Video Wednesday - Extra

Just because we like her so much, here is Shannon McNally doing "Freedom to Stay" from her new album Cold Water.

Walking the Talk: Rocky Dawuni, Humanitarian Reggae Rebel, Unites Ghanaian Roots with Global Soul

http://www.worldmusicwire.com

Rocky Dawuni walks the talk. Fist held high and dreadlocks flowing, the Ghanaian reggae artist is a rebel among rebels, tackling serious social issues with uplifting ballads and reggae rockers. All while working to challenge everything from infectious diseases to clean water to poverty across the rural communities of his homeland.

On Hymns for the Rebel Soul, Dawuni’s infectious, groove-driven music refuses to play by the rules. He sings about the struggles against corruption, war, and despair, drawing on his own experiences while melding bluesy Motown horn lines with Afro-beat grooves and Arabic percussion. Add highlife afro-pop guitar mingled with polyrhythms and Scandinavian melodies and Dawuni re-imagines a fearlessly global, one-love reggae with contemporary African ingenuity.

Let’s rewind a few decades to where Dawuni’s instinct to innovate emerged in the middle of an army camp under a military government. Under a dimly lit African sky, Bob Marley’s iconic “Uprising” album blares from P.A. speakers at an outdoor bar crowded with soldiers; a little boy takes note of the politically charged lyrics and a rebel is born.

As music entwined with his passion for speaking truth to questionable power, he “went pro,” he says, as a young psychology student at the University of Ghana. “My first band was an accident,” he laughs. “In my first year, I met these four guys who were students there and musicians. Everyone was saying, ‘Why are we in the University if we want to be musicians? Why don’t we form a band?’” And the seeds were planted.

In the late 1990s he took the plunge, and soon Dawuni found himself traveling the world – ultimately releasing multiple CDs and working with musicians like Bono and Stevie Wonder, as well as providing music for U.S. television shows including Weeds, ER and Dexter.

Dawuni has always attempted to compose music that reflected what he calls “global consciousness,” a sense of shared destiny that transcends nationality. Hymns distills this vision, juxtaposing sonic influences from his many recent journeys. “Jerusalem” was written and recorded in Tel Aviv. Over a lilting guitar-based groove that uses a Middle Eastern harmonic sense, an Arabic dumbek rhythm punctuates Dawuni’s lyrics; he speaks of the historic significance of Israel, as well as its impact on his own spirituality.

“Take it Slow (Love Love Love)” was conceptualized and composed during his tour with a group of Finnish pop stars. Incorporating Scandinavian sensibilities, the song features thick vocal harmonies and an unexpected touch for a reggae track: a Finnish folk flute.

Despite Dawuni’s jet-setting and genre-bending ways, his songs speak powerfully to local issues in Ghana. Dawuni aims to change minds about everything from educating young women to accepting people living with HIV, using both pop and traditional music to critique and to inspire.

“First, I am Ghanaian,” Dawuni explains. “I harness local elements into a whole organic form, while the arrangements overall use a contemporary global palette.” While “Walls Tumblin’ Down” is a nod to the old palm-wine acoustic guitar style, the root of highlife music in Ghana, his voice floats over a lush layer of strings and bluesy background vocals.

While singing about the struggles of the everyman, Dawuni “walks the talk.” Many reggae musicians spread the good vibes of peace and love through their music, yet few put their money and time towards real efforts on the ground. Dawuni’s intention has always been to use his music as a primary tool for social change. “I have always used my concerts as a platform to engage social issues,” he says, “and not only as a spokesperson. I personally organize local musicians to work with communities and help them find sustainable solutions to problems on the ground.”

In addition to working with celebrities like Elle MacPherson on behalf of African causes, Dawuni has joined with UNICEF, the Carter Center, and Product (RED) to make a lasting push to stem poverty and quell the spread of HIV/AIDS. “I met some people living with HIV in Ghana,” he recalls, “and they told me that my involvement has gone a long way in helping to reduce stigmatization, encouraging more compassionate responses to the disease. They said they could feel a sea change. This just confirmed my commitment.”

And Hymns for the Rebel Soul will keep all who listen, thinking and grooving.

Video Wednesday

This week we feature an interview and music with Tift Merritt. She has a new album just out in the last month.

Simply Six: Trishna Amin

Trishna Amin is a singer/songwriter from New Jersey.

1. For many artists, they cite a defining moment for themselves when they knew they wanted to be a singer.  For many it was the appearance of Elvis on the Ed Sullivan show, to another generation it was the Beatles’ appearance on Sullivan half a decade later.  Is there such a defining moment for you?

For me it was when I saw Michael Jackson's HBO special from his Dangerous tour in Bucharest. My parents recorded it when it came on t.v. and I watched it on VHS over and over again I remember watching, stunned at the power he had to touch so many people just by his voice. I wanted to strive be able to do that someday with my music.

2. When you’re not creating music what are you listening to?  Who are some of your favorites?

 I listen to everything basically, depending on the mood. I listen to a lot of Hip Hop when I feel like dancing, or classic when I'm chilling in my room. My favorite artists are Michael Jackson, Selena, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Alicia Keys, Beyonce, The Beatles.

3. What would you say is your greatest moment so far as an artist, either on record or live? 

The greatest moment so far was holding all of the mastered and fully finished tracks for my first album in my hands, because it showed me that this is real. My career can happen, and it that moment was the start of showing my original talent and work to a wider scale of people. It made my work seem more legit lol. It was finally here!

4.  Do you believe music can change the world or is just something to listen to?   How much can music influence current events?

I think music has the power to accomplish both dynamics. It has the power to bring important issues, messages and emotions to a wide group of people and bring them together. Music can also purely entertain and bring joy and relaxation to people if they choose to use music in that way. The purpose of music is ever changing and molding to fulfill the individual and that is really special. It has already done so much to influence current events, as artists have come together to raise money and awareness on issues such as breast cancer, and people like Bonousing his music to push for the fight against AIDS. 

5. How has technology affected the music industry?  How has technology affected your career as a musician? 

Technology has allowed for people to get a chance to listen to a more diverse group of genres in one location. The internet is an extremely useful place for people to be exposed to music from all over the world. Technology has definitely helped me put my foot further into the door of the business by showcasing my music on various online podcasts, allowing for people to buy my single online, and know more about me through my website and online profiles. Technology has played an immense role in the music industry. Mixing, editing, marketing. All of these things go hand in hand with technology and programming. 

6.  Now for my Barbara Walters question:  If you were a pair of shoes what type of shoes would you be?

5 inch, bright,  possibly multicolored leather heels. Either that or high top colorful sneakers. It's hard to choose because I'm kind of a shoe freak. I hope I answered this correctly lol.

Song of the Day

We feature Mavis Staples today with "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" from her album  Live: Hope at the Hideout.

Music on the Couch Tonight

Music on the Couch is another great site for music that doesn't get enough attention.  They also have a podcast every Monday night, with interviews with some great artists.  A lot of these artists are ones we've featured here at Voices to hear and the ones we haven't we'll probably get around to talking about.  Somehow they even had me as a guest once, I guess sometimes the pickings get slim.  What we're going to do here, every Monday is post you will be their guest(s) for that night's show.  Everyone should go check it out, you'll have a good time and hear some great music.  On the sidebar is a widget for the podcast and you can click on it to go back and listen to any show you've missed.  Give it a try.


David Homyk is a one man band...literally. On his new album TRUE STORY, David wrote and arranged all the songs. He plays all of the instruments and also produced and mixed the album. A producer by trade, David has worked with Beyonce and others. He is also been seen on "The Tyra Banks Show", "One Life To Live", and "All My Children". This whirlwind is also a clothing model and has appeared in commercials, most recently as the official mixologist for the popular beverage, Bud Light Lime. We will talk to David about his life, his career and how much sleep he gets each day! Then the band Million Dollar Mouth will sit on The Couch. This band mixes stoner rock, Brit-pop, punk, and indie, with a pinch of electro thrown in for good measure, to create memorable music. Lollipop magazine said that MDM “stylistically kicking the crap out of The Strokes, while smoking Stone Temple Pilots’ cigarettes and listening to Marvelous 3.” With the release of their second album PanicKING, the band is on the cusp of hitting it big. We will discuss the bands formation, how they all deal with each other day-to-day and what is in their plans for the next year.

 

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Take a seat on THE COUCH and relax
 http://www.bigleathercouch.com

BlogTalk Radio Show, MUSIC ON THE COUCH
 http://www.blogtalkradio.com/musiconthecouch

Come sit at my table 
http://www.mangiayall.com

Concert Review: Weezer

I’ve never been this close to a stage at a concert in my whole life, ever.  We had general admission tickets and, when the gates opened, just sort of sauntered up to the front row:

It was sweltering.

Though I have a few Weezer albums on my iPod, the Blue Album is the only one I’ve listened to substantially in the past decade and a half…I mean, it’s the one everyone has listened to substantially, right?

I don’t even think I officially owned the Blue Album—on cassette, no less—until college, now that I think about it.  The songs had been around long before that, though, and the lyrical self-loathing, the quirk, the rock, the all of it always resonated with me.  I don’t miss high school.  I do, though, miss being the exact age at the exact time songs like “Undone” were released that I could appreciate them the most.

And I wasn’t even one of the alterna-kids.  Yet, I’d made it through the 1990s and my life without seeing them in concert.

This show?  Took me back there.  Way back, to the school bus, to my car, to my dorm room, to friends I’ve not talked to in over a decade.  A concert really has never done that to this degree for me before.

Thus, by the time Rivers Cuomo ran out on stage wailing “Hash Pipe,” I was in full-on teenage-Holly mode—complete with the hair-slinging I used to do in my car on the way to school—thanks to my rapidly-growing-longer-but-probably-never-that-long-again hair.

And look at how close we were to the band!

And Rivers ran by and gave me five, and then later!  He splashed water on me!  I mean, he splashed water on all the people up front because he had several bottles of water up there he was slinging around.  But, at one point, he came around to our side of the stage and individually pelted the two cute girls to my right because, well, they were cute and obviously hot and sticky like the rest of us.  I looked up hopefully and he took pity on not-quite-as-cute-but-at-least-wearing-cute-glasses me, and that’s when an alternative legend looked into my eyes and threw water on me.

That’s also when I remembered that I had, indeed, once had a pretty good crush on Rivers Cuomo years ago, and also when I decided that I still did.  I mean…he’s manic and adorable:

I can’t give you a very good music-critic analysis of Weezer’s music through the years.  I just know they’ve been a steady backdrop for a long time, and Friday night brought it all together for me.  They did several songs from the Blue Album, a song or two from Maladroit andPinkerton and the Green Album, and some of their more recent hits, such as “Pork and Beans” and “I Want You To,” which featured some guy from Louisville who’d won a radio contest and got to sing (really well, I must say) onstage with the band.  They also did a Lady Gaga/MGMT cover mashup.

Energy out the wazoo, stellar musicianship, and years of memories.  One of the best and most fun shows I’ve seen in a long time, possibly ever.

HW

Introducing Our New Writer

Ok, I talked about this once before but the day is finally here and I couldn't be more excited.  Since the inception  of this site all the writing (save for maybe a press release here and there and the world news feed) has been done by me.  For good or bad, it's been me trying to get up as much stuff as I can.  Sometimes I've done good and sometimes (like the last couple weeks) I've done terrible. 

Now all that changes.  I've lined up two more writers to come aboard and help me out with some of the writing on the site.  They're going to start off probably doing more concert reviews than anything, but hopefully when they feel comfortable they'll start doing some album reviews and whatever else they want to. 

Today the first starts.  Holly Wynne is from Nashville and blogs about a lot of stuff here.  I'm not even sure how I first found her blog.  It's one of those things where I think I was just stumbling along, from blog to blog, trying to find something interesting to read.  And than I came across hers and started reading.  She has a style that reaches out and grabs you and makes you want to keep reading.  And when I started reading her posts about music I was captivated.  It helped that she was a big fan of some of my favorites like Bob Dylan, the Beatles and Ryan Adams.  I think the first thing I read by her was one of her many posts about Ryan Adams.  She makes you feel her passion for the music.

So I'm very honored that she's agreed to do some writing for Voices to hear.  Some of her posts may be reprints from her blog, if she lets me I want to go and grab some of her more recent posts.  But hopefully she'll be gracing us with some original writings soon.  So any posts with a HW at the end will be by her. 

Right after this post is one I grabbed from her blog and is a review of a recent Weezershow she saw.  Enjoy.

Song of the Day

This is Noah Earle with "Jubilee" from This is the Jubilee.

Song of the Day

Today we feature The Figs from their first album with "Rollin' Down South."

Demon Lovers and Household Goddesses: The Apocalyptic Intimacy of Charming Hostess’s Bowls Project

Press Release:


Writhing sea monsters and demon divorces. Magical amulets and secret sexual desires. Black metal and Blind Willie Johnson. The Bowls Project(Tzadik; CD release party July 18, 2010) evokes the cosmopolitanism of ancient Babylon with an eerily contemporary weave of war, sex, and supernatural wonder.

This embrace of sophisticated ideas and visceral sounds comes naturally toJewlia Eisenberg, composer, vocalist and mistress-mind behind the wryly subversive, musically mischievous group Charming Hostess. Their latest endeavor takes inscriptions from earthenware “demon bowls” once buried beneath Babylonian houses, and transforms them into songs that draw on everything from Iraqi pop to American roots music. 

As Eisenberg noticed from the first moment she idly opened a seemingly fusty dissertation filled with translations of these Aramaic texts from the time and place of he Talmud, these bowls speak—and loudly. They tell of demons, angels, and gods from a half dozen ancient cultures, all entwined with the secret passions and household heartbreaks of women living 1,500 years ago. 

“I was instantly mesmerized by the voices in these bowls. In the entire Talmud, you never hear women talk about themselves in the “we” form; in demon bowls you hear it all the time. I chose to set Jewish bowls, but the form is cosmopolitan and deeply porous—a Jewish bowl might define the Divine as a Bird of Rivers, call out to Dlibat, the Babylonian goddess of love, or cast a spell from a sea monster. Demon bowls contain the greatest supernatural powers right next to small domestic scenes; normal household concerns interact with fiery angels and demons,” Eisenberg recounts. “If you read one bowl text, you see this dynamic; the apocalyptic intimate. You don’t have to be a scholar or read Aramaic.”

Over four years, Eisenberg began putting these texts to music, building on her fascination with the sounds of the female body—breaths, claps, sighs, stomps, and silence. With her fellow members of Charming Hostess, she incorporated elements from the drive and clamor of black metal (the martial exorcism of “Bound and Turned Aside”) to American roots music (“Hangman”) and the devotional songs embraced by Babylonian (Iraqi) Jews (“Yedidi”). 

Yet the touchstone remains the bowls. They record a world full of supernatural activity, haunting even the most ho-hum daily grind. Disguised demons afflicted families, and might even trick the unwary into marriage, forcing their unwitting spouses to seek divorces. The Leviathan shakes the earth. Angels march with swords, blocking gossipy neighbors and insuring sexual arousal.

“Demons and angels may seem remote to many of us, but in the world of the bowls, they were experienced as frequent house-guests with supernatural powers. They had rights, too, as members of the community,” notes Eisenberg. “You could try to appease them, cajole them, or bully them with bowl incantations, but whatever you do, they are around, participating in everyday life. This is very clear in the bowls, and in the traditional music I chose for the album.”

The thought of spirits swarming through the home may sound frightening, but their presence can also bring protection, as Eisenberg suggests in her haunting and unexpected transformation of the American religious song “Dying Bed (Khevra Kadisha).” With a nod to both Blind Willie Johnson and the Jewish rituals of keeping watch over the dead, Eisenberg invokes the intimate connection and peace that flows from encounters with forces beyond.

The bowl texts—written down at women’s request by professional scribes—are filled with hybrid deities and syncretic spells, spiraled incantations for health, fidelity, protection, and love.

Christians and Zoroastrians, Animists and Jews all shared gods, demons, and images as they recorded the secrets of their households—and then hid them, silently, in the earth, to protect their homes. 

These women’s voices were forgotten as other texts and teachings from the time moved from the margins to the center. “The great canon of Jewish law, the Babylonian Talmud, is from the same era as these demon bowls,” Eisenberg comments, “The Talmud became the shape of post-exilic Judaism.  But at the time of its compilation in 200-600 CE, the bowls were the mainstream and the rabbis were at the fringe!”  

This absorption of female power into male authority is stated explicitly in some of the texts themselves. “’Smamit’”, Eisenberg explains, “tells how three angels became empowered to protect babies in crib and women in labor. The story unfolds on the body of a woman with her own supernatural powers, which she loses along with her children, but these angels get the power. You rarely get to see the move away from female magic explored so deeply.”

Eisenberg began to break the silence, as war raged in Iraq and a new crop of these artifacts turned up on the world market, due to looting, shelling, and theft. The bowls provided an unexpected entry, a chance for connection not only to women living millennia ago, but also to contemporary Iraqis and the ordinary lives of people often lost behind the civilizational myth of Sumer or the tortures of Falujah. 

Eisenberg’s arrangements honor the often broken and fragmented nature of the bowls and their voices. Many of the bowls were found in pieces. And to confuse demons, the incantations would often include unpronounceable names or repeated letters. Eisenberg felt the unpronounceability had to stay: “Some of the text will just have a letter over and over again, a kind of a hissing sound to block a demon. Or it will have the letter ‘H’, a name for the Divine. I wanted to take the text and play with the parts that can’t be pronounced and the fragments,” as she does in “Malakha.”

The heart of the Bowls Project is connection, with a past, with people distant and different, and with a deep aspect of our shared experience. “These bowls are so personal that you can’t not relate to them,” Eisenberg muses. “They are similar to our own experience even though they are phrased in their own apocalyptic intimate way. And if you can relate to woman living 1,500 years ago in what’s today Iraq, you can relate to someone living there now. That’s really central.”

***
The Bowls Project CD release party will be held July 18 at Yerba BuenaCultural Center for the Arts in San Francisco, as part of programming for The Bowls Project: Secrets of the Apocalyptic Intimate, July 6-August 22. 

This interactive sound sculpture/immersive performance installation is an international collaboration created by Jewlia Eisenberg and Charming Hostess with celebrated architect Michael Ramage and videographer Shezad Dawood. Performances will take place within a stunning masterwork of ancient-meets-modern design: a soaring double vaulted dome. The dome is a place to share a secret and listen to the anonymous secrets of others, listen to live music on Thursdays, participate in rituals on Fridays, encounter embodied text on Sundays, and dig on the apocalyptic intimate whenever YBCA is open.

Cape Verdean Swing and Red-Hot Sodade: Carmen Souza Savors Trans-Atlantic Ties on Protegid

http://www.worldmusicwire.com

   
Carmen Souza’s voice purrs like kernels of corn swirling on a traditional wooden platter one moment and bursts with a perfect blue note the next. It rings like a red-hot solo and sighs like a ship-deck lament. It finds the sweet spot between Birdland and the white sands of Cape Verde, the archipelago far off the coast of West Africa.

Protegid, the London-based musician and songwriter’s latest album, lives in this magical Trans-Atlantic space, thoughtfully exploring the unexpected connections between jazz and Cape Verdean culture. Virtuosic yet warm, stunning and welcoming, Souza, with support from long-time musical collaborator Theo Pas’cal, captures all the possibilities of her Cape Verdean roots, everything from Polish dances to Arabic ornaments, with earthy wisdom and cerebral swing.

Souza has long embraced these roots, the music she grew up hearing her sailor father play on the guitar, the rhythms of language and daily life in a Cape Verdean family. But it wasn’t until she was already studying translation at a university in Lisbon that she discovered the sounds that would forge her voice: the music of jazz greats, from singers like Ella Fitzgerald, who use their voices as instruments, to soloists like Bill Evans, Miles Davis, and, most symbolically, Horace Silver.

Silver points to the intriguing, yet rarely explored connection between American jazz and Cape Verdean music, something Souza felt almost immediately. Silver, whose classic “Song for My Father” gets a new twist thanks to Souza’s Creole lyrics and gorgeous voice, had Cape Verdean ancestry, yet the ties run far deeper.

“Cape Verde was colonized by Portugal, but a lot of other European, African, and Arabic influences came afterward. It’s a mestizo culture,” Souza reflects. “I came to discover that the songs that people sang in the fields on Cape Verde have the same pentatonic scale identified with the blues,” in part due to a shared history of slavery.

This trans-Atlantic link makes Souza’s sway from one idiom to the other effortless. “Magia ca tem” starts out as a morna, the traditional bittersweet song form made famous by Cesaria Evora, yet soon morphs into a full-on jazz swing. “Someone who doesn’t know much about my Cape Verdean roots will most likely identify this morna as a jazz standard,” Souza smiles. “I love that. I love to put things together.”

There’s another element binding blues to Cape Verde’s shores called sodade, a deep and sorrowful longing for home, for the kind of sanctuary Souza’s lyrics often invoke on Protegid. It echoes in the song of the same name, originally recorded by Evora but reimagined by Souza with help from Cuban pianist Victor Zamora.

“’Sodade’ has a great history behind it,” say Souza. “A man was abducted from Cape Verde, taken from his family to work in San Tome, in the fields. While he was on the ship, he wrote these words longing for Cape Verde and his loved ones. It’s a simple story, just a man suffering in this boat. But this song”—like the many, many migrants forced to leave Cape Verde for economic reasons—“went all over the world.”

Souza got her own taste of sodade as a young girl, as her father often left home for months at a time. “My father was traveling everywhere. He worked on cargo ships, common work for Cape Verdean men,” Souza recalls. “I felt this Cape Verdean feeling of sodade quite near me, from early on.”

At the same time, Souza gained great strength from her upbringing and her roots, the protection, both familial and spiritual, reflected in the title track, “Protegid, which means “Protected” in English” And this strength continues to flow, whether she’s uncovering unexpected gems of Cape Verdean wisdom on the internet or exploring unexpected sides of the islands’ wildly multifaceted culture.

“Dos Eternidade” was sparked by an online video Souza came across that featured a Cape Verdean elder speaking his mind. “A video I saw on YouTube had a very wise old man talking about modern society,” Souza remembers. “He was talking about humanity being very focused on material rather than spiritual things, and that there are two eternities: being good and being bad.” These thoughts stayed with Souza as she and Pas’cal were playing with a bass line one day. Intuitively, the close collaborators felt a melody and the lyrics, drawing on the old man’s words, followed naturally.

Souza was inspired by other aspects of Cape Verde’s diverse cultures, where one rhythm that’s well loved but often neglected is the mazurka, which forms the foundation for “M’sta Li Ma Bo.”

Along with Poles and their dances, Cape Verde has long incorporated Arabic influences, on top of its African and European flavors. Souza draws on the sounds of the oud (Arabic lute) and keening vocal ornamentation for the heart-wrenching “Mara Marga,” the frightening tale of a neglected toddler and a powerful indictment of child abuse.

“It’s about how it sounds, but it was also the emotion of the musicians involved and what Adel Salameh, the oud player, and singer Naziha Azzouz could give to the song,” Souza explains. “It’s not very logical, but it’s a very profound thing.”

That profound intuition guided Souza and Pas’cal as they traveled with a portable studio, recording tracks with friends in hotel rooms and borrowed spaces around North America and Europe. Yet everywhere, the duo strove for the intimacy and immediacy of an artful jazz solo. Or of a perfect batch of cachupa.

“Cachupa is a traditional dish that uses dried corn,” Souza explains, “and to choose the corn, women on Cape Verde go through what’s called tente midj. They put the corn on a wooden plate and stir it to a certain rhythm as they sort the kernels. I used to watch my mother do this, and that rhythm begins my song ‘Tente Midj.’ It’s about stirring up your life, not getting too comfortable, staying engaged.”

“Carmen Souza sings in her native creole dialect with an intimacy, sensuality, and vivacity, characterised by a tremendous lightness of touch. Her music has a deceptive simplicity, a rare clarity, derived from a unique mix of influences from her Cape Verdean background to jazz and modern soul creating this beautifully vibrant, largely acoustic, accessible hybrid. World soul music for the 21st century.”— David Sylvian, UK singer-songwriter

Song of the Day

Today we feature a local favorite and next generation of the Royal New Orleans' family of music, the Nevilles.  This is Charmaine Neville live from the New Orleans Jazz Fest with "You Put A Spell On Me."

Song of the Day

Today's song is from Josh Ritter's newest So Runs The World Away.  The song is "Folk Bloodbath."

Song of the Day

Today we feature what may be the oldest song of the day we've showcased yet.  Blues singer Big Bill Broonzy singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot."

Simply Six: Purple Tree

Purple Tree is a group from New York and Chicago.  The questions are answered by band leader David Perry.

1. For many artists, they cite a defining moment for themselves when they knew they wanted to be a singer.  For many it was the appearance of Elvis on the Ed Sullivan show, to another generation it was the Beatles’ appearance on Sullivan half a decade later.  Is there such a defining moment for you?

It was seeing my Dad perform in his band when I was real young. He was a lead singer and musician.

2. When you’re not creating music what are you listening to?  Who are some of your favorites?

I listen to Julian Lennon allot. Once in a while some early Floyd. Something like Meddle or Obscured by Clouds. I also find myself listening to Jet, the Beatles, Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga, and various 80's one hit wonders. It depends on my mood. I could probably listen to Dylan for days. His words dig deep.

3. What would you say is your greatest moment so far as an artist, either on record or live?

Playing my first gig in NYC to find the place packed with folks there to hear music I wrote. That's a good feeling of achievment. NYC will always be my favorite city for music.

4.  Do you believe music can change the world or is just something to listen to?   How much can music influence current events?

Music is the easiest way to connect to all types of people. Music does change the world a little bit at a time. It reaches into areas of our heart, soul, and mind that nothing else can penetrate. It helps us to understand different cultures and personalities without prejudice. Every generation of music reflects current events to a degree. As far as changing them we've proven it is possible. Bob Dylan proved it with his song 'Hurricane'. John and Yoko also proved it with the song 'John Sinclair'. All it takes is the right artist speaking for the people at the right time through song.

5. How has technology affected the music industry?  How has technology affected your career as a musician?

Technology has affected the music industry by forcing record labels to slowly become obsolete. The advent of the MP3 has changed how we obtain music and how it is controlled. It has also changed the music industry by making anyone with a computer a potential musical artist talented or not. This has over saturated the market with choices, many not so good. This also buries the good with the bad making it hard for a talented, dedicated band to get noticed. 

Technology and the Internet has affected my career by allowing me to acquire new listeners without having to constantly gig or go on tour. Having a website has changed allot too.

6.  Now for my Barbara Walters question:  If you were a pair of shoes what type of shoes would you be?

Probably a pair of Sandals with Chuck Taylor's coming in as a close second.