I often think about injustice in life. Sometimes, circumstances turn out so that the life you lived yesterday no longer exists today.
I could feel it when I left my hometown to go to university and left my closest friends behind. I still miss them very much because we can’t see them often.
Continue readingby Andy Coombs of Soft Cotton County
Music was once ‘the most important, unimportant thing we had,’ said music critic and presenter Robert Elms. This sums up my relationship with writing in general and music in particular. I want to keep it unique and avoid the fillers and the B-sides. One great song would make me happy. In an ocean of mediocrity, sea levels are rising, but starfish are still found in the depths.
We are a Brazilian band that emerged in the 90s, more precisely in 1994: Old Magic Pallas. Oh gosh, 30 years! Time flies… We met in a CD store that belonged to our drummer, where we always met to listen to the releases of the bands we liked, mainly British alternative rock. In fact, our band’s name comes from the liner notes of Blur’s Parklife album (it was the name of one of those racing dogs).
At that time, few bands played this style of music in the country, and even fewer sang in English.
This was even the motto for a documentary called “Guitar Days – An Unlikely Story of Brazilian Music,” which details the independent scene of that time and where we are mentioned.
Continue readingby Jonas Franck a.k.a. Corpse Feet
Why call it Corpse Feet? No one, to my knowledge, can survive death, so I guess we’re all just corpse feet walking until we lay…
Here’s how it went.
It was in the late 70s, and I was just a few years old. I had seen a man with his guitar on our black and white TV, probably Elvis Jailhouse Rock, and immediately wanted to be that. So, I grabbed a tennis racket at a birthday party and got up on the table to do my first show.
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How can you convey a song about a disease? Especially a disease like epilepsy that most people have heard about but probably know very little about. And can I express the feelings and the hopelessness associated with having a child with this disease without it being simply too much for others to listen to?
Among other things, it was with these thoughts that I started writing the song Epilepsy. A song that has now become very central to my album The Admirer, which is my most personal album to date. The song was also the first single from the album, and was released on International Epilepsy Day. That all made sense.
Continue readingby Lyndon
People ask me what instruments I play, and usually, I respond with, “Whatever gets it out of my head.”
Music has been an outlet for me for more than half my life at this point. I come from Chesapeake, Virginia, a place where music (let alone any form of art or entertainment) is totally underrated, never even remotely appreciated.
Continue readingby Rey Montano
I guess if I had to describe my “story,” the story that at least gets told through my music, it would be a story of adolescence, at least for now. I have lived in Fresno for all of my (admittedly short) life, and I think it can show through my music at times. But I’m always looking for a way to escape. Whether it be the mountains or the beach, make no mistake that I’d rather be anywhere than Fresno from at least July up to September. Our summers are scalding and long.
If I can’t do that, though, I still have the long-standing escapist cliche of music.
Continue readingby Jesse Crowley aka The First Humans
Many years can go by, and one would have just a faint idea at best of what was going on in the midst of those rote routines, cycles, ellipses that engulf the conscious mind on a daily basis. The constant whirring of the gears, the hum of the system casting a tint across one’s attention span to prevent any particular deviation from the expected routine of the machine as it rolls along in its tread.
An observation of Tennessee Williams’ characters that seems inescapable to me is that of the unconscious voice that breaks through that cacophony of time rolling along. It’s the precarious tendency of the soul to drive the outward behavior against the will of the conscious mind, and it’s inside this space, the point of contact where the winnowing drill of the conscience irks the daily systems in one’s life to force itself forward – that is the locus of creativity to me. A slow moving, but insistent, generative focal point.
Continue readingby Corynne Ostermann of Natural Velvet
My name is Corynne Ostermann; I’m a multidisciplinary artist and musician playing bass & providing vocals for the Baltimore-based group Natural Velvet.
Natural Velvet started in 2012, and I’ve been involved since the beginning, as well as with my bandmates Spike Arreaga (guitar), Kim Te (guitar), and Greg Hatem (drums, production). I genuinely feel so lucky to have had my bandmates’ attention for as long as I have had, and as a result, I’m very protective of them and the long-term sustainability of our project.
Continue readingby Oly
My story starts with my Mexican parents. They eloped from Mexico City then had me in Los Angeles. Their early gift to me was a stand-up piano for kids. According to my mom, I spent most of my time on it, writing songs and playing them over and over. When I was a teenager, I was the frontwoman in a punk/indie cover band, then played in a few post-rock bands. I became obsessed with the label Thrill Jockey, and moved to Chicago because they were based there. My sister was my biggest champion—she accompanied me on the long drive. Even though she slept most of the time in the passenger seat, her love and support meant the world to me.