by Anna Karney
After my previous album, Creatures In The Garden, I didn’t think I had another one in me. But suddenly this chorus just popped out, lyrics, chords, and melody all at once, “We will all come out together for love, love, love.” And I really needed to hear these hopeful words, because of the daily barrage of sad news. It was enough to start me off on my next album journey.
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When I was a kid, I discovered Marty Robbins’ “Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs” in my Dad’s record collection and played it obsessively. I fell in love with the stories that that album told and the colorful characters in songs like “Big Iron” and “El Paso.” It was immediately apparent that to me, music was not just a melody and a beat; it was also visual and preferably cinematic. The story that the lyrics told was what really brought a song to life for me.
by Ed Rawlings
I love guitar riffs. Great riffs encapsulate the chords, melody, and feel of a song. They are a force that propels the songs forward. A good song also tells a relatable story, but a great guitar rock and roll riff can draw people quickly into that story.
Sometimes, riffs are memorable guitar melodies, like The Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” or Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.” I particularly like riffs that are part chord, part melody, and are often as memorable as the lyrics, or maybe more so – like Chuck Berry’s opening riff for Johnny B. Goode – one of the classics of rock and the inspiration for many riffs to come.
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There is often an expectation that great work comes only from deep intention. That it is birthed from the mind of the artist, fully formed. Picture the romantic image of Mozart, writing out his scores fully formed with no eraser marks. I find this to be a harmful narrative that can hinder creatives.
Just think of how many great improvisers we can look to and see their apparent musical genius. For example, just about every great jazz musician. The point that I am getting to, albeit in a roundabout way, is that it is okay not to know the end result when you start something creative. And it’s even better if you can begin to without expectation.
Continue readingby Jessica DeSimone of Warren Teagarden and the Good Grief
Since I can remember, I’ve been performing. My earliest memories are dancing around my childhood home, singing along to my mom’s records, or doing what I can only describe as a cobra pose inside the giant planter boxes at our local shopping mall, pretending I was Ariel from The Little Mermaid. I used to feel like I could fly when I sang, like I had tiny wings sprouting from my back.
As I got older, my grandma taught me how to play piano, back when my hands were so tiny I couldn’t hit an octave. In school, I added choir, theater, and dance team to my repertoire, and I was sure I would be a big theater star one day. But of course, pragmatism won, and I went to college for something far less fun and ended up in a career even less fun, leaving a part of myself behind.
For years, my creative self was suffocated. I was dying to tap back into the freedom that came with being on stage, that rare out-of-body experience when you get to leave yourself behind and become something else entirely.
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.
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The songs in “Notes From Planet Earth” include Indie Folk, Rock, and Country styles. They deal with the disastrous direction our world seems to be taking driven by the likes of Trump and the GOP, and their kind worldwide. The songs are grounded in the understanding that without a major change of course, we’re in the process of degrading and destroying the world we live in rather than passing it on to the future in good shape. I hope these songs touch some hearts and that we pull off that change of course successfully.
If there is one aspect of music that is underrated, it is the storytelling and imagination it inspires. I have been infatuated by those qualities since I was four years old, and I have never stopped telling stories through music.
by Matt Vowles
We are the goth rockers, Black Angel, from Los Angeles (even though I hail from 80’s England) and have just released an extended version of our debut album “The Widow.” Initially released in October 2019, some may think this is a little quick for an extended version. But while the first version was awesome, something wasn’t quite right.
It was mastered for the “headphone and streaming” generation, and it just didn’t have the bollocks it needed for a Goth/Post-punk album – not the ones I grew up listening to. I should have gone with my gut, I shouldn’t have catered to this popular way of mastering songs, should have stuck to my guns. So now I’m doing it again. And I couldn’t just re-release it, so we thought let’s just make it longer and more impressive, so fans have a reason to want it.
Growing up as a Tempe child but switching places in the outskirts of SoCal or forced to go to church every Sunday, took its toll. I found myself at darker times and darker places of wanting to let go.
I may have seemed happy to some, but I wasn’t… I felt trapped and I didn’t like any of it. And it didn’t help that I had an attention problem or that I kept falling ill…