Sometimes there are groups that leave people, befuddled. Well, it’s 2020 so there really shouldn’t be anything that surprises anyone. You know, because 2020 will be the year we all remember. Where does this leave everyone with This Way To The EGRESS, the band out of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania? If you didn’t realize, it’s 2020 and it doesn’t matter where the group is left. READ MORE…
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Ninebullets Radio feature Craig Gerdes’ song “If Guitars Were Guns” on their podcast
Bubble Blabber features Tom Freund’s music video “Homer Simpson’s Clouds.”
Songs about The Simpsons or bands even inspired by the series aren’t a new concept, but I doubt they get any more wistful than Tom Freund does as he sings about “Homer Simpson’s Clouds”. The track was released as part of the “East Of Lincoln” record which was released in 2018 on Surf Road Records and is directed by Phineas and Ferb’s Swampy Marsh and production by Surfer Jack productions.
Dessa
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As a writer, Dessa’s byline has been featured in The New York Times, National Geographic, and in an episode of the cult-classic Welcome to Night Vale podcast. She has written two short collections of poetry and essays, and in 2018 published a memoir, My Own Devices (Dutton Books, Penguin Random House), that tells the story of her life, career, and an ambitious plan to fall out of love. Dessa has delivered presentations on art, science, and entrepreneurship for Fortune 500 companies, keynote speeches at the Nobel Peace Prize Forum and the Mayo Clinic, and guest lectures at universities and colleges across the country including Georgetown, Macalester, NYU, and Iowa State. Her TED Talk “Can We Choose to Fall Out of Love?” has been viewed over 2 million times and showcases Dessa’s funny, charismatic style that engages, entertains, and inspires audiences from all walks of life.
Dessa grew up in the 80s in South Minneapolis as a strong-willed, brainy kid. Both parents were musical—her mother sang and her father played classical guitar and medieval stringed instruments. After earning a philosophy degree, Dessa began competing on the slam poet circuit. There she met members of the Minneapolis rap scene and was soon invited to join Doomtree, the hip-hop collective known for bold production, charismatic lyricists, and explosive live shows. Dessa learned from and contributed to the Doomtree ethos—a gritty, DIY attitude that presumed musicians would make their own way, without help from industry players. Dessa’s songs are the product of her unusual trajectory: she’s part academic and part hip artist, a lute player’s daughter who spent her formative professional years touring the world in a van full of guys.
Whether she’s composing rap lyrics or writing creative nonfiction essays, Dessa’s style and dedication to wordcraft is unmistakable. The LA Times says she “sounds like no one else,” NPR says she’s “breaking the rules of rap,” The Chicago Tribune simply calls her “enchanting.” On the stage and on the page, Dessa exemplifies ferocity, wit, tenderness, and candor.
Juana Everett
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JUANA EVERETT – MOVE ON (OUT JANUARY 22ND, 2021)
It’s logical that the title of singer/songwriter Juana Everett’s first full length album concerns movement. She has experienced plenty of it.
There’s the physical process of changing locales; from her home in Spain halfway across the world to L.A. Also the realization it was time to shift from the punk, rock and Americana bands she had been involved with to more insightful, personal and eclectic folk/indie rock. And the psychological shift required to begin a fresh life, not just in a new city, but on a different continent. That’s enough for a few albums’ worth of material.
Many of Everett’s songs for Move On were written during this transitory stage. “When I decided to leave Spain and move to the U.S.…it was at a time in my life that was more emotionally delicate than I realized,” she explains. Everett left an unhealthy relationship along with difficult family issues, so the relocation came during a particularly unsettling time.
That’s explored in the disc’s autobiographical first single “Drifter of Love.” It opens the set with “Early in the summer of 2016/Brave as I could be I left my home/I wasn’t sure of what I was chasing/why I carried on.” The track “Wind Whistle Blow” also explores this era as she tells herself to keep pushing even when things look gloomy, singing “I travel alone and I’m jaded/But I know that I can stand up on my feet/Telling myself to be patient.”
It took a while to return to that period to fully explore it with honesty, transforming her feelings into tunes. “I wrote most of the songs in my first and second year in L.A. It wasn’t until then that I could record some demos.” After examining that material, Everett recognized the larger picture was a reflection of this chapter of her life. “It had to do with moving on to something different, something new, and letting go of the past.”
That makeover from the aggressive music she had been connected with to an introspective and earthier approach came easily. “It was getting in touch with my feelings instead of raging as a way to mask them.” She quit the band because that style didn’t represent her authentic self.
Everett has gone through plenty of changes since her previous 2015 EP. “Back then I was more naïve. I’m more grounded now and more stable in my emotional state. I still expose myself as raw as I can.” And this new music best captures her inner self, something she has had to work on. “My strength as an artist is to express the things I feel in the truest way. I’ve dealt with a lot of anxiety and some depression. Now I’m very aware of how your mental well-being is really important. It’s like a rubber band. You can stretch it and let it go. But if you stretch it too much it may not come back to the original shape.”
The sound also reflects her relatively recent L.A. environment, mostly because it is such a diverse setting. “L.A. didn’t have a natural identity. That was scary but…it helped me write songs instead of identifying myself with a specific genre.” She also studied production while working at recording studios which helped with laying down these tracks, nudging them closer to what she heard in her head.
The self-produced disc is crisp and subtle yet powerful. Layered guitars and subtle vocal overdubs create a CD as refined and well-crafted as any major label release, specifically of the West Coast variety from a few decades ago. “On this album, I wanted to own every decision. I was pulling influences from folk, Americana, and rock but I also opened myself more to the 80s, so some of the arrangements and songs have that influence.”
The singer’s voice is, like her words, honest and genuine. Sympathetic overdubs provide personalized vocal backing and the occasional bluesy lead guitar adds an organic and somewhat tougher feel to the often chiming music. She also searched out musicians from different backgrounds. It was those players that helped create arrangements which make her melodies so memorable.
Everett clarifies that some tracks are “like a dialog with myself. Sometimes I talk about myself in the third person…to analyze myself better.” A tune such as “Fake Love” which describes a toxic liaison with “She gotta move on/Turn around and go,” can be perceived as both subjective encouragement and cautioning others to remove themselves from unhealthy romantic attachments and addictive obsessions. The title of “I Won’t See You Anymore” is a defiant kiss-off to a soon to be ex.
Even in darker selections like “Light Up a Fire,” which describes the protagonist fighting depression with “Yes I’ve wished for death/But I’m not the first one and I’m not ashamed/I found deep in me there’s still a flame,” a hope for improved times provides positive reinforcement. That’s especially true in the romantic musings of “Until the Sky Ain’t Blue” where Everett sings “Hold my hand until the sky ain’t blue/I just wanna take care of you.” It’s a glorification of love and commitment and one of the album’s most uplifting moments.
By the time of the piano based closing “Little Tragedies” where Everett lets go of the bumps in life’s road that led her to where she is, the listener is bathed in a calming finality that gives the sense of arrival at the end of a long journey.
The singer/songwriter’s music doesn’t have obvious connections to her Spanish heritage other than in a direct, some might say uncompromising, lyrical attitude. But that charm and charisma makes Move On such an emotional and well, moving experience. One that can be appreciated by anyone who has weathered life’s uncertainties and, like Everett, keeps focused on the path ahead.
Americana UK debuts Stephie James’ new video for “West of Juarez,” calling it, “The perfect complement to James’s weary, story-telling vocal.”
We are delighted to share the video premiere of ‘West of Juarez’, the latest single from the acclaimed Stephie James. The song is taken from the well-received EP ‘These Days’, which is a favourite here at AUK. Check out the review here. The cinematic video is full of drama, the perfect complement to James’s weary, story-telling vocal.