damn well better have good songs and an engaging presence, and Rocky Mountain troubadour David Burchfield is a natural in this setting. Burchfield cut his teeth playing in churches in his native Kansas, but it was during collegiate summers when he learned how to connect with an audience in an intimate setting by swapping songs around mountain campfires. A detour into a teaching career was redirected back to music after a nighttime scooter trip to the store resulted in a harrowing accident that left Burchfield bruised, but with a newfound sense of life’s fleeting brevity. His new lease on life and its associated perspective became a fortunate outcome for both Burchfield and his listeners, as he is adept at quickly and elegantly interpreting both life’s grandiose and intimate moments into song. Now fully rededicated to songwriting and performing, Burchfield’s newest album, State to State, is full of gems. Songs like “Glad I Got Out Of There” connect the things the author loves about the people and places of his formative home with what happens when a soul discovers that home can also be somewhere else life has delivered you. And on a recent tour, Burchfield found himself in Los Angeles for the first time, where he discovered that California’s largest city was something far more complex and nuanced than his expectations - and he wrote a song about that, too. It is a rare gift to be so close to one’s muse. | |||
| Episode 218: Benjamin Jaffe | 12 mars 2020 | 01:28:19 | |
Benjamin Jaffe spent over ten years as half of the Americana duo HONEYHONEY, making acclaimed records and crisscrossing the country playing catchy and memorable songs for dedicated fans. But every band has a life cycle, and after more than a decade of steady grinding, HONEYHONEY’s indefinite hiatus left Jaffe in the challenging position of having not been the primary singer in his former outfit. But the lemonade in this situation is that Jaffe is an incredibly gifted singer, songwriter, and performer in his own right, and shedding the conventions and expectations of a band meant that he was standing at the threshold of a musical tabula rasa. Jaffe took the ball and ran with it, and his newfound freedom to explore any and all disparate influences is evident on his solo debut album, Oh, Wild Ocean of Love. With Jaffe playing nearly all the instruments himself, smooth crooning rubs up against aggressive electric guitars, pithy and clever lyrics delve confidently into subjects familiar to fans of the best of American songwriters, and a rich sonic palate may surprise fans more accustomed to hearing an Americana stomp out of Jaffe and Co. Benjamin Jaffe’s new solo direction places him in the company of Father John Misty’s wry observations, Jeff Buckley’s emotive vocal prowess, and Rufus Wainwright’s compositional bonafides. | |||
| Episode 217: Geoff Pearlman | 23 janv. 2020 | 01:18:21 | |
It was a concert by glam rock juggernauts Kiss that opened a 9-year-old Geoff Pearlman’s eyes to the possibilities of a life in music. Guitar lessons soon followed, as did a series of high school rock and roll bands playing the usual Rush and Van Halen covers. But when most kids were picking traditionally sensible collegiate career paths, Pearlman turned into the wind and signed up at Boston’s Berklee College of Music - a breeding ground for legitimate musicians and a unique place to learn the particulars of the craft. After all, a profusion of musicians can play some guitar, but it is a select few who put in the work to dig in and play the instrument beyond what’s necessary to accompany themselves. A significant percentage of Berklee students leave before finishing a degree program, launching themselves into work opportunities - but Pearlman stuck around and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in professional music in 1991. He gigged in San Francisco for several years before settling in Los Angeles, a town with a rich history of talented sessions players. Pearlman’s hard work continues to pay off, as his list of credits includes Norah Jones, Shelby Lynne, Jakob Dylan, Linda Perry, Syd Straw, George Drakoulias, Joan Osborne, Marc Ribot, Don Was, Disney’s High School Musical albums, and music written for for the Travel Channel, The Food Network, Fuller House, Jag, and more. His most recent high-profile gig was playing guitar in the house band in the 2019 film Echo in the Canyon, a documentary about the fertile late 60s music scene in Los Angeles’ Laurel Canyon. Echo in the Canyon found Pearlman sharing the screen and stage with some of the most respected and well-known musicians in history. Although Pearlman maintains a busy schedule working with other artists and producers, he continues to release his own albums to showcase his writing and performing. His new release, Lost in the Satellites, provides an interesting what-if glimpse into what modern pop music could sound like if the music industry hadn’t been waylaid at the mumble rap exit. Lost in the Satellites is sonically rich and packed with great songs, inventive arranging, and performances by Pearlman and other musicians devoted to putting in the work necessary to be great at what they do. | |||
| Episode 216: Robbie Fulks | 27 nov. 2019 | 01:06:50 | |
Robbie Fulks is a sort of latter-day Renaissance Man. After spending his formative years in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Virginia, Fulks eventually settled in Chicago - where his fresh take on American roots music established his status as one of the progenitors of what would become the alt-country genre. Fulks’ fearless and uncompromising approach to his art is exemplified by a longtime association with insurgent country record label Bloodshot Records and a friendly working relationship with firebrand Chicago-based producer and engineer Steve Albini. In the last twenty-plus years, Fulks has released thirteen albums of his own, as well as accompanied numerous other artists both onstage and in the studio. Fulks is also known as a music journalist, having penned a blog and had his writing published in GQ, Blender, Chicago Reader and elsewhere. When he wasn’t playing, recording, or writing, Fulks has hosted an XM satellite radio interview and performance program and spent twelve years teaching at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. But it is Fulks’ whip-smart songwriting, high lonesome Buddy Miller-esque vocals, and facile and inventive guitar work that first earned him fans in Chicago’s underground country music scene, and it’s what keeps them coming back to shows across the country. | |||
| Episode 215: Monks of Doom | 31 juil. 2019 | 01:26:13 | |
In the great and colossal tree of music there are many, many branches - and out toward the tall leaves on the side that faces the highway to psychedelic oblivion there exists bands and artists that truly follow their own sun regardless which way the wind blows. Monks of Doom grew out of the late-80s California experimental music scene that birthed one of the original indie rock juggernauts, Camper Van Beethoven. As Camper started to build a fan base and garner industry attention, it seems that the band's peculiar blend of gypsies-on-acid folk and angular psychedelic pop weren't quite experimental enough for Camper members Victor Krummenacher (bass), Greg Lisher (guitar), Chris Pedersen (drums), and Chris Molla (guitar) - the latter of whom was soon replaced by their friend, session musician and eventual member of Counting Crows, David Immergluck (guitar). Indicative of their fearless approach to creating music, Monks of Doom's 1987 first album Soundtrack to the Film 'Breakfast on the Beach of Deception' was a mix of improvisational instrumentals and quirky songs from a movie that didn't actually exist. After the dissolution of Camper Van Beethoven in 1990, Monks of Doom entered an artificially fertile period that saw the release of two albums and an EP in the span of less than a year. But even with a devoted fan base across the country, the grind of relentless indie-level touring and minimal label support took its toll and the band amicably split in 1992. Solo projects from Krummenacher and Lisher followed, and a 1998 send-off performance after Pedersen announced a move to Australia put the band once again in the same room, fomenting an atmosphere for Monks of Doom's legendary chemistry. The good vibes were an epiphany for the band, and perhaps inspired by the reformation of Camper Van Beethoven in 2004, Krummenacher, Lisher, Immergluck and Pedersen figured out what they already knew - that Monks of Doom makes music on their own terms, when and where they want - and the band has been sporadically active ever since. The band's most recent album, 2018's The Bronte Pin, is another beautifully strange chapter for a musical ensemble built to expressly exemplify being beautiful and strange. | |||
| Episode 214: ID FFWD with Ted Russell Kamp | 11 avr. 2019 | 00:43:01 | |
The hardest working man in Los Angeles, Ted Russell Kamp, dropped by Joe Armstrong's Studio Tropico with his bull fiddle and some ace musicians in tow for a Fast-Forward episode of Independent's Day. With Brian Whelan, John Schreffler, and Jamie Douglass grooving behind him, Ted tore the roof off the studio with a greasy version of his new song "Tail Light Shine" from his new album Walkin' Shoes. Ted's positive energy is palpable, and the conversation was wide-ranging and entertaining. | |||
| Episode 213: Mara Connor | 14 févr. 2019 | 01:21:12 | |
Mara Connor is a delight; she's a young singer/songwriter with the perfect bona fides to match her breezy Southern California vibe. Connor was born in Los Angeles to middle-western parents whose California dreams were big enough for them to chase them west. She studied theater in college in New York but changed tacks when she started performing with live music ensembles and she learned how audiences respond when you're playing yourself instead of a character. Now back in Los Angeles, Connor began working on her debut record and honing her songwriting chops, and although she's new to the game, she's artistically ahead of the curve. Connor's penchant for the heydays of California folk rock is evident in spades on her advance releases. The video for her premiere single, "No Fun," plays like a love song to the Laurel Canyon scene from long before she was born - the wardrobe, the roller skates, the pool parties, the yellow-sunset lens filter, the color palette, a clever nod to The Graduate, and the other star of the show - a powder blue bomber of a convertible - are all a stylistic time machine set in the pleasant valley Sunday world of an eternal summer California afternoon. In both her songs and in the "No Fun" video, it wouldn't be a stretch to expect Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, or Linda Ronstadt to be hiding just around a corner. Mara Connor is such a talented young artist with such a clear artistic vision, one can't help but wonder where she will go next. | |||
| Episode 212: The Teskey Brothers | 19 juil. 2018 | 01:24:51 | |
The Teskey Brothers have been grinding it out in the bars and festivals in their hometown near Melbourne, Australia for a decade. While it's true that the four-piece is comprised of young devotees of the classic era of American soul and R and B, their reverence for the genre is far deeper than mere imitation. It's simple enough to learn some tried-and-true chord progressions and lean hard on the blue notes, but to so faithfully capture the elusive vibe of the 60s Muscle Shoals sound exhibits a musical maturity far beyond their twenty-something perspective. The Teskey Brothers - two proper Teskey siblings, along with a pair of musical blood brothers accompanying them on bass and drums - recorded their debut album, Half Mile Harvest, in their own studio - utilizing vintage recording gear to add an extra level of realism to their take on old-school soul music. When singer Josh Teskey's vocals distort - intentionally - on songs like "Pain and Misery," it's because he and his band mates took the time to learn the archaic manner in which Otis Redding's microphone distorted on the kinds of classic recordings that made legends of artists like himself, Sam Cooke, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and others. With this preternatural affinity for stylistic restraint and obvious inherent talent, it's easy to see why The Teskey Brothers' brand of soul music has transcended their home country and landed with a welcome triple-meter bang in America. | |||
| Episode 211: Syd Straw | 21 juin 2018 | 01:16:19 | |
Syd Straw released her first album, Surprise, in 1989. The record was full of earnest, broken-hearted songs with an impressive range for a new artist. The album's earthy tone landed Straw at the leading edge of the alternative country curve, and it led a seemingly open-ended invitation for Straw to lend her vocals to some of the best in the business. To name a few, Straw has been onstage and on records with Los Lobos, Wilco, Dave Alvin, Loudon Wainwright III, Leo Kottke, Rickie Lee Jones, Matthew Sweet, Van Dyke Parks, Freedy Johnston, James McMurtry, Marc Ribot, David Sanborn, Was Not Was, Victoria Williams, the dBs, Jimmer Podrasky, and The Golden Palominos. Subsequent albums followed in 1996, 2005 and 2008, and although releases may have been spread out, the quality of Straw's output never suffered. Although Straw is perhaps best known for her vocals, the unique and indelible spirit that she brings to a song or a project is what makes her a legend. She is quirky, to be sure, but she's also endearing, pleasantly sardonic and always creative - a perfect combination for a singular artist. | |||
| Episode 210: Davey Meshell and the TransAtlantics | 19 avr. 2018 | 01:34:04 | |
When Davey Meshell recently started a new band, the name choice was obvious; the handpicked members of the TransAtlantics spent their respective formative years on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean - in places ranging from New York and Maine, to Scotland and the Isle of Man. But the thing that unites them under one flag is a shared love of the classic era of American soul music. Meshell is best known around Los Angeles for fronting his black-leather band, the Neighborhood Bullys, which has a raw and uncompromising approach to rock and roll music. Meshell is at once affable and intense, and he grew up in a musical family - establishing himself as a go-to bass player for a number of well-known artists both in the studio and on the road. But Meshell's not-so-secret weapon is his powerful tenor voice, and it's that soulful howling that provided the genesis for the TransAtlantics. Whereas the Bullys' stock-in-trade is amped-up energy and catchy songs delivered at paint-stripping volume, the TransAtlantics turn down the amps to let the grooves and melodies shine. Most importantly, the TransAtlantics are a BAND. Each player was selected by Meshell specifically to complement both the songs as well as the other players. And like any soul band worth its mettle, the TransAtlantics lineup is comprised of tasteful and accomplished players that astutely cover the elements essential to the style. And as for that style, although the band uses classic soul as their guiding star, they're not afraid to veer off and explore a bit of genre-bending stylistic territory in order to keep things fresh - both for them and for their fans. Rock and roll and soul music have always been kissing cousins, and Davey Meshell and the TransAtlantics are ready to testify that both are alive and well in the new millennium. | |||
| Episode 209: Chris Stills | 05 avr. 2018 | 01:42:36 | |
Chris Stills' brand-new record, Don't Be Afraid, plays like chronicle of a man who has forged his own identity out of a lifetime of unique experiences. Stills' family business is music, but that doesn't guarantee success or even acumen; stripes must be earned, and Stills doesn't take anything for granted. Chris Stills' parents are from two different continents with two distinct cultures, and he spent his formative years in both America and in France. After graduating from high school at the American School in Paris, Stills moved to Los Angeles and eventually to New York, playing in bands and honing his songwriting and performing chops. He garnered enough attention to get himself signed by Atlantic records and released his first album in 1998, after which he then hit the road - playing shows with The Jayhawks and Ryan Adams. Another album followed in 2005, and Stills found stage work in France - playing the role of Julius Caesar in a popular French musical, as well as landing a part in a 2010 French film. Between acting gigs, Stills kept himself busy by releasing an EP and recording yet another full album of his own music, but after a label shakeup he scrapped the entire project and returned to Los Angeles. Once again stateside after years of work in France, Stills released an EP in the U.S. in 2012 and found some TV work with a role in Season 4 of Showtime's Shameless. But it's his latest release, Don't Be Afraid, which distills Stills' experience into his most cohesive artistic statement to date. There are breezy, early 60s California pop songs, trancelike Laurel Canyon flower power meditations, stacked Woodstock-era vocal harmonies, a bit of Rufus Wainwright-style orchestral Broadway pop, Ryan Adams-influenced guitar rock, and an incisive indictment of the chaos of America's divisive new-millennium identity crisis that only someone with an outsider's perspective can capture with clarity. The record is anchored by Stills' versatile and assured tenor - it's the kind of voice that could turn heads at any karaoke bar in the world with ten seconds of a Jeff Buckley tune. Stills has the talent, the songs, and the voice, and Don't Be Afraid exhibits all of them in top form. | |||
| Episode 208: Chihana | 14 déc. 2017 | 01:11:15 | |
Chihana acquired her affinity for traditional blues and rock music from her parents' music collection - which would be pretty orthodox if it weren't for the fact that she grew up in Japan. She's a rare bird to be sure, but her fans don't listen to her solely because of the curiosity factor of being a young Japanese woman playing a traditionally western style of music - it's because she's good at doing so. To listen to her music, there are times when it isn't immediately apparent if she is singing in English or Japanese, which is a testament to both the ability of music to transcend cultural barriers as well as Chihana's obvious and considerable talent. Chihana's next goal is to conquer the American music scene, which, given that she is devoted enough to regularly tour her homeland of Japan by public transportation, should provide a suitable challenge for this unique artist. | |||
| Episode 207: Jason Scott | 30 nov. 2017 | 01:08:06 | |
Jason Scott is a songwriter who has built his growing career in music into a cottage industry, with a full schedule and an entire network of musicians based in his native Oklahoma and surrounding states. Some of the gigs are wedding gigs, sure, but don't let that fool you. Scott is no Murph and the Magictones. He's a very talented young artist with a perfectly-tuned ear for narrative detail. It's the sort of fertile territory currently being mined by rising Americana star Jason Isbell - and the comparison is apt. Both writers are staunchly devoted to hewing closely to honesty at all costs; and both have a preternatural knack for telling a big story with the smallest of moments. Scott has figured out a unique business model that allows him to help finance his original songwriting with wedding gigs, and his ever-expanding tours are a proof of concept that there is a market for artists to do weddings that are far more artistically gratifying than yet another DJ spinning "The Hokey Pokey" for the billionth time. Scott even offers a service where he will write and record an original song for a bride and groom, which he then produces in his own studio. It's an innovative approach, and one that could help a lot more musicians avoid the drudgery of a soul-sucking day job. Scott's new EP, Living Rooms, serves as an introduction to a very talented new artist and is as a cautionary tale to any musician to leave no stone unturned when it comes to innovative ways of making a living in music. | |||
| Episode 206: ID FFWD with Jeff Crosby | 18 nov. 2017 | 00:25:35 | |
Jeff Crosby stopped by the ID World HQ to remind everyone how he knows his way around a song. Crosby dispenses wisdom he heard about advice for musicians ("Just don't get good at anything else.") and his move to Nashville reminded him how where you live affects your songwriting. He also talks about what happens when you get sick in Mexico, his new record - Postcards from Magdalena - and plays an in-studio version of "The Best $25 I Ever Spent." | |||
| Episode 205: Leslie Stevens | 02 nov. 2017 | 01:41:10 | |
Leslie Stevens has one of those voices - it's a perfectly engaging throwback to Patsy Cline and the golden age of Nashville's musical matriarchy. It's the kind of voice that sounds good singing anything, and she's a natural with a melody. But the thing that keeps people coming back to Stevens is her songwriting. In conversation, when she's not giving a quick-witted running comedic commentary of the world we all share, Stevens can be almost quiet. Ask her about herself, and her sentences get shorter still. But when the topic of the art and avocation of songwriting comes up, Stevens lights up like a firefly - and for good reason, because behind all that elegant vocal phrasing is a powerhouse songwriter who has been known to teach advanced songwriting classes at Los Angeles College of Music. She's amassed quite a resume over the last few years, including two albums with the backup band she calls The Badgers, lending her voice to projects with Brian Wilson, Father John Misty and Jonathan Wilson, several placements in television and movies - as well as a new album due in 2018. | |||
| Episode 204: ID FFWD with Loch & Key | 26 oct. 2017 | 00:29:12 | |
Sean and Leyla from Los Angeles' quietest duo, Loch and Key, stopped by the ID World HQ to talk about the changes in their world since 2010's Jupiter's Guide for Submariners - big events like a marriage, law school, passing the bar exam pushed music to the future a bit, but they're back with ID artist Kip Boardman in tow to help Sean and Leyla fill out their hushed duo sound. Joe and the group talked about self-producing their own music with Sean playing all the instruments, and where Leyla finds inspiration for her dreamy lyrics. They shared an in-studio version of a new song called "Deep Space." | |||
| Episode 203: Sam Marine | 19 oct. 2017 | 01:01:52 | |
Sam Marine played in bands in his native Gainesville, Florida and New York City before landing Los Angeles a few years back. His brand-new Big Dark City EP is Marine's third release, and on it he has perfected his particular brand of muscular, country-tinged rock and roll. Call it Americana if you wish, but the genre has always overlapped the straight-ahead, cranked-amp jangle of the classic rockers. Marine knows this, and he smartly recruited Los Angeles' rising star Brian Whelan to produce Big Dark City. The result pulls no punches and takes no prisoners. While he's not on the road or gigging around town, Marine works as a bartender, and the cast of characters and late night lifestyle of the world's second oldest profession provides him with ample inspiration for his songwriting. The title track is a swaggering mid-tempo rocker that sounds like a lost Steve Earle classic. "Dawn Come and Gone" serves up a ramped-up, four-on-the-floor stomp tempo and showcases Marine's confident vocals with a bit of Sun Records-era slapback echo. Both of the first two songs are astute observations of American society's late night outsider spaces that are often haunted by bartenders, artists, insomniacs and musicians - and it's palpable that Marine knows them well. The remaining three tracks on Big Dark City take a page from Drive-By Truckers' best work with narratives of hard luck situations set in any-state, any-year rural America. The only complaint about Big Dark City is that it is an EP rather than a full-length release - and it's fitting that he is getting some traction in the music scene, because Marine shares a bit of whatever is in the Gainesville water that made Tom Petty's Heartbreakers one of the best bands in the world. | |||
| Episode 202: Davey and The Midnights | 05 oct. 2017 | 01:28:59 | |
Davey and the Midnights are a band. Sure, Davey Allen's name is featured front and center - and for good reason. His tight vibrato tenor and accessible songs are the focal point of the ensemble. But the Midnights are a band like Tom Petty's Heartbreakers or Bruce Springsteen's E. Street Band. Something special happens when they get together and settle into a groove. And although their music is billed as a sort of countrified rock, there certainly is a pocket to what they do. Once they get going, the band sits somewhere in the middle ground between the Grateful Dead and Little Feat, with a bit of traditional west coast country mixed in. Allen strums the acoustic guitar while he sings, guitarist Gregg Cahill's Telecaster picking owes more than a casual nod to Jerry Garcia without wandering off on extensive and meandering improvisational explorations, Brandon Conway's pedal steel employs a bit of the shimmery Leslie rotating speaker effect - making his instrument sound akin to a Hammond B3 organ at times, Corey Dawson's loping bass lines anchor the band and explores spaces for stepping out with an appropriate lick, and Allen's childhood friend Mike "Mambo" Sanson's snappy work on the drum kit provides an edgy rock and roll spark that keeps everything moving. These young players are fine instrumentalists, and the sum of their talented parts really does make a synergistic whole. Davey and the Midnights haven't yet released their debut album, but they sound as if they're long past their sophomore jinx. It doesn't hurt that Allen's day job is playing keyboards for the legendary Eric Burdon of the Animals. Allen obviously is learning from one of the best and carrying the torch with style and aplomb. | |||
| Episode 201: Mojo Monkeys | 21 sept. 2017 | 01:27:42 | |
David Raven, Billy Watts and Taras Prodaniuk make their living making other people sound good. Their collective credits include albums and tours with Bruce Springsteen, Norah Jones, Dwight Yoakam, Bonnie Raitt, Keith Richards, June Carter Cash, Lucinda Williams, Mike Ness, Dixie Chicks, Richard Thompson, Jim Lauderdale, Peter Himmelman, Buck Owens, T-Bone Burnett and countless others. They're journeymen in top form, they're still on the journey, and they've been friends for decades. After spending so much time backing up other artists, they long ago decided to start their own trio, Mojo Monkeys, as a place to get their collective musical rocks off. The years of hard work shows in Mojo Monkeys. Unconstricted by a big name on a marquee, these guys can follow their own muse. There are funky grooves, and expert lines that duck in and out of a greasy and spicy New Orleans-influenced musical stew. For all their chops, the band never veers into ponderous wanking territory. Put another way, Mojo Monkeys isn't a side project that provides a bleeder valve for gratuitous sideman musical eccentricities, it's a place where three friends who happen to be expert musicians can share their common love for making music. Their mutual affection shines through, as does the reverence for the material they create together. Raven takes the lion's share of the lead vocals, standing at a hybrid upright drum set that allows him to better engage the audience by not being confined to a drum riser back between the amps. Watts' harmonic motion on his pale green Gretsch finds him delivering the perfect licks in all the right places, and Prodaniuk's snaky bass lines provide counterpoint as well as doing an exemplary job doing what the most astute bassists do best - which is making sure that the whole thing hangs together. Their new record, Swerve On, continues the groovy, danceable tack that Mojo Monkeys have defined for themselves over the course of their several records, and throws in a bit of The Band's eclectic sensibilities for good measure. It's hard not to smile when they do what they do, because Mojo Monkeys' music is fun, plain and simple. | |||
| Episode 200: Double Naught Spy Car | 07 sept. 2017 | 01:10:14 | |
Musicians make music for all manner of reasons, and Los Angeles' Double Naught Spy Car is what happens when four ace players get together to make music for themselves. To hear them doing their thing, one might think that the band has an identity crisis. Disparate styles crash against one another like an iceberg and an ocean liner - and the delicious challenge is watching the whole thing stay afloat. Begging a mixed metaphor or two, it's a musical high wire act that is a thrill to experience or perhaps a perfectly noir-twisted soundtrack to a Charles Bukowski acid trip. At a cursory listen, Double Naught Spy Car sounds like an instrumental surf band with a Zappa jones. Multi-instrumentalist Paul Lacques' lefty lap steel provides both dreamy "Sleepwalk"-esque melodies and ethereal atmospheric shades. Marcus Watkins' space invaders analog delay screeches, ripping solos and gusty chording complements Lacques' unique and individual approach. Bassist Marc Doten provides a solid foundation from which to improvise as well as taking some flights of his own, and drummer Joe Berardi keeps the tempos moving with a push and pull that helps the whole ensemble cook. But if you go deeper, it's all there: rock and roll, jazz, funk, blues, and whatever else suits the ensemble's collective fancy - sometimes all within the same song. Their new sixth album, Moof, exhibits their stature in the Los Angeles music scene with their ability to invite other legendary players to contribute; among them: Nels Cline, Mike Watt, Joe Baiza, Danny McGough, Sara Adrizzoni, and a host of others. All in all, Moof - and the ethos of Double Naught Spy car - is an ode to how great music can be when an ensemble has the courage to jump together into the ether, and in doing so, take their audience on a wondrous ride. | |||
| Episode 199: Suzanne Santo | 24 août 2017 | 01:32:52 | |
Suzanne Santo and Ben Jaffe have been making music as HoneyHoney since 2006, and they have three albums and incalculable touring miles under their belt. After over ten years of grinding it out side by side and making honest headway in the music business, the duo decided to get a little breathing room. Both Jaffe and Santo have things to say on their own, and Santo's stellar new Ruby Red is the first of these releases. Santo's solo flight started when artist and producer Butch Walker saw her play at a show and asked her to contribute to a project on which he was working. The collaboration was fruitful, and it led to Santo tapping Walker to produce her first record under her own name. That new record, Ruby Red, is evocative, haunting, and replete with a dark undercurrent that echoes the California-style stark sunshine noir that HoneyHoney long ago established as a leitmotif. Ruby Red's ten songs (plus a bonus acoustic version of the rocker, "Regrets") positively smack of longing - of both an emotional and a carnal nature. Walker's production crackles - drums snap, guitars grind and screech, and keyboard pedal tones set a stage for Santo's scorching vocals and melodic violin work. Santo's lyrics pull no punches and spare no lives; she knows the effect of a vulgar word or brazen tease when it lands on her listeners' ears. But if you ask Santo what Ruby Red is about - for all its lust, longing, blood and fire - she will tell you that the record is about accountability - a fine and resonant topic for an artist striking out on their own and finding that their wings will carry them as far as they're willing to go. | |||
| Episode 198: Ben Bostick | 10 août 2017 | 01:21:23 | |
Ben Bostick's gritty baritone is reminiscent of Eddie Vedder fronting a Bakersfield roadhouse house band, and his songs run the gamut from heartfelt, aching ballads to uptempo ruminations on rural bravado and youthful sexual escapades. But Bostick is no bumpkin or bro country pretty boy; he grew up in the Carolina boondocks and studied English at New York University - and it is that juxtaposition of backwoods guilelessness and urban polish that has refined his lyrical approach to songwriting. He knows that a great writer must both ably write and sing a song in the voice of a narrator that may or may not reflect their own perspective. Bostick is more than willing to work for his success - either by slogging away at the kinds of typical backbreaking menial jobs that struggling artists take to subsidize their dreams - or more recently by busking for tips hours a day, several days a week on the Santa Monica pier and playing paying gigs far and wide. He's paid his dues playing varying styles of music as well - among them rock and funk - before settling on the current, progressive, songwriting-based country that suits him well. He knows when to dial up the genre-stretching, new millennium Nashville stylings of the holy trinity of modern country songwriting - Isbell, Simpson and Stapleton - but he also knows when to stick to the basics and tip a dusty hat to the masters of the genre - Cash, Jennings and Haggard. As a case in point, Bostick spends the first 37 minutes of his new, eponymously-titled album hitting all the right notes - stylistically and otherwise - before ending the final song, Erin is Blue, by dropping an unexpected, over-the-top fuzzed-out guitar chord that would make David Gilmour proud. It's a perfectly left-field production choice, and it sets Bostick up nicely for some more courageous sonic exploration as his career blossoms. | |||
| Episode 197: Ronan Chris Murphy | 27 juil. 2017 | 01:52:04 | |
Sometimes, when people set off down a path in life, the universe presents an alternate path. And sometimes, that alternate path turns out to be better suited for the person anyway. As a youngster, Ronan Chris Murphy dreamed of being a rock star, but as soon as he started playing in bands, he also found himself tinkering with nascent home recording technology - which at the time consisted largely of tabletop analog cassette multi-track recorders. Bands need demos, after all. His performing career was by no means a failure; Murphy managed to parlay his stature in the vibrant punk scene in his native Washington D.C. into tours - sharing stages with acts like Dinosaur Jr., The Flaming Lips, Gwar and The Rollins Band. As he rode around in a van rocking America city by city, Murphy's reputation as a producer and audio engineer continued to grow. At some point, Murphy had a watershed realization - that he got as big a thrill behind the studio mixing board as he did onstage, and he began to focus his energies on the recording process. It wasn't long before he was working with some of those same well known bands with which he'd shared stages - helping them find the exact right sound for their albums. Record production is a sort of voodoo art, after all, and Murphy was able to combine his passion for all aspects and all styles of music with his creative approach to recording technology. Like any person who is serious about their avocation, Murphy followed the work and found himself living in different cities and on different continents before he eventually settled in Los Angeles and opened his flagship studio, Veneto West. Along the way he founded Recording Boot Camp, a weeklong crash course in making good music sound great using the essential tools of the trade - including a discerning ear. Two and a half decades later, Murphy's approach remains the same… to help artists make albums that defy trends and define their sound. | |||
| Episode 196: Gerry Spehar | 13 juil. 2017 | 01:13:38 | |
Gerry Spehar's story is unlike many others'. The first part is pretty standard for a young, aspiring musician; he started out on a Stella guitar given to him by a kindly uncle, honed his chops and hit the road. There was some success - he bummed around Europe, playing anywhere that would have him, and he then returned home and formed The Spehar Brothers with his brother George. They worked hard, earned fans and opened for artists like Boz Scaggs and Townes Van Zandt - but Spehar hadn't built the kind of career that prevented him from leaving the popular duo not long after he and his wife Sue learned that they had a second child on the way. Spehar's selfless, courageous choice brought him another kind of success, this time in the banking world, thus providing a stable, financially secure life for his family and affording him the ability to buy a home as well as a nice guitar. He never stopped tinkering with songs, however, and when their kids were grown, Spehar and Sue began to write songs together, filling their compositions with imagery, characters, and real world experiences derived from their formative years growing up in the wilds of the Colorado Rocky Mountains as well as their own adventures traveling in the American West. But even after returning to music in earnest after a three-decade detour and tapping Los Angeles' legendary band I See Hawks in L.A. to flesh out his songs in the studio, Spehar learned that life has a way of changing your tune. Sue passed away from cancer during the final stages of producing his long-awaited comeback album, I Hold Gravity. Her shadow and her spirit loom large over that now-completed album, and Spehar has dedicated his reinvigorated music career to the memory of Sue - his life partner and creative muse. I Hold Gravity is beautiful and fearless and it presents the kind of wisdom and perspective that can only come from someone who has the benefit of experience, and who knows that tragedy is part of life. | |||
| Episode 195: Michael Ubaldini | 29 juin 2017 | 01:15:04 | |
Michael Ubaldini is a maverick. Stylistically, he could be called a number of things, rocker, traditionalist, punk sympathizer, rockabilly aficionado, renegade country artist - along with a dozen others. Over the course of his multiple-decade career, he has shared stages with some heavy hitters - Lucinda Williams, Brian Setzer, Leon Russell, Jerry Lee Lewis, Southside Johnny, John Hammond Jr., Peter Case, Billy Zoom, John Doe, The Stray Cats, John Waite, Johnny Rivers, The Cramps, and Dave Alvin among them. Often clad in a classic black leather jacket, Ubaldini is a bit of a geographical anomaly; he looks like he just stepped off the stage at New York's legendary and much-missed CBGB, but he makes his home in Orange County, California - Los Angeles' bucolic neighbor to the south. Ulbadini's take on Americana and roots music assuredly is more New York attitude than midwestern college rock, but the sunshine and palm trees haven't mellowed Ubaldini's attitude one single sneer. He's as prolific as he's ever been, and his shows and albums range from solo, unplugged roots rock rave-ups to raucous, electrified full band affairs. | |||
| Episode 194: Dan Janisch | 15 juin 2017 | 01:27:20 | |
Dan Janisch is an affable enigma. He has been around the block, and he's still at it - writing solid songs and playing shows - beholden to no one. He has always operated a bit apart from the mainstream, so much so that he has built a career out of being an outsider. He comprises one third of the songwriting team of the Los Angeles local supergroup, Jolenes, and he has albums of his own. But it's Janisch's Renaissance man lifestyle that helps to paint the legend of his maverick status. He's not content to simply crank out great songs or play solid guitar parts. He is a natural craftsman and a tinkerer who is not afraid to deconstruct things to see how they work, so when Janisch plays those great songs, he might just be doing so with a guitar he built or an amplifier he assembled. Janisch wears his influences on his sleeve, which leads to inevitable comparisons to a number of other artists, and at this stage in his career his voice is eerily reminiscent of an alt-country Neil Diamond - and that's not a bad thing. | |||
| Episode 193: ID FFWD with Pi Jacobs | 09 juin 2017 | 00:24:56 | |
Pi Jacobs first joined us on Independent's Day in December of 2012, and she has been busy like a bee in the intervening years. She talks about how she got her record deal and how that has changed things in her music career, how her origins in Northern California inspired her new album A Little Blue, and she and Hall Brothers play the song "Weed and Wine." | |||
| Episode 192: Eli Wulfmeier | 01 juin 2017 | 01:04:13 | |
Most musicians can readily tell you about their influences, but the best musicians can tell you who it was that influenced their influences; they're always going a step farther back in time and they know full well that all of us here in the current age are standing on the shoulders of the shoulders of giants. The genre of classic rock casts a long shadow, and six decades on from Chuck Berry, Bill Haley and Elvis Presley, teenagers of the new millennium are just as apt to want a turntable and a laptop as an electric guitar, but many songs from the heyday of rock and roll have found a second life in video games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero, as well as in beer commercials. Eli Wulfmeier grew up in Michigan, but he sounds like an apple that fell directly off the Allman Brothers' tree. On guitar, Wulfmeier's trick bag is full of tried and true rock and roll licks and he executes them with a smooth flair and tasteful approach that can at times lean toward the incendiary. Vocally, he shows an affinity for the amped up blue-eyed soul of the best legacy rock singers. After spending the last decade in California, honing his guitar chops by playing with the likes of Shelby Lynne, Joe Purdy, Leslie Stevens and Jonny Fritz, Wulfmeier has formed a new trio of his own to allow him to showcase his considerable talents as a songwriter, guitarist and singer. That trio, called Leroy From the North, has a style that is not quite jam band territory, but the three-piece format does allow him the flexibility to improvise and change arrangements on the fly. Wulfmeier hews close enough to the elemental building blocks of rock that his songs, singing and guitar playing sound comfortably familiar, and he's got enough talent in his approach that it still sounds fresh. | |||
| Episode 191: Vitamin String Quartet | 18 mai 2017 | 01:15:38 | |
Soon after modern pop music supplanted jazz and classical styles as the predominant music for the masses, musicians were arranging pop standards with classical instrumentation. The quality and musical merits of these reverse-engineered explorations ranged from dubious - think elevator music - to the avant-garde. But at its best, the genre both exposes people otherwise not predisposed to like classical music to a new art form as well as illuminates the musical legitimacy of a style derided in highbrow circles as merely 'pop' music. Los Angeles' Vitamin String Quartet started out nearly 20 years ago as a sort of side project for a record label. Although it features long-running members, it isn't a fixed ensemble; it's more like a sports franchise that plays games with a rotating cast of players. But the quality of the VSQ performers remains high, and the ensemble has evolved from its more musically open origins to taking on the unique challenge of arranging, rock, pop, metal, punk, techo, country and hip-hop songs solely for the four instruments that comprise a string quartet - cello, viola and a pair of violins. The Internet age has been good to Vitamin String Quartet, and the group has ably capitalized on the new paradigm of the way music is distributed and enjoyed. The ensemble has managed to move over 3.8 million downloads, 1 million compact discs and it maintains an active YouTube page with well over a thousand videos - with new content being released regularly. Unsurprisingly, VSQ's unique and adventurous arrangements have found their way into numerous TV shows and fans can even buy sheet music for some pieces. In short, Vitamin String Quartet has grown into a sort of cottage industry. With this much content, pick a band - you're sure to find music by at least one of your favorite artists in the Vitamin String Quartet catalog. | |||
| Episode 190: Sam Morrow | 04 mai 2017 | 01:27:04 | |
Sam Morrow's take on Americana mines the rich depths of the lineage of Southern Rock and renegade Country with his meaty voice front and center. Morrow's delivery is powerful and gritty - the kind of voice that could sing the phonebook and make it sound like an anthem. Stylistically, there are shades of Cash, Waylon and Merle on both his albums to date, and Morrow's early struggles with substance abuse have given him a hard-won perspective on the demons that haunt frail and fallible human souls that he shares with his idols. But along with shades of the Mount Rushmore faces of roots rock, Morrow also includes influences and colors that show his age; he's still young and he grew up in a mashup world without record store bins to keep artists in a stylistic boxes. He's not afraid to throw a Radiohead cover up on YouTube. Morrow's vocal command reflects hints of a sort of backwoods Jeff Buckley, and his instrumentation and arrangements have a groove that is definitely more Memphis than Nashville or Austin. There is a bit of bounce and boogie in the drums - and pulsing, groovy Hammond B3 lines provide a counterpoint to Morrow's passionate ruminations. The masters of the trade approach their songs with a fearlessness to tell the stark truth about whatever story they're telling, and Morrow shares this honest, no-BS approach. Many ears are no doubt eagerly awaiting his forthcoming new album. | |||
| Episode 189: Eric Kufs | 20 avr. 2017 | 01:23:34 | |
Eric Kufs got his start in a New York indie-folk trio called Common Rotation. He and his bandmates - Adam Busch and Jordan Katz - were childhood friends who had come of age together, started a band, forged an original sound and established themselves with relentless tours and several albums. Before long, their hard work had paid off and they'd collaborated with the likes of They Might Be Giants, Indigo Girls and Dan Bern. When Busch's acting career picked up speed in California, the trio decided to uproot the entire ensemble and Kufs and Katz relocated to Los Angeles with Busch. The saturated scene in LA prompted Kufs to find new ways to make a living at music. Sometimes, necessity is the mother of reinvention. Kufs started playing hours-long busking gigs on Santa Monica's highly trafficked 3rd Street Promenade shopping and dining district. The gigs were not theater shows where a captive audience sat and listened politely in their seats, but the transient nature of the steady stream of passersby provided Kufs with an opportunity disguised as a challenge. Kufs had always been prolific - he already had nearly a thousand original songs in his repertoire - and he now complemented his sizable catalog of originals with reimagined cover songs, providing yet another opportunity to expand on his considerable talent as a singer, guitarist and songwriter. The extended sets allowed him time to experiment; he could essentially profile the shoppers and revelers passing by and cater his song selection to garner the most attention. After all, attention meant tips and tips is income. It's an important lesson to learn that only foolhardy performers neglect to read their audiences. Years on in California, Kufs is still at it, making a living in music with his unique blend of folk and blue-eyed soul. With Common Rotation currently on hiatus, Kufs has established himself as a solo performer in his own right with a new EP called Sense and Nonsense in Psychology, Part One and a steady performance calendar. | |||
| Episode 188: ID FFWD with Ted Wulfers | 13 avr. 2017 | 00:33:10 | |
Los Angeles-based, Chicago born and bred artist Ted Wulfers dropped by the Independent's Day Worth HQ to talk about how the Cubs 2016 World Series victory after a 108-year drought inspired a song that changed his music career, and got him into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Wulfers played his watershed song, "The Cubs Won It All In Two-Thousand-Sixteen" and also talks about his new record that features the ukulele. | |||
| Episode 187: Dorian Taj | 06 avr. 2017 | 01:05:19 | |
Chicago's Dorian Taj has indie rock bonafides for which a lot of artists would trade their black Converse hi-tops; he got his start in a hardcore punk band, has worked with Bob Mould, released records on Steve Albini's imprint over the course of his several-album career and he knows his way around an Econoline, but he's more than just a pretty face grimacing at a low-slung guitar. Taj also has a way with a song, and he serves up just the right amount of crafty writing to elevate his music above the noisy fray. His vocals are delivered in a Dylan-meets-Westerberg sneer and he has always made the smart play by surrounding himself with solid players. He's that rare artist that hits all the right career notes seemingly without trying. And all of this would be moot without witnessing the dervish of energy that is a Dorian Taj show. Bands of all styles the world over could learn a thing or two from the manner in which Taj can captivate an audience. | |||
| Episode 186: Matt Jaffe and The Distractions | 23 mars 2017 | 01:03:45 | |
There really isn't such a thing as precociousness in the music business. One only needs to consider that the Beatles averaged about twenty-two and a half years of age and were already seasoned pros in England when they played their American debut on Ed Sullivan in 1964. Enter California's Matt Jaffe. Jaffe is young - on the cusp of twenty-two - but he's talented, motivated and he's more than willing to put in the work necessary to make a name for himself. Jaffe started on violin at age five and had picked up the guitar and started to write his own songs by the time he was ten. A scant few years later, before he was finished with high school, Jaffe's repertoire featured no fewer than fifty of his own compositions and he'd already started amassing songwriting and performing awards in his Bay Area home. After graduation, Jaffe flipped coasts and started college at Yale University - but soon found that his true calling lay in music, so he dropped out after three semesters and applied his usual unstoppable focus and drive to a full-time music career. Jaffe's dedication has begun to pay off, with an EP, a full-length record and national tours already on his resume - along with a regular band he calls The Distractions. And it all makes sense when people see the confident manner in which Jaffe and his band burn up a stage. The truest fans are earned, and Matt Jaffe and The Distractions' high-energy rock shows bear shades of other acts that are revered both for their smarts and their performance savvy; The Replacements, Elvis Costello and The Clash come to mind. So clap or get out of the way, because there is no stopping Matt Jaffe. | |||
| Episode 185: ID FFWD with Sarah Kramer | 01 mars 2017 | 00:22:11 | |
Sarah Kramer dropped by the ID studios to get us caught up on her musical journey, her new album, Matter of Time, how she learned how differently musicians are treated while playing in Europe after a recent tour to Spain. She plays a song about her childhood home called "Way Back Home." | |||
| Episode 184: Dan Phelps | 23 févr. 2017 | 00:58:21 | |
As a youngster, Dan Phelps grew up in the shadow of the music business - quite literally. Phelps' father was the founder of the Full Sail Recording Workshop, which has since grown into Full Sail University, a technical school that has taught thousands of people how to make a living in the music, film and television industries. With that much gear and talent around, it is no surprise that the younger Phelps took to music at a young age. He started with drums and eventually switched to guitar, developing an avant-garde and experimental style that has been a trademark for his entire career. Phelps has maintained a true artist's path, lending his talents as a composer, producer, guitarist, audio engineer and performer to a wide range of artists and situations - with the common thread being his collaborators' willingness to be open-minded in their approach to making music. The last few years have found Phelps diving deeper into his explorations of improvisational composition. His custom-made guitar and laptop-based performance workstation has several unique modifications that allow him to blend electronic music and live recording technology with the full range of expression of the guitar into unique soundscapes that are different every single time. Imagine a one-man electronica jam band that can take you on a musical journey for four minutes, four hours or anywhere in between. Phelps' foray into live performance technology shows that the seemingly limitless powers of advanced technology can most certainly be used for good. | |||
| Episode 183: Susan Tunney | 09 févr. 2017 | 01:22:56 | |
A precocious Susan Tunney was stuffed into a corset and practicing her dialect for a period piece in her college's theater program when she had an epiphany. A voice in her head said something akin to, "What am I doing up here pretending to be somebody else?" That moment of artistic clarity found her leaving school and heading back to her native Chicago where she had the good fortune to land in middle of the heyday of the city's fertile 90s music scene. She formed a band called Adamjack with her best friend Sophie Lee and they set about doing what bands do: writing songs, playing shows and making albums. In short order, they'd built a solid following both locally and on the road and the band was selling out top tier venues in Chicago. After Lee quit the band to attend to a family health crisis, Tunney moved to New York City and eventually back to Chicago, releasing music under her own name all the while. But a life in music can be hard on one's constitution and years of the grind prompted Tunney to step away from the business and move to Los Angeles to focus on family. But when you're a songwriter, the relentless muse keeps sending inspiration whether or not you think you're listening, and before long Tunney was back writing songs, assembling a band and releasing new material. California has been good for Tunney, and her new songs showcase both her raspy alto as well as her deft hand at turning a phrase. | |||
| Episode 182: ID FFWD with Rick Shea | 02 févr. 2017 | 00:23:47 | |
Ace guitarist and songwriter Rich Shea talk about his new record, playing local shows, life on the road, sideman work, his yearly gig on a moving train with Dave Alvin, Peter Case, John Doe called Roots on the Rails. He played a song called "Goodbye Alberta," which may wind up as the title track on his next record. | |||
| Episode 181: David Luning | 26 janv. 2017 | 01:03:26 | |
David Luning and his band are earning their accolades in the best way possible - simply by being good at what they do and by working hard. After high school, Luning left his hometown in Northern California and set out to study film scoring at Boston's prestigious Berklee College of Music. Things were going just fine until he happened to hear a John Prine record at a college party. Prine's seemingly effortless, enigmatic and elegantly simple songwriting style was a personal epiphany for Luning, and it set him on an entirely new tack. After convincing his parents that he needed to drop out of school to pursue this new career, Luning leaned hard into the craft of writing and performing. It wasn't long before he'd assembled a band, released an album and hit the road. That self-released first record, Just Drop On By, put him on the radar of listeners and music supervisors alike, and Luning's music began to land placements in movies and TV shows. All the while, Luning and his stalwart band were logging miles playing shows across the country, raising their profile and getting out in front of even more new fans. The beginning of 2017 finds Luning poised to release his sophomore album, Restless, and the record is a step forward in both writing and performing skill. After a quick spin, it's evident that Luning shares some of his mentor's approach; his songs - like Prine's - are delivered in a deceivingly simple style that comes across as unadorned truth. Luning's melodies are catchy and hummable, and not a syllable or guitar lick is wasted. It's a refreshing and mature listen in a world of overly-quantized and auto-tuned artists all desperately and loudly vying for attention. | |||
| Episode 180: Emily Zuzik | 12 janv. 2017 | 01:42:52 | |
Emily Zuzik's career in the performing arts is a study in diversification. At varying times, she can call herself a singer, songwriter, guitarist, actress and model - and she has had success at each of these related-but-distinct pursuits. Zuzik has released several records of her own music that range in style from a Sheryl Crow-esque rootsy-rock vibe to a hip-hopping blend of Aimee Mann, Alanis Morissette and Beck. Her vocals have been heard on NBC, WB Interactive and she has collaborated with Moby and sung with Blue Man Group. Her newest project is an EP of electronic music called Angelenos created with Tim Lefebvre that is reminiscent of Sarah McLachlan-fronted Massive Attack. No matter the genre, it's Zuzik's dynamic voice that ties it all together, ranging from a sweet melody to a sultry sneer in a matter of beats. Zuzik somehow even found her way onto a book cover; you can see her likeness wearing a bikini and wielding a spear gun on the cover of a now-out-of-print Penguin Paperback edition of James Bond's Thunderball. As if all these accomplishments weren't enough, Zuzik proudly bears the self-appointed title of 'Rocker Mom,' which means that aside from following her muse and sharing her gifts as a musician, she has the most important job of all. Because anyone who knows anything about moms knows that it's a 24/365 gig. | |||
| Episode 179: Mad Revival | 15 déc. 2016 | 01:01:44 | |
A dictionary definition of the word 'revival' goes something like: 'restoration to life, consciousness, vigor, strength, etc.' - and this isn't too far from the truth when describing the Los Angeles-based band, Mad Revival. The former half of their name is derived from the ethos of their frontman, Australian-born Nic Capelle, whose stage persona is an oddly pleasing blend of a field-hollering bluesman and a sanguine carnival barker. Which leaves the revival half, and its associated images of a kind of traveling tent celebration designed to conjure the spirit. Put them together and you have Mad Revival's amped up blues, the gospel of which they preach with a willingness to blend genres into an nearly indescribable mashup. Sometimes they sound like Howlin' Wolf fronting the Beastie Boys, and other times their twin guitar riffing pays homage to Led Zeppelin by way of James Brown. Aside from their originality, it's Mad Revival's work ethic that is their greatest asset. They work hard on their music, and the dedication to their craft is palpable at their live shows, where it is almost impossible to not get at least some part of your body moving. Mad Revival has a new EP due in early 2017, and expect to be hearing more about them. Our overly-autotuned, digitized and quantized world needs more bands like Mad Revival - keeping it real by being the real deal. | |||
| Episode 178: Tony Gilkyson | 01 déc. 2016 | 01:05:10 | |
If you want to know what a life well lived in the music business sounds like, give a listen to Tony Gilkyson. Graced with both innate talent and a supportive musical family, Gilkyson has served the muse well - from his own compositions to backing up Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, K.D. Lang, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Dave Alvin and countless others. Gilkyson is perhaps best known for a facile, country-tinged style on the guitar, but he also spent a decade playing punk music in the band X, exemplifying the fact that the best musicians spend less time differentiating between musical styles and instead let their playing do the talking. Fans of The Big Lebowski, the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line and All the King's Men have heard Gilkyson's guitar contributions as accompaniment on the big screen, and artists like Eleni Mandell and Chuck E. Weiss have tapped him as a producer. In conversation, Gilkyson is soft-spoken, and he measures his words like a taciturn southern father whose wisdom is parsed out in economical gems - much like his guitar playing - and when signing, his voice in an unorthodox tenor with equal parts Neil Young and wayward space cowboy. The man has been known to hang with Tom Waits, and any band would do well to study a bit of Gilkyson to learn how it's done. Or better yet, hire him and get the real thing. | |||
| Episode 177: Jolenes | 17 nov. 2016 | 01:02:37 | |
Supergroups come in all sizes, at least that's the convention behind Los Angeles' Jolenes. The three songwriters that form the heart of the band each have their own outfit; Grant Langston's stalwart band is called the Supermodels, David Serby fronts The Latest Scam, Dan Janisch has a group that plays under his own name and the fourth member, drummer Dale Daniel, is a veteran of the Los Angeles music scene - and their collective resume features a dozen or more albums and countless shows between them. So what brought these busy guys together and inspired them to add yet another responsibility to their schedules? The answer is friendship and an undying love for country music. The Jolenes' communal songwriting arrangement allows these three writers and bandleaders to abdicate the responsibility of being the boss by sharing that load with other artists who they call their friends. Rather than simply playing different arrangements of songs from their respective catalogs or leaning on covers, the Jolenes sit in a room - together - with guitars and some beer and hammer out ideas in the round - and it's this fun, communal approach that is evident in the new songs written specifically for the band. The group's lineage draws a lot of water right out of the gate in the Los Angeles music scene - further allowing them to largely sidestep the rigmarole of scrapping around to book the good gigs. When asked, the guys in the Jolenes will say that they're having too much fun to yet think too much about making an album. Once you hear them, you may hope that they change their minds. | |||
| Episode 176: AJ Hobbs | 03 nov. 2016 | 01:27:44 | |
Musician AJ Hobbs plays a sort of neo-traditionalist country music that reflects his origins in the desert east of Los Angeles. Hobbs' childhood home in Riverside County, California was a dusty, back-road tumbleweed junction long before the area grew up to be knows as Southern California's conservative 'Inland Empire' - an area which seemed a world away from the more laid-back coastal towns just over the western horizon. Hobbs learned firsthand just how disparate the two towns were when his mother packed up the family - sans dad - and moved to Orange County near the ocean. Hobbs didn't fit in with the surfer crowd, and he found solace in a couple of habits picked up from his wayward, hard-drinking father. The first of these inherited traits was music; after hearing country icons like Waylon, Willie, old school R&B and gospel at home, Hobbs picked up the guitar and began to write songs. But along with this musical inspiration came his father's penchant for drinking and other associated bad behavior. Hobbs worked hard to earn success in the music industry, but addiction helped his self-destructive demons grow along with his reputation as a stalwart performer. Perhaps miraculously, Hobbs didn't wind up in jail or dead before he managed to get the wheels back on the track. As he prepares to release his debut full-length album in early 2017, his band is as hot as ever and Hobbs is poised to live up to his honky-tonk potential. | |||
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