by maggie coutu | Nov 6, 2015 | Uncategorized
There’s a new breed of pop star seizing hold of the world’s airwaves and online—more accurately, a conscious pop star who’s set to subversively top charts and sway hearts and minds. This enigma embodied is 18-yearold Alessia Cara, who’s riding the refrains of her ironic anthem, “Here.” Premiered by The Fader, “Here” garnered over 500,000 total streams in it’s first week, resounding praise for its freshness and insight.
“Here” is unapologetically autobiographical: “‘Here’ is a true story,” Alessia confesses. “It’s a party song, but really it’s the complete opposite of a party song. It’s absolutely me; it shouts out the person in the corner of the party, looking around uncomfortably. I feel like this song narrates what the wallflower is thinking.”
Co-written by Sebastian Kole, “Here” manages to be both cheeky and cautionary. It’s authored from the perspective of an unenthusiastic partygoer who’s counting the minutes till it’s time to leave. “Here” takes aim at mindless revelry and is peppered with lines that touch everyone’s hidden introvert: “I’m sorry if I seem uninterested / Or I’m not listenin’, or I’m indifferent / Truly I ain’t got no business here” and “Excuse me if I seem a little unimpressed with this / An antisocial pessimist, but usually I don’t mess with this” and “Really I would rather be at home all by myself / Not in this room with people who don’t even care about my well being.”
Powerful stuff from a teenage voice; in fact, that’s powerful stuff from anyone who’s ever put pen to pad in name of art. And Alessia’s mature pen game is matched by her larger-than-life voice; she’s dazzlingly chameleon-like, boasting the kind of versatility that will make her a force. In short, Alessia has cause to be confident. But she’s still the bashful, small-town girl even in the big city: “You don’t think you’re ever going to end up here from Brampton, Ontario, Canada. Instead, you think, ‘Who’s going to see me?’ I can’t wrap my head around everything that’s happened: the chemistry with Sebastian, the producers, the label. Def Jam got what I am trying to do: I want my music to be cool and reflective of my influences –Drake, Amy Winehouse, Ed Sheeran– but still new. Def Jam gave me the opportunity to say something meaningful and positive without being preachy. I didn’t expect everything to feel so natural and organic. And I can’t believe how quickly it’s going.”
Alessia is equal parts fresh face, old soul, newcomer, and lifer. She’s going, quickly. Now it’s up to the rest of the world to catch up and catch on.
by maggie coutu | Nov 6, 2015 | Uncategorized
“I Am Invincible,” is a power anthem reflecting resilience and strength and is the 1st single from Cassadee’s forthcoming album.
“We get a little bit more of a difficult journey,” Cassadee Pope told Rolling Stone Country earlier this year, speaking about the tougher climb up the country radio charts that women seem to have, versus men. But she went on to explain the challenge as a glass-half-full kind of thing, adding, “I really pulled from that in a positive way. I haven’t let it bring me down or make me want to quit. It’s actually added fuel to my fire.”
“I Am Invincible,” the incendiary lead single from her next solo album, echoes that sentiment. In its brand-new video, Pope starts the tune off with a dedication – “to my girls, the fighters, the warriors” – and jangles with gentle determination before exploding into a thunderous, sky-high chorus.
“Nothing’s gonna make me break or shatter,” she declares. “No one’s gonna tell me I don’t matter.”
The clip for “I Am Invincible” focuses on a young girl who is repeatedly bullied, first by a pair of boys, then by a group of sneering peers. The singer tells Seventeen magazine, “It was important for me to have young actors, because those are the most influential years. Those scenes really show you how hard life can be, but that you have to keep building.”
Though Pope never experienced physical bullying as a child, she remembered being “belittled by my peers because of how focused I was on music.” With the video, she hopes to offer support to any young women in need of a pick-me-up. “Empowering girls is extremely important to me,” she notes. “Growing up, I needed those empowering women to show me the way.”
Over the summer, Pope performed “I Am Invincible” at an event that brings its lyrics to life every year: the Special Olympics.
by clare | Nov 5, 2015 | Uncategorized
Ray is a singer and multi-instrumentalist who started playing piano and guitar and writing his own music before the age of seven. ‘Songs For You’ is a five-song EP he recorded which was produced by Grammy Award-winning artist Steve Jordan, a highly respected musician, producer and writer who has worked with Keith Richards, Beyonce, John Mayer, Bob Dylan, Alicia Keys, Kelly Clarkson and many others.
Jordan commented about Ray: “I’ve worked with a ton of great and legendary musicians in my career and Ray is one of the most gifted artists I’ve ever witnessed. The fact that he is so good, at this age, just blows my mind. Between his guitar and piano playing, songwriting and singing, he is a special talent.”
Songs For You is comprised of four original tracks, “Those Days,” “Down & Out,” “Song For Me,” and “It’s On You” as well as Ray’s sultry cover of “Light My Fire.” The lead single, “Those Days” is a bouncing, piano driven tune with influences of gospel, funk and 60’s soul and is about how Ray sees the world today. The lyrics center as a conversation about current events and the struggle between peace and strife, quite an insightful look into the thought process of this young artist.
[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbBXDvW4rWM[/embedyt]
by Audiograted Team | Oct 28, 2015 | Uncategorized
After some slight technical difficulties, Audiograted Radio had the opportunity to sit down and talk with a guitarist from the Chicago band, Twin Peaks before their show at the 9:30 Club in Washington D.C. This was one of their last shows on the nationwide tour with the band Wavves. We were fortunate enough to steal Clay away for 15 minutes before the doors opened. A big thanks to our interviewee for being superbly mannerly and putting our interviewer (aka me), at ease for her first interview. This is the write up of the conversation:
HANNAH: Hello, I’m Hannah Arrington and we are here today with Clay Frankel from Twin Peaks.
We’re currently at the 9:30 Club in DC.
CLAY: Happy to be here.
H: I’m glad you’re happy to be here.
H: So how’s the tour with Wavves going?
C: Oh, it’s going fine. It’s going pretty well.
H: Favorite show?
C: Um, Austin was pretty good. We played at the Mohawk on like the outside stage so it was
nice and breezy. Good people.
H: You guys just got added to a festival in Mexico.
C: Yeah in Monterrey.
H: The Strokes are headlining.
C: Yeah that’s pretty cool.
H: Are you gonna meet them?
C: I dunno, sometimes when people are that big they kinda hide.
H: Yeah that’s true, they hid at Landmark.
H: How do you feel about your success coming off Wild Onion?
C: [giggles] Success, um, that’s great. Yeah it feels good. The shows are getting a little bigger.
Um, I guess more people know the songs. It feels pretty good.
H: Do you like it when people sing along?
C: Yeah I like it when we play new songs and people sing along and they don’t know the words.
H: That’s good!
C: Yeah I see people do that sometimes.
H: People catch on quickly though, like if it’s a repeating chorus. I think you should give them
some credit.
C: I think most of the time they are just drunk. I think they just make up their own words.
H: The song “I Found a New Way” is the most downloaded song on iTunes. Why do you think
that it is?
C: Cause it’s the first one and people are lazy.
H: [laughs] Fair enough.
H: Do you prefer large or small venues?
C: Smaller. They tend to sound better. A lot of these big places they’ll put up a barrier as well. I
think they’ll probably have one tonight. And then the barrier’s weird cause the stage
lights only light up so much and people are far back. It feels like you’re all alone up there.
Pharmacokinetic properties of any drug sildenafil mg is. Relationship to alcohol and other prescription healthymanviagra drugs that act in a lot of people.
It’s kinda cool too cause it’s kinda liberating to see the crowd.
H: Before Sunken came out, you guys played a bunch of house shows. Would you ever do
another house show tour again?
C: Oh yeah we still do that. We still try to do that in Chicago if we have the time. We’re trying to
get a house show together on Halloween. We’re gonna rent out the space and it’ll be like
5 bucks.
H: 5 bucks? A lot of people will come.
C: Yeah you could fit like 250 people in the building.
H: Are there any underground demos from your days as “Friend?”
C: I think Cadien has some of those on his phone, like some really old ones.
H: Will you ever release them?
C: I dunno I just remember this one song that they had called Brother Moon. I wasn’t there when
they recorded it but they were getting really high and wrote this crazy song that they didn’t even play. I don’t think we could even play it now.
H: Were you there when they renamed yourselves Twin Peaks? Or was that before your time?
C: Yeah they came up with Twin Peaks before I was in it.
H: So none of you had watched the show and you didn’t know it was a bar, or did you?
C: No I didn’t know it was a bar either.
H: So how did you come up with Twin Peaks?
C: Okay so, when I heard the name, they were playing a show while I was in another band in
high school. And we played a show together, and this was like when we were first
starting to hang out. I mean I knew Connor ‘cause he was in my high school class. When
I first heard Twin Peaks I just thought it meant breasts. Thats where I thought the name
came from.
H: [laughs] Obviously that’s the best name a high school band could think of. But you guys kinda
got saved ‘cause of David Lynch.
C: Is that being saved? I dunno. We get a lot of crap for it. Especially fans of that TV show.
H: Well that’s how I first knew about you guys. Because of the TV show.
C: See, that’s a good reaction. But I think some people hear the name and think “Oh how dare
you?”
H: So the Chicago DIY scene helped you guys out you while you were in high school, do you
keep up with young Chicago bands?
C: Yeah we try, it’s kinda hard now cause we are never in Chicago. A lot of venues that we used
to play in high school are just houses now. They come and go, you know? It changes,
it’s hard to keep up with them
H: If you were home enough would you ever mentor one?
C: We try and bring them on tour sometimes when we can. We brought that band Modern Vices
on tour. They’re from Chicago. It’s tricky you can’t always pick who you go on tour with.
H: What’s your go-to tour food?
C: Whatever’s available. Um I eat a lot of soup. Soup is good for your throat and I hate eating
vegetables. Thats a good way to just get ‘em down quick. My grandfather calls
vegetables “rabbit’s food.”
H: Hardest part about being on tour?
C: It’s a lot of moving around so it’s weird meeting people and then leaving right away. Sleeping
while 4 other guys are in the room snoring away.
H: Do you all share a room?
C: Yeah we’re up to two rooms now. It’s how we measure success. We just had one for five
guys and now we got two. Sometimes we’ll even get three if it’s really cheap.
H: So the new album, finished yet?
C: It’s almost finished, its unmixed. We just have to record a few things over again.
H: Any surprises? New sounds, directions?
C: It sounds a lot different. It’s way better.
H: Cool, I think bands should grow.
C: I think they should too. Unless you’re like the Ramones or something. Some bands do the
one thing really well. Like AC/DC. But I think bands should try to be different.
H: Is the new album named?
C: No its not named, any suggestions?
H: So when’s it coming out?
C: Sometime in the spring.
H: Spring? That’s so far away.
C: It seems like it doesn’t it?
H: That’s it that’s all I got. Thank you so much for taking the time and good luck tonight!
C: It was a privilege and a pleasure.
Written by Hannah Arrington and Taylor Zarif.
