Monday, October 31, 2022
Sunday, October 30, 2022
DJ Interviews: Tracey Lee
Here;s my interview with singer/songwriter Trcy Lee as she shared her musical begins
Saturday, October 29, 2022
DJ Interviews: Stephen Bryce
Here's my interview with Stephen Bryce of the band, Sonic Snafu
I started playing music in high school, writing and performing scores for student films. I got into playing the guitar in my mid-twenties but it had been a dream of mine since childhood.
Friday, October 28, 2022
Thursday, October 27, 2022
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
DJ Interviews: Donald BaconII
Here's my interview with Donald BaconII AKA C4TheGod
How'd you get started in music?
Tuesday, October 25, 2022
DJ Interviews: Black House Hill
Here's my interview with Black House Hill
How'd you get started in music?
The band started in 2015 when Alex Gadde (rhythmguitar, lead vocals) and Erik Pelz ( Bass, vocals) met in highschool and found out that they had the same interest in Music, They started to jam metalica tunes in Alex dad`s garage, then they got in touch with Nils leufvenius (lead guitar, vocals) soon they where starting to write their own Music. The band went through alot of drummer changes in the beginning but manged to write and record the first album anyways. They realesed their first Ep (2017) and later their first album ” First Fear” (2018).
but in 2018 they met William Martinsson (Drums) and Everything fell in Place. The now complete band Alex Gadde, Erik Pelz, Nils Leufvenius and William Martinsson started to make the album ”Release The Bullet” which came out 2019. In 2022 the band started to release singles for the new record which came out in July, after 3 years of writing, recording and fine tuning every detail (and a brief 2 week tour in Ukraine, 2021) the bands third album "Fame And Misfortune" was released.
Who are your inspirations or influences?
The band members have different Influences
Alex Gadde likes most 70`s Music like Motorhead, Thin Lizzy, Tank and obviously takes alot of inspiration from bands like that but also alot of inspiration comes from 80's hardrock and Metal.
Erik Pelz is a thrasher Exodus, Slayer, Metalica amongst others.
Nils Leufvenius listens to alot of various artists that ranges fromDeep Purple, Van Halen, Yngwie Malmsteen to bands like hardcore superstar, AC/DC and King Diamond.
William Martinsson is in to heavy but also melodic metal such as Behemot, Avatar, At The gates Dark Funeral and other acts of that nature.
But all of the band members unite with a passion for NWOBHW.
What advice would you offer aspiring performers?
Practice and practice, try to do as many gigs you can basically reach out to pubs and clubs, work together with other bands and dont stop believing in your work.
How do you set yourselves apart from other bands or singers?
Black House Hill's Music is Hardrock music first and foremost but we believe we have created our own sound from our influences, You can find that groovie hardrock with great riffs and licks but we have fused it with all of our individual influences, for instance we have many crowd pleasers with catchy choruses and we have songs with alot of double bassdrum work that are more riff based. We ourselves see this band as old-school meets new-school, everything that belongs to the classics with a pinch of new ideas and creativity.
Anyy new gigs or albums in the future?
We have been playing in and around Gothenburg Sweden this autum and will play there again in oktober 12th, we are looking to plan a tour in sweden in the spring/summertime
We have started to write new music but its just in the beginning stages still.
Monday, October 24, 2022
Sunday, October 23, 2022
DJ Interviews: tendai mwanaka
Heres my interview with singer, tendai mwanaka
How did you get started in music?
Professionally it was in 2014 when I shortchanged my sister
of her Mbira instrument and started learning how to play it. But I have always
been interested in music from when I was little. I remember I made the school
choir in grade 2, and I have been in several choirs including church choirs,
where I would lead the choirs too.
What are your inspirations or influences?
African music, songs we grew up singing, songs I sang at the
church, songs from my Shona culture, and western music in the form of RNB, pop,
Rock and opera classics. I am inspired by the beauty and uniqueness of music
and sound. Yes I love good lyrics but I think what really inspires me about
music is the music, it’s inside stories, conventions, music variety,
experimentation etc… I am a multidisciplinary artist, with literary, Visual and
musical strands of my career all off the base. So I am always interested in
finding links between these fields, and in music I have done that by combining
the literary aspects in the form of the poetic genre with music… because of my African
experience there is a certain formless and transcendence that my music has, and
the western music sometimes corals it through its insistence on stracture and
form. In my Lockdown journal, day 10: I wrote, “literature makes me burrow
inside the suffocating walls until I find a small ledge in the walls where I
can hide and avoid being crushed by the walls. Visual art left me for 3 weeks
now, may hands have no eyes to see, it’s of no use now because visual art would
crush the walls to debris, to reconstruct them. So I am left with musical art
to maintain space around me and push the walls without breaking them. We are
supposed to stay indoors! I need the walls to keep me focused, to commute with
this imprisonment.” Thus music, like in those images of the Italians standing
on their balconies in Rome and belting songs and sorrow, trying to deal with
mounting deaths of covid 19, music helps me deal with life threatening
situation. So music is my last stand, the thing that holds everything together.
What advice will you give aspiring performers?
Be open to the sounds, experiment, be patient, work harder
and keep trying even if it doesn’t make sense now
How do you set yourself apart from other bands or singers?
As I noted I am interested in the music more than the lyrics
and I work from my culture and mix it with western influences, thus my sounds
are always unique. I use Mbira and Marimba to compose the melodies of songs
such that the African melodies cannot be overshadowed by the western elements I
would add through the keyboards, there is asymmetrical laying between the two
influences to create a poetic sound. So my music could be interpreted as
literature music
Any new gigs or albums in the future
Yes I recently released my first album of music and poetry.
The music is Marimba inspired, with all sorts of keyboard including among
others, Cello, Violin, Horns, Flute, Harp, Bells, sticks etc. it’s a 9 track
album entitled Logbook Written by a Drifter, find the songs here: https://soundcloud.com/tendai-rinos-mwanaka
Saturday, October 22, 2022
DJ Interviews: Chuck Disse
Heres my interview with Chuck Disse
How'd you get started in music?
Who are your inspirations or influences?
What advice would you offer aspiring performers?
How do you set yourselves apart from other bands or singers?
Any new gigs or albums in the future?
Friday, October 21, 2022
DJ Interviews: Industrial
Here's my interview with band, Industrial
How'd you get started in music?
I’ve always been involved in music in one way or another. As a kid I was classically trained and since then I moved on through a range of different mischievous musical correlations.
Who are your inspirations or influences?
For this particular project, I’d probably have to say it’s a bit of a strange mix which I think only a few people have picked up on in the past. Bowie is probably the biggest influence alongside Brian Eno, and then you’ve got a bit of Nine Inch Nails and Nils Frahm as well as such impressionistic composers as Claude Debussy, and Eric Satie.
What advice would you offer aspiring performers?
First and foremost, get out there and enjoy it and second, as Public Enemy once said, “don’t believe the hype” – stay true to yourselves and believe in the music that you are creating.
How do you set yourself apart from other bands or singers?
That’s a tough one as I don’t or at least I don’t try to. I do think I approach writing though differently as I tend to focus more on the vertical colour rather than the horizontal development – that’s a bit of a long story though that one.
Any new gigs or albums in the future?
Yeah, I got a few things lined up which need some finishing touches and pulling together. I’ve also got some other side projects on the go which I try and keep completely separate to this one.
Thursday, October 20, 2022
DJ Interviews: The Empty Mirrors
Heres my interview with the band, The Empty Mirrors
How'd you get started in music?
In an odd way. I got my first guitar aged 15 but didn’t do much with it for around 30 years apart from learning a few chords, ‘House of the Rising Sun’ and, inevitably, the main riff from ‘Smoke on the Water’! Then around four years ago I came down with acute appendicitis and had an operation that went agonisingly wrong. I was dosed up on morphine to dull the pain and eventually started having strange and terrifying visions because of it.
That experience triggered something in my head: when I got home I was seized with the urge to write songs, and set about figuring out how to do it. That process included a year studying online with thesongwritingacademy.co.uk, during which I learned a huge amount from mentors such as Shelly Poole (Alisha’s Attic, Red Sky July) and Paul Statham.
I definitely wouldn’t recommend being doped up in a hospital bed as a gateway to creativity but it worked for me.
Who are your inspirations or influences?
I’m pretty much on the darker side of retro indie (80s and 90s), so stuff like the Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, the Smiths, the Pixies, PJ Harvey and Portishead. I’m also a sucker for good lyrics: artists like Suzanne Vega and Leonard Cohen really impress me for the way they can conjure up a situation in a song and make something happen within it. I try not to be too limited by genre: I’ve got time for any well-crafted track in any genre that has some musical and lyrical substance to it. Especially if it’s a bit dark and subversive.
Inspiration also comes from books: I’m a lifelong bookworm. And pictures. And life itself: walking around, looking at things, eavesdropping in cafes and pubs, hanging out – gathering impressions that way which the brain then absorbs and regurgitates in disguised forms years later…
I hardly ever watch films though. I just don’t have the patience to sit through them.
What advice would you offer aspiring performers?
None – I’m not qualified to give any, as I don’t perform myself and would probably soil myself if called upon to do so!
I just write and record. From that angle, and as a non-vocalist (for the most part) who also knows very little about production, the single best thing I’ve ever done was to reach out to potential collaborators. It doesn’t always work out, but I’ve been really lucky so far: working with Jenny Stevens, Robert Severin, Bruno Rocha and Anne Bennett has taken me into musical areas I never dreamed would be open to me and opened my eyes as to what’s possible.
How do you set yourselves apart from other bands or singers?
It’s really for others to say but the Empty Mirrors stuff does tend to have certain distinctive features: a darkish retro indie vibe, mixed guitar and synth, mixing loops with playing, scene-based lyrics and a willingness to hop between genres in a perplexing manner while still retaining a similar vibe. Particularly in the tracks I’ve done with Jen, we’ve gone all over the place from good old-fashioned indie guitar stuff to trance, dance, goth, and even a Christmas song!
Any new gigs or albums in the future?
No gigs (see above). No albums either. But definitely some new songs. Robert and I have done a very experimental track called ‘Shameless Tango’ that’s out on October 14th. That’ll be followed by a reworked cover of the Doors’ ‘People Are Strange’ with Bruno, who does a superb Jim Morrison imitation. Then there should be more material from the Jenny Stevens / Empty Mirrors collab towards the end of the year or early next year. Might be a little trip-hoppy but not sure yet.
One last thing: the name. I decided to call myself ‘the Empty Mirrors’ because pretending to be a band of retro goth vampires seemed more interesting than the reality – yet another middle-aged white bloke trying to do music…
Wednesday, October 19, 2022
DJ Interviews: Lee Howe
Here's my interview with singer Lee Howe
Tuesday, October 18, 2022
DJ Interviews: Martina Doerner
Here;s my interview with fellow blogger Martina Doerner
How'd you get started in blogging?
It started when I created a Twitter account
four years ago
,shortly after that I met a few people who
write about music.
I joined them and wrote smaller reviews of
indie artists.
One thing led to the next and the bands and
musicians that followed me grew and
so I started writing for music magazines,
doing interviews and
creating my own podcast. I also work for a
great company and
can present my reviews on various radio
stations. Not forgetting my weekly playlists, these are my big love and I spend
a lot of time creating them
.
What inspired your passion for writing about
music?
Inspiration comes every day when I hear new
songs from really great bands and musicians. I hardly ever listen to the
mainstream anymore. It's the music and above all the people who aren't so aloof
but keep their feet on the ground and are grateful for support. There are so
many dubious platforms out there trying to rip people off and I'm totally
opposed to them. The musicians should be paid to be heard and not the other way
around.
Do you have any favorite indie artists?
There are now so many bands and artists that I
follow and try to support that it's really hard to answer. However, when I
think about how it all began, it's definitely ManeatGrass, Wyatt Pauley and The
Delerium Trees, wonderful people I wouldn't want to miss.
What advice do you have for any reviewers or
bloggers?
Just do it! If you love music, especially
indie music, start supporting the artists. Every review, every share of a post
or every presentation of a new song or album helps. You don't have to spend a
lot of time on this if you don't want to or can't. In times of streaming, it's
often not that easy, but it helps if you stream the music, buy a song or album
every now and then and show interest.
Any new stuff in the future?
I'm very busy at work right now and can't
spend as much time on music as I'd like. There are still a few reviews about
new albums and the weekly radio reviews. I often think about setting up a music
magazine, but I just don't have the time for that at the moment. Which doesn't
mean that I won't tackle it at some point.