Artist Of The Month!
MIKKY EKKO
I stumbled upon Mikky Ekko on the World Wide Web, MySpace server, which is knocking down our separated boarder’s and allowing people to connect from all walks of life, especially in the music community. The Internet is providing an outlet for artists, like Mikky Ekko, whose music otherwise, would be inaccessible without it.
Out of Nashville, TN, but growing up in Mississippi, Mikky Ekko has provided an alternative ambient sound, bringing variety into the strongly influenced country genre state.
Mikky is a realist who admires life’s simple alternatives. Controlling every aspect of his craft, he speaks from life’s experiences and its everyday interactions. Beginning each song simply, he builds onto them as each beat progresses, resembling life’s many convoluted layers, only to then tame its sound as his calmed voice clears away any uncertainty, like in “Its Only You” featured on his first EP Strange Fruit.
Strange Fruit is currently available online and on iTunes, and will soon be able to be purchased as a hard copy this May 2nd, 2009. Mikky continues to work on his next release and will soon head out on a European tour. Check out his site for updated tour news!
Learn more about Mikky Ekko >HERE<
http://www.myspace.com/mikkyekko
Send him a friendly hello, and expect a personal message back as if you’re old friends catching up.
EXCLUSIVE!
Journal Entry from-
Beginning each writing session like a Scholar;
BRAINSTORMING!
"I am writing from more
of a stream of consciousness perspective...
this is one of the earlier roughs of a song I am working on called "We Are Animals."
Once I get it to here, I begin to add piano, percussion, guitar, etc.
and/or take it in to my producer Tim Lauer. He helps me hash out
what's in my head and helps keep me on the sane side.
NOTES...(sitting downstairs eating mashed potatoes covered in hot sauce)
watching C-SPAN...The Melody hits. I mull it over a few times to make sure my brain is committing...Melody sticks.
Quickquikqui... up the stairs. open computer. I find a temp click tempo.
And open 10 tracks.
Keeping the melody in the back of my heeeeeeaddd... scatterbrain... go.
Imagery: more like water. like a river. no... a stream. in the jungle. what
jungle?... doesn't matter. sing.
...singing. first pass for bgv landscaping. done. Imagine: oooo... maybe a
stream. like that. but with hunters. running through a stream.
next pass. go. double both passes. go. something more rhythmic.
go. double it. go.
give it a push. CHORUS... or at least next movement... stuck.
no. got it. let it move. Feels good come back later for
production... stick it. stack it.
roar.
stuck... come back to it. go back downstairs.
mashed potatoes are cold.
i hate cold mashed potatoes. do dishes. play piano...
shah."
-MIKKY
Photos provided by;
Jessica Valle (http://www.jessica-valle.com)
Mikky Ekko (http://www.myspace.com/mikkyekko)
Click ->Paper Route
Artist of the Month: March 2009 >InterviewHERE<
NEW Interview up with Nashville' s very own PAPER ROUTE!
FRESH TAKE:
For fans who like Coldplay, Band of Horses, Passion Pit, Death Cab for Cutie, and M83! (woah, crazy line up!)
Check it!
Paper Route Interview
<3 wani
Check out their MySpace;
http://www.myspace.com/paperroute
Photo provided by;
Tec Petaja
Emanuel and The Fear <-click here, it will set you free!
Artist of the Month: Feb 2009 > Interview HERE <
Emanuel Ayvas
On a blustery Friday evening, I meet Emanuel Ayvas on the corner of Houston and Lafayette. All bundled up we made our way to find a quiet restaurant in Manhattan’s Soho. As we walked on Prince Street, cursing the winds existence, Emanuel described the neighborhood as full of posh shops where all the models roam. Since he grew up in Wood-Ridge, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River, New York City is familiar territory to him.
Over dinner we shared our family stories and history with one another. What many may not know is that Emanuel, besides being a dedicated musician, was actually a jock during his academic career. A member of the track team in high school and college, Emanuel specialized in pole vaulting. Originally attending Rutgers University in New Jersey, he transferred and received his degree from the University of North Carolina, a university that had a more student athlete friendly music program. There, Emanuel could live the demanding student lifestyle of both music major and track star.
Photograph provided by Emanuel Ayvas
After finishing dinner, we begin the formal interview. Emanuel Ayvas, after graduating from the University of North Carolina in 2005, started his music career with the band, Motion Commotion. After being together for only a year, they scored a record deal with Piermont Records and began a mini tour across the United States. Unfortunately, after the tour, Motion Commotion was not where Emanuel’s heart wanted to be, so the members parted ways. After Motion Commotion broke up, Emanuel moved to California to gather his thoughts and learn more about the music industry. In California, Emanuel studied and worked as a copyist under Christopher Caliendo. Emanuel, inspired by Caliendo’s ability to organize a 36 plus person ensemble in two days, then returned to New York with an idea to organize and conduct a small orchestra. In less than a year’s time, after many auditions, Emanuel found himself with an ensemble of ten members, soon to be eleven, when violinist and vocalist Elizabeth Hanley joined the group. With a resume to impress, Emanuel and The Fear, is comprised of members who have played and toured with artists such as Sufjan Stevens, The National, Akron/Family, and Bryan Scary & The Shredding Tears.
Coming out of Brooklyn, New York, Emanuel and The Fear is made up of drummer Jeff Gretz, bassist Colin Dean, Dallin Applebaum with vocals and synthesizer, vocalist Elizabeth Hanley, who doubles on violin, Dan Tirer on guitar, Nic Cowles playing the flute, violinist Tom Swafford, Brian Sanders on cello, David Nelson playing trombone, Chris Colletti on trumpet, and Emanuel Ayvas as lead vocalist. Ayvas also plays guitar, piano, and any other instrument he wishes to surprise his fans with, such as saxophone this past January 9th, 2009 at the Bowery Poetry Club, for Emanuel and The Fear’s five track EP concert release.
With his signature curly locks, he conducts The Fear,
captivating the audience with his stories, performing songs about society, and its ever changing or unchanging cycle, in the song “The Rain Becomes The Clouds.” He sings about how dreams try to overcome reality in “Jimme’s Song,” and analyzes how realities ugliness can consume dreams saying, “You got to get a job if you’re looking to move on.”
Emanuel and The Fear is signed under Paper Garden Records and is recording a full-length album with Producer Jamin Gilbert at Ishlab Studios, who has worked with other musicians such as Jet, Kudu, and Dead Prez.
Emanuel confesses, “The hardest part about recording an album is starting it, but once I hit that first guitar strum, I was committed.” As a guitar, drum and piano teacher by day, lead singer, composer and musician by night, all while living in his recording studio, Emanuel Ayvas has immersed his mind, body and soul in music.
It is my one hope that Emanuel and The Fear captivate audiences the way this group has captivated me. A live electro/pop orchestra, with influences from artists such as Final Fantasy, The Beatles, Connor Oberst, The Books, Bruce Springsteen, and drawing from classical composers such as Serge Rachmaninov, Ludwig Van Beethoven, and Igor Stravinsky. Each song is a mini movie, a story set to music, with the added bonus of Ayvas’s honey suckled vocals as narrator. This is one band not to pass by.
To learn more about Emanuel And The Fear go to;
www.emanuelandthefear.com
OR
check out their MySpace page at;
www.myspace.com/emanuelandthefear
Artist of the Month: January 2009
Au Revoir Simone
Click on their name. Follow the link!
Photograph provided by
http://www.aurevoirsimone.com
Au Revoir Simone
Au Revoir Simone. An electric indie pop band from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY (Hey I live here too!) that formed in late 2003. The groups is comprised of Erika Forster (vocals/keyboard), Annie Hart (vocals/keyboard), and Heather D'Angelo (vocals/drum machine/keyborad). According to Wikipedia.org, it is said that "Foster and Hart became friends while traveling by train from Vermont to New York."
This keyboard electronic trio where once a quartet, with previous founding member, Sung Bin Park, left the group in January 2005.
I first met Au Revoir, Simone during the summer of 2006 when they opened for previous rock trio, now a duo, We Are Scientists, at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston, MA. And no these girls are NOT related but they are so similar looking it's scary!
My favorite songs by them are "Through The Backyards" and "Sad Song." "Sad Song" off the album The Bird Of Music is an emotionally draining song about an individual choosing to be sad and having the strength to recognize their sadness, because either someone is leaving, broken up, or dieing, and you wish be with them always.
"Sing me a sad song cause that's what I want to hear.
I want you to make me cry.
I want to remember the places that we left.
Lost to the myths of time.
I know that, you'll go soon, we'll find out, so take me with you, always...(insert more lyrics)
We'll never get sick anymore.
I know that, you'll go soon, we'll find out, so take me with you, always.
I know that, you'll go soon, we'll find out, so take me with you, always."
Check out at their official website;
Au Revoir Simone
and
On MySpace;
Au Revoir Simone
