#Rustbelt Studios

[bluestalkin]

"Pimps In The Pulpit" by Blackmail Arrives June 20 "I'm not saying all pastors are pimps, but... I've met a few..." +++ "Pimps In The Pulpit" +++ Righteous Detroit Rock and Roll from @blackmailtheband on all channels 06/20/2018 Recorded by @pirahnahead Produced and Mixed by @nadiromowale…

[m3t4ln3rd]

Bison Machine announce Seas Of Titan, stream first single "The Tower"

Official press release:

Michigan fuzz rockers Bison Machine will release their Seas Of Titan full-length via Small Stone this fall.

Since 2010, Bison Machine has been plying their trade in the dank, vinyl-smelling basements of Detroit, Michigan, the birthplace of a rock tradition for brashness and all-in physicality to music that the group lovingly upholds. Seas Of Titan is the band’s first…

[doomedandstoned]

Fistula To Headline Day II of Doomed & Stoned Fest!

It's been a tough year for festivals, particularly when it comes to international bands playing in the United States.   The news first broke with Austin's SXSW last year and the ripple effect has continued to impact festivals large and small ever since, most notably Psycho Las Vegas, which lost both Montreal's Dopethrone and Örebro's Witchcraft from the line-up due at least in part to visa and travel issues.   Doomed & Stoned Festival has taken a hit, too, with the loss of Vokonis and Bang from the line-up.

Festival organizer Melissa Marie has done an admirable job of finding new headliners at the 11th hour for the October 5th and 6th event and we can't wait to share who we've got lined up for you!  The new headliners for both days of Doomed & Stoned Festival will be announced on Thursday and Friday of this week. We think you'll be more than pleased with the result.

Twenty Years of Rustbelt Doom

Photo by Teddie Taylor

We are delighted to announce our new DAY II headliner, the mighty FISTULA!   We've been wanting to do something with the legendary Ohio band for quite some time and now the stars have happily aligned, just a matter of days before Akron doomers hops a plane to Europe to tear shit up with Grime.  

Fistula was forged in 1998 by musical partners-in-crime Corey Bing and Bahb Branca. Over the years, Fistula has released a seemingly endless barrage of studio albums and split EPs through numerous lineup changes featuring the creative talents of bands such as Sloth, Hemdale, The Disease Concept, Accept Death, and so many others. Fistula is a band that is impossible to categorize, combining elements of remedial sludge, hardcore and a proverbial “bad case of the Mondays.” Nearing two decades of ear bleeding, Fistula A remains the miserable kings of sludgecore.

The Shape Of Doom To Cumm))) by Fistula

Fistula be joining an incredible cast of doom, sludge, and stoner bands on Day II, including ultra heavy Hollow Leg, Cardinals Folly from Finland (in their first US appearance), songwriting legends Cruthu, the raging Wolftooth, and a great big bundle of energy in Great Electric Quest, Youngblood Supercult, High Reeper, Bonehawk, The Judge, and Moonbow.   Mind you, that's just the second day of the festival!   Don’t miss our big Day I announcement tomorrow.

Tickets for Doomed & Stoned Festival are still available, but going fast.   Make plans to join us October 5th and 6th in Indianapolis at Indiana City Beer.   We can't wait to meet up with Doomed & Stoned readers and enjoy the music of the heavy underground together with you!   Seal the deal.

New Fistula Track Premieres

We've got more than just an announcement for you, today, though -- we're also bringing you a brand new track by Fistula so you can get a taste of what you're in for!   The song is called “Dishonor Roll” from Fistula's upcoming 12” entitled At War With Pretension, due out in early 2019 on PATAC Records.

At War With Pretension features four new Fistula tracks and two demo tracks from "a side project/experiment that will be a surprise," the band tells us.   The artwork was done by Chris Leamy and will be the final recording featuring drummer Jeff Sullivan.   Fistula's performance at Doomed & Stoned Festival in October will introduce the band's new drummer, Kenny Easterly.

"Dishonor Roll" will give you a taste for how savage and cathartic Fistula's live show can be!   Give ear...

"Dishonor Roll" Lyrics

Pray to god AK, worship everyday, bumpstock assholes. Skull and shrapnel, teenage tantrums. Targets on their chests, hallways reek of death, backwoods Rambo. Emo bitch punk, stole his dad’s gun. Tray to god AK, worship everyday, skull and shrapnel.

Now you’ll see me, on your TV. I’ve got to kill more… and get the highest score.

This world owes me, so I’ll show no mercy. Your thoughts and prayers, won’t mop their brains. Ultimate goal… death by tactical pig. You’ll work in shifts, bagging up dead classmates.

Vacant stare, no one’s there. No demands, this is my final stand. Bloodstained school days, fake news they’ll say.

Get More Fistula

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[jexttelez]

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Drill Sergeant Phil Dürr giving the blue a riff-over set to 3 volts. 3 volts is what the original Buzz Tones ran on. We've added 6 volt and 9 volt options at the flick of a switch. Increased volume, headroom and lowend are some of the benefits, but 3 volt sounds perfectly raw and vintage and fuzzy. #tonethrone #toomuchfun #toneitup #geartone #gearslutz #gearsofwar4 #guitarpedals #guitarra #pedaloff #pedalhaven #pedalpumping #pedalboard #fuzzrock #fuzzpedal #fuzzpedals #gearybusey #gearwire #pedalhaven #sydbarrett (at Rustbelt Studios) https://www.instagram.com/p/BWi7YB9D6ov/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=pn6nyj6r9k7w

[xtruss]

US Politics

Donald Trump Has Lost the Election – Yet Trumpland is Here to Stay

As long as poor white Americans have little hope of a better life, they will continue to seek a leader in his mould

— The Guardian USA | Aditya Chakrabortty | November 12, 2020

Perhaps one day Donald Trump will be dragged out of the Oval Office, his tiny fingernails still dug deep into that fat oak desk. But Trumpland, the country that ignored the politicians and the pollsters and the pundits and gave him the White House in 2016, will outlast him; just as it emerged before he even thought of becoming a candidate. And for as long as it is here it will warp politics and destabilise the US.

I first stumbled upon Trumpland in 2012, a time when it bore no such name and appeared on no maps.

I was reporting in Pittsburgh that autumn, as Barack Obama crushed Mitt Romney while cruising to a second term as president. The big US broadsheets wrote up the Republicans as if they were an endangered species , while thirtysomethings in DC gazed deep into their spreadsheets or West Wing boxsets and foretold permanent Democratic majorities, gaily handed to them by a rainbow coalition of black, Latino and granola-chewing graduate voters.

Except I kept meeting people who lived in an alternative country. People like Mike Stout and his family. He’d worked for decades in the local steel mills and had been a fiery union leader. Now he spent every spare hour as a reincarnation of Woody Guthrie, carrying a guitar along with memories of standing in 2009 on Washington’s Mall to watch Obama’s inauguration, his breath freezing in the January air as the first black president was sworn in . “It was like a new world had opened up, just for an afternoon,” said his wife, Steffi.

But it was their far more subdued daughter, Maura, who troubled me. The steelworks of her dad’s day was long gone, so she’d gone to university and then spent two years hunting for a job. Now the 23-year-old was doing the accounts for a hotel, a non-graduate position paying $14 an hour, which Mike recalled as the same rate he’d earned at the steelworks in 1978 – without, of course, three decades of inflation. Among Maura’s year of about 500 graduates, she counted as one of the lucky ones.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to earn as much as my parents,” she said. “I don’t think my husband and I will ever have the same life as they did.”

We were in Pennsylvania, often painted as a land of blue-collar aristocracy and true-blue Democrats. But the political economy that had underpinned those ballot-box majorities was as rusted as an abandoned factory. Instead, Maura saw a political system that had failed her and her generation, in which every new day was worse than yesterday. And while the Stouts were leftwing, they had little in common with the party they supported. In their eyes, their home had been gutted of manufacturing and bilked by foreign trade deals, and appeared nowhere on the Clinton/Obama ideological map.

Sure enough, four years later Pennsylvania became one of the rustbelt states that won Trump the White House.

Trumpland is not the same as the old Republican heartlands, even if they overlap. What the dealmaker saw more clearly than the Bushes, the Romneys and the McCains was that there was a new electoral coalition to be forged out of downwardly mobile white voters. “The people that have been ignored, neglected and abandoned,” he called them in Ohio in 2016. “I am your voice.”

And so he completed the great inversion of American politics: he turned the Republicans into a party whose future is tied to Trumpland. Even Trump’s rivals accept that. This summer, Texas senator Ted Cruz said: “The big lie in politics is that Republicans are the party of the rich and Democrats are the party of the poor. That just ain’t true. Today’s Republican party are Ohio steelworkers, today’s Republican party are single mums waiting tables…”

Whatever promises Trump made on the threshold of the White House, once inside he spent four years giving billions in tax cuts to rich people and trying to deprive millions of low-paid Americans of decent healthcare. For the poor whites who put him in power, Trump had nothing to offer apart from racism.

However grossly used by its leader, Trumpland is more than an imagined community. It has its own society and economics and politics ­– and they barely resemble the rest of the US. The 477 large and densely populated counties won by Biden account for 70% of America’s economy, according to new calculations by the Brookings Institute ; Trump’s base of 2,497 counties amount to just 29% (a further 1% is still to be counted). Brookings describes Trumpland as “whiter, less-educated and … situated in the nation’s struggling small towns and rural areas. Prosperity there remains out of reach for many.”

These people haven’t been left behind so much as cut loose from the US. Between 2010 and 2019, the US created nearly 16m new jobs but only 55,000 of them were suitable for those who left school at 16. Inequality this deep is not just economic, it is social and psychological. It is also lethal.

Two economists, Anne Case and Angus Deaton, have found that working-age white men and women without degrees are dying of drug overdoses, alcohol-related liver disease and suicide at unprecedented rates . In 2017 alone, they calculated that there were 158,000 of these “deaths of despair” ­– equal to “three fully loaded Boeing 737s falling out of the sky every day for a year”.

As Case and Deaton point out, African Americans have still harder lives. They die younger, and are less likely to go to college or get a job. Yet over decades their prospects are improving. For poor white Americans, on the other hand, the trends point straight down. The result, according to a new study by Andrew Oswald and former Bank of England rate-setter David Blanchflower, is that middle-aged, white American school leavers are now suffering an epidemic of “extreme mental distress”.

When you live in a zero-sum economy, in which you always lose while the other guy wins, then you too might subscribe to zero-sum politics – in which the Democrats aren’t just opponents but enemies, and democratic norms are there to be broken. “These people are hurting,” says Blanchflower. “And when you’re hurting you’ll buy what looks like medicine, even if it’s from a snake-oil merchant.”

This is where Biden’s kumbaya politics, all his pleas to Americans to join hands and sing, looks laughably hollow. You can’t drain the toxicity of Trumpism without tackling the toxic economics of Trumpland. And for as long as Trumpland exists, it will need a Trump. Even if the 45th president is turfed out, he will carry on issuing edicts and exercising power from the studio set of any TV station that will have him.

Eight years after meeting Mike Stout, I spoke to him this week. He didn’t have much good news for me. Maura lost her hotel position last year and is now working from home in the pandemic, phoning up people deep in debt and pressing them to repay their loans. His son, Mike, lost his job just a few weeks ago for the second time in five years, and now has no medical insurance while his wife has stage-4 cancer.

“They’ve been pushed off the shelf straight into the gutter,” he told me. “I don’t see any party out there willing to protect my children’s lives: not Democrat, not Republican.”

• Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist

[2thymes]

Looking at the Art on Park building in Downtown Warren, Ohio, where inside you will find my studio, @shuttic_arts , along with the FINE ARTS COUNCIL OF TRUMBULL COUNTY, @zenstreetartz , Collective Palette Studio, Urban Artz Studios, Mikeyfied Fund for Adult Autism, Johnathan Ruple, Artists Opportunities, with a number of independent artists working within the space as well. -180 North Park Ave. (Corner of North Park Ave and High St) #WarrenOhio #artists #artstudio #shuttic #bnw #bnwmood #bnwphotography #photooftheday #downtown #city #ohio #rustbelt #winter #rain #juxtapoz #artnerd #blackandwhite #blackandwhitephotography #cityscape (at Shuttic Arts)

[danmorganphoto]

Client List We have worked with hundreds of clients in the past 40+ years. Here is just a partial list… Retail… Bonne Bell Cosmetics, J. Marco Gallery, Sotheby’s Auction House, Grays Auctioneers, Henry Bendel, Kate Spade, Jack Spade, Carole Feuerman, Sundari Cosmetics, John Landrum Bryant Jewelry, Cipriani Jewelry, Georg Jenson, New York Times Magazine, United Nations, Kenzo SOHO, Sasson-Thomas, Jaded Jewelry, Mish Jewelry, Yeats Interiors, Howard Kaplan Antiques, Roman Thomas Home, Christina Addison, Furnishings, Jean Paul Gaultier, 44 Steel, George Kocar, Grantwood Technologies, Paolo Costagli, Cleveland Athletic Club, Ideastream Consumer Products, K and M Toys, Kellex, Oxxford Clothiers, Lainard Bush, Original Sin, Rose Iron Works, Rustbelt Reclamation, Stern Publishing, A Piece Of Cleveland, Stephen Yusko, Litehouse Pools and Spas, Duluth Trading Co., Gottlieb Jewelers, Grace Chin, Mitchel Sotka, Original Mattress Factory, Brandon Holschuh, Baby Alp, Doris Wiener Gallery, Jerry Cohen Jewelry, Derek Hess, Norwalk Furniture, Diet Pepsi, Searle, NY, Roberto Coin, NY Genealogical Society, Paul White, TAP-Todd Pownell, Broestl and Wallis Jewelers, John Carlson, Mr. Hero, Restaurant Developers, One Red Door, Three Palms, Flip Side, Liquid Living, SOHO Cleveland, Isawall, General Electric Lighting, Sweet Peet, Lake Erie Creamery, Phyllis Kohring Fanning, Vaporvex, Freddy Hill, America’s Cuisine Magazine, Lolly The Trolly, Kevin Busta, Lake Erie Living Magazine, Andrew Simmons, Paul Koepf, Gary Fallsgraff and “Boudreaux’s Back Porch”, Finesse Fine Jewelers, Driftwood Group, Ohio Awning, Sherwin Williams / Krylon, Kay Jewelers, Susie Frazier, Paul Koepf, Shamrock Companies Industrial / Commercial… Scott Fetzer, (Adelet Enclosures, Western Enterprises, Meriam Instruments), Arth Brass, Cardinal Air, Die Co, Inc., Earnest Machine, Fire-Dex, Form Tech Concrete, ProComSol Ltd., Weldon Pump, H5 Data Centers, Mobilitie, National Safety Apparel, Kelly Aviation, Pipeline Packaging, EMH - Engineered Material Handling, All Crane Companies, Railworks, Ferry Cap and Set Screw, Momentive Specialty, Phoenix Faucets, Obrien Cut Stone, Port of Cleveland, Cleveland Convention Center, Kidde Fire Safety, MBI Products, Rio Tinto Aluminum, Recognition Robotics, Mill Rose Products, Lake Erie Screw, Crown Overhead Door, EventWorks 4D, Big Bolts, Voss Aerospace, Valley Tool and Die (Valco), HGR Industrial Surplus, Them Manufacturing, Mansfield Plumbing Products, Royal Brass, Watson Pneumatics, Instrumatics, RJR Surgical Services… St. Vincent Services, NY, Advanstar Publishing, Kim Smith - i Design, All Pro Freight, Cleveland State University, Campus District, Canalway Partners, Condo Realty, Cleveland Print Room, Downtown Cleveland Alliance, Goldfarb Weber, Kathleen Bliss Goldfarb, ASID, Lodge at Geneva On The Lake, Cleveland Crops, Hanna Commercial Real Estate, Ostendorf Morris, First Federal Lakewood, Chartwell Group, KGH Advertising, Goldberg Companies, Kent State University, Lakewood Community Services, Home Federal Savings, Payto Architects, Affandi Architecture and Design, Principia Consulting, Chapman and Associates LLC, Secure Date 365, Tower Press Development, Twist Creative, UBS, PRN Marketing, UCG Technologies, Youth Challenge, James Breen, Bridgeway Search Group, Cresco, Cushman Real Estate, Cunningham Baron, Taylor Made Furnished Apartments, NY, Andy Denk, First Tee Cleveland, KWI Communications, Manka Design, VOX Mobile, Neighborhood Housing Services, Ross Salupo, Reliable Contracting, Sareth Builders, Shopping Center Group, Sisters Of Charity, Skylight Financial, St Vincent Charity Hospital, Wellnet Ins., Boondock Walker, Extra Space Storage, Icon Interiors, Laramar Group, Lazerpoint IT, RW Clark, Vintage Development Group, Zion Synek and Associates, Cedar Brook Financial, Front Door Productions, GrayHaus Studios, Dependable Painting Co., Greater Cleveland Partnership, Joanne Dimeff Interior Design, Lookout Brand, Muse Content Group, Finishing Room, Mark Gridley, Robert Falls and Associates, Richardson Design, House Trends Magazine, Grub and Ellis Commercial Real Estate, Indiana Wesleyan University, Temporary Corporate Housing, Van Auken Aikins, Stephen Tokar Designs. Notre Dame College, Generation Foundation. Millennia Housing Management Ltd., Kim Crane Real Estate, David Jansheski Trust, LAND Studio, Faralli Kitchen and Bath Design Studio, Go Media, Cleveland Jewish News, Lakewood Public Library, Driverge Vehicle Innovations, Edgewater Residential Remodel, Lakewood Arts Festival, Mace Brand, Maeve All Natural, Teri Jankowski Estate, Chagrin Innovations, Fairlawn Gig, Wood Lee Art Handlers, Cleveland Museum Of Art, Securastock, Winton Place, Conway Design, St. Malachi Church Run, Tara’s Tables, Tribco.

[m3t4ln3rd]

Bison Machine ink deal with Small Stone Recordings; appearing at Burnin’ Turf II Fest

Photo by: Rory Rummings Official press release: Michigan heavy rockers Bison Machine have signed to American heavy rock institution Small Stone Records. The Hamtramck-based volume dealers have been on a this-time-it’s-personal quest to hand-deliver their riffs across the country since the 2015 release of their debut album, Hoarfrost, on Kozmik Artifactz, and with tours throughout the US under…

[jexttelez]

Anybody trying to fill in your ADR Scamp rack? Modules available! #adrscamp #scamp #compressor #eq #equaliser #equalizer #deesser #dualgates #parametricequalizer #parametric (at Rustbelt Studios)

[motorcityfilms]

A few more selected #bts pics from the shoot with #kirkgibson & #thereefermen (full album is on our Facebook page)! #kirkgibson #detroittigers #alicecooper #MLB #imseventy #imeighteen #birthday #detroit #rustbeltstudios #thereefermen #comericapark #detroitnews #motorcity #motorcityfilms #musicvideo (at Rustbelt Studios) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt7TgiqAjzB/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=ko3ncwd6p0nn

[fainelli]

Fresh from the studio. #rustbelt #decay_and_style #urbanartist #industrialart #industrialmodern #industrialdesign

[ericfruits]

The battle for consumers’ attention

TWO ENTERTAINMENT TITANS dominated the charts for the last few months of 2016: the mighty Walt Disney and Ryan, a five-year-old boy. Disney’s blockbuster films topped America’s box office in nine of the last ten weeks of the year. Ryan’s YouTube channel, featuring his parents’ daily videos of him at his home in California, was the site’s most watched in America for the last 20 weeks of the year. Most of his audience is made up of children in his own age group, gleefully looking at him unboxing and playing with toys, some of them from the Disney empire.

The internet has made the lottery of stardom available to anyone with a smartphone. This allows for a few random individual winners like Ryan, whose parents have earned millions of dollars from advertising on the channel in a couple of years; or for an everyman in China’s rustbelt to become a live-streaming celebrity. But the real business of entertainment is about owning one of the handful of digital platforms that can command consumers’ attention, including the one that made Ryan a star.

Special report

That is why Google’s purchase of YouTube in 2006, for $1.65bn, and Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram five years ago, for $1bn, now look inspired. The idea behind Facebook’s $22bn bid for WhatsApp three years ago was also to increase the company’s hold on users’ increasingly fragmented attention: most people look at their phones dozens of times a day, and messaging is often the first thing they do. As video becomes more integrated into messaging apps, that purchase will look even smarter.

The industry is now trying to guess whether the global leader in blockbuster content, Disney, will also buy a distributor. Under Bob Iger as CEO, the company’s strategy has been to buy up the best intellectual property in entertainment: Lucasfilm and Star Wars; Marvel Entertainment; and Pixar Animation Studios. Under Disney’s control, each of these brands has become even more valuable and even better-known globally. Disney gets a huge amount of attention. But since people are watching less traditional TV and consuming more video in other forms, even makers of great content are at risk of losing audience, so it may make sense to own a platform on which it can be served up.

Hollywood has recently been pushing the idea that Disney might buy Netflix, the global leader in streaming premium entertainment (including Disney films). In an interview with The Economist, Mr Iger was careful not to comment on Netflix, since even a denial that the idea was under consideration might have moved markets. He envisages a future where each of his company’s famous brands can be its own entertainment service, so there would be an internet-only “Star Wars” channel, a Marvel channel, an animation channel and so on. ESPN, he says, can become the “Netflix of sports”.

A bit much

The entertainment business is a never-ending and ever-intensifying war for consumers’ limited time and attention. Around the clock, each minute is contested by companies like Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube, Snap, Amazon, Disney, Comcast, AT&T, Sky, Fox and Netflix. Consumers can take in only so much of what is on offer. As this report has shown, faced with an overwhelming array of choices and guided by menus, digital rankings and suggestions calculated by algorithms, they increasingly pick from just a few of the most popular items. Technology and media companies are doing their utmost to induce users to spend even more time on each of their platforms every day. From tweaking algorithms to stepping up notifications to endlessly scrolling feeds, technology has turned human distraction into its metric of profit.

As this report has shown, the good part of this is that almost every imaginable bit of entertainment is now at the fingertips of billions—around the world, across social and ethnic groups and appealing to all tastes, including some that people did not previously realise they had, like watching others play games or unbox toys. This seems intuitively democratic and welcome. But despite all these available choices, technology increasingly shapes what humans select, steering them towards what is most popular and most distracting. In this way the digital age has concentrated the power to entertain on a fortunate few, rather than distributing it along the long tail.

A battle for dominance is taking shape in two different arenas, of free (ad-supported) and premium content. The first is being waged by the social platforms that trade in users’ eyeballs rather than subscriptions. The ability to amass great scale, thanks to network effects, will make them difficult to dislodge as providers of free entertainment—especially so in the case of Facebook.

In the second arena, providers of premium content like Netflix and Amazon are competing against the traditional media powerhouses to see who can persuade the most people to pay for their products. This is an expensive battle in which the ultimate winners are still far from clear. Netflix will spend at least $7bn this year on content, including on new programming in countries around the world, in a bid to become a global TV network. Its rivals are also spending billions in an arms race that, for now, is producing the best (and the most) television in history.

There is a limit to how much people can consume, and how many services they will subscribe to

Yet there is a limit to how much people can consume, and how many services they will subscribe to, so some contestants are bound to fall by the wayside. In the attention economy it pays to have the biggest platforms and the flashiest brands. Technological progress might yet tilt the playing field to a newcomer, especially if some visionary of virtual or augmented reality comes up with anything close to the fantasies of science fiction. In parallel to such efforts, there will always be a market for unique live experiences that yank people away from their screens, be it a giant rock concert or an intimate sleight-of-hand performance by a master magician.

But whatever the arena, the biggest crowds will increasingly gravitate towards just a small number of the most popular hits. Until recently that was seen as a natural consequence of the physical limits on production and distribution. It now turns out that, even in a potentially unlimited digital marketplace, social networks, rankings, recommendation algorithms and the like focus people attentions on just a few items in the same way. The story of mass entertainment in the internet age is a paradox. Technology has given people too many choices, and then instantly relieved them of the need to make them.

  http://ift.tt/2k8spSK

[wimpydave]

Sammy Boller - Live at Rustbelt Studios (Vinyl Release Show)

[shemakesmusic-uk]

INTERVIEW: Emily Keener.

Cleveland indie-folk artist, Emily Keener, has released her new single ‘Nap.’ A response to feeling overwhelmed by the state of the world, the song delves into the desire to become enmeshed with someone. It’s off the album, I Do Not Have to Be Good, due out May 22.

The vulnerability found in Emily Keener’s music traces back to a distinctly Midwest upbringing, characterized by the canopied forests that surrounded her home. It’s here Keener pensively grappled with the rigid qualities of rustbelt spiritualism. And where she experienced the literal and figurative isolation as a homeschooled country-dweller.

On her new album, I Do Not Have to Be Good, Keener colors her plaintive and introspective lyricism with a frailty that longs for connection and understanding. Her vocals smolder in a delicate spiral, ebbing and flowing in melodies that wash in and out like deep, entrancing waves. Gone is the homegrown good girl rootsiness found on the previous releases.

We had a chat with Emily all about the new record, the current situation we have found ourselves in and the impact it has had on her and the industry and more. Read the interview below.

You're gearing up to release your new LP I Do Not Have to Be Good in May. What is the record about? What were your influences for the album and what does it mean to you?

"The record is about owning desires and releasing self-criticism. To me, it represents a conscious breaking away from the belief in perfection and purity as being necessary, or even possible. I based the title off of the first line of Mary Oliver’s poem ‘Wild Geese’, which begins with “you do not have to be good.” I wanted to create a mantra-like response to it because the phrase helped me through difficult times. The songs were influenced by the authenticity of writers like Elliott Smith, Gillian Welch, and Adrianne Lenker. I’d never claim to be in the same universe as these artists, but my headspace was deeply impacted by their music as I worked."

How is I Do Not Have to Be Good different to your previous releases? Were there any musical influences or sounds that you were able to incorporate on this record that you hadn’t previously? Were there any differences in the songwriting process?

"This is the first record I’ve been able to take creative charge on. I made production decisions and artistic choices that I’m proud of, and it was a great feeling to be in the driver’s seat. During my last couple of releases, I didn’t have the confidence to make those calls, so this was a meaningful shift for me. I was able to explore ideas and methods that I might’ve shied away from before. We used a lot of vintage off-board effects that colored the tone and resonance of the album, and it sets it apart from my other projects. I think the main difference in my songwriting process was my intention to work through self-doubt, however daunting it felt at the time."

You worked with Dalton Brand on the new album. What was it like working with him and what kind of things have you learned from the experience?

"Dalton is a great engineer and producer; he’s very meticulous about capturing heartfelt performances and mixing them to their highest potential. He gave me space to shop ideas and experiment with different directions. For this project, we recorded a lot of things live in the studio rather than isolating each instrument. I learned a lot about the mechanics of that and the energy it can bring to the final result."

What do you hope listeners will take away from I Do Not Have to Be Good?

"My hope is that people can take away a sense of connection and common humanity. My intention has always been to create songs that make people feel seen because that is the music I gravitate toward. There’s a special catharsis that occurs when an artist is singing your story back at you. I write about pain on the off-chance that it helps someone feel less alone in theirs."

Will you be touring the new record?

"In light of COVID-19, I won’t be touring to support the record. Live shows are off-limits for an indeterminate amount of time, and that’s crushing for the music community. It’s hard to visualize what the rest of this year will be like, but we need art now more than ever and I’m going to keep connecting with fans via live streams and digital releases. We’ll get through this together, as separately as possible. (Stay home, everyone.)"

Agreed! What challenges, if any, have you faced as an artist in the music industry? And how did you overcome them?

"I started writing and performing at a very young age and I spent a huge amount of time under the spotlight. It was a challenge to grow up that way despite the love and support around me. I very quickly lost touch with my sense of self, and it resulted in a lot of confusion. I’ve worked hard to reclaim my personhood and this record is a big piece of that journey. Throughout this process, I was able to retire the belief that I am defined by my creative output."

If there was one thing you could change about the music world today, what would it be?

"I would like to see a systemic shift that results in creators being paid fairly for their content. More topically, I would change the fact that there is no reliable support for working-class musicians in the United States as we navigate this global pandemic. Despite our livelihoods being deeply impacted by nationwide closures of venues and gathering spaces, there is no safety net for us. It’s time we demand more accountability within the industry and from our legislators."

Absolutely! What are you passionate about outside of music?

"I’m passionate about the close relationships in my life, practicing yoga and meditation, cooking, traveling, and writing irreverent think-pieces that I keep to myself."

And finally, what's one non-musical goal of yours for 2020?

"One of my non-musical goals is to find creative ways to connect with others in this season of social distancing. I think it’s important to keep cultivating meaningful experiences together, even if we’re in separate places."

Photo credit: Dalton Brand

[chocolate-brownies]

Barry Boyce: How has mindfulness informed your recent experience in Washington? Has your mindfulness practice made a difference during this interesting period?

Rep. Tim Ryan: Oh, it’s been more essential than ever because Washington has been more chaotic than ever, with more frequent bouts of insanity than normal. So, mindfulness practice has really kept me engaged and prevented me from getting burned out and allowed me to still enjoy the work. Not every single part of it, of course, but overall.

BB: We all sense an increase in fear and aggression emanating out of Washington. Have you been triggered by that? Has mindfulness helped you in not getting as triggered as you might by a fear-based approach to politics?

TR:  The enemy today in America is division and what feeds the division is fear, and there’s plenty of fear-mongering going on, at the highest levels. It’s very difficult not to react because it’s so obnoxious sometimes, so hurtful, and demeaning to other people that you get angry, but you need to be able to walk yourself back from some of that stuff or let it go and try to focus on what the real issues are, because if you’re caught up in the Washington fear and anxiety, you’re forgetting about the fear and anxiety that your constituents are feeling every day around economic insecurity, healthcare insecurity, and retirement insecurity. And your job is really to focus on their fear and pain, not yours.

The Mindful Politician

BB: In terms of mindfulness as part of your agenda, have you had to defend that with your colleagues and constituents?

TR: We’ve come such a long way in the nearly a decade that I’ve been advocating for mindfulness, contemplative practices, ways to improve our personal health through mind-body practices. I was in a hearing the other day with the Secretary of the V.A and the V.A.’s top medical person, and for the first time I can remember I wasn’t the first person to bring up yoga and mindfulness in a congressional hearing. The Secretary of the V.A. actually brought up how yoga was healing veterans who had post-traumatic stress, and the doctor was talking about how Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction was helping vets deal with depression and isolation, and therefore helping prevent suicides. It’s come a long way. Other leaders in the government are now advocating for it. We also will be launching a new wellbeing program for the House of Representatives in the next month or two that will include four or five certified MBSR teachers serving  the thousands of employees who work on Capitol Hill. The Capitol Police is also working with the federal training center that’s doing mindfulness- based training for law enforcement.

BB: It seems, then, that in the five years since you put out A Mindful Nation, which has now been reissued as Healing America, you’ve seen the needle move in terms of it being noticed and being discussed by some folks in Washington. Are there people on both sides of the aisle who see the benefit of mind-body practices?

TR: A Republican member from Kansas did a press conference with me the other day around a program called Post-Traumatic Growth, which includes in it contemplative practices as part of the training. He spoke with me from personal experience about how mediation has helped him tremendously in working with stress and trauma. Self-care is not a partisan act.

Self-care is not a partisan act.

BB: How about you, do you bring this practice into your work the way some CEO’s are bringing it into their corporate life? Are you incorporating these practices even as busy as you are?

TR: I still have a daily practice that I’ve actually been doing more than normal these days, doubling down on it and trying to do it a couple of times a day now, because my life requires it at this point. It’s still complicated and hard to do when I’m home because of the family and the kids and the morning routine, but I’ve buckled down to make sure I’m getting it done every morning.

It’s not just medicine that I have to force myself to take. It’s a part of who I am, and I think the key is ask myself how do I take it off the mediation cushion. How do I take it into my life? If I find myself coming back to where I am, to my breath and my body, and letting go of negative thoughts more easily than normal, then I know that it’s infiltrating into my daily life in a significant way. It’s not just something that’s happening when I’m sitting on a cushion.

Mindfulness in Middle America

BB: You’ve been recently called the “Rustbelt Yogi.” Have you seen people in blue-collar America showing interest in mindfulness, meditation, and yoga— seeing these as worthwhile things?

TR: We have new yoga studios popping up all over, including in Youngstown, Ohio. I do travel a lot too, and I see them in all kinds of places. For example, I was just out in Sioux Falls, Iowa, and there was a yoga studio there. These are practices that—especially with the vets, and because of the vets—that we’re seeing spring up all over the country.

BB: Would you say the association of yoga and mindfulness with certain parts of the country, like the Bay Area or Cambridge, those kind of places, is that starting to erode a little bit?

TR: That’s still the main perception out there, but it’s changed a lot. Lebron James is another Rustbelt Yogi, I guess, being from Akron. Could be a trend.

BB: Given how fractured civil discourse is these days, do you see mindfulness healing the divide and hostility that’s rampant these days?

TR: I believe finding ways to be quiet together will be fundamental to the healing process. I’m hoping that we can get people on both sides of the aisle to move away from the turbulence that is dominating the surface of our politics, and the media covering our politics. Let’s get to a little bit of a deeper place where we can reconnect to some better values, American values. Values grounded in the Constitution and the founding documents: providing for the general welfare, providing for the common defense—these are the values in our country that we need to get back to.

BB: In Healing America you included a section about a variety of practices from different traditions, secular and non-secular. Why do you see it as important to define mindfulness in that way, to be including these other kinds of traditions?

TR: Part of it is my personal experience starting with centering prayer, which led me to mindfulness and other contemplative practices and really opened me up to this different aspect of myself. I think encouraging people to start where they are, and many times that’s within their own religious practice, is a good idea. If someone is  more comfortable with centering prayer, it will more than likely have a beneficial effect. Let’s all start with some quiet. If that quiet comes out of a religion you grew up with or were raised in, that’s tied to your culture, that’s all to the good.

BB: Do you think mindfulness can be promoted as a “soft skill,” like the ability to communicate or write or debate, that kids could learn in school and that could help people in the workplace be more adaptable in their jobs, and more able to respond creatively to changing circumstances?

TR: I would recommend that people read the Aspen’s Institute Report on Social and Emotional Learning. When you go through that document, or even if you just read the Executive Summary, you will see that they’re pointing to the power of cultivating our own inherent mindfulness.

It’s about connecting schoolkids to themselves. It’s about connecting them to each other. It’s about connecting them to their teacher. It’s about connecting them to their school, and their community, and family. It’s about teaching them how to de-escalate from situations that have triggered them, how to be able to manage their emotions better. These are the foundational skills you learn from practicing mindfulness.  

That has tremendous implications for improving educational outcomes. Look at what they’re doing in the U.K. with their Mindful Nation initiative. They are starting to build healthcare policies that embody and support various types of mindfulness-based practice. If they can do it, we can too.

The post The Mindful Politician: Why Tim Ryan is Promoting Mindfulness in Washington appeared first on Mindful.