#there are still good artists and musicians in every medium and genre

[cobaltscribe]

One take that pisses me off is the constant decrying of how music is getting worse. Especially when people whine about how the problem is because music is "too accessible" now, both with regards to production and listening.

Like not only do these takes always reek of the undertones of the "degradation" of society, but they always go hand in hand with the mythologizing of the idealized past and of live music (especially from the 90s). From this one video that spurred this rant alone, there were plenty of comments reminiscing on skipping out on school lunches or bus fares to save up money for just 1 cd/album and then they compared it to how all music is just under one subscription now. Like I fail to see how making music more affordable and accessible (not even just by streaming but by the advent of online piracy) is a bad thing! At all!

I think it's a good thing people can access infinitely more music than they could 30 years ago! That you don't need to know people to make a band just be able to make music as long as you can access a production software, that's a great thing!

People who think there isn't good music anymore are generally also simply blinded by nostalgia. I mean, how convenient is it that music was best when you were listening to it as a kid. Baseball was greatest when everyone was 14! Like if you can't find good, creative music, then you need to look harder! The problem with the commodification of music is more to do with the hegemony of streaming platforms and their recommendation algorithms, but to act like the music industry was somehow easier to get into before the age of the internet is blatantly untrue!

This also applies to people complaining about digital art. I think its great that people don't need to shill out for good physical materials to be able to draw what they want, actually. There are still people making art in the genres you hold as the pinnacle of their medium (generally always western centric/European movements btw) so if you hate shit like dadaism or post modernism there are still people studying classical styles!

Stop blaming the fact that you can't like good music on some social degradation, fall-of-the-west bullshit and accept that maybe just maybe you are biased. And people have always made bad art. And that the influences of capital have always pushed any commodity towards hegemony and the lowest common denominator! I can't stand most popular music in many genres even from the 90s and 80s and before, and that's not because of some decay of the soul of real music or whatever the fuck but its just because I don't like it!!!

[treybriggsthewriter]

This makes me nervous, but I’m going to post it. I’m going to try my best to achieve my goals. I’ve put in a ton of work already, so I’m looking for additional help. 

From the campaign:

My name is Trey Briggs, and I'm a black woman who writes paranormal horror, speculative fiction, and other types of fiction. You can find my stories at MaybeTrey , Astrid the Devil , and on Instagram , Medium , and Wattpad .

My stories are aimed at black people who want to read dark stories that focus on original black characters that are complex and interesting. I genuinely believe Black audiences deserve a variety of genres to delve into, and I want to introduce them to paranormal horror, dark romance, and fantasy that they haven't gotten enough of in the past. I also believe that this can be done across multiple mediums, and I spend my money with black creative professionals to make these experiences extend beyond my words. For the last two years, I've run my stories on sites and Instagram to great reception. I like to craft complex experiences that offer looks at character backgrounds, side and backstories, full websites for each title, and more. I also provide encyclopedias, maps, audio journals, and other ways to get into each world. During these last few years, I've run into a lot of walls, jumped a lot of hurdles, and tried my best. I've worked with amazing black artists, voice actors, and actresses, musicians, designers, and more. I trust my ability to run a project, especially when it comes to planning and finding talent. My overall goal is to run a team of black creatives that crafts novels, graphic novels, audio experiences, and animated series for a dedicated audience.

Why I Need Help Long story short: I have the skill, I have the marketing/website building/business experience, and I have the drive. There's a lot I can do on my own, but there's also a lot that gets left behind because I don't have the money I need to proceed at a steady pace. I need help with funding so I can focus, hire the right people, and craft these stories the way they deserve to be crafted. I have thus far spent over $60,000 of my own money on my projects over the past two years - the writing and site-building are easy for me; the rest has to be hired out. I have art, site costs for hosting, domains, templates, specific plugins, and maintenance, audio (and vocal artists to pay), musical, and editing costs. I'm by no means rich or even particularly financially stable. I have taken on tons of extra clients for my digital marketing business, transcribed hundreds of hours of audio for dirt cheap, and taken out personal loans. I even worked a second full-time job along with my full-time business last year to afford to produce the content I love. It's starting to take a toll on my mental health. I plan on continuing to fund these projects out of pocket (and finding ways to do so), but having financial help, however big or small, would allow me to move a lot faster and with less stress. It would let me flesh out ideas and concepts that I have had to scrap because I can only physically handle so much extra work. I run a full-time marketing business from home, homeschool my autistic 10-year-old, and generally have a busy life. Some of the strain is taking a toll on me, and I don't want to give up. Having some financial backing could allow me to drop a client or two after a few months and focus on the work I love to do.

How You Can Help I mainly need a start—a sort of base. I want to emphasize that I plan to continue to provide the main bulk of funding for my projects. I know my goals are ambitious, and I know each step will take time and money. I welcome any help to make the process smoother and to get around the initial hurdles. I'd like to have ebooks and novels offered on my site by the end of the year (along with the free serials and stories). Funding means that I can broaden the projects, include more free aspects to my sites, and secure direct financing through sales of ebooks and audiobooks sooner. It also means that I can offer MORE stories, whether they are online only or fully fleshed out novels and sites. I am swamped with trying to work enough to cover all my bills and creative projects, so I lose a lot of time I could spend plotting and writing. If I have better funding, I can get my stories out quicker (and with fewer mistakes).

The Initial Stories Let's talk about my stories! If you're familiar with my work already, you can skip to the next section. My main story site is Maybe Trey . Currently, I have two big titles and a bunch of smaller ones that I am seeking help with funding: Astrid the Devil

Astrid the Devil is the complicated story of a girl who inherits not only her family's features and DNA, but their fears, struggles, and fights. It's the story of a condition called Devil Syndrome, the women who suffer it, and the monsters that devour them. It's the story of the fight to save the people you love at the expense of innocent lives. At its core, Astrid the Devil is the story of a woman who inherits the chaos of three generations before her. It's a look at what is truly passed down to our children, and how they're left to fight our battles in the aftermath of our failures. It's the tale of an indescribable monster and the women who struggle to defeat it. It's a journey into how their every decision could save or destroy an entire world. Astrid the Devil is the story of Astrid Snow, but her story can't be told without the story of the women before her.

Vicious: On MaybeTrey  and The Vicious site (in progress)

Somewhere, a war is brewing.  That's the only thing that's for sure to Junnie Gorton, a young horned girl suffering from a debilitating disease called Horn Rot. She typically dealt with her low survival rate and abnormally large horns by escaping the world with her best friend, Lewish. Now she's forced to figure out which side is which, save her entire species, and find out the truth behind the sudden uprising in her home. Horn Rot, a highly contagious and violent disease spreading through horned people, is causing mass amounts of madness and death. Normal horns grow in ways that will pierce, suffocate, and maim their owners, and the only one who can stop it is Junnie's mother, Lyria. As Lyria falls deeper and deeper into an anti-social revolt, the country reels. While Junnie broods, her entire species must prepare for mass extinction. Her brother plots with a group of people with less than good intentions and Lewish is quieter than usual. In a civilization brought up on extreme violence and competition, Junnie and Lewish try their best not to get swallowed by their culture, their lives, or their horns.

Bunni and Bosque :

Bunni lives. Bosque dies. We all know how this story starts. Bunni is obsessed with destruction and death. She comes from the healthiest Horned family in her country. She's from the oldest, purest bloodline in the world. And she's bored with it. Bunni spends most of her time trying to escape her duties as a pureblood. She wants things dirty, messy, foul, inconsistent. Having parents that are willing to kill to keep their bloodline pure is annoying. Knowing that she'll live a long, full life, produce more perfect children, and die unscathed is agonizing. Bunni wants something to mourn. We all know how this story ends. Bosque is destined to die an agonizing death, alone on his family's land. He's watched everyone he loved and grew up with perish. Sometimes it was because of their disease. Sometimes it was because of the malice and hatred of others. While he's absolutely withdrawn and satisfied with his life, Bosque has never had a chance to live it. He spends his days basking in the sun, bathing in wood baths, and contemplating the end. Bosque isn't interested in joining the rest of the world. He'd rather die out, alone, where his family belonged. Bosque wants to go peacefully. But neither expected to meet each other one day in a supermarket. Neither expected to fall in love, lust, and every vicious and dirty thing between. Neither expected to be so right for each other, all while being wrong for everyone else. You know the end of this story. Bunni lives, Bosque dies. But maybe something will change.

My smaller titles, Bunni and Bosque /Aite and Jude, can be found at Maybe Trey .

The Business Plan

The initial phase of my business plan is to get the sites populated with ebooks and audiobooks for sale. I also have prints that can be sold. Right now, I am in the audience-building phase while I save up for editing the full novels. 

In terms of an actual business with which to publish the stories, I already have a registered publication company in Illinois: Wolfless Studios LLC. I took this step earlier this year with plans to self-publish Astrid and Vicious. So that is paid for and done.

I have also gotten initial editing done on the first six chapters of Astrid, though it will need to be edited from the beginning again once everything is said and done. I've spent over $1000 on that so far, and it would go a lot faster if I didn't need to save up to edit each chapter.

Astrid the Devil is fully plotted, outlined, and only needs the last three chapters. Bunni and Bosque and Vicious are newer, but plotted and already deep into character development (all being shared across social and Wattpad for audience growth). Aite and Jude and other shorts are plotted, and three other unshared stories are plotted and at the editing phase.

Other costs and ways I would use the funding (I would still put in my own money and do as much on my own as possible):

Initial $30K

$6000 - $7000 Line and Copy edits for Astrid (currently at 250000+ words/expecting over 300000 at $0.02 rate)

$6000 - $7000 Line and Copy Edits for Vicious

$3000 - $4000 Line and Copy Edits for Bunni and Bosque

ISBN Purchases (Separate ISBN for each format for each book) - https://www.myidentifiers.com/identify-protect-your-book/barcode

Covers for Astrid/Vicious/B&B Print Versions

Site Hosting Costs and Maintenance for 2 Years

Site completion for all stories

Initial store and app development

40K - Marketing and Graphic Novels

Social, Print, and Web ads

Email Marketing Campaigns 

Booths at Decatur Book Festival (depending on COVID)

Social ads and promos

50 to 60 pages

First two chapters offered as free promo with email sign-ups

Audio journals for each character

Situational audio journals

Encyclopedia for Astrid (finishing up)/Vicious

65K - Hires and Next Phases

Ability to hire a Full-Time Editor 

Audio Series for each (professionally done)

Vicious Graphic Novel

Additional Title Added

Short animations for both Vicious and Astrid (with plans to fund more with book sales)

Fleshed out Story Sections (Novellas for each character of each series)

Short comic series with Astrid and Vicious side characters

Possible to plan out monthly subscription service with new stories and 'story package' deliveries

75K -

Astrid the Devil Graphic Novel

Vicious Graphic Novel

Astrid the Devil Animated Short

Ability to hire part-time Web Developer

Additional bigger title

Anything Over - I ascend into pure light. And also, I can add titles, cover more mediums, and eventually expand my publishing to other black creatives.

From there, I should be able to handle the funding via sales of books, comics, audio, and more. Again, I will always offer mostly free content across the sites.

I believe in proof of concept, and I have diehard fans on my social platforms. With no outside funding, I've been able to a lot on my own. I'd love to expand my business into one that does the same for other black authors, artists, voice actors, and animators somewhere down the line. 

Thank you so much for your consideration. I appreciate all my readers, present and future, and I appreciate any help!

See incentives and more on the actual campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-trey-publish-black-paranormal-horror-stories

Thank you so much!

[dalliscar]

i was tagged by @bowiepop ty darling 💌

who was your first favourite artist? depeche mode, bowie, duran duran, omd, rush

who are your current favourite? soda stereo, blur, virus, tokyo, lush, inxs, a-ha

are you into musicals? which ones/why not? a little bit. grease, hairspray and west side story are cool

are there songs you consider so special you only listen to them very rarely? many!! i'm lazy to list but there's songs that i listen just when i'm feeling really sad or extremely happy. i just believe that music helps change our mood, thats all.

what’s your preferred way of listening to music?  (time of day, medium, situation) all day, if not on spotify, then my record player

what would you say is the most niche music you listen to? idk really kskrjejjfh

what’s your favourite music related movie/tv show that’s not a musical? uh,,, i love almost famous, a few biopics of my fav musicians and documentaries about music in general

albums or playlists? albums!!!

favourite albums? oof, i think i could pass hours talking about each one ksjdjsjdn

is there an artist you’re trying to get into? theres a lot!! i already made a list of albums to listen, the thing is: im always lazy, when i start listen to music, i just think about recent recomendations friends gave me or my current fave songs,,, so yeah i need to explore more bands and genres

whose music do you find overhyped? idk if its because i used to listen too much and today is not my thing anymore, but hair metal. i do like a few artists but theres other ones that is just too boring or more of the same. i still like the genre tho

what’s an underrated song? such a tricky question skdjjsjd i dont know it depends

what’s a thing a bunch of songs do that you love every time? bass solos!! and really strong drums. recently i've been loving guitar solos too!! and i wont even start talking about synth solos cause i will not shut up

what song is better acoustic? to be honest im not a fan of 'acoustic versions', maybe one song or other but it's not my first option

what’s the worst song of all time? depends of the point of view, right? cause theres few songs i see people saying that its an anthem and stuff and i go like 'uhhhhh dude i have bad news for u, this ones bad !'

do you put individual songs on repeat? if so, for how long and how often? yes!! honestly, if i really enjoyed the song, i'll put it on repeat for 50 or 100, but im boring, soon i get tired if i listen too much so i give a break to not ruin my hype for the song

do you make your own playlists? if so, what’s your most entertaining playlist title? for sure!! i've made almost 50 playlists, but just 8 are open on spotify because im insecure lmao. im not good to playlist names but theres one called 'and she was a runway model' that is just my fave songs to listen while i do my makeup and other called 'br wave' thats just brazilian new wave/post punk songs.

headphones or earbuds? earbuds!!

do you always sing the lead vocal or do you harmonize sometimes? if you harmonize, do you ever invent your own harmony? sometimes i try some lead vocals but i rather harmonize cause i find my voice embarrassing

a musical confession: i've tried a few times create a acc on rateyourmusic or medium just to do some reviews, but i just cant, i mean, i am too sentimental that i cant make a long article with clever words saying what i thought about the song or album. i never see the technical side, but just the feeling the album caused in me, if was good or bad... i envy people who can do a review without sound a complete idiot who dont know how to talk (aka me)

now i tag: @musicacuantica , @andypartridges , @dedicatedfollowerofrock , @thischarmingjaz , @eleventh-earl and @carlpalmer if you guys want to 💓

[yolkyeomie]

Trade Off of Gifts | Bang Chan

summary — no one knows the world of an artists as well as you do, at least that’s what you thought until he decided to show up one day

word count — 1.7k words

pairing — chan x gender neutral!reader

genre — fluff, artist!reader with a tiny hint of musician!chan (even tho he’s already a musician???)

disclaimer — just something tiny for all your fast and short topher needs !!

Being someone who is artistically gifted has its perks, leaving you to be more creatively thoughtful than most of the people around you.

The world and its people was one big incomplete painting to you, splashes of colors being splattered into its surface as you began to maneuver through it. You were the artist who determined what colors were allowed to stay and what colors no longer fit the narrative you were trying to create. It was a tiresome and even lonely job when you had to pick up a brush and bring a new color into your final masterpiece, but it was a rather exciting process nonetheless.

Different colors meant different things and different shades indicated different tones. Sometimes they’d change meanings and sometimes they’d stay the same, it always depended on how you felt that day. You could never explain exactly what everything meant to you, thinking of it as some innate feelings you were born with.

You never bothered trying to help outsiders comprehend what you meant either, as it was easier to keep it to yourself instead of giving your thoughts and feelings for the world to see.

But then somehow, you were stumbled upon by someone who shared the same views as you. Someone who saw the world in a rather similar artistic and dreamy light as you did, and they weren’t even an artist who puts pen to paper.

“That’s a nice drawing,” the stranger told you, hovering over your shoulder like a hawk to its prey. You scrambled to your feet almost immediately, pressing your art to your chest in a defensive manner. You didn’t like it when people hovered over you while you were drawing, entranced in this magical world of fantasy and possibility when you doodled on whatever surface you.

Usually, people would interrupt you when you weren’t finished, commenting on how odd everything seemed and how empty your art looked.

But then it clicked in your head, the stranger didn’t make any sort of ignorant comment on it. He simply said it was nice.

“Thank you,” you managed to say, your eyes darting down to the sketch you had created.

It wasn’t anything special, a half-done headshot of one of your friends from memory. It didn’t really look like any of your friends at the time either, there wasn’t enough detail on the features for it to be recognizable of who it was. “I mean, it’s not really done or anything so it’s not the best I’ve ever created but—“

“Really?” He questioned, his eyes widening to show off the little twinkling stars in his eyes and his mouth gaping open at your response. You couldn’t help but chuckle at his expression, nodding your head as an answer. “You’re a really good artist, you know that? Not many of my friends can even pick up a pencil if we really wanted to, but I guess that’s not really a compliment. Is portraits the only thing you draw?”

You lifted an eyebrow as he spoke, cautiously eying him and the choice of his words. He definitely wasn’t new to the whole artist thing, there was no way he was that knowledgeable on what artists liked to hear and what they didn’t like to hear and wasn’t an artist himself.

He even called you an artist instead of a “drawer”! If that wasn’t a dead giveaway of the fact that you were in the presence of an artistically gifted person then you don’t know what was.

“Not always,” you answered him, shrugging your shoulders as you tried to come up with a decent answer. “It really depends on my mood, but I like drawing portraits of people more than anything. It gives me an excuse to look at others without seeming… creepy? You know?”

“Oh…,” he nodded, a smile donning his face as he looked up at you. “So you’re a people watcher?”

“Not exactly,” you corrected him, “I just enjoy looking at people’s faces. You know, to catch every little detail that makes them unique to themselves. Everyone’s got something about them that’s different from everyone else and drawing lets me capture their uniqueness in a form that can be treasured forever.”

“That just sounds like an over-exaggeration of people watching,” the boy insisted, a laugh escaping his lips when he caught your frustrated glare digging daggers into his skull. “I’m kidding I promise! I completely understand what you mean. So who were you drawing just now then?”

Your expression immediately falls into a grimace, hesitantly peering towards your unfinished work to your friend. “Ah… this?” You ask him, trying to stall time from explaining your latest creation to him.

Through when you looked up to the boy he only nodded at your question and gave you the brightest smile he could. “It’s… it’s a drawing of a friend. He didn’t ask me to make this or anything, but I was just using him to practice faces.”

“You’re only practicing?” the boy gasped, scooting closer to you to steal another peek of your sketch from before. “That’s crazy, I would have thought you were working on an actual project and trying to get to the final piece!”

“You flatter me too much,” you joked, giving your sketch a half-smile. You appreciated the compliments he was showering you with, but there was no way you were actually living up to those expectations in your head. Being artistically gifted had its perks yet also had its more major downfalls: creating unattainable standards for yourself that you constantly set yourself up for failure was one of them. “I still have a long way to go before I can get anywhere near where I want to be.”

“I think where you are now is a great place, you should help yourself to the compliments when you get them. You deserve them,” he commented, a wide grin stretching across his face. Watching his lips turn into a smile made you so do the same, the atmosphere around him too addicting to go to waste. “Plus, I can tell you like it when people praise you.”

“Shut up, you ruined the moment,” you hissed, jumping to your feet to shove him out of your range of sight. The boy giggled at your reaction as he forced himself to stay put, not moving a singular inch no matter how hard you pushed him. “Leave! I don’t want you around me anymore, you ruined the moment!”

The boy thought about your words for a moment, as if he was trying to determine whether or not he wanted to leave you alone. “How about this,” he offered, spinning on his heel to face you. It caught you off guard for a moment, stumbling back on your feet as he shined that same smile from earlier on to you. “I’ll leave you alone now, but you have to let me come back and talk to you about your art more.”

You snorted, “I don’t even know you, why would I do that?”

He nodded in understanding, considering your comment before holding his hand out for you to shake. “Okay then, hi! I’m Bang Chan and I want you to let me come back another day and talk to you about your art. Does this make up for the lack of acquaintanceship?”

“Hi, I’m Y/N,” you humor him, shaking his hand before sliding out a slightly impolite question from your lips, “Is Bang Chan asking to hang around me because he wants me to give him a free drawing? If so I’m sorry but I’m not confident enough in my skills to even make you anything if I wanted to. There’s a reason I’m practicing here you know.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he clarified, slumping back onto the ground and laying back with a content smile. “I don’t want free art, I just want to hear you talk about your art. Maybe people watch with you from time to time.”

“I’m not a people watcher.”

“Sorry,” Chan nodded, “maybe not-people-watch with you then.”

You went silent for a moment, looking down at the sketch in your hands and glancing back towards the boy. “So that’s all? You just want to… hang out with me while I draw? No strings attached? You’re not going to ask me to draw you for free in the future or make fun of my unfinished work at all?”

He nodded in response and pointed a finger at your head. “The mind of an artist is a very interesting place to explore because not every artist has the same thought process when it comes to their creations. I want to see how we differ from each other.”

“So you’re an artist as well?” You question, your eyes widening as you slowly began to realize what he had said.

“Wouldn’t exactly say an artist,” Chan laughed, downplaying his statement as much as possible. “More of a… musician? I guess? I make songs, but that’s nothing compared to being someone who puts a pencil to paper.”

So your hunch was correct, Chan was artistically gifted! Of course, it wasn’t exactly in the way you had thought before but the mere fact that he was like you made much more sense now. “A musician is still an artist,” you tell him, “just because you’re not creating art in that sense doesn’t mean you aren’t an artist. Art comes in many different forms you know, you can’t limit it to one medium.”

“Well my form of art isn’t very… how do I say this, it isn’t—“

“—You’re embarrassed.” You finished. As expected the boy came up with as many excuses as possible, trying to drill the false act into your head but utterly failing. All you could do was laugh as you spoke, “don’t worry! It’s normal to be closed off about the things you create, I’m embarrassed to show off my art to people all of the time.”

Chan nodded, nervously fidgeting with his hair as he tried to play off his flustered actions. “I guess that’s one thing we have in common right?”

“Make that two things,” you corrected him. He turned to you with a confused glint in his eyes as you held up two fingers and grinned at him as you explained, “we’re both artists and we’re embarrassed to show people our creations. Oh the woes of being artistically gifted, am I right?”

He nodded in agreement, a cheeky smile appearing on his face once again as he repeated, “oh the woes of being artistically gifted.”

[p1harmonyofficial]

[📰] 20 Questions With P1Harmony: K-Pop Rookies on the High Energy of 'Disharmony: Break Out' Mini-Album

By Heran Mamo

Plus: See a full, translated video interview with the sextet exclusively on Billboard.

P1Harmony explore a wide range of topics and genres on their high-intensity mini-album Disharmony: Break Out, which was released April 20 as the follow-up to their first EP, Disharmony: Stand Out.

Named one of the rookie K-pop groups to watch in 2021 by Time, members Keeho, Theo, Jiung, Intak, Soul and Jongseob had a unique experience stepping into the spotlight for the first time: The sextet debuted in the Korean film P1H: The Beginning of a New World on Oct. 8, 2020, before releasing their debut EP, Disharmony: Stand Out, on Oct. 28. Starring in a film prior to releasing their own music allowed P1Harmony to be more comfortable and confident enhancing their choreography (their Billie Eilish medley choreography has amassed more than 1 million YouTube views) and even coming up with their own music video concepts.

To commemorate the release of Disharmony: Break Out, the members of P1Harmony answered Billboard’s 20 questions about how Korea shaped who they are, how their evolving sound shines through on their latest mini-album, and the meanings they've taken away from this project as well as what they hope their fans will too.

1. What’s the first piece of music that you bought for yourself, and what was the medium?

Keeho: 5 Seconds of Summer, CD

Theo: BIGBANG’s MADE, CD

Jiung: Lee Moon Sae, cassette tape

Intak: Teen Top's "Miss Right," mp3

Soul: G-Dragon, CD

Jongseob: B.A.P’s "1004," CD

2. What was the first concert you saw?

Keeho: Ariana Grande’s The Listening Session

Theo: BIGBANG’s MADE Concert

Jiung: Lee Sun Hee’s Concert

Intak: Open Concert by KBS when I was 7!

Soul: Teen Top’s Japan Concert

Jongseob: B.A.P Concert

3. What did your parents do for a living when you were a kid?

Keeho: [My mom] used to do work related to music, she was a musician. My dad used to work at a university as a counselor.

Theo: My mom is a hairstylist.

Jiung: My mom used to be a banker and my dad used to work at National Tax Service.

Intak: My mom is a [yoga] trainer or coach and my dad is a businessman.

Soul: I’m not sure.

Jongseob: My mom used to be a jazz dancer as well as an instructor and my dad used to work at National Dance Company of Korea.

4. Who made you realize you could be an artist full-time?

Keeho: Myself and acquaintances

Theo: Myself

Jiung: My rap and my vocal coach

Intak: My parents. They gave me full support, as well as the confidence to be able to pursue my dream.

Soul: Teen Top

Jongseob: B.A.P and my parents

5. What’s at the top of your professional bucket list?

Keeho: The Grammys!

Theo: Our own world tour!

Jiung: To perform in front of a million people

Intak: To become a respected musician

Soul: To perform at a big music festival or a stadium, like Coachella

Jongseob: To perform until I can’t

6. How did your hometown/city shape who you are?

Keeho: It’s a place where I was able to gain my own confidence and learn the importance of being friendly [manners]. It’s also where I was able to experience a wide range of vocalists and their styles, which ultimately helped me shape and find my own vocal style.

Theo: It’s a place where I was able to live without any pressure or concerns.

Jiung: For me, my hometown is currently a place where I can find mental stability and state of relaxation. I reminiscence about my hometown quite frequently when I need to recoup and find mental stability.

Intak: I was raised in the rural part of Korea, so I was always close to nature and grew up playing in the valleys or riding gunny sacks in the mountains. I think that’s what helped me be at leisure.

Soul: It’s a place where I grew up without any hardships.

Jongseob: It was one of the most comfortable places in Korea with positive vibes and clean, refreshing air, which helped me find peace and ease.

7. What’s the last song you listened to?

Keeho: Ariana Grande’s "POV"

Theo: P1Harmony’s "End It"

Jiung: DPR IAN’s MITO

Soul: P1Harmony’s "Reset"

Jongseob: Penomeco’s Dry Flower

8. What’s your karaoke go-to?

Keeho: Alicia Keys, "If I Ain't Got You"

Theo: BIGBANG’s "BANG BANG BANG"

Intak: Bobby’s "YGGR"

Soul: I don’t go to karaoke haha

Jongseob: Beenzino’s "Dali, Van, Picasso"

9. If you could see any artist in concert, dead or alive, who would it be?

Keeho: Beyoncé

Theo: G-Dragon and Huh Gak

Jiung: Lee Sun Hee

Intak: Michael Jackson

Soul: Beyoncé

Jongseob: Post Malone

10. How has the pandemic affected your creative process?

Keeho: My source of inspiration has become very limited, as I don’t get to go to new places or meet new people.

Theo: I think because I couldn’t really go out, I was able to focus more on my craft.

Jiung: I was able to really dig deep into my work, writing lyrics and composing.

Intak: I didn't have a lot of ideas, but I also thought writing about COVID-19 could be a source of new ideas.

Soul: It was hard because I couldn’t really go to places that would usually help me get inspiration.

Jongseob: It was a bit difficult because I lacked having new experiences and meeting new people. My source of inspiration was also very limited, because I would just go to the same places.

11. How did starring in the film P1H: The Beginning of a New World prepare you for your debut as a K-pop boy band?

Keeho: I think it was a good opportunity for me to learn how to be more comfortable in front of the cameras.

Theo: I was able to gain confidence and felt a sense of pride knowing that we were the first ones to debut in a unique way with a full-length movie.

Jiung: I think it was a unique way of introducing us to the world and gave us the opportunity to learn how to be more focused and theatrical onstage.

Soul: It was a great experience, because it allowed me to learn the basic manners of the industry and the importance of staff members.

Jongseob: I think it helped us build a strong storyline and composition for our music. It will be easier to understand our music and its message if you watch the movie.

12. What do you want fans to take away from your mini-album Disharmony: Break Out?

Keeho: I believe it would depend and vary on how you interpret it, but we hope our listeners really enjoy our music.

Theo: I hope our fans and listeners gain confidence through our music, which is one of our strongest messages.

Jiung: I would like for our fans P1ece to really understand, take and gain everything from what we are trying to deliver in our message.

Intak: I would like for our fans to find the courage to speak up and have their own voice.

Soul: I just want our fans to be happy when they're listening to our music!

Jongseob: I think it depends on who is listening, but I hope our fans can take away anything and everything they can in a positive way and earn confidence as well.

13. Which song from Disharmony: Break Out is the most meaningful to you and why?

Keeho: I think it’s "If You Call Me" because it's a song that all six of us worked on together

Theo: I would like to pick "Reset," because I did so well in the studio while recording this song, so it means a lot to me.

Jiung: I’d say "Pyramid" because the lyrics "I’m on the top of the pyramid" helps me feel like I’m really the best and makes me want to live by that mindset. It definitely has become one of my favorite tracks.

Intak: I would pick "If You Call Me" for the same reason Keeho picked it. It’s a meaningful song to me because we all worked on it together as a team.

Soul: I think every single track on the album has a special meaning for me and because it’s all our songs, it’s a super difficult question to answer.

Jongseob: I think for me, our title track "Scared" is the most meaningful. The message of the song, which is not to be afraid to voice your own opinions and to live the life you want to live, is what I strongly believe in and that’s the kind of attitude I want to have.

14. Your debut EP Disharmony: Stand Out is much more hip-hop leaning, while your second features more R&B harmonies and EDM production while still refining the rap verses. What made you want to switch up your sound in only a manner of six months?

Keeho: I think we wanted to really make sure our message is being delivered clearly and strongly, so I think that’s why we picked tracks that were as strong with aggressive sounds.

Jiung: I don’t think we had a special moment or particular reason as to why we decided to do what. We just wanted to portray our feelings and thoughts that we felt at that moment while making music, and the time that we spent in between our albums, is what probably contributed to the change of sound as well.

Intak: As Keeho mentioned, I think we wanted to stand out a bit more with more clarity and distinct characteristics, which is what drove the aggressiveness and the slight change of sounds for this album.

15. Since you help choreograph and conceptualize your videos, what do you hope to convey in the accompanying visuals for Disharmony: Break Out?

Keeho: As you can see in our choreography for "Scared," we incorporated football into our routine. Football is a sport that is very aggressive and requires a lot of energy so we thought it was a good fit with our song. With these specific key points, we tried to really emphasize our message as well as our energy.

Jiung: I think our choreography, stage outfits, and concept all adds up and helps level up the intensity of the song as well as the message that we want to deliver. Our music video and choreography really turned out well, so I hope our fans appreciate and enjoy it!

16. Which artist is on your bucket list to collaborate with?

Keeho: Ariana Grande

Theo: BIGBANG, Taeyang, G.Soul, Dean

Jiung: Ty Dolla $ign

Intak: Justin Timberlake, A$AP Rocky

Soul: Les Twins

Jongseob: Penomeco, Smino

17. What’s one thing that even your most devoted fans don’t know about you?

Keeho: I really don’t like long nails. I just can’t stand it, so I tend to always keep my nails short.

Theo: I don’t really sweat. I don’t think I sweat at all.

Jiung: I have a habit of chewing the inside of my mouth, unintentionally.

Intak: My lips are naturally moisturized so I don’t need to use a lip balm to make them glossy!

Soul: I have dermographism, so even the slightest irritation like a scratch will leave a mark/scar for a while.

Jongseob: I have a slim waist and biggest feet of all members.

18. What movie, or song, always makes you cry?

Keeho: I don’t really cry, so I don’t think there’s a movie that ever made me cry.

Theo: The Korean movie Miracle in Cell No. 7 makes me cry every single time I watch it.

Jiung: Korean traditional children’s song "Daddy Cheer Up" makes me tear up.

Intak: I have a couple, but if I had to just pick one, it’d be the movie Forrest Gump.

Soul: I don’t cry like Keeho so I have never cried watching something and I just don’t like to watch sad movies.

Jongseob: "Falling Slowly"

19. What’s one piece of advice you would give to your pre-debut self?

Keeho: Don’t worry too much and work harder.

Theo: Think 100 times before acting on it.

Jiung: Are you truly sincere?

Intak: Enjoy life a bit more.

Soul: Be more emotionally stable.

Jongseob: It's never too late.

20. What does a successful 2021 look like for you?

Keeho: I hope to release as much music as we can!

Theo: I wish we can make at least 3 comebacks.

Jiung: I hope to gain more emotional peace and stability.

Intak: "Rookie of the Year" award!

Soul: There’s a necklace I really want to buy and I hope to buy it by the end of this year!

[alanalacyart]

Week 6, Monday: Klaus Voormann

Today Andy assigned us our next brief upon the completion and submission of our last one on Friday. Our third assignment, “Ask me anything!”, requires us to identify a historically significant artist, designer, architect, art-movement, design-object, or even a typeface; then interview one of these with 5 questions of our choice. We will then present the interview as a digital publication.

This assignment immediately sparked an endless range of creative possibilities of who or what I could interview, and the many mediums of digital publication for which I could creatively present my findings. I have recently been playing with the principles of creating my own personal zine recently, which I have loved doing and am becoming more familiar with, so I now feel that format was meant to be pursued for this project.

Hanging out in isolation means I spent most of my time cooped up in my makeshift studio, painting and drawing, fuelled by music. I’ve always been an avid fan and appreciator of both the Beatles’ music and also their creative direction, which was very breakthrough and ‘avant-garde’, or ‘experimentalist’, considering the cultural and historical context of the 1960′s. I have recently been revisiting their records again, and now with some newfound knowledge of communication design and its sub genres upon the entry of this course, I became even more-so than I was before invested into the design of their album covers, which in my opinion are amongst the best ever to have represented the music industry. 

I love them all, however the one that strikes me most in terms of intricate design and artistic direction input and mixed mediums was “Revolver” (1966). See below to check it out. I get lost for 10 minutes exploring every inch of it; maybe it’s because it’s a fine, ultra detailed artwork in itself, but I think it really draws and invites its viewers in to explore its contents and is thus, successful design!

“Revolver” album cover art, Klaus Voormann, fineliner ink and collage, 1966.

A vintage advertisement I found at the “Revolutions” exhibition at Melbourne Museum last year, encouraging Beatles fans of the time to buy Revolver.

I naturally did more research: Who made this incredible artwork/design? What was his relationship or affiliation with the Beatles? Did he do any more work? Is he still alive? 

He is a German artist, graphic designer and musician named Klaus Voorman, now 81. In summary, he shared a flat with George Harrison and Ringo Starr of the Beatles within the early sixties, forming a solid association with the group as both a business partner in the corporate visual design team, and as simply a very close and fond friend of the foursome. In 1965, Klaus was commissioned by John Lennon to design the sleeve for the album Revolver. Voormann had a style of "scrapbook collage" art in mind, using part fineliner and part collage for the work, which would go on to be his signature style as an artist. Voormann placed various photos taken within 1964-65 within the tangle of hair that connects the four faces. The drawings show each Beatle "in another state of consciousness". The cover won the Grammy Award for Best Album Cover, Graphic Arts, 1966.

Klaus Voorman, pictured left, hangin’ out with George Harrison on the right (my favourite Beatle!)

Upon the Revolver cover, his artistic affiliation with the Beatles extended. These are some of the many other absolutely wonderful artworks he has created of the group in his creative vision and incredible technical skill which have intensely inspired me. 

The original concept for the album, which was originally called “Remember” before it was changed to “Revolver”. It was developed only a bit more within the portrayal of the details of each band members portrait.

“Flight to Toronto” (couldn’t find what year this one was originally created unfortunately) 

“Decade of Eternity” 

“George in the Ocean of Waving Grass”; I think this one may just be in graphite -- so beautiful though, one of my favourites. He remained good friends with especially George until the end of his life, and worked with him during his solo career.

Klaus Voormann also designed the Beatles anthology album covers, which were released in the nineties. Still employing the collage technique, using picture only however. 

Similarly to George, he worked with John Lennon on the design on his visual content. John particularly made many political statements on social justice issues towards the late sixties and early seventies, and so the format of a newspaper allowed Klaus to experiment with layout and font/typeface design. 

[normal-thoughts-official]

Does magnus still go to concerts and what are his favorite bands/musicians

im so sorry anon i should have warned you that i am Like This

so anyway, yeah, i am of the opinion that magnus’ favorite band is and will always be queen. no one else will ever have the range and talent and be able to speak so closely to magnus’ heart - they have everything, from dealing with abuse to loneliness to immortality. not to mention they are such a creative band, like, shit, dudes be out there mixing opera and hard rock like nobody’s business. dudes be making waltz with electric guitars, jazz solos without any instruments, bike horns solos. they were completely rocking (ha) the music world, daring to mix genres that were never mixed before, and it was amazing. i mean, magnus has been listening to music since the 1600s, so of course changes and experiments are gonna be particularly interesting to him. and they’re well done and creative and magnus appreciates creativity, a lot. also, they have the theatricality, the intensity, that just demands that you listen to all of their songs at maximum volume and that just brings you in, you know. and magnus likes that, likes songs that are intense and strong and take him on a trip. he likes the over-the-top, especially because it all serves a purpose and goes well together. so yeah, queen is definitely magnus’ favorite, and it suits so many of his moods - from silly and romantic lip syncing to good old fashioned lover boy to sitting down and feeling the sadness and blues of who wants to live forever, to the more sexy vibes of my baby does me. no one else can touch magnus’ heart quite like queen does.

but there are other favorites! magnus is definitely a fan of whitney houston, for pretty much the same reasons he’s a fan of queen - she’s got the range, the talent, the theatricality and the lyrics that speak to him. tell me stuff like the greatest love of all and i wanna dance with somebody wouldn’t have magnus crying. just fucking try and tell me. tell me i’m every woman wouldn’t have him losing his mind and dancing like crazy. you can’t. 

these two are the ones that immediately come to mind, but i think magnus’ got a pretty eclectic taste in music - he can appreciate pretty much anything, because everything’s able to touch him even if it’s in wildly different ways. he can enjoy ryuichi sakamoto’s modern-classical fusion of instrumental, and Toxic By Britney Spears™. he also listens to artists from all over the world, both famous and absolutely unknown - he’s travelling all the time, after all, and he likes knowing new stuff, so magnus definitely goes to underground concerts from cities all over the world just to find new stuff. so he knows a little bit of everything - and yeah, he definitely still goes to concerts. i think he might have tried taking alec with him to some of these underground concerts but alec doesn’t strike me as particularly tuned to music and i think he’d be the kind not to stray too far from his more niche interests. but that’s ok, too, he likes listening to magnus talk about it and magnus can go with cat and dot while alec stays with madzie sometimes, you know. 

i also think that magnus definitely likes tango - do not ask me about magnus dancing tango unless you want me to go absolutely feral, but i’m sticking to music with this one so. i definitely think he likes listening to tango and tango as a music genre. again, the theatrics, the intensity of the feelings, the way tango expresses such deep feelings of yearning and longing and all of that gay shit. 

he’s also obviously going to like traditional javanese music, if anything because of the memories it brings, but i also think he’d like modern javanese musicians that mix them up with elements of western culture like idjah hadidjah and rhoma irama - particularly rhoma irama tbh because again, very dramatic, very touching and fuck his music is amazing. also indonesia has the biggest cassette industry in the world and cassettes are still indonesian’s preferred medium to listen to music so now im imagining magnus having a cassette player so he can listen to their music and for some reason im very emotional

anyway yeah these are my takes roahsdjandsa 

[vinylexams]

Heavy Heavy Low Low - Courtside Seats to the Greatest Fuck of All Time⁠

⁠ @heavyheavylowlow38 #heavyheavylowlow #hhll #deathwish @deathwishinc⁠ ⁠ I’ve been lucky as hell recently to snag insider info on some killer reissues and this one is no exception. You all already know how much I love HHLL, especially Turtle Nipple…, and through serendipity I got connected with Robbie from the band a few months back. I got to hear about how they are coming back to life after some years focusing on other projects, growing up and growing out, and evolving as musicians and artists in the process. They’ve worked with Twelve Gauge Records to put Courtside Seats on vinyl for the very first time and after they announced it on their platforms and immediately sold it out, they’re pressing another batch that you and the HHLL lovers in your life can and should snag before that pressing sells out, too!⁠ ⁠ What’s even more exciting is that I got to pick Robbie’s brain in typical VE fashion and he’s indulged me with all sorts of info about what they’re up to, whether or not we can expect new music, and some feel-good stories about huffing air duster and ripping shit up in an old warehouse on the California coast. Here it is in its unedited glory, but first…head to the website to pre-order your copy and then head to Robbie’s Indiegogo campaign to learn more about his upcoming short firm that’s scored by Nick from Tera Melos! ⁠https://deathwishinc.com/products/heavy-heavy-low-low-courtside-seats https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/morning-deliveries-short-film#/

INTERVIEW

First and foremost, it’s been a minute since we’ve heard from Heavy Heavy Low Low and then out of nowhere you sprang back to life in 2019. What motivated you all to pick up this project again? I’m not sure what motivated it. We had always been trying to jumpstart the whole thing again for some time and I think that it might have been a case of everyone’s lives slowing down and examining that time with a weird reverence. I can only speak for myself. The boys are all in school or doing their own thing.

I imagine you’ve all been working on different projects since HHLL went on hiatus. Do you have anything that you or the rest of the band have worked on that you’d love us to know about? Danny has gotten pretty popular in the Kendama world. Chris is studying various forms of martial arts. Roo is endlessly going to school and currently scoring independent films. Chip is heavily involved in competitive fishing. I’ve been making short films when the situation and my wallet allow it. We’re all crazy excited about finally owning Courtside Seats on vinyl for the first time. Aside from bringing that album onto the vinyl medium, the pre-order page notes that there’s new artwork, too. What can we expect from that? When we made the CD we weren’t expecting to sell any really.. I did the art and Matthew printed them all at his job. Him and I folded every crease, glued the o-cards and vacuum sealed them all. I think it sold out almost completely at the record release show. We made the same amount of records as we did the original cd (500). The artwork for the original CD pressing was done on sketch paper without any comprehension of what could be done with drawn art and a scanner. Matthew was the computer wizard and back then, young and silly, it was all done on the cuff. The new art is a bit more modern and plays with mortality. Court-side Seats to The Greatest Fuck of All Time being a front seat view of a an ordinary, bumpy ride through life. I’m proud of it. What’s it like to bring back an album from the earliest parts of the band’s career? Do you still identify with the music? It is odd. It was a truly surreal time and place. We were out of our fucking minds. We recorded it in Mountain View, Ca in this giant warehouse that tapered into gutted office spaces. It was a weird white collar tomb on the outskirts of Silicon Valley right before the real tech boom. In the big part of the warehouse where we’d enter there were giant mounds of clothes meant to be donated to some third world country. We’d burrow tunnels in them and do huge dramatic flips from pike to pile. There was an aisle of outdated medical equipment waiting to be sent that we’d stalk through in the dark. It was a strangely magic place. Once you got through the warehouse you’d get to these office stations that had been fashioned into recording studios and that’s where we birthed this thing. We were so misguided. The amount of compressed air that we inhaled should have killed us. I contribute a significant drop in IQ to that shit. Smoking copious amounts of weed from gravity bongs. Recording with a hip hop producer, Deegan. Never a disagreement. It still feels like it was some strange purgatory of youth. I don’t miss it, but it was beautiful. Does this mean there’s hope of having Everything’s Watched, Everyone’s Watching on vinyl sometime, too? So, there was a guy who was very adamant about putting that record out on vinyl. We had a dialogue going for the better part of a year and apparently he had been in contact with Rhino Music and Warner, the two companies that hold the licensing to that album. He had received word that it’d cost an impressive amount of money, but he still wanted to shoulder it. Mind you, this dude didn’t have a label, he just wanted to put this thing out and apparently hadnt thought that all out. Time goes by, I’m waiting, not worrying one way or the other. One day I get a link from a friend, a Christian college website detailing that dude had been arrested for kidnapping and assault. Very sad situation. Dude seemed semi normal. Anyway, that was the last effort I’d seen put into that. I’d love to contribute new art to that release if any go-getter wants to try their luck. I’ve loved everything HHLL put out, but Turtle Nipple is in my top 10 list of favorite albums of all time. What was the writing the recording process for it like and how did the band feel about the new creative directions on it? EWEW was half previously recorded material re-recorded and half material written a year prior, kind of forced into a studio with producers we had no previous rapport with. Those producers/engineers were incredible human beings (RIP Tom Pfaffle! See you in the mindfog) but we were very young punk kids thrown into a foreign land where we had our agents visiting and there were platinum records on the wall and it was a total barrage of privilege and excess. It was beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t feel soul in that record. Turtle Nipple is a dense trip through time and the record I’m most proud of in our discography. I don’t remember how long we had to record it, I do remember that it was the only time we’d been given to experiment and layer our sensibilities in an environment that catered to them. Sam (Pura) was a perfect conduit to that vibe and time and space and it really came out just how it should have. I think about that album as a 70s exploitation directors filmography.. it veers violently from genre to genre and while most of the stories are fiction and far from personal testimony, theirs a peek into some shared insanity contained throughout. George Cosmatos wandering through a punk club on an edible. I think that that album is our bands true personality. Sam is a member of our band whether he’s playing with us or engineering for us. He gets us. I love the idea of an alternate reality where we had lasted a bit longer and did an album with Steve Albini. He’d probably hate us, but I love those ‘What If?’ Scenarios. I’ll ask the question EVERYONE has been asking so it’s on the record somewhere: Does this mean we can expect new material or a new album soon? Maybe even a tour? We have a new EP in the works. We have some of it recorded with Sam. We’ve posted a couple clips on Instagram. We’re incredibly busy and spread out in our personal lives. Chip in TX, Dan in FL, Roo in OR, Rob and Chris in CA. Adulthood is a bitter, pulpy drink! We are going to be playing again. We won’t be leaving the West Coast. We had our fill of middle America and the travel involved. We have talked to some of our buds from our early days of touring about playing alongside (opening for) them for a limited run in 2020. I think that qualifies as a tour. Also, if anyone wants to fly us to Europe to play a festival in 2020, we’d like that. It’ll be an interesting year. How does it feel to be welcomed back by so many adoring fans who still love your music and are hoping for more after a long hiatus? It’s incredibly humbling. I have heard from people throughout the years about how we had affected them and it was always just strange to me. I’m pretty self deprecating, so I just don’t understand how some shit I wrote could mean much to anyone. My mind is just a shotgun blast of panic. I guess all of ours are? I love my band mates and their talents, though. So I understand the sorta sirens draw to the greater extent. I think they only got to show themselves slightly, too. Weird existence. Give us a piece of band trivia you’ve never shared in an interview before! Gees. There is a step-in part to most 15 passenger vans. It is a black, hard plastic. It meets with where you close the sliding door. When we had no bottles to pee in, we would just piss in ‘the step’. This thing was a den of germicidal activity. Trash and piss I don’t think we ever truly cleaned that thing. What’s odd is that we so rarely got ill on tour. The Step kept us healthy on a steady diet of trash and piss and general scum. Finally, this isn’t a question but the hidden track on Turtle Nipple is a fucking masterpiece and I wanted you to know. Thank you! I think that may have been my idea to add some weird 70s funk into an old track of ours. I think it turned out cool, but I think it betrays our vibe on that album! I wish it’d have devolved into some weird, primitive Altered States shit.

[ninacormire27]

What is an audience?

It’s easy to be part of temporal audience with the technology we have in this era because it reaches the masses making sure millions of people can share the same experience. Labour Day festivities is a national holiday where everyone can celebrate the worker’s union and take part in something all over North America. Millions of people and celebrities participated in posting their activities on platforms like Instagram and Snapchat. I am an active audience member in this experience by liking pictures and watching people’s “stories” to see what everyone else is up to. International news is another temporal audience because the biggest stories going on in the world are a common area for everyone to socialize about. It’s a common ground of world conversation. My grandparents watch the news to know what’s going on out the world and how this generation is messing everything up. Entertaining to watch but also sad because they only share the violence and terrorism in the world. I don’t know why news corporations don’t broadcast more of the good. The more negative content the world puts upon the more we will reflect those ideas onto ourselves.

Being a part of a physical audience is more fun because you get to share an experience with everyone in the room firsthand. I went to many live concerts this year and got the opportunity to watch my favourite artists sing their hearts out. The artists that I have grown to love over the years gave me several emotions to see them live rather than listening in my bedroom. You get to learn a little bit about their personalities in between numbers when they interact with the audience and if they play a different rendition of the song. It changes the way you hear the song for the rest of your life. You must have a stage presence when performing in front of 20,000 people.

Geographical audiences go more into private life at home. Every time I go onto Instagram and like a picture, comment on someone’s post, or share content, I am inserting myself into a global audience.

When I answer a text or phone call I am an active audience member in an information based medium where there’s a mutual sender and receiver of a message between me and the person on the other end either with mom or my friends versus a meaning based medium where I don’t actually get to have a relationship with the receiver on the other end. It's like listening to my favourite artist and relating to a certain song. Before the artists knew what kinds of audience, they wanted to attend to they had to consider how they see themselves and what kind of message they wanted to send out about themselves and their world opinion. Maren Morris has helped me realize things that I didn’t understand before with her song “Song for Everything”. It’s about hanging out with friends and listening to good music. There's a song for every emotion you have at a certain point in life. Her husband has a song that state’s you can always find a friend within music when you’re lonely. We always feel lonely and music is a good platform to go to when you’re feeling down about something, it can always help you find comfort that an artist has felt the same emotions you have. It’s okay to feel that way for a little while.

Sullivan’s trilogy of mass, outcome and agent is something that everyone can place themselves into at some point in their lives. I have a cable box at home that collects data from mass population in order to figure out what kinds of things to release so that people will enjoy them. Smartphones are another example, anything I do on my iPhone gets recorded so that Apple can fix kinks in their apps to make it easier for the population to use it and to find content they can enjoy. Is it because they think we’re all miserable and we always need more material things to make us happier? Having new things gives us kicks of adrenaline of finding something new that makes us happy. The shows that I watch and music I listen to have shaped an outcome of personality. It’s inspiration to excel yourself within society giving more knowledge on how to be a part of larger society and be able to talk about something with someone else. Country music is something that I have incorporated into my lifestyle because I grew up with a family of musicians who wanted to go to Nashville and learn how to be a part of the country genre community. That has helped my personality to strive for bigger things and follow my dreams to make my family proud of me. As an agent this assignment of writing a blog allows us to tap into the free will of writing our own opinions about society and have our own voices. Creating new content that other people can relate to.

In ancient Roman times they had a different definition of being an audience member, being able to participate in the show, theatre production, battle ground to cheer on your team or man in the ring. Medieval Times in Toronto is a place where I can relate to an experience like this where they have two colour teams duel it out while you get served an authentic dinner of a giant chicken leg and eat like a caveman. While it’s all a show, they still incorporate body language of violence. It’s a children’s outing therefore it can’t be too much violence and outbreak, but you can still understand what it was like to live back then. There is also a king and queen who oversee the whole thing in order to keep it regulated and under their power kingdom.

Movie theatres are another form of being an audience, but this time you’re in a dark theatre with a big screen to give you the effect of being inside the movie feeling like you’re actually there with the characters living out every one of their emotions with them. Also living and sharing your own emotions with others in the theatre. Whoever was in the theater at the same time shared an experience with you. It's a different experience rather than watching a film by yourself. There’s more than one energy in the room but you can’t see anyone so you get to cry if you need to in the dark and no one will know until the lights come on and your face is flushed.

As humans we don’t understand the things in society that we can control and what we can’t. We put blind trust into strangers when we’re out and about doing our everyday errands. Same goes for social media. We don’t realize our own structures such as how we were raised and came to be the person, we are today depending on how much freedom we have in choosing our own environmental factors to incorporate in our life journey. We don’t know who has the true power to decide who makes our decisions. Do we really have agency in this world? Or is it just the elitist group of people that get to choose what we get to see? Who has the most power? These structures affect our agency and how we decide who we are based on whatever we are exposed to. Our social class determines most of our structure. The higher up you are in the society ladder determines how much free agent you have. I have gotten the chance to grow up in an environment with supportive family and friends around me who have supported all platforms that I have chosen to expose myself to. This has helped me determine who I want to be in the future.

We are constantly audience members of society. Even if you don’t have a smartphone, social media platform, we are still incorporating ourselves into conversations with other people, listening, responding to other’s opinions.

[ottofreycinet87-blog]

Western Music Historical past

Contemporary folks music refers to all kinds of genres that emerged within the mid 20th century and afterwards which were related to conventional folk music Starting within the mid-twentieth century a brand new form of popular folks music evolved from traditional people music. Lounge music refers to music played in the lounges and bars of hotels and casinos, or at standalone piano bars. Typically, the performers embrace a singer and one or two different musicians. The performers play or cowl songs composed by others, especially pop requirements, many deriving from the days of Tin Pan Alley. Notionally, much lounge music consists of sentimental favorites loved by a lone drinker over a martini, although in practice there is rather more selection. The time period may also refer to laid-back electronic music, additionally named downtempo, due to the reputation of lounge music as low-key background music. First, bradleykavanagh7.wikidot.com I see lots of people saying, properly this is only a small segment of music. There may be plenty of good music being made right now!" Perhaps so, however that wasn't the purpose of the post nor the video. The video discusses how fashionable music right this moment is not very good, and how most of what frequently makes the top 40 is homogenized crap. Both jazz and classical symbolize just 1.4% of whole U.S. music consumption a bit. Nonetheless, Classical album sales were larger for 2014, which places Jazz on the bottom of the barrel. An ideal instance of Tubby's deft touch for reverb is current on the observe Dub You Can Really feel." Listen for the reverb on the snare — it's the classic spring reverb boing" impact common in dub music. Learning to play a musical instrument can usually be costly so purchasing around is a good suggestion. The typical value of studying a musical instrument in the UK can fluctuate anything from £15 to £40 depending on the tutor, the area, the instrument and the extent of expertise, and naturally can typically be much more, particularly in areas resembling London.

Sensible! I applaud your ability to data mine, nevertheless lots of your questions and fatal flaws in your logic may have been reply by researching the fundamentals of main key harmony. Music Theory" is not a law, however an explanation of how western music makes use of chords in a key, eloiseortega.pen.io and what carefully or distantly associated keys a song may modulate to. These can usually have genre specific explanations. Take some concord courses and then figure those patterns" into your analysis and you may find some solutions. Syd Nathan, the top of King Records, thought it was a lousy idea. R&B followers don't shell out for stay albums, he tried to inform his headstrong star, a hit single is what they dig. So James personally financed the recording of this blazing half-hour set on the storied Harlem theater, and soon radio DJs were taking part in total LP sides on the air. Had this historic doc accomplished nothing more than introduce the wider world to the majestic, violent grace of a James Brown dwell performance, that'd be lots groundbreaking. However as Dwell on the Apollo crossed over to the pop charts, it convinced each artists and businessmen that black music might thrive commercially not by making concessions to genteel white tastes. Part heady avant-garde improv, half properly-thought of Molotov cocktail, all methods disorienting, Throbbing Gristle's debut steamrolled a new path for underground noiseniks by eschewing many of the formal guidelines of rock music — drums, guitars, melody and, on Aspect B, pulse completely —going instantly for the primal enchantment of distortion. "Industrial Music for Industrial Folks" learn the tagline for the band's personal Industrial Records, spawning a style fueled on grinding, mechanical terror and offered affect for everyone from Nine Inch Nails to Aphex Twin. Built on disturbing samples, disturbing electronic textures, and disturbing live recordings, Second Annual Report employed the LP as a medium of moveable transgression. Those that are good at writing songs in line with a new pattern or involving elements which might be new and authentic will, in all likelihood, not be those that rise to famous person status, at the very least not straight away. Just have a look at Vangelis. He may not have the views" that Bieber has on Youtube, however, musically speaking, he is about 88 000 656 890 x more authentic. That doesn't imply he is higher than Bieber, in fact (regardless that he clearly is). As an enormous fan of Laborious, basic and Psychedelic rock and being based in India, I would know. I've to say Rock music has taken a nosedive off a cliff in the past decade here and there actually will not be any music coming from this nation. The earliest songs that may very well be thought-about American popular music, versus the popular music of a particular region or ethnicity, have been sentimental parlor songs by Stephen Foster and his peers, and songs meant to be used in minstrel reveals , theatrical productions that featured singing, dancing and comedian performances. Minstrel shows generally used African devices and dance , and featured performers with their faces blackened, a method known as blackface 1 By the middle of the 19th century, touring firms had taken this music not solely to every a part of the United States, but in addition to the UK, Western Europe, and even to Africa and www.magicaudiotools.com Asia. Minstrel reveals have been typically marketed as though the music of the exhibits was in an African American model , though this was often not true.Rock's late-Sixties psychedelic sojourn was brought to a screeching halt with the August 1968 launch of the primary country-rock masterpiece, an album whose reverberations can still be heard in the arduous-rocking sounds of nearly every current nation hit. The industrial success of the Eagles, America, the Doobie Brothers are all attributable to fledgling Byrd Gram Parsons's resolute perception within the cosmic power of actual nation music. Parsons fan Elvis Costello introduced the phrase back to the punks on Almost Blue; the Blasters, Long Ryders and even X added a twang to their sound; and "cowpunk" turned a thing. Likewise, Uncle Tupelo's 1990 No Depression album; band spinoffs Wilco, Son Volt and Bottle Rockets; and numerous subsequent alt-country advocates can all be traced back to Sweetheart.For as faithfully as they recreate their namesake, YouTube's '80s remixes really remind me of a newer second. The internet music culture of the late '90s and early 2000s was a interval of fast transformation, however whilst illegal file sharing accelerated music discovery, the shortcomings of the technology saved things grounded. MP3 collections took up vast amounts of digital area and have been playable only via certain packages. And, like file retailer crate-digging excursions, online hunts didn't always pan out: You may spend hours downloading a music, solely to seek out out it had been mislabeled.

[jadadillion25533-blog]

Favorite Music Genres Amongst Shoppers By Age Group In The U.S. 2018

We highlight the artists and musical actions that outlined the year. This pathfinder is meant to facilitate interdisciplinary analysis in traditional Southern music styles for undergraduate or graduate students of music, folklore, American Research, history, cultural studies, Southern studies and related disciplines. Specifically, it identifies multimedia assets at UNC-Chapel Hill and on-line to help college students better perceive both the context (social, lyrical, and musical origins, influences, and impacts) and the content material (varieties, themes, and instrumentation) of traditional Southern music styles.

The mainstream rock comeback will occur Joan: Vinyl data proceed to extend in gross sales and recognition as a result of they sound hotter to the younger particular person's ears. Vinyl gross sales are at the moment beating streaming gross sales within the UK. The digital Scandinavian center-aged male-written computer pop music is okay for streaming however in case you expect vinyl warmth real instruments should played. People who learn actual instruments learn from basic rock. The corporations must discover music that matches the vinyl medium and Kesha will get her likelihood. Feminist aesthetics raises many of the similar issues that dominate debates about race and ethnicity. Moreover, feminist aesthetics regularly discusses efficiency artwork. Exploring track efficiency, Bicknell argues that gender and race are equally relevant for fashionable music reception. Renée Cox and Claire Detels have provided a philosophical foundation for further work and Gracyk has outlined several philosophically rich issues that deserve additional attention (Gracyk 2001). But as is the case with aesthetics normally, explicitly feminist analyses are normally directed at tremendous artwork and way more consideration is paid to the visual arts than to music. In contrast, musicologists have produced many essays and books that highlight feminist views on in style music.

Maybe unsurprisingly, Kenny finds that accidents - together with car crashes and drug overdoses - are an enormous reason behind premature death for musicians, accounting for nearly 20 p.c of all deaths across genres. But accidents are more likely to kill rock, steel and punk musicians. Punk and steel musicians also appear vulnerable to suicide, whereas gospel musicians had the lowest suicide rate of all genres. Homicide accounted for 6 p.c of deaths, but was the cause of loss of life for an incredible half of rap and hip hop musicians in Kenny's pattern. Described in 2013 by no-lesser an authority than the BBC as, Bulgaria's intercourse-soaked pop-folks music culture ", chalga - a Turkish phrase that originally described the urban music of the Ottoman empire of the late 19th and early twentieth century - blends doof-doof dance beats with Balkan, Gypsy and Center Japanese rhythms. Consider it as Bulgarian turbofolk, in the event you like. Its themes of simple money, aggressive males and promiscuous girls" (that is the BBC once more) have made chalga large all across the Balkans. Similarly, determine 7 shows the three elements, specifically the three new options obtained with LDA. As mentioned earlier than, the LDA method has the restriction of acquiring only C−1 nonzero eigenvalues, the place C is the number of classes. Subsequently, http://www.audio-transcoder.com only three parts are computed. If it's a supervised strategy and the primary aim is to maximise class separability, the 4 courses in figures 7 (a) and (b) are clearer than these in PCA, although still involving substantial overlaps. This end result corroborates that automatic classification of musical genres is just not a trivial activity. Whereas there are similarities between the two genres, there are also many differences. First main difference between rock and pop style bands are the best way they make their music. A lot of the Rock bands write their songs about something they care about with no censure. Rock songs discuss love, emotions, sex, medicine, life, demise, or suicide and the songs have a deep which means for the musician who wrote and for the general public, who relate the music with their own lives. A very good rock music last forever, and it has been played on radio stations for years. Eurgh, here we go, give it to me straight. Back in the early 90s, house had hit a point the place it splintered. A type of instructions was towards huge, vocal-and-piano-heavy bangers that, now, would simply be thought of outdated-skool house music (think Black Box 'Ride On Time'). The sound was thought of more commercial and naturally bought most of the keep on with handbag house becoming a casually misogynistic phrase that furthered perpetuated the stereotype of 'smooth, silly' music for 'soft, silly' people like girls. Whether Hardbag reinforces or breaks down the purse house stereotype, it positively was a factor with Felix's 'Don't You Want Me' thought of the beginning and the style's pinnacle coming within the mid-90s. Moodier chords, hardcore-type drums and a little less hovering vocal characterise these tracks. Mr. SINNETT: With jazz? You already know, it's fascinating because I was a musician, actually, after I first heard jazz, and when I first heard jazz - I wasn't taking part in jazz, I was enjoying classic soul music and rock and funk and people sort of things, however once I first heard jazz, I truthfully did not get it as a result of it was the whole antithesis of every part I was playing at that moment. In different phrases, you had - I was coping with music that you had very simple, repetitive rhythmic devises within the music. It was primarily based on a groove, a particular type groove. The harmony we had been dealing with was at a much lower stage when it comes to complexity and it was primarily vocal.

"Paradise by the Dashboard Light" packs three movements, a half-dozen time shifts and a flurry of musical styles into eight outsized minutes of pop extra. Which is why it sums up Meat Loaf's career higher than anything else he's ever recorded. However songwriter Jim Steinman, producer Todd Rundgren, singer Ellen Foley and baseball legend Phil "Scooter" Rizzuto additionally deserve credit for "Paradise by the Dashboard Gentle," throwing all of its various items into place with equal quantities of intercourse, sweat and humor.

[art-for-the-people]

Resigning from the fine art world.

I've always had such conflicted feelings for the art world.  For a large part of my life it seemed like fine art was the career route I was going to take. I'm good at it. I have the technical skill to make incredible art, and sometimes I still do. 

Putting my art in galleries/shows however, never really felt fulfilling to me. My art doesn't do anything for anyone there. I could create museum worthy pieces that could realistically be worth thousands of dollars if I ever choose to apply myself, but then the art goes to the buyer, hangs on display on a collector's walls; its a favored way for the wealthy to obtain tax breaks and build status among each other. It doesn't help me, it doesn't help ordinary people. Fine Art doesn't do anything for my community besides charge tuition and a $5.00 entry fee.

Over the last year, I've channeled my creative focus on For The People STL. I've designed protest banners. logos, stencils, decals, shirts, protest art, and more. This is the kind of art that our organization benefits from; through things like obtaining social media exposure to raising money on our etsy. My art goes to the right people; not just the people who can afford it. Not just gallery owners, not just the preppy art student crowds, everyone. Period.

The disenfranchised masses I want to serve with my art don't go to gallery openings or buy 30,000 dollar invisible abstract paintings. They are in our cities, in our buses, prisons, high schools. The fine art world does nothing to address this; there's a culture of elitism that keeps the majority of them from ever setting foot in an art gallery. People don't feel welcome. They feel they'll be looked down upon for lacking a formal artistic background, and from what i experienced at my community college art program, this plays out frequently in real life.

I recall the blatant favoritism I experienced in college. I was a gifted child; I grew up with a family that supported my creativity, and in a school district that had a good K-12 art program. I showed up to class on day one with more skill than a lot of my classmates; and i realize now that wasn't a testament to my skill, but rather to my privilege. I got A's in every class, lots of personal attention/advice from my professors; all in all art school was a very positive experience for me. Not everybody can be so lucky.

While I had a lot of support in my artistic endeavors, there were many of my classmates who didn't have the same opportunities as me. Their school's art classes weren't funded by the white suburban boom in St. Charles County. They might not have had supportive families, or money for art supplies. I had many classmates in my drawing class that had never drawn with charcoal before, and that was the medium we used the whole semester. 

Naturally, this put some of them at a disadvantage. The professor that taught that class would frequently stand in front of us and tell us that he planned on only assisting students that "actually try". He actually told a friend of mine to quit pursuing art for lack of talent. At the time I thought it was a pretty horrific thing to say, but it didn't matter to me because I was passing with flying colors. 

This type of gate keeping (at a community college for chrissakes) in the art world infuriates me. The are the kind of people that think you aren't a real artist if you can't name 5 paintings on display at the SLAM, or think things like animation or Fantasy Illustration are beneath them. The Art-elitist discredits all art considered to be "craft", they mock Bob Ross and the people who learn from programs like his because its not "real art".

I used to believe it when the art world told me that "If your intention is to create art, then your creation is considered art." but this mindset seems to change whenever students want to make music videos, T-shirts,  manga comics, or crochet tapestries for class assignments, suddenly these things become "non art" and are unacceptable to turn in for a grade.

Video games have changed the world of art; the masses love them, The fine art world rejects them, even mocks the idea of video games being considered art. Rap music, one of the most popular music genres, isn't taken seriously because it lacks the "classical finesse" of musicians like Bach or Beethoven. Childish Gambino's music video for "This is America" is one of the most powerful and moving performances of our generation. Its worthy of the same admiration and respect that’s given to other revolutionary artists and writers of our time. But still, it would not be something allowed in a gallery. There are no show openings, no class discussions. These genres deserve our attention.

Of course there’s a very obvious pattern of discrimination; frequently its things mostly created by lower class women and minorities that are first to be dismissed as non art. Most big name art museums are excruciatingly white male dominant places. The male to female ratio put in those Gorilla Girls posters years ago actually haven't improved that much. Therefore, I see little point in creating art for a social class that doesn't hold me at the same respect as my white male colleagues. The system grows ever more rigged for POCs. There should be an environment of equality in fine art spaces;  yet as "liberal" as artists are stereotyped to be, "Fine Art" is still an industry that's owned by white male patriarchy.

It brings me more peace and satisfaction seeing my art enriching my community organization than any gallery opening my "fine" art has been featured in. I don't care if you think protest art is low class, or a step down from where I was before; i'm still gonna love seeing my comrades wearing the shirts i gave them to the next demonstration. This gives us a different presence in our community; we can outwardly show organization and self reliance.

This is where my artistic passion has been leading me my whole life, and I don't think I can go back to the fine art world anymore. It would make me feel like a class traitor.

Therefore, I refuse to participate in the mainstream fine art world. I won't make art for galleries or shows; i will go off and host my own shows, I will create my own spaces of creativity. 

If functioning outside the fine art line means I'm not a real artist, then I will embrace my lack of artistry by disrupting the status quo and inspiring change in the day to day lives of normal human beings. I will not make more art to be pondered upon by bougie classist drones; i make art for the people.

[corkcitylibraries]

Cork in Verse | Ana Spehar Interviews Noah Hamilton

Noah Hamilton was born in May 1987 in Waterford. He grew up in Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny and is a full-time artist.

Noah Hamilton studied Fine Art at the Limerick School of Art & Design. He graduated in 2009 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Fine Art. Noah then went on to focus on his drawing skills by undertaking a course at St. John’s College, Cork City studying Drawing (Level 5) and Web Design (Level 5).

When did you start writing? Is there a common theme, style, or structure you find yourself leaning to in your poetry?

I’ve been writing song lyrics since I was a teenager, drew comics since I was nine. Yet when I started really tapping away on the word processer it came from a certain purge, there are just some days where I'm in the mindset to write, a certain free train of thought, although when it comes to poetry, I have a few rules that relate to music theory. I focus on the rhythm of the syllables in each sentence, though every now and again I break my own rules on purpose. Usually with poetry I just type it into my phone. I went through a phase of writing haikus where you get 5 7 5 in the syllable count. It's good to consider the value of each syllable in length, it could have the value of a quaver, crotchet, have a different timing, a lot of music theory worth considering. 

As a visual artist, musician, and a writer, you express yourself in many forms. Where do you seek inspiration?

I hop between mediums just to alternate my time. One day or night I could be drawing, painting, writing, then playing music or a bit of carpentry and so on, any creative project I have a go at. I used to draw compulsively in sketchbooks for years, I still have the ones I kept since I was twelve, lots of drawings of devils and war. It freaked out my art teacher. Once, he rang my mother about it, when she saw them, she said they were quite good, but she asked me to draw something else so then I discovered music. Nirvana was my favourite band, so I drew rockstars in my teens, picked up a guitar to learn as many riffs from tabs off the internet. Art and music were the two big things in my life, why not do both? I remember that I always said to myself if I go blind, I can still play guitar, if I go deaf, I can still draw. Fast-forward to these days when engaging in a creative project, I have different themes to each medium. Innovation is crucial for my work, I always like something new to potter about with. I've learned to be okay with having creative block every now and again. I find comfort in knowing the likes of Francis Bacon went through months without lifting a brush. I like to look at the lives of artists in biographies rather than their work, good to learn from history before pursuing it as a career, though if you enjoy making art for the sheer enjoyment is a great gift in itself.

Do you show your work in progress to anyone?

I do, maybe a bit too much I think, though a painting isn't finished until it's sold. Pieces develop over time, even songs over time where I would add a middle eight here and there with more development on the subject matter.

Would you look on writing as a kind of spiritual practice?

More like an exorcism. I write away my demons, you might say. I like having a go at the Sci-Fi genre, makes it lighter and more aloof. I find it a safer place to be in, a certain detachment from real life with elements of truth involved.

What book would you recommend to our readers?

You know the real page turner for me was The Diary of Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years by Sue Townsend. I once spent all night just reading that back to back as a teenager. Actually, I haven't read all of the Adrian Mole books, I must follow up on that, though it’s quite a sad thought as Sue Townsend, rest her soul, is no longer with us. Don't tell me how it ends but I’m expecting another cliff-hanger. My main recommendation, now I'm thinking seriously, is a book that I used to play as an audiobook while sleeping. I'll be frank that I don't read as much as I should as I predominantly just binge on audiobooks these days...Ten Books on Architecture by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio. It's very fascinating with instructions on how the Roman Empire was built. It teaches you about their knowledge of building, plumbing, painting, music theory, and geology to name a few of the subjects it covers. It was revived during the Renaissance and it's illustrated by the old masters at that time. I must root out the hard copy myself to see the illustrations.

Paintbrush

A madman with a paintbrush Saying he is an artist Still a madman with a paintbrush Though people are saying he is an artist They don't think he is a madman with a paintbrush They are betting on this madman as an artist as he says himself They know a bit that he is mad A madman with a paintbrush Saying he is an artist Though a paintbrush for a madman is a good idea nonetheless.

Rural I come from rural Ireland A place of cattle and horses Not too far from me Is where they bet on courses. I know a chap who can talk to cattle But not well with women Not that different from me But worse according to other sources In one pub there is gambling A place of many vices No one judges no one Even through their mid-life crisis They may stand, sit and talk shite The barman telling them that they are right His old friend calls him a bollox Just like Jackson Pollock Country life isn't so bad The pints are cheaper with a bit of trad Next day is not so sad Back again since one was a lad This is the frontline for an troubadour No pretense and vanity For those who do will not last long This town is better than any city Men are men here and the women same Hardly ones that aren't so tame Handy with an axe and saw The land will clobber if you break its law. Take heed of it's weather It's harshness and gruff No time for nonsense Faffing or fluff.

[930club]

9:30 INTERVIEW: Chris Thile of Punch Brothers

Punch Brothers’ new album, All Ashore, has been described by mandolinist Chris Thile as "a meditation on committed relationships in the present day, particularly in the present climate." He continues, "we were hoping to create something that would be convincing as a complete thought, in this case as a nine-movement, or nine-piece, thought. Though it's rangy in what it's talking about, and in the characters who are doing the talking." We asked Thile some questions about the album and more ahead of their upcoming show at The Anthem.

Jon Chen [9:30 Club]: So, I was a pretty big fan of your newest album— I saw how it kind of kept in step with The Phosphorescent Blues. I felt like they were both sort of meditative takes on some nuanced aspect of society. The Phosphorescent Blues was about connection in an increasingly digital age, and All Ashore being about more committed relationships. I was wondering, who do you try to reach with these albums, and is there a common link in what you try to communicate?

Chris Thile [Punch Brothers]: I think both records share a yearning for a deep connection, or a feeling that there’s some sort of salvation in forging a lasting connection with another human being, or that there’s a salvation or an antidote to the malaise of our times. In a way, looking back at The Phosphorescent Blues, I almost wish those were our problems still: just railing against a life of distraction or never being fully present in any one moment. If there’s a silver lining to everything going on right now, it’s that I think people seem a little more engaged than before all this stuff that’s happening, between Brexit, and Trump, and this sort of creeping— although I guess it’s not really even creeping anymore— this advancing nationalism, which seems to be something of a global phenomenon. It definitely has gotten our attention, so I do think those records are thematically related, although not directly or intentionally. I think in All Ashore, stakes have been raised, on a macro level as human beings, and also on a micro level for us as bandmates, in that we’re having children now: two out of five of us have kids, myself included; three out of five of us are married, and everyone’s in a committed relationship. The record is very much a product of the times, as is Phosphorescent Blues, and I guess that’s the main connection, that they’re both records of their respective times. I think especially now, you’re seeing a whole lot of that; I think artists can’t really ignore what’s going on right now, our work is fairly consumed by it.

Absolutely. I think all of you have kind of been in different projects, living in different cities, being in committed relationships. And somehow in spite of this, I felt like All Ashore really showed signs of growth as a band: I thought you guys seemed tighter, and I felt closer to the message you guys conveyed through the writing. Maybe it was a result of hearing your music that was a product of the times. I was wondering, how have you managed to keep growing as a band while being so far apart?

I think everyone’s growing as musicians individually, and Punch Brothers takes up less of the year since its inception. You know, these days people becoming family men, myself becoming the host of this radio show [Live From Here], the band sorta just has less “acreage.” I actually think that may have brought us closer together creatively because when we’re together, there’s this sense of urgency, and this necessity of focusing on getting the job done in maybe less time than we’ve had before. There’s also this real joy and refreshment and affirming aspect of being in a band— it’s a treat now to work together, which is a pretty crazy thing to say twelve years into a collaboration. Every time we get together to put together new music, or deliver to the people who are interested in it, it’s just taken on a new identity. To maybe put it more simply, I think we know what we have now, since we’ve taken more time away from it, and every time we get to do it, we are fully engaged.

Wow. I’ve often been fascinated by how as a band, your actual instrumentation is, you know, officially “bluegrass-y,” but you often borrow from pop, rock, classical, and other repertoire. What makes you want to pursue this genre-bending, and how does it inform your songwriting and composition?

The main thing for me is that the string band is kind of what my bandmates and I understand the best, just texturally. So that’s what we’re going to use, it’s what we understand. I almost feel like the genre discussion is a discussion of medium, like an artist might use pencils, or watercolors, or oils, or whatever. That’s how I feel about the bluegrass ensemble; me saying, “I play in a bluegrass ensemble,” is like saying, “I work primarily with oil.” But that doesn’t give you any more information than that. If I say, “Yeah, we play bluegrass instruments,” I have given you no more information than if an artist says, “I paint with oil.” You can think of that, but as far as what we’re gonna paint, you have absolutely no clue yet. For me, when a musician says “I play ____,” that’s how I take it. “So, what do you paint?” would be my next question. A lot of times I think people maybe assume something, like how we play bluegrass instruments, and all of a sudden what you’ve heard before on bluegrass instruments is popping up in your ears. So, we’re not interested in that, not because we don’t love it, but because it’s already been done. And so, I think most musicians or artists, that’s kind of where they’re coming from: you love what has been made well. You don’t wanna do it because it’s already been done well; you wouldn’t be doing your job if you just did something the way someone else did it.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Genres are just labels to a lot of us, and as an artist I guess you wouldn’t want to constrain yourself to that.

Yeah. It’s not that it’s not important— it is, the choice to paint with a specific kind of medium is a choice worth talking about and thinking about. But I would just always encourage people to think of it like that: there’s still a lot of questions to be asked after the question of genre.

Totally makes sense. Kind of along the same lines, your last tour was the American Acoustic tour where you kind of represented a lot of American folk music. I’m wondering, what do you think the future of American folk music is?

I guess I think that all music is folk music— any music made by humans. That tour was a celebration of this medium of acoustic instruments, but it was also something to give people a vague idea of the aesthetic that they were in for. To talk about where acoustic music is headed… I do think people kind of think acoustic music is synonymous with folk music and that they’re one and the same. That’s fine with me, just a question of semantics, all of which is interesting, but again, doesn’t tell the whole story. I think that acoustic music is headed in precisely the direction we’re aiming this conversation, which is forward, forward, forward. What are we going to do now that we’ve made this textural decision? How do we justify our existence as artists, I think, is the question. The way that you justify is by doing something that is both new and useful. Doing something new is pretty easy. I could just play an old fiddle tune on stage, and, I don’t know, rip the stuffing out of a plush giraffe, and that would be new, nobody would’ve ever done that before. But is it useful? No. Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I would argue that’s not terribly useful. The fiddle tune might be useful, but again, a lot of people have already done that. Again, that’s not to decry purely doing something new— doing something useful by definition is of use— but I think we all have to concern ourselves with doing something useful and new. I think that’s what most of my peers, I hear them striving to do, that’s what I’m trying to do, and certainly what Punch Brothers is trying to do — make something new and useful.

And it sounds like you’re doing it well! Going back to American Acoustic, which ended almost exactly a year ago, you were on stage then with a lot of your most frequent collaborators, and it had kind of a “Punch Brothers and Friends” kind of feel. Your All Ashore tour seems like, though Madison Cunningham will be joining for a large part of it, the tour will be a much more intimate gathering of the band members. Would you say this tour will carry a different tone than the last tour?

Yeah, for sure. Madison, first of all, is incredible. She’ll be opening for us, there hasn’t been a “collaboration” as of yet, it’s more of a traditional concert experience. I absolutely feel like it’s a pretty intimate experience, like the boys and I are inviting you to a small gathering at our favorite bar. It’s like we’re there to escape, and then to discuss what we’re escaping from, and I think that’s kind of how a lot of small intimate social gatherings are functioning right now. You’re looking to escape the cares of the day, which are many, and many of them are shared. You have a lot of mutual cares right now with human beings, like climate change, how divided we are as a country and world, and a lot of stuff that’s really happening to us as a people right now, not in the abstract. They’re serious, life-affecting issues, and we’re all experiencing them. The record is also about how these kinds of issues are affecting our daily lives. For example, the record starts at the micro level with this small, new-ish family, and kind of ends with humanity, in “Like It’s Going Out Of Style” as something of a mantra. It takes a pretty major political detour as well, which basically all conversations are doing right now. That’s kind of where this record is, as the second round is hitting the table at a good cocktail bar, amongst close friends, and the conversations that arise at that moment.

I think that sounds really great, and I think The Anthem is going to be a really special place for that to happen. I’m excited to see what you think of it.

Yes, my first time there!

My last question is: what’s next for Punch Brothers?

The boys and I are more committed than ever to forging ahead as a creative entity. I think the experience making and now disseminating All Ashore has just underlined this project’s importance in our respective lives, and I think we’re presenting a pretty unified front, and want to continue to. We’re already starting to talk about what the next project will be, and have some ideas. I think whatever it is, it’s going to be ambitious, is the best I could give. It’ll be fun.

-Jonathan Chen

Tickets for Punch Brothers at The Anthem are available here. 

[avaliveradio]

Daddy B Inspires Good Energy with a Smooth Jazz Single 'In the Image of God (Gen 1:26)'

Artist: Daddy B

New Release: In the Image of God (Gen 1:26)

Genre: Smooth Jazz & R&B

Sounds like: : Jonathan Butler, Norman Brown, Ray Obiedo, Jeff Lorber, Dave Koz, Gerald Albright, Candy Dulfer, Kirk Whalum.

Located in: : Madison, WI, USA

This song is from the compilation project called TIMBRE. With a mixture of multiple sounds and genres, TIMBRE uses artists and their talents from all over the country. An interesting point is none of these musicians were ever in the same room together during the recording and production process.

All songs are called movements of sound. It is all 100% positive/encouraging and uplifting with instrumentals and vocals representing all genres (Latin Jazz, Smooth Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Blues, Rock, Funk, Hip Hop, R&B, Blue Grass, Praise and Worship, Christian Contemporary).

This project has inspired me to create a 3 CD music creation of sound to color TIMBRE (Soft/Medium/Hard), where each track is named a color or color blend. I wrote 90% of the music; I engineered 100% of this project.

Over the last two years working on this project, this journey has taught me many things that I needed to appreciate without judgement. 

I was created to worship

My purpose is to bring music to others

I was inspired to recognize how blessed and fortunate I am to have skills.

I'm thankful every day to be able to enjoy all the colors and sounds around me.

Right now we are...

Within the last five years, I have toured 21 states playing with members from the band “Tribe Quantum''. We travel and play every Spring/Summer in various states. This summer 2021, we have some events scheduled for New Orleans, Canada, Alabama (Muscle Shoals area), and Wyoming. I have some thought about a new project called TIMBRE II in the Future.

I am looking forward to reviewing invitations to come to play at a festival outside of the U.S. If you want to know more about the TIMBRE project and the teaching behind it go to YouTube and hear the learning I created. Type in Timbre – Byron Bishop. YouTube Music: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Daddy+B+-+Timbre

Artists Bio.. 

I have been playing writing/producing, and engineering music all my life. As a musician and artist, I have always been told that I had to fit into a specific genre or lane to please others' taste, which has caused me to only focus on one sound and/or color blend. This categorizing, shaping, and molding is exactly what we try to do to people in the world, rather than accepting who we are, for what we are, in the way we are, in the perfect way we were all created to be. When this occurs, we may drop sight of our original intent - of why God created us in the first place.

There is no exact science to the mapping of color to sound. The Initial origins are still unexplained or a phenomenon – or is it? Just because we now can determine wavelengths of light and sound as to what we may see and hear, the reason the color spectrums and sound waves are scales and ranges is that we all might see the same colors, but we all might be seeing a variation or different range of the same color. This is also true for what sounds one person may hear versus the next.

LINKS: Media: Daddy B Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/rightway7 Daddy B Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/b.daddyb7/ Daddy B Twitter: https://twitter.com/Daddy_B Daddy B Website: https://www.daddyb.com/ Music Sights for Daddy B: Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/album/1SAmTLG2NZZGaJOqGt1tm3?highlight=spotify:track:2J6tUOfXOZhRXiMVFXisw6 iTunes: https://music.apple.com/us/album/timbre-hard/1531059484 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/search/daddy%20b?filter=IsLibrary%7Cfalse&sc=none YouTube Music: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Daddy+B+-+Timbre Deezer: https://www.deezer.com/search/DAddy%20B%20-%20timbre Jango Radio: https://www.jango.com/music/Daddy+B

Added to Playlists

🔥Release Radar New Music Playlist : New Music Release Radar playlist with 17k followers plus  https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2JOBcgSYgGmV2g27N1CUXx?si=PQFpAPUbQ0m4ByZEbtBtLg

🔥JAX DAILY Morning Coffee Playlist:

  https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7pEY8BiSj6sLLSHAoOo9k0?si=IrwIjmHVRN2vswRyw_P6gA

🔥Stay Home Chill Zone Music Playlist https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6QXSxW0oyY53ymNs0uGuNr?si=oPS0sQ3dT82p8Dbc26RPHA

[caltropspress]

RAPS + CRAFTS #1: maassai

1. Introduce yourself. Past projects? Current projects?

I’m Maassai from Brooklyn, NY. An existentialist, rapper/vocalist, curator, performance artist, writer. My artistic practice seeks to tell hood narratives through an avant-garde lens. 

A part of my released works is the C0N$TRUCT!0N series, which will be a continuous project about building and taking up space as a black person in this country. I’m also a part of the duo H31R with JWords, which I'd best describe as experimental hip hop dance music if someone really wanted to box it in, but it definitely bends the concept of genre. “With the Shifts” will be my debut solo full-length project as well as a cementing or further exploration of certain themes in my artistic practice.

2. Where do you write? Do you have a routine time you write? Do you discipline yourself, or just let the words come when they will? Do you typically write on a daily basis?

I'm a very spontaneous writer. It depends on when the inspiration hits me, whether that's a really dope track I was sent or a situation that just unfolded in front of me. Inspiration mostly hits at really odd times. Some of my favorite pieces started walking down the block in my neighborhood or on the toilet or waking in the middle of the night after an intense dream. I try to at least journal some thoughts everyday to keep a groove, but I don't like to pressure myself to make a piece or force the feeling when it’s not there and that practice really helps to keep me in love with the process I think. 

3. What’s your medium—pen and paper, laptop, on your phone? Or do you compose a verse in your head and keep it there until it’s time to record?

Honestly I'm about using whatever medium is available. I’m not necessarily the die hard purist who has to write stuff on paper even though there is a special flow that happens there. But because I'm so spontaneous with my writing there's many times I'm in a situation where a pen and pad isn't available. 

4. Do you write in bars, or is it more disorganized than that?

A lot of times the process is super messy. I like to follow a concept through, so sometimes that’ll mean me making a plain outline in the middle of a piece so I can have clarity in my brainstorming or come back to it when I have the mental energy to think hard enough to make it all make sense. I like to think of it as a math equation. Creating the formula and then plugging in the details until it works. Sometimes the lines in my everyday journaling resonate with me so much that I’ll use them for a song or to prompt some bars. The process is all experimental honestly.

5. How long into writing a verse or a song do you know it’s not working out the way you had in mind? Do you trash the material forever, or do you keep the discarded material to be reworked later?

I don't normally trash material completely. I believe in things being reworked, sampled and built upon. I’m a bar hoarder maybe. Unless it really sucks and I wake up and completely disagree with what I wrote for some reason, I’ll usually keep it somewhere.

6. Have you engaged with any other type of writing, whether presently or in the past? Fiction? Poetry? Playwriting? If so, how has that mode influenced your songwriting?

For sure. Not necessarily known to many, I consider myself a writer of many different mediums. I grew up writing poetry. I’m working on screen and stage plays. These are passion projects that I've been developing over the span of years now. I actually went to high school for theatre so it's still a big part of me and has definitely influenced how I see myself as an overall artist. I'm really inspired by science fiction movies - and paying attention to the way writing is brought alive through film strengthens me to paint worlds with my words. Also writing stories of any kind strengthens your ability to focus on a topic and see it through, which I feel I've tried to carry into my music as much as possible.

7. How much editing do you do after initially writing a verse/song? Do you labor over verses, working on them over a long period of time, or do you start and finish a piece in a quick burst?

Both. But projects that I really go into with lots of intention I've likely worked on for a good minute. As I'm growing through life and the process simultaneously sometimes the words slightly change. Every word matters and sometimes a slight change goes such a long way to making a statement resonate. I have written songs with a quick burst of energy, mostly when i'm collaborating with others and that's always cool because I'm like, “Okay yea I got it, I can actually write something decent mad fast even though I don't do it that often on my own.” It feels really good. Again, that spontaneity of writing with different processes keeps it new, challenging and fun for me.

8. Do you write to a beat, or do you adjust and tweak lyrics to fit a beat?

I’ve done both. I think I usually prefer to have a beat beforehand because I like to think of my vocals as an instrument, a part of the overall music piece. I can really jam out and experiment with what sounds best on the track when I have the beat beforehand. But many times it works out to find new ways to execute something I wrote for a beat, and that's fun as well.

9. What dictates the direction of your lyrics? Are you led by an idea or topic you have in mind beforehand? Is it stream-of-consciousness? Is what you come up with determined by the constraint of the rhymes?

I’m led by ideas I have in my head a lot of the time and the stream of consciousness that presents itself with that idea in mind usually leads me to an unexpected conciseness. Once it's going in a particular direction I might rework it or add things to focus it more or it might just flow how it needs to in the moment. Rhyming as a practice in writing definitely limits not what you can say but how you can say it, and that's the most tedious part a lot of the time.

10. Do you like to experiment with different forms and rhyme schemes, or do you keep your bars free and flexible?

I’m definitely consciously experimenting with form as a musician. Sometimes flexibility and freeness is a part of it. I don't usually like to keep the same form for a whole song. I think a part of my style is unpredictability and versatility.

11. What’s a verse you’re particularly proud of, one where you met the vision for what you desire to do with your lyrics? 

“TU LIPS” produced by Keenyn Omari was one of those verses that just came so naturally. I was really in the flow of things and I surprised myself like, “Damn, I just wrote that?” I loved that it was catchy, gritty and revolutionary in the same breath, which is really the goal. It’s a personal fav because I wrote it so fast.

12. Can you pick a favorite bar of yours and describe the genesis of it?

“Anecdoche” off of Unsounded Points of View.

“Ever in a room and everybody talking but nobody listening? / Voices get dissonant when they over each other / trimming on the back of the last word / never get to process the sentence. / Now the convo is a figment of our egos.” 

It’s not my punchiest set of bars but I love how descriptive it is. I wrote this song in an attempt to describe the indescribable feeling of those conversations that just aren't going anywhere and the emptiness present when trying to converse with someone who doesn't listen. “Voices get dissonant when they over each other” - when people speak over each other without listening it's like when people try to sing together without listening - the harmony is off - it's like really cringey chords. “Trimming on the back of the last word / never got to process the sentence” - it's like you’re just talking to speak and only taking little pieces of what is said to make an unrelated statement because they just want to talk or want attention. “Now the convo is a figment of our egos” - this wraps it up so beautifully to me because it's like the conversation isn't actually happening because there's no understanding, but our egos make us keep talking. It points to this issue being deeper than just not listening in this one moment but instead an existential challenge of overcoming your ego.

13. Do you feel strongly one way or another about punch-ins? Will you whittle a bar down in order to account for breath control, or are you comfortable punching-in so you don’t have to sacrifice any words?

Punch-ins suck. I will cut down the bar as much as I can during the writing process to leave space. Saying the most with as little words as possible is my style as a writer. If punching-in is warranted I'll do it though. Whatever makes the song work.

14. What non-hiphop material do you turn to for inspiration? What non-music has influenced your work recently?

I grew up saturated in hip hop culture. It's really embedded in me as a being. So a lot of my time is spent studying and exploring other genres and just other facets of life. I actually listen to other genres of music more than I listen to rap - like jazz, soul, experimental r&b. I get lots of inspiration from those genres. I used to take some West African dance classes, which actually completely shifted the way I understood rhythm, which helped me improve my raps a lot. Outside of music, I like to watch trippy films and psychology docs. I've been exploring where science and spirituality meet, and that's been a big part of what I've been writing about as of lately.

15. Writers are often saddled with self-doubt. Do you struggle to like your own shit, or does it all sound dope to you?

Of course, my anxiety levels before dropping things are sky high but I also love what I create at the same time. So I am usually able to push past that feeling as long as I like what I make. Sometimes working on things for a long period of time can be confusing when it's time to drop, because I might be in a different head space or have just heard it too much to think of it as anything exciting, but I try to remember how good I felt after making it and that the resonation I felt then will always be a truth.

16. Who’s a rapper you listen to with such a distinguishable style that you need to resist the urge to imitate them? 

I don't feel the need to imitate anyone. I pride myself on not sounding like anyone else. There’s sooo many people I've been inspired by, but I actually try not to listen to too much rap music to make sure my voice is my own. I really love Azealia Banks as a writer. Her flow is so dynamic, especially crossing over into dance music - I appreciate her pen so much. Very unique and definitely in her own lane with rap.

17. Do you have an agenda as an artist? Are there overarching concerns you want to communicate to the listener?

Definitely to create a multi-disciplined platform that gives a way for me to create space for building and visualize a black future. One part of that is to create a new path for people who identify as black femmes to feel comfortable being a part of whatever this experimental niche of rap is, because it's overwhelmingly cis-male dominated. But mostly to push the culture forward and inspire people to push boundaries in this world as I push boundaries within my art.

RAPS + CRAFTS is a series of questions posed to rappers about their craft and process. It is designed to give respect and credit to their engagement with the art of songwriting. The format is inspired, in part, by Rob McLennan’s 12 or 20 interview series. 

Photo by Kristin Powell (details)