2023 WAS AN AMAZING YEAR FOR THE PODCAST SHOW. TAKING A SHORT BREAK UNTIL AFTER THE NEW YEAR STARTS. WE WILL BE PICKING UP THE PODCAST'S AGAIN AFTER 1/2/24!
THANKS FOR ALL OF THE SUPPORT!
Friday, December 22, 2023
Thursday, December 14, 2023
SINGER/SONGWRITER "AURORA TAKEOVER" TALKS ABOUT HIS NEW ALBUM "MISERY" (PART 2 INDEPENDENT) AND MORE!
Aurora Takeover puts out concept album Misery (Part 2 Independent) with a December 5 release date
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AURORA TAKEOVER (33:13)
By Bobby Martin
Hyperpop musician Aurora Takeover focuses on creating songs with relatability, and he has released a brand album EP titled Misery, (Part 2 Independent) that touches on the theme of a drug relapse.
Aurora Takeover, 24, was born and raised in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, and has been singing and writing his music since he was young. He went to college in New Hampshire to study audio engineering, but quickly found out that college wasn’t for him. He started teaching himself how to mix on FL Studio, and began writing his first album, “The Darkest Light.” His first release was a single called “Walls.”
He left college after a year and was jumping from job to job, but it was stagnant to him. During this time he was always somewhat depressed about his scenario, thinking there was an unfilled void. He said he was drinking a little too much, was going out multiple times a week, and this is when he discovered he has the ability to really hone in on peoples’ feelings.
While Aurora Takeover wasn’t into drugs himself, he said that he found out through experiences in college that he is extremely empathetic with people.
“Honestly, I personally kind of hate it,” Aurora Takeover said. “Being out all the time, at dive bars, I would feel people’s energy and what they’re going through. I would see drug use everywhere. I’m not a drug person or anything, but from feelings I had I would put myself in their shoes and mimic what they were feeling to understand them. I don’t mean to do it, but it’s just how it always goes.”
This led to his decision to make a concept album. Instead of just putting out singles he wanted to make a “work of art” and have everything linked together. The idea was to write Misery. He was putting singles out for it, started using different producers, and that’s when his current producer Get2Gether found him and helped him polish what he has put together.
“I feel like I am making actual masterpieces now and I want everyone to know about it,” Aurora Takeover said. “The cool thing is it is very different music.”
“I released the first half, part one, that is called Dependent,” Aurora Takeover said. “That part of the album is supposed to be about a guy going through drugs. Like that guy is really fucked up on drugs. He is wicked dependent and an AI voice says we need an outside source to help us: Ms. Enable. She leaves him because she can’t carry his baggage anymore.”
Misery (Part 2 Independent) starts with him relapsing.
“After he relapses he realizes how stupid it was in the first place,” Aurora Takeover explained. “He gets himself clean and meets a woman named Shaylee.”
Misery Part 2 is eight songs beginning with “Misery.” It goes into “Relapse,” “Shaylee,” “Pressure,” “Bleeding,” “See You Die,” “Come Back New” and “Dreaming.” “See You Die” has already been released and he sees “Dreaming” as being something big.
Aurora Takeover comes up with a melody on top of a beat that he finds, and goes from there. He then takes AI generated voices to use for talking points within the songs to help further drive the story.
“It is very interesting, intricate and stuff I haven’t heard before,” he said.
Aurora Takeover admitted he was overwhelmed when it was all said and done of what was in store for his future. The new music he has created is something he is totally impressed by and he feels it is what is going to take him to incredible heights. He said he is “going all in” with his music.
“I feel like I’m sitting on something that could really catch and it scares the living shit out of me” he said. “After listening all the way through I was terrified because I was like, this could really be it. This could really skyrocket me. That’s scary.”
Aurora Takeover has been inspired by his newest album so much that he already has more in the works for the future. He has a project in the works called Egocentric, which is also a concept album. He said teasers on the internet have led people to reach out to him and tell them how impressed they were. He said this jacked up his confidence a bit, and he thought the idea of having an inflated ego would also be a cool concept.
“That’s my next journey: writing about having an ego and how it can be destroyed,” said Aurora Takeover.
Relatability is the message he wants his listeners to get from his music. He has a knack for creating songs with extremely broad lyrics. An example is a drug addict could relate fully to his songs, but at the same time someone going through a toxic relationship could listen to the same tune and relate to it in an entirely different way.
“People that are not maybe thinking the same thing as me can relate to it in their own way,” he said. “That’s how I try to write my songs, to make it a very broad kind of story where you can put yourself in that box.”
Misery (Part 2 Independent) is set to be released on December 5 and it can be found on all major platforms.
https://www.youtube.com/@michaelflynn5201?si=QuSWG69rnX1wP2XR
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/aurora-takeover/1448637933
Wednesday, December 13, 2023
TROMBONIST DONALD MCDANIEL FROM THE BAND 'HONEY MADE" TALKS ABOUT THEIR NEW EP "CHARGE IT TO THE BAND FUND" AND MORE!
Honey Made lays down driving funk, soul and hip-hop in new EP
titled Charge It To The Band Fund
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HONEY MADE "ASHY POCKETS" (37:20)
By Bobby Martin
It has been a long road with many twists and turns, but Austin
based funk group Honey Made has released their newest EP called Charge It To
The Band Fund, which has an eclectic mix of soul, funk, a little hip hop
and plenty of horns.
The newest single, “Ashy Pockets (My Mode)” is a remix of an
original track that was very much focused on the “green culture,” McDaniel
explained. Producer John Ryan liked the chorus and hook of “Ashy Pockets” and
wanted to rework the arrangement and lyrics for radio that is now being
released on the new EP.
“The sentiment is still there but the focus is now on why this
person maybe wants to smoke,” Trombonist Donald McDaniel said. “Like, what is
he trying to get away from or self-medicate with. The theme of that song is
that ‘I’m in a dead end job. I can’t wait to get off work and get in my mode.’”
Honey Made is a nine piece funk band consisting of: Willie
Barnes, Vocals; Donald Ford Jr., vocals; Brian Cokeley, Keys; Lee Braverman,
Bass; Chris Barnes, Drums & Vocals; Mark Saldana, Percussion; Dustin
Hunter, Tenor Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone; Joseph Marrow, Trumpet &
Flugelhorn; and Donald McDaniel, Trombone.
Honey Made as a group came onto the Austin music scene in 2018,
but their story goes back to 2014 when members of the band went by Mama K and
the Shades. Mama K and the Shades was founded by saxophonist David McKnight and
singer Kelsey Garcia. While they had a great run, in 2015 tragedy struck after
a show they were playing in San Marcus just south of Austin. The venue they
were playing at had a beach theme, and after the gig, members of the band
decided to swim in the San Marcus river. McKnight went in the water and never
came back up. The band gathered afterward and decided that David would have
wanted them to keep performing following his death.
“We had a lot of original music with that band, and we did
release a record after his death,” said McDaniel. “The actual name of that
record was Honey Made.”
McDaniel said bands can be kind of like marriages, and as they
were coming upon the fall of 2017 they were in the studio. They hired Steve
Berlin of Los Lobos fame to produce the album Brand New, and McDaniel
said it is very high quality, although there were some intense moments of
criticism that McDaniel said made the product better. However, in the middle of
the session Garcia quit the band, leaving the rest of the nine-piece funk group
wondering what to do.
They had to go back, take out her vocals and re-track everything
they had done to that point. The band finished the record, but they knew they
could no longer be Mama K and the Shades.
McDaniel said that when the music was really good, McKnight used
to say, “well that’s just honey made.” In a way of honoring their founder and
continuing the funk, they decided that would be the choice.
“We said why don’t we just be Honey Made?” McDaniel recalled.
“Well, that makes perfect sense. It’s a tribute to David and kind of our
identity. We wouldn’t be a band without David.”
The name change made things tough, as they had established
themselves with their former moniker and they were struggling to get gigs and
they had debts to pay off from the making of Brand New.
Fast forward to 2019 and McDaniel came up with a plan to
re-establish their identity and release music under the new name. He was at the
South By Southwest Festival and the Austin Music Foundation was putting on
educational sessions, and one free session was to meet talent buyers. They
managed to get booked for a show at Stubbs, in the indoor venue in June 2019
which ended up being the launch of the band Honey Made.
The wild journey continued, and just as they were getting
started the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to all momentum. They wrote music and
rehearsed as much as they could and put out “stay at home sessions.”
“The music that is on the new EP was written largely while we
were isolated,” McDaniel said. “We kept creating even though we couldn’t get
out.”
The EP is set for release in November 17 and will be available
on all major platforms. It features seven very different tracks with a wide
range of emotions emitting from the tunes. It has all the elements a funk album
should have, whether it is the fun loving “Get On Up” and “Vibin”, the soulful
R&B sound of “Upstairs and “Love It”, the relatable aspect of being fed up
in songs like “Ashy Pockets (My Mode)” and “FYC” , or a song of gratitude like
“DFA”-standing for D-Bone Funk Amazing named after McDaniel, who plays
trombone, and what he’s done for the band.
“When you listen to this EP, you’ll see that we just refuse to
be defined by a single genre,” McDaniel said. “We don’t just play the heck out
of a single sound. That’s not us. In this record there’s a little more hip hop
influence, but then there are songs like ‘Upstairs’ that is like an old MoTown
sound.”
He added, “We are just a really, really good live band.”
McDaniel loves the diversity of the group, with multiple
ethnicities and age ranging from late 20s to Donald’s age of 68-years-old. He
said music is a unifier, and people of different walks of life can get on the
same page through it.
“I really love these guys and they’re an excellent group of musicians,” said McDaniel. “Everything I’ve ever done for the band is because I truly believe in these musicians. I want us all to be successful. This business is a real grind and it is hard, but I think our music is really good. The only reason we do it is for the music at the end of the day.”
Tuesday, December 12, 2023
HIP HOP RECORDING ARTIST "SPENDIT" STOPS IN AND TALKS ABOUT HIS NEW SINGLE "HOLD UP" AND MORE!
New rap artist Spendit blends a whimsical beat and street lyrics in new single “Hold Up”
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SPENDIT "CHECK" EP - SINGLE - "HOLD UP" (28:32)
By Kurt Beyers
To begin his career as a recording artist, Buffalo, New York, rapper Spendit has put out “Hold Up,” a chiming, melodious single with some hard-edged, explicit street lyrics.
“That track, I feel like, it describes my life,” he said. “I’m always trying to get to some money, and it’s an ever-changing world. I’m always trying to adapt.”
“Hold Up” is the lead single off his EP Check. Another single off the EP, “Grace,” has also been released.
He said that when he got the beat from his brother, Akaey, he only had an hour to work with it, and his first thought was, “I cannot attack this in an hour, and all I could think of was life is moving too fast. Can you hold up?”
And with that, he realized, “Hold up. Wow, that’s really me.” And it turned out to be one of the easiest songs he ever wrote.
Life movin’ too fast, can’t wait up, can’t hold up
Spend it, what’s the hold up, bands can’t fold up
Dropped out of college, she givin’ me brain, she givin’ me knowledge
Brand new coupe, no mileage, always flee, don’t need a stylist
He’s been writing for a few years but until this year he hadn’t made up his mind whether to pursue it as a career.
“I was never into music growing up. I was kind of getting into it in middle school, but I was more of an athlete. That’s what our family was known for.”
Akaey, though, was into music.
“He was the only person in the family doing it. At night he would play his beats, and I was in my room but because he was so close I could hear him. He would be up to 3 in the morning.”
Eventually, he said, “This was clicking. I could listen to songs, and it was, ‘Oh, he’s off beat. This one’s not off beat.’ I was observing even when I wasn’t trying to.”
Spendit works out his beats with Akaey and producer Losart, a childhood friend of Akaey’s. They find the beats for Spendit, and together the three of them work out the tracks.
“Whenever I’m done with a song and I need another one, they will send me a care package — that’s what we call them — and it’s like 100-some beats in there.”
Spendit wound up making three songs with the beat that became “Hold Up.”
“I kept hearing it differently every time I listened to it. It is definitely a unique beat, for sure. The other two I’ll probably break down and add them to different songs, because they’re quality as well. But this one, ‘Hold Up,’ this one got it.”
He wrote the EP a year ago, but even then he hadn’t made up his mind about music.
“I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to take it serious. My brother had been doing this for a while, and he knows the only way that you can make it in this industry is if you’re going to invest in yourself, invest in the time. And so I had to come to the realization of, ‘Is this really what I want to do?’ After months of thinking about it, I told him let’s go ahead and do it.”
This year, he has released Check and the two singles from it. Each of the six tracks is something new, a different sound, a different flow, a different feel. Spendit seeks new things.
“I’m open to like working with different styles, and not just rappers but singers because that’s how you get better, by doing things that you don’t think or don’t know if you can do. I want to be a person that’s like, ‘Hey, we’re making this song, and it’s not something that you’re used to.’ I want to be as versatile as possible.”
His plans are to put out another EP, with more videos. His YouTube channel has videos for “Hold Up” and “Grace,” but he wants more.
This winter, he will begin performing live in the Buffalo-Syracuse-Rochester region.
He is glad that he got a late start to his career because he believes it increased his creativity. “As soon as I get in the studio, man, it’s like everything just comes. I don’t plan on slowing down no time soon.”
Spend some time with Spendit and connect with him on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.
https://open.spotify.com/track/3DQVto6JUZom5iyMgEuonD?si=e74934f3290a4dda
https://open.spotify.com/album/1slJDeEyPAOom2WZzd5EII
https://music.apple.com/us/album/check-ep/1703711408
https://open.spotify.com/artist/6SySLoM2PbzmFWMpH9pmvk
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-Td5JRiA3y3jedDANWA11A
https://www.facebook.com/Spenditofficial/
https://www.instagram.com/spendit_official/
https://www.tiktok.com/@spenditofficial?_t=8hHkee4rRHC&_r=1
https://twitter.com/Spenditofficial
Thursday, December 07, 2023
SINGER SONGWRITER JETT JENKINS STOPS IN AND TALKS ABOUT HER NEW COVER OF "DAREDEVIL" PLUS MORE!
Jett Jenkins dances with “Daredevil” in an exploration of indie-pop covers
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JETT JENKINS (27:42)
With her newest release — a cover of Fiona Apple’s “Daredevil” — indie pop artist Jett Jenkins departs from the “dreamy, colorful production” of her last few releases and shows all the assertiveness and force of Fiona Apple’s original.
“Fiona Apple’s my favorite artist, and the album that ‘Daredevil’ is off of is the first one that really got me hooked into her music,” said Jett.
Jett’s “Daredevil” drops on November 17.
“That song really showed me how she can use emotion in her singing, and the bridge of that song was just so special to me — I loved it so much that I wanted to sing it myself.”
Jett’s voice has softer edges than Fiona’s, yet when she launches into that bridge she is every bit as commanding — “Seek. Me. Out. — every word an order to be obeyed.
Seek me out
Look at, look at, look at, look at me
I'm all the fishes in the sea
Wake me up
Give me, give me, give me what you got In your mind, in the middle of the night
“It’s a song that I love so much I wish I wrote it, so, the best thing I could do was sing it. It’s kind of a declaration of love to Fiona Apple, but it’s my own version, and it’s how I hear the song and how it — my interpretation of it musically — how it makes me feel.”
Her version has the same musical structure, the same emphatic beat and rhythm, but the instrumentation gives it a more whimsical vibe as it builds toward that powerful bridge where the woman singing demands the attention of her lover.
“I wanted to keep it similar because I love the song so much, but I also wanted to make it a little bit more modern, make it more my style, so, it has a bit of flair.”
The EP that “Daredevil” precedes, Break Cover, Volume 1, will be, as the name suggests, an EP of cover songs. Her live shows include cover songs, and she gets good feedback on them.
“I wanted to choose some of my favorite artists and songs and put them out. A lot of my favorite artists, like Phoebe Bridgers and Fiona Apple, have released cover songs, but I thought it would be really interesting to do a whole EP of them.”
The planned release for the EP is December 2.
In its tone and assertiveness, her “Daredevil” is much more like her first song, “City in Anger,” released in 2021, than the reflective, meditative indie-pop music she has released since.
“I think I tend to go toward meditative stuff because I consider myself more of a poet,” she said,
Jett, a Texas writing major attending college in Brooklyn, New York, says she is willing to go wherever her music will take her.
“I’ll always put out music even if it doesn’t get super big or even just big at all, because I am such a diehard fan of all music. I’d love if it could take me to a bigger place where I could meet people and share my music. My music is very personal and has helped me through a lot of hard times. I hope that my music can help other people.”
She is moving back toward the edginess of “City of Anger,” which was the first song she ever wrote and is still one of her favorites.
“To me, it was like the perfect first song because I Ioved the rock element, but it also felt a lot like meditations on grief. It was just a plethora of things that I loved about music.”
Her next album after Break Cover will be more in that direction and “more into indie-punk rock, and a little bit like new wave.”
“I’m definitely trying to write more aggressive stuff. Most of my favorite songs are very anger filled songs, and I’m kind of going towards that.”
Go with Jett Jenkins on her musical journey and stay connected on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.
Website: https://jettjenkins.com
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/jettjenkinsmusic
Amazon Music: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Jett+Jenkins&i=digital-music&search-type=ss&ref=ntt_srch_drd_B09LSS84DB
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/jett-jenkins/1595458604
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZhrq3wUCitYxyIeeV1sY6A
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jettjenkinsmusic/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jettjenkinsmusic
X: https://twitter.com/_jettjenkins
Bandsintown: https://www.bandsintown.com/a/15501609-jett-jenkins
Pandora: https://www.pandora.com/artist/jett-jenkins/ARgq4Zq3JPX93h4
Monday, December 04, 2023
INDIE RECORDING ARTIST 'FORTITUDE' TALKS ABOUT HIS NEW ALBUM 'MANHATTAN" AND SINGLE "FORTITUDE" AND MORE!
Highlight rap track from album Manhattan, showcases artist Fortitude’s style
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST BELOW!
FORTITUDE (26:24)
By Kurt Beyers
If the artist Fortitude’s musical style had a name, it might be Wisconsin rap. For one thing, he was born and raised in Wisconsin. For another, his rap has a straightforward, upper–Midwestern vibe to it. The lyrics, fast or slow, carry an unassumingly narrative, poetic quality.
They say something. “Fortitude,” the highlight single from his album Manhattan, dropping November 6, is about different kinds of courage and strength. It is told in scenes from wars America has been in.
I’m on the beach,
My buddy dies,
My other buddy,
Wails and cries,
Bullets fly
Across the sky,
Rosary beads,
Will I survive?
He doesn’t quite know how to describe his style.
“I’m not sure what to call it myself,” he said. “It can be introspective at times, and then other times it can be — oh, I don’t know — descriptive of things.”
He says he would call it hip-hop, because it is rap, but more rap than hip-hop.
“It’s funny, because when I play it in my truck the computer identified it as electronica, so there’s a bit of that in there. My producer really kind of gets into that kind of stuff. So, he’s put a little of this flair to it.”
The album’s music was inspired by Kendrick Lamar, one of his favorites, and one he cites as a heavy influence on him. Fortitude, 28, has been making music since he was 19 and rapping since he was 23.
“Some people define certain parts of Kendrick Lamar’s rap as either introspective rap or consciousness rap,” he said. His own lyrics have some of both in them, “but I wouldn’t say it’s exact.”
His influences are wide. A very partial list is Pink Floyd, Alice in Chains, grunge rock, the indie band Alt-J. Among rappers, the early Drake and A$AP Rocky join Kendrick Lamar.
The word he eventually comes up with to describe his own style is “reflective.”
“It doesn’t fit very well into any pre-determined genre.”
His music is not fun music, but it is fascinating to get into the lyrics and the music behind them. It is not music to dance to or music to have in the background. It demands attention to what it is saying.
All his releases have come this year. The first was a four-track EP called August Letter.
The beats, melodies and instrumentation behind his rap vary widely, and he wants to give credit to his producer Seyed (Amir Omrani).
“Some of the songs, he’s running the show, and other songs, I was running how the rap was going but he was running everything else. So, you’re hearing the creation of two people.”
Some of his lyrics he writes to specific beats, he said, and others “were poems, initially.”
“Most of the songs were written differently, and I wrote various flows and melodic tones.”
His tracks tell stories and are about something, as in “Fortitude” being about different kinds of courage.
“The idea of the song is about the virtue of fortitude. The different sections represent different things. In the beginning you have the tough soldier responding to combat. He’s just pushing through.”
The second part is about a more difficult kind of courage. The song has scenes from different wars, World War I and II and Vietnam.
The last section is about Vietnam veterans who came home, not to a hero’s welcome, but to what was at best indifference and at worst open hostility.
“He just doesn’t feel like a hero anymore. There’s courage in the face of battle, and then there’s courage in the face of being at odds with the people that you fought for. It’s a different kind of courage, a different kind of fortitude.”
I step off the plane on American soil,
People are spitting,
Swearing and scowling,
They think they are soldiers,
Inside a war,
A war without bullets,
A war without gore,
What was I fighting for?
Fortitude is an Army veteran himself. He never had to deploy in combat, but he wanted to honor the veterans of American wars.
He is remarkably free of ego in his creations, and he is in full control of his ambition. He creates music for the act of creating.
“I just want to continue to create for as long as I’m inspired to continue to create. I don’t really have any aspirations for fame, or for a career. If this is music that people like, and people listen to it, and I gain some money for it, then that’s something. Or if people ask me to perform, I would perform. I’ve done it before. Primarily, I want to work.”
Connect to Fortitude, coming soon on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.
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