Gary Sohmers claim a long list of successful credits and collaborations during their long music career but their work together conceptualizing, writing, recording, and releasing Beasties: A Sci-Fi Rock Opera must rank among the most unique entertainment and musical experiences in recent memory. It harkens back to an early era in music history when the concept album reigned as the pop world’s flavor of the moment. Pop songwriters long ago began exploring…
The Refusers are a Seattle based five piece who’ve been around for a while writing and releasing angsty, entertaining, and guitar-driven diatribes. It is the sort of browbeating you get from many humorless clods masquerading as bands or songwriters – witness the title of their latest single “Eat the Bugs”. It is the sort of songwriting that no one else would do but these guys, tailored to the audience they’ve…
Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys’ new single “Goth Beach” the latest off-kilter confection from Sickert’s wonderfully skewed songwriting imagination. Sickert and his extended band of cohorts of Boston staples boast a long catalog of prior releases endearing them to indie music aficionados and tastemakers in the United States and beyond. The single “Goth Beach” gives listeners surf and beach music with unexpected Sickert twists. He blows away…
2022 has been a busy year so far for Alt.Pop artist Little Hurt (Colin Dieden, Ex-The Mowglis) with touring ramping up again. He continues to explore the edges of Alt. Pop & Alternative Rock with new single “Cooler If U Did”, due to be released on Friday, 9/16. The song features a tight groove and a soaring atmospheric chorus that is instantly memorable. Dieden says “Cooler If U Did’ was a song that was written after I went…
Paul Nourigat isn’t going to let the world and life he loves sink down the drain, if that’s where it’s headed, without saying something about it. His EP collection of demos Complex Truths presents listeners with three tracks that tackle modern life with unsparing contempt for anything that strikes Nourigat as limiting individual potential. Potential is a wide thing. It’s potential for happiness, material success, and decision-making mundane and large, and Nourigat…
Les Fradkin’s return under the moniker California feat. Les Fradkin isn’t any attempt to cash in on a moribund but potentially lucrative musical brand name. The band’s original incarnation notched a few hits in the 1970s before bowing out at the dawn of the 1980s. Rejuvenating the band sounds and feels like unfinished business for Fradkin, however. The new single “Perfect World” is unquestionably pop. The harmony vocals, piano, guitar,…
The newest single by Country Singer/Songwriter, Ralph Curtis, is an emotional trigger, in the quietest way possible. While that description may sound like something of an oxymoron, there’s just such a contemplative and gentile quality to “Man You Want Me To Be.” The song begins with a hollow and unobtrusive piano riff, yet it manages to immediately subdue your sensibilities. At 5 minutes in length, “Man You Want Me To…
You could say that there are a lot of big concept pieces in mainstream rock right now and you’d be 100% right, if not understating the situation just a bit in 2022. Everyone hates the term progressive when it comes to contemporary rock aesthetics, but when it comes to embracing the qualities of storytelling and camp that made prog what it always was, most are going full-steam ahead; save for…
“Digital Breathing” has incredibly mesmerizing visuals! How do you feel all of the clips included came together to encompass the sound and feel of the track? I am very happy with how the video came together. This song is one of the more narrative based releases. I feel the video really encapsulated what I was trying to say, which I guess if I were to put it into words it…
No one will look at you askance when you say, “Who’s Crack the Sky?” I didn’t know the story behind this 70’s prog rock band bestowed with a breathtaking brush with ever-lasting fame only to end up defeated by circumstance and largely forgotten. It’s well-worth looking up and reading. The band’s members didn’t necessarily fold up their respective tents and abandon any hope of making music; many went on, in…
How does it feel to embark on your solo career since your days as the lead singer in TheGray Vines? What motivated you to begin this journey now more than ever before? I just wanted to finally do whatever I wanted to do, you know? In the past, I experienced a lot of,“I know what’s best for you”, and I remembered I do this for me. There’s no promise of…
If you’re into heavy music or, more specifically, inclined towards stoner rock in any capacity, the sludgy guitar play in Sisteria’s Dark Matter may well be the most intriguing element of the record to behold, but if you listen a little closer, you’re definitely going to see that there’s more to this LP than is initially expected. With lead vocals that bring to mind the fragility of a bohemian folk-rock…
How would you describe your musical genre and style? Where do you draw inspiration from when cultivating your sound? Firstly, thank you for having me. I don’t know really… There is a musicality within me that can go in so many directions…from prog rock to classic or psychedelic to acoustic… And I know I am a problem for music biz folks because I will often change direction before the commercial…
When did your musical journey begin? At what point did you know music was a passion that you’d like to pursue professionally? My parents aren’t musicians, but they are music lovers, so It was rare that there wasn’t music playing in my parents’ houses (they divorced when I was 5) growing up. I also had an obsession with reading and writing basically since I could spell. I started singing lessons…
Walk us through the start of your music career; at what point did you know you wished to pursue music professionally? Music was something I was invested in for a long time now. I remember my father putting me on to Hip hop and R&B greats as a child and I always saw it as an amazing career path but I didn’t have the confidence to fully get into it.…
It’s rare that an album like That Girl I Knew by Black Sweater would require a parental advisory sticker, but that is sure to be the case. Essentially a 16-track review of a break-up with blow-by-blow commentary, That Girl I Knew is a rather gentile-sounding record. However, there are moments that see outbursts of internalized rage and confusion. Black Sweater somehow combines several aspects of multiple genres into a solitary…
What is your song-writing style and process like? How do you get into the writing mode to bring your ideas to life? My song process and writing style differs from song to song. Sometimes I write, other times I freestyle and or pinch in bar for bar. Overall I breathe in life and use what ever I’m going through or see around me as the topic for my music. The…
Nick Demopoulos could have played it safe. Cyber Solstice could have been a nine track collection of straight ahead techno tracks with a bright keyboard and synthesizer-fueled bounce. Predictable, but intelligent and possessing widespread audience appeal. He chose another direction with his project Smomid, however, and now several releases into a growing discography, the latest collection Cyber Solstice plays like the fullest realization yet of the project’s promise. FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Smomid…
With ten albums and countless singles under your belt you are undoubtedly a very hard worker. “Two Hands” is a testament to this fact, and with that, do you have any advice to those who need that extra push and motivation to work hard and do their best during this challenging time? The world will give you exactly what you give it. I think of the old saying “the grass…
What was the intention behind “Shake Down” and why was it important to incorporate the beautiful farm setting for the visual? Can you talk about the process of creating the concepts for both the song and music video? The intention behind “Shake Down” was to show my love of Country Fried Chicken, Horses, and of course country life, food and good times with friends on the farm. The process of…