When you cue up a song titled “Highway 1”, you probably anticipate a great driving song. Greg Connors delivers with his new single, which if you let it, will take you on a journey to both your own bitter end and recreation.
“Highway 1” manages to relentlessly unbalance and rebalance its discord and flow. The lyrics have that signature Connors flair, the mercurial duplicity and winking turns of phrase. —
It was March in Seattle, and I’d just had all four wisdom teeth removed while listening to Megadeth. I was lying in bed – – healing and reading Tom Wolfe’s “Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” – – when I got a text from a fellow singer/songwriter (we’ll call him Drew), asking if I’d like to join him for a road trip to Austin, Texas. We would leave in a few days. After arriving we’d stay with a traveling musician named DB Rouse who lived and worked on a horse ranch just outside of the city. DB had set up a makeshift recording studio in a shack on the property and had invited Drew to come down and record some songs.
My need for adventure greatly outweighed my need for rest, so I agreed to tag along.
Middle age –
Some buy a motorbike or go skydiving, some swim with sharks or hunt for ancient treasures…. me I started to record all the songs I’d scribbled on little bits of paper over many years! As the technology made it infinitely easier to set up a studio at home… that’s what I did, and here am 😉 7 albums, two e.p.’s and a couple of compilation albums in 4 years, and many more still to come!!
My name is Danny M. Cohen, and I’m one half of the Chicago-based gay folk-rock duo They Won’t Win. My “music husband” is Greg Lanier and we wrote and co-produced our debut album over a few years of life’s ups and downs. For me, parts of ‘Lost At Sea’ reflect what it was like to witness a dear friend fall into a dark, frightening place, but, ultimately, our album is about finding your way out.
My second album is somewhat of a time capsule. These are the songs I wrote between realizing I needed to get better and doing something about it.
My alcoholism and dependence on other addictive behaviors (weed, sex, etc.) had progressed to a point where they had begun destroying every semblance of a good life I’d managed to build despite them. To preserve any chance I had at living well, I needed to change the way I spent each and every moment of my time. In order to honestly document these in musical form, I stripped away every instrument other than my voice, guitar, laptop, and tape recorder.
If there is anything for you in these songs, you will most likely find it outside of what I have to say about them. All I really have to say is thank you so, so much for listening. So much.
That said, in case it might inform your listening, here’s what I have to say:
After we started Soft Milk in 2015, there was a little buzz going because of our music but also some of wacky on-stage antics. It was just two of us then. We played with some cheap 10-watt amps and wore nothing but ghastly bed sheet costumes.
This is an account of ‘Pink Mirror’, the second album by UK singer-songwriter Jeremy Tuplin, by myself, Jeremy Tuplin. I don’t intend to provide any absolute or dictatorial interpretation of the songs on the album, or the record as a whole, as I would never want to do that, but I’m happy to shed some light on the thought processes and ideas that led to them, and it, having kindly been asked to by mySoundposter.
“Greg Connors is back with the release of is his new EP Holographic Static Proportion; it’s rough around the edges, jarring at times, (occasionally even skull-rattling). This album has all the earmarks Connors has become known for, brutally capricious lyrics and a quick dark wit. As a writer, he continues to mine the rubble of human relationships for nuggets of understanding and tenderness amongst the fury and confusion. A versatile storyteller, Connors will draw you in, hit you hard where it hurts and probably give you a good laugh as well.
Where were you when that tree fell in the forest? Check out Holographic Static Proportion and see what you hear…” -Catherine Swan
To begin, the album took about a year to finish, from writing to final production. Ultimately, I think it describes a period of thawing out from a pretty deep depression. The loss of several family members, a big move from Illinois to Oregon to live closer to my sisters after graduating from college to begin processing a lot of dark stuff that was hanging over me. So this album was a product of that time, of coping, thawing and trying to navigate my way back to somewhere that would hopefully be a lot healthier.
Kind of like how meditating gives us a focused space for our peaceful energy to flourish, having a vlog has helped me to take my connection with my listeners to essentially a sacred space.
I often think deeply about the whole picture and how can I as an artist create safe spaces during quality entertainment experiences. I want to give people a window into my songwriting process and other aspects of me being because we are all creating this world together. I get inspired often by intense things clouded by introverted struggles with no release but music. And I didn’t want just those intense songs to be all I gave the world. Perhaps a good analogy is that not cleaning for weeks results in a big beautiful cleaning. And weekly songwriting is like weekly maintenance cleaning.