39 Ways to Kill You, And Not One of Them Kindness We went for brunch at this dive by the pier because we were drunk and it was too early to go to bed and this was the only place open and the line cooks all looked like some greasy Mexican chain gang on a work release program for time served and the owner was a punchy retired prizefighter with 39 ways to kill you and not one of them kindness and the mob was moving shit out the back at a record pace, using the eatery as a front for their many extracurricular activities and when our breakfast came I thought of hacksaws, of bodies being broken down then the waiter that asked if we needed anything else reeked of bacon breath as if I should know why there were only two strips on my plate instead of four and enjoy my eggs over easy and the fact that I was still breathing and not eating toast through a straw like they knew we would both tip well and not be back. Ink Joint Staggering half drunk through downtown Montreal we stumble by this lit up buzzing neon ink joint across from the Pussy House along rue Ste. Catherine and a girl out front with purple hair and many metal studs in her face that remind me of sheet metal who hands me a half soggy pamphlet and tells the missus she can get tattoos and tongue rings and her labia done. I tell her the missus already has tattoos and she shows the girl her tongue ring. That just leaves the goodies, she says, doesn’t hurt a bit, I have mine done. I look back in case she wants to show me. Instead, she flicks her tongue out and it is split down the middle like an overcooked hotdog at a family barbecue. Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his other half and mounds of snow. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Word Riot, In Between Hangovers, Red Fez, Horror Sleaze Trash, and Your One Phone Call.
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With a hint of Gillian Welch but stylings completely her own, Vera van Heeringen plumbs the depths of Americana music with deftly versatile, instrumental skill and a sharp eye on the shifting landscapes and stories of humanity in the 21st century. Others have written, "It’s unusual to find someone who’s as good a songwriter as an instrumentalist, who brings the guitar to life in a way that is entirely her own. She’s subsequently been compared to people like John Martyn and Richard Thompson. Vera has an open, charming onstage presence that belies her outstanding flat-picking, and the ability to tug at your dancing shoes with a well-chosen rollicking fiddle tune or reduce you to tears with a poignant lyric, making for a great gig that will linger long in the memory." AHC: What has this journey in music, so far, been like for you, the highs and the lows, and what sort of life lessons do you feel you've picked up along the way? Vera: That’s a hard thing to put into words. I find it impossible to describe in words what music means to me and what this journey has been like for me. This is exactly the reason I play music. Songs give me a way of expressing this that is a hundred times better then trying to talk about it. I never thought I’d make a living playing music. I never thought I’d learn to play the fiddle. I never thought I would write songs. I’ve enjoyed this journey so far and I am very excited to find out where the next stage of my musical journey will take me. The highs, when they come, are intense musical moments that keep me fuelled for months, and give me belief that what I’m doing is the right path for me. Lows happen when I’m not finding inspiration, and I always need that thing of playing with others, connecting and feeding off each other. A major low came for me a year and a half ago when I lost my confidence and belief completely after a burnout and then soon after as I injured myself playing the bass. I had to step back to review and analyse what was happening and rejig body and brain working together. It was hard, but I’ve found ways to help myself and I think I’ll come out of it a lot stronger. AHC: What first drew you to music and what was your early musical environment like growing up? Were there pivotal songs for you then that just floored you the moment you heard them? Vera: I grew up in the Netherlands and listened to a bunch of stuff that my parents were into. Anything from to Queen, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, Steve Earl, Hugh Moffat to Tom Russell, just to name a few. My parents were on their own musical journey while I grew up. They discovered roots/bluegrass/Americana music together. We always had music playing in the car and my parents also took my brother and me to concerts and festivals. Listening to music gave me a way to be in touch with my emotions. I don’t remember a pivotal song but I do remember going to a blues camp, probably in my first year of secondary school and people were sitting round a fire singing songs and strumming. I really wanted to learn how to play chords so I could be a part of a session like that. That was a pivotal moment, the realisation that you could be strumming chords and singing songs together in a session with people you might not know and songs you might not even have heard. AHC: Do you remember the first song that you ever wrote? Or that first moment when you picked up a pen and realized that you could create whole worlds just by putting it to paper? Vera: I remember the first song I wrote, ‘In Love with Someone Else’ which I recorded on my debut album ‘Standing Tall’. I must have been about 19 or 20 as I remember living in the UK whilst studying English as a Foreign Language. I never considered it any good and didn’t finish it until much later. I never thought I would write songs, partly because English isn’t my first language and I didn’t feel I had the vocabulary to write anything decent. It never stopped me wanting to express my emotions though so I would always scribble some things down. AHC: Which musicians have you learned the most from? Or writers, artists, filmmakers etc? Vera: I learn most from musicians I meet along the way. There are many soulful musical human beings that I have been inspired by. One example is Darrell Scott. I’ve always loved his music but meeting him brought about change. I ended up in his songwriting class at a camp by accident and at this time I’d never considered writing as a thing I might do, let alone attend a songwriting class. A whole lot of things made sense all at once and his soul inspired me. I got lifted high and fed off that injection of inspiration for a long while and it changed things in a deep way. The biggest learning experiences always come when you don’t expect them, but when your soul is open. AHC: What do you think makes for a good song, as you're writing and composing, is there a sudden moment when you know you've found the right mix, that perfect angle of light, so to speak? Vera: It’s a magical and mysterious experience. Somehow inspiration, emotions, words and melody come together into a song. It’s often clear at the time of writing when something good or true happens. Those moments often happen unexpectedly and you have to catch them when they do. I also feel that you have inspiration ‘stored’, and can tap into that when the time is right. It’s about learning to trust that things come together – you can never force the process. AHC: Do you consider music to be a type of healing art, the perfect vehicle through which to translate a feeling, a state of rupture, hope lost and regained? Does the writing and creating of the song save you in the kinds of ways that it saves us, the listener? Vera: Yes, music is absolutely a healing art and it saves me. I am very grateful I have the opportunity and support to do so. The older I get, the clearer it becomes that I need to play and create music to survive. AHC: What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town? On-tour, on-the-road? Vera: I have countless amazing memories from being on the road, but also loads of lovely music around our kitchen table. I can think of some recent fond musical memories of the last year - listening to great records in a friend’s kitchen, playing a session in the river at a festival, going for a swim in the sea before doing a gig, dancing round the kitchen with my children, learning to play the Cajun accordion. The best memories for me usually lie in the small moments. AHC: With the traditional ways that we listen to music rapidly changing, does it affect how you write and put together an album? Too often people are downloading and engaging with singular songs rather than albums as on ordered and thematic canvas, do you regret that your work may not be received in the way it was intended or created? Vera: I have so far only put albums together the original way and I will probably remain to do so. I feel that there will always be a core of people who appreciate the thought and the way you put together an album. As for people downloading single tracks, once I’ve recorded my songs I am emotionally and creatively onto the next stage and I’m happy if anyone in anyway can connect to something I’ve done. If someone is moved by one song I wrote then I feel my work has been worthwhile. AHC: When you set out to write an album of songs, how much does 'where the world is' in its current moment, culturally, politically, otherwise, influence the kinds of stories you set out to tell? Vera: I write when I’m moved by something. I never set out to write political songs and I don’t write to make a point, but our current situation in the world does seem to be seeping into my songs from a human point of view. For example, one of my most recently finished songs is from the point of view of a migrant who has to wait an unimaginable amount of years to find out whether he can stay and be allowed to work. It’s always the personal stories of peoples’ lives I find interesting. AHC: Do you have any words of advice for other musicians and singer-songwriters or anyone who is struggling to create something of value out there, who are just starting out and trying to find their voice and their way in this world? What are the kinds of things that you tell yourself when you begin to have doubts or are struggling with the creative process? Vera: Write from the heart and be true to yourself. If it’s not happening, go and do something else. Something that makes you feel good. By doing that you’re more open and things will start to happen. AHC: Do you have any new projects you'd like to mention? Vera: I’ve started working on a new album with my trio which I’m very excited about. Apart from playing music for a living, my partner and I also make a smoked habanero and garlic hot sauce. It’s tasty. Check it out here: www.jockshotsauce.com ------------------------ Visit Vera's website at http://www.veravanheeringen.com/_/Home.html Bandcamp: https://veravanheeringen.bandcamp.com/releases 2/8/2017 0 Comments Three Poems by Devon BalwitThe Triumph of Mediocrity Sometimes, half-assed is the best you can do, the pot half-cleaned, the fence propped, the buckling floor pressed flat with books. You learn to dial down want. You go to work, but your mind toggles elsewhere. You stare through your cubicle at an invisible horizon, the answers you give do not bear scrutiny. Back home, you and your one-time-love share a domicile the way strangers do an elevator, each taking a quadrant, careful not to crowd. Even your insomnia falls short, the same fears recycled until, like a much-read letter, they split at the seams, leaving you casting about for a reason to wander. You give thanks for tepidity, knowing the great draw the scythe. Better to go camouflaged like a bird dropping, able to rise once the raptors have flown. Palimpsest “Life is made of…thousands of fragments. These…are connected with the passage of time…They coexist.” (Ivan Albright) Imagine each day scored in your flesh, you like a telephone pole, notices for Lost Dog, Yard Sale, Event accreting. You are sediment through the millennia, a fossil palimpsest, chalk rising from Foraminifera. Right now, all of your eyes look at me, decades of want brimming over. I wander the dunes of your body, blown new contours each day. The stories you tell of yourself are my only pole star, all other constellations wheeling gossamer. I do not demand that you be otherwise, see in myself the same scraps blown against the fence, the vortex of plastic clotting the ocean. We pick out moments for our Watts Towers, our Castle of the Postman. Only to the shallow do these seem like the monuments of the mad. Our kin stop as at a shrine, sniffing the holy. Advice for the Ages lie down with dogs and you will wake up with fleas, I did and I have, fleet, indestructible, feasting, but the getting of them, arms wrapped about hot beast bodies, was very good. measure twice, cut once, I haven’t and I won’t, hammered boards short and long in urgent constellations, their drunken yawing the whole point. a fool and her money are soon parted, I am and we were, now I fiddle for coins, and sure as rain, will waste whatever largesse falls into my hat. the truth stands on two legs, a lie on one, and a lie to oneself lies prostrate in the dirt, I have placed boot on dusty cheek, considered pressing with all my weight. all good things come to an end, they must and they will, but for now, I hold fast over the precipice, crush bones, leave bruises, but do not let go. Bio: Devon Balwit is a writer/educator from Portland, OR. She has two chapbooks forthcoming in 2017: How the Blessed Travel from Maverick Duck Press, and Forms Most Marvelous from dancing girl press. Her work has found many homes, among them: The Ekphrastic Review, The NewVerse News, Vector Press, Work to a Calm, Sweet, and more. The Shaky Phase is fierce, it burns, burns, burns like a ring of fire and puts you against the ropes where you're vulnerable. And not said often enough, Jessie Janeshek's poems are really funny too. "I've fallen and I cannot renaissance" case in point. If you want poetry that puts you to sleep there's plenty of that out there, but if you want a book that keeps you up as if lightning somehow made its way under your skin, rattling around your insides like a train misfiring on a broken track in the dead of night, then this collection is for you. The lines in The Shaky Phase operate much like a boxer's upper cut, they are both devastating and disorienting. Setting piss on fire and biting off non-dominant hands, one imagines this poet saying "I don't fuck around, so don't test me," both on and off the page. These characters, whether composites of the author or not, rattle their cages, they treat iron bars like an inferior opponent and by the end of the book they've put their captors where they once stood. Equal parts political and comic, dangerous and fun, these poems will leave actual bruises on you; in other words, you are most definitely in the ring, and your opponent is yourself. AHC: The Shaky Phase, how did you come to that title and overall how would you describe this latest collection? Jessie: The title of the book is taken from one of the poems therein, “This Is the Shaky Phase.” I think of “the shaky phase” as that liminal space between singing and suicide, which is where I believe most of my poems’ speakers hover. It took me a while to come up with a title that I felt could be an umbrella over all the poems in the book. AHC: The cover art is amazing, did you have a hand in choosing it? Who is the artist? There's a Nina Hagen poster in the back ground, is she at all an inspiration of yours? Jessie: Thank you so much, but I had absolutely nothing to do with it. The cover is a still of actress Amy Davis from Jon Moritsugu’s 1994 film Mod Fuck Explosion. Using the still from the film was completely the idea of James Reich, the editor of Stalking Horse Press. James knows Jon and Amy, who are married, and they were kind enough to license it to us. James shared the image with me because he thought it was a good match with my work and also because he thought that Amy resembled me a bit on the cover and, as he put it, “it would be like having an actress playing you on the jacket.” I loved the photo, and I loved James’ thinking behind its use because acting and theatricality are key components in my work overall, and several poems in The Shaky Phase specifically use movies and television. I was also very drawn to the fact that London, the character played by Amy in the film, is in her bedroom. I feel like a lot of my work is sort of centered in the heads of speakers who are alone in their rooms; I grew up an only child and spent a lot of time in my bedroom, reading and writing but also trying on clothes and doing my hair and putting on blue eyeshadow for no one but myself, so this image of a girl in a spangled dress in her bedroom resonated. However, before I said yes, I read up on the film. My favorite description of it actually showed up on Wikipedia and ovguide.com: “Mod Fuck Explosion is a film by Jon Moritsugu about a young girl named London who is trying to find meaning in the world, or a leather jacket of her very own.” I started cracking up once I read that, because that’s more or less my life. As for Nina Hagen, I know who she is, but I don’t know much of her work yet. Honestly, I’m not that cool. Which brings us to the next question. AHC: Your work is described as punk, do you consider it punk poetry? Jessie: My initial response is “not at all” because I’m definitely not cool enough to write anything that could remotely be considered punk. But when I think of the various characteristics of punk—a DIY aesthetic, a dislike of rules and “the establishment,” a hard edge, general dissent—you could call it punk in those ways. (And by DIY I mean DIY in the sense that I think many poets on the fringes are DIY unless we’re the ones who are getting poems in the “big” journals and getting books with mainstream presses. Or maybe those poets feel just as DIY as I do…I don’t know, honestly.) I don’t think my work will ever be mainstream or even anything that appeals to a wide range of people. I’m okay with that now and maybe even proud of it. It took me a long time, about seven or eight years or so, to find an audience for what I do, but that didn’t really prompt me to make my writing any less weird. There’s definitely a freedom in poetry, I think, an art for art’s sake-ness. I always figured I wouldn’t be able to make a living off of it no matter what I did, so there was no use trying to please anyone or anything and I might as well just do what I wanted with my poems. So I have. It’s really the freest place in my life, the little worlds I create and control. AHC: A lot of references to pre-code Hollywood show up in your work, do you see a similarity in that flapper, pre-code era and the era of punk? In the sense of confident, rebellious women who smoked, drank, cursed, refused to marry, fought with men and sometimes even knocked them out with a punch to the face, aka Clara Bow? What is the draw to pre-code Hollywood for you? Jessie: I’d never really thought of a connection between flappers and punks, but now that you bring it up, I can see it. My interest in pre-code Hollywood started as kind of a hobby in while I was working on my Ph.D. Grad school was rough in some ways, and I had a lot of trouble sleeping, and for one reason or another I started watching Turner Classic Movies at night a lot, starting in 2007 or so. Three of the first films that stand out in my mind as really piquing my interest and informing my aesthetic are Baby Face and Night Nurse with Barbara Stanwyck and Rain with Joan Crawford. And then I started checking books out of the University of Tennessee Library, histories of the pre-code era and biographies of the stars, and reading them all and working what I was reading and seeing into my poems. So, what started out as a way to cope and escape and get my mind off my “real work” actually became the foundations of my first full-length book of poems, Invisible Mink. I’m cursed that way. I can’t keep a hobby. As for why I am drawn to the era, there are superficial reasons—I love the lush star-making glamor of MGM contrasted with the urban grit of Warner Brothers—and also, more importantly, this was a rare time in popular culture when women’s stories consistently mattered and women were portrayed as able to use their “feminine wiles” to make it in a man’s world by using men’s own weaknesses against them. I realize of course that the pre-code era was far from ideal—this time period was terribly patriarchal and terribly whitewashed and a lot of the women who were ballsy on screen (like Clara Bow) were exploited off screen—but the aspects of the era that were exciting and progressive continue to intrigue me. AHC: Evocative southern imagery figures heavily as well in your poems, did you grow up in the south and how much does that environment work its way into your books? Jessie: Well, I grew up in Weirton, WV, which is a steel town just west of Pittsburgh, PA, so I really wouldn’t consider it the south. And now I live only about 18 miles south of where I grew up, in Bethany, WV. I did live for six years in Knoxville, Tennessee while earning my Ph.D. and then doing a post-doc year, so that was pretty southern. I don’t think it’s so much the south as just the woods….thick vegetation and a predilection for the damp, which, within my imagination, feels gothic. Where I live feels very cloudy and heavy and dark a lot of the time. AHC: Your poems are also poignantly political yet incredibly funny as well, there are moments where one is laughing while reading and then a punch comes, that aha moment, how do you balance all of those elements and decide which direction a poem is going to go in? Are there one's where you say "okay, no humor here" and others where you feel compelled to add a bit of biting, smart comedy? Thank you for saying that. I think my poems are kind of funny and I’m kind of funny, but I rarely get the sense many others do, at least not in my day-to-day life. I have a pretty dry, dark sense of humor, and most people think I’m being sarcastic when I’m not and vice versa. It can be frustrating. And a lot of times at readings I’ll read a line that I think is darkly or absurdly comic and everyone is like “….” Maybe they don’t know if they should laugh, but they probably just don’t think it’s funny. As for whether or not I strive to create an emotional balance in my work, I don’t. I read people really badly. I put people off a lot without even trying, so I think it would be a disaster to try to deliberately elicit a specific emotion from an invisible reader. I just try to make the poem “work” within its own world or sort of the web of poems it’s a part of, because I’m usually working on a network of several poems at one time. AHC: What books or poets were you reading as you wrote the poems that are now The Shaky Phase? Jessie: When I was writing the first section, I was reading Donald Ray Pollock’s Knockemstiff. When I was writing the second section, mostly in Paris, I was rereading Lolita and also reading Dark Places and Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn. When I was writing the middle section in New Mexico, I was reading YA books by Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak and Wintergirls, although I rarely read YA. While writing sections four and five, I was reading Sandra Simonds’ Warsaw Bikini and Mother Was a Tragic Girl, Marisa Crawford’s The Haunted House, and the wonderful Gurlesque anthology, edited by Lara Glenum and Arielle Greenberg. I was also rereading Orange Crush by Simone Muench and I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl by Karyna McGlynn throughout all of this (I love those books!). Dickinson, Sexton, and Plath are always there as well. It’s funny that I named a lot of fiction because, besides poetry, I read mostly history, biographies, and true crime. I’m always reading individual poems daily, online and in journals, and just picking up books around my house and reading poems here and there. AHC: If your poems were made into a movie, who would be the director? Jessie: I used to have people tell me my poems were Lynchian but I haven’t heard that in forever, so I won’t say David Lynch. I’d say a cross between Ernst Lubitsch and Stanley Kubrick. Blood and champagne. AHC: Do you listen to music when you write or do you prefer to write in silence? Jessie: I used to always listen to music and now I never do. I don’t know why. AHC: Do you have any words of advice for poets out there struggling or doubting the work, the journey, the process? What are the kinds of things you tell yourself when you become blocked or have doubts about what you're creating? Jessie: I’m probably not the best person to ask this, because I am a really negative person with a lot of hang-ups about what I do. I’ve never been good at positive self-talk (see, there’s that negativity!) and pretty much always feel like I suck and that I’m never doing enough for my art. And when work and other things get in the way of having time to think and process and create, I get really cranky and miserable. I don’t usually get writer’s block…I can always figure out something to write, but sometimes while I’m writing I feel like what I’m writing sucks or that I’m not passionate about what I’m doing or that I’m just writing the same thing over and over. I think the wisest, most useful thing I say to myself is this: Don’t let your emotions about the writing cloud the work itself. Like sometimes I’ll read a draft I felt really happy writing a few days later and it’s not nearly as good as I thought. Other times I’ll read something that I felt absolutely miserable writing, and it’s quite good. Also, if the business side of it isn’t your forte, force yourself. Force yourself to submit; always have the same poems out at least two places; send them right back out when they get turned down; force yourself to read at open mics and take advantage of opportunities to get your work heard and read that might make you uncomfortable. No matter what, just keep getting your art out there. --------- *Pre-order Jessie's book from Stalking Horse Press here: stalkinghorsepress.com/product/the-shaky-phase-poems-by-jessie-janeshek/ Visit Jessie's website for poems, reviews, interviews and more info here: www.jessiejaneshek.net/ 2/7/2017 0 Comments Three Poems by Donal MahoneyAnd Go for a Birdsong Ride Spring will eventually arrive, Tom tells his youngest daughter looking out the window at the snow. Take heart, he tells her, and listen for the blue jays when they build a nest in the sycamore and chase away the other birds that fly unwelcome into the tree hoping also to start a family. He tells his snowbound daughter once she hears the blue jays' ruckus spring will be here and she can wear her jeans and pretty yellow jacket, get on her tricycle with the other girls and go for a birdsong ride. An Askew Life On a clear day in the day room he will tell anyone he has had an askew life. When he was a small boy out for a Sunday walk with his parents his father would shout not to walk on the edge of the sidewalk and in grammar school the nuns would get upset because he didn’t always write between the lines and at jobs after college despite doing things well and getting promotions he had a habit of being late and in a long otherwise satisfactory marriage his wife would get upset because he didn't put stamps on envelopes straight. On a bad day in the day room he will tell anyone none of those people is still alive. At Least Now I Can Say Goodbye Someday you’ll be in bed dying like I am now and people you love and some you don't will come by to say good-bye. They don’t know what to say because we’re all amateurs at dying, no experience required. All I know is that I’ll be leaving any day now and my visitors know some day they’ll be leaving too but unlike me they don’t know when. Not knowing when would scare me more. At least now I can say goodbye. Bio: Donal Mahoney, a product of Chicago, lives in exile now in St. Louis, Missouri. His fiction and poetry have appeared in various publications, including The Wisconsin Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, The Christian Science Monitor, The Chicago Tribune and Commonweal. Some of his online work can be found at http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-locksmith/donal-mahoney-poet.html#sthash.OSYzpgmQ.dpbs= Donal Mahoney, 1956
Photography Teya Rose
Gabrielle Louise is a nationally touring troubadour noted for her poignant lyrics and lush voice. The daughter of two vagabond musicians, Gabrielle inherited the predisposition to wanderlust and song. Gabrielle Louise's music is anchored deeply in folk and Americana, but undeniably drawn to rich harmonies and melodic adventurism. Her sound has the earthy feel of early Joni Mitchell while also veering into the spirited and versatile delivery of fellow genre-hopping artist Eva Cassidy. Unafraid to take a musical escapade in the name of inspiration, Gabrielle is at one moment folkie and ethereal, the next a smoky jazz chanteuse. Known for her authenticity and candor on stage, Gabrielle's performances are notably present and sincere, a professional presentation of her private creative world. Her story-telling and banter envelopes and enchants, gently enticing her listener to release their grip on the status quo. Perhaps because of this quality, Louise has been entrusted to share the stage with greats such as Richie Havens, Tom Paxton, Patty Larkin, Eliza Gilkyson, and Guy Clark. AHC: What has this journey in music, so far, been like for you, the highs and the lows, and what life lessons do you feel you've picked up along the way? Gabrielle: The biggest life lesson I've learned is perseverance. This industry really lacks a format in a lot of ways - it's the wild west compared to most lines of work. Nobody says "If you do these five things you'll be promoted in a year." Every path to personal fulfillment is totally unique. Some have more glamorous stories, perhaps, but mine has definitely involved a lot of elbow grease -- from the discipline it takes to practice an instrument regularly to the humility it takes to refine a presentation in front of a room full of humans ready to laugh, cheer, or boo at any given moment. The stage is a dangerous place, you know? But it's a thrilling place, too. I've loved the whole of the journey. And the rewards of being a creative parent keep me going at all junctures. High points are fun to relay but man, low points are the best! I find that they "age" - that is to say, they get more charming the older the memories become. I'm thinking of being broken down in 2009 in one of my original tour vans on a Montana highway in February. The show was over and we'd made it part way to the next stop, but all of a sudden for some reason our "Vita (the Veggie Van)" wouldn't go forward another inch. However she would drive in reverse just fine, so my band and I found ourselves cruising backwards down the midnight interstate! The next day was Sunday and we couldn't find an available mechanic. My tour manager figured out how to rig up a switch on the dashboard that a co-pilot could engage to act as the gas pedal. He'd yell out "Swwwwiiitch!" every forty-five seconds or so and I'd turn it on so it could give gas to the engine. I still don't know how he did it, but we didn't miss the show! And thankfully, because it was at a beautiful Hot Springs Resort. :) AHC: What first drew you to music and what was your early musical environment like growing up? Were there pivotal songs for you then that just floored you the moment you heard them? Gabrielle: I'm kind of cracking myself up thinking of it, my early musical environment growing up. Like anything, it's a long story or a very short one. It's, well... two words: "late night." :) Even the night that I was born my parents were playing a three-set smokey bar gig-- you know the kind where danceable music is imperative and preferably all covers, too. My dad had a drum machine to fill out the sound of their duo, to keep things moving. Mom was a month from her due date, and I can imagine that she was doing her best Stevie Nicks impression, singing the hell out of "Dreams" with a big toothy smile that features her characteristic diastema. She tells it like this: An old woman comes up from the audience in between songs and says to her, real nasally and matter-of-factly, "You're gonna have that baby tonight." Mom tells her "No Way, I got another month!" And this mystery woman just repeats "You're gonna have that baby tonight." and walks off. They finished the set, settled up at for the show, rolled up the cables, packed up the P.A., and mom went into labor! After that she had three more kids, and they just trucked us around with them to the gigs. They kept us up so that we'd sleep in the next morning. I have a lot of early memories of hotels and this great airstream they owned most of my childhood. I remember their garage rehearsals, which were constant-- Jackson 5 ringing out the windows, mom singing "ABC, it's easy as 123, or simple as Do Re Mi." It was infectious! One time they locked me out for some reason and I just laid there with my ear pressed to the door seal to listen. I also remember standing on a chair to reach the CD player and put in ABBA CDs, Eagles CDs, Dire Straits, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, James Taylor... I remember building stages out of couch cushions, using house slippers for microphones, and organizing my friends and siblings into all kinds of performance ensembles. In retrospect I wasn't doing anything surprising - just emulating my folks - but it certainly set my course in motion. Mom made sure I had voice and piano lessons, and Dad bought be my first guitar - a classical. AHC: Do you remember the first song that you ever wrote or played? Or that first moment when you picked up a pen and realized that you could create whole worlds just by putting it to paper? Gabrielle: Yes, it's so funny! Aside from ditties that I made up with my siblings, or little songs I sang to myself while doing chores, the first song that I named, harmonized and wrote lyrics for was called "Naive." And it was! I was just a little kid and the chorus went something like "I was so Naive, that I just couldn't see..." reflecting on, I don't know what -- the time that I was a toddler?!? I think I thought the word "Naive" sounded very sophisticated. Because I was the oldest child I always fancied myself an adult. I always sat at the adult table instead of the kids table during meals, and tried to sound mature and interesting when I talked. I took myself too seriously, of course. I probably still do. Anyway, I remember my folks had a little fight about this first song - my dad was helping me put chords to the melody and he kept insisting that it should have an even number of bars, 8 instead of 7 or something, on the chorus. I didn't hear it like that, so mom kept asserting there weren't rules. I think I am still rebelling against this idea! Some of my songs are very odd, with random bars of two beats and whatnot. After that it was a flood, and I started writing all the time. I found a binder of laminated (terrible) song lyrics the other day from when I was about 12. Dad would help me harmonize them and make little demos. Both of my parents always took me very seriously even though all my ideas were absolutely average. Sometimes I would worry to my dad that I didn't have an original lyric or melody and I can still hear his practical (and rather philosophical) response: "Gabrielle, there's nothing new under the sun." AHC: Which musicians have you learned the most from? Or writers, artists, filmmakers etc? Gabrielle: At this point I've had a large number of influences, and the list grows all the time, but I think I have taken the most creative courage from Joni Mitchell and have learned from/deeply admired Eva Cassidy's vocal expression and dynamic. I love the dark, twisted humor and social commentary of Randy Newman, the careful craft of Leonard Cohen, and the wit of writers like Chris Smither, Guy Clark and John Prine. Jackson Browne is at the top of my list of musicians who I'd most like to meet or open for. If all my dreams came true he'd let me sing harmonies with him. Oh, and I like that your question includes other creative art forms! My last record, If the Static Clears, included a song written for and inspired by the story of Frida Kahlo, who really fascinates. A record I put out in 2010, Mirror the Branches, was really influenced by poets like Walt Whitman and Edgar Lee Masters. AHC: What do you think makes for a good song, as you're writing and composing, is there a sudden moment when you know you've found the right mix, that perfect angle of light, so to speak? Gabrielle: This is a funny thing to say, but songs are as diverse as human personalities are. They each require a totally different treatment, you know? But if I had to generalize, I would say I love contrast in humans as much as I love it in art. My boyfriend is this Woody Guthrie style songwriter who also was a Marine. When I met him, I was so intrigued by his story. What mental gymnastics! Anyway, I think contrast is at the center of great songs because it gives you something to chew on, like a bone. I'm thinking about Randy Newman's approach - these beautiful and very happy sounding melodies with very dark lyrical content. We have to think deeper about it when we listen. We have layers to unfold. Melody is also imperative. I'm starting to feel that if I can't sing the song easily without an instrument then it's probably somewhat unworthy to be recorded in my catalogue. That all has to do with the contour of the music mirroring natural speech patterns. It has to do with prosody and how the words marry the music. I don't think I always felt like that, and there's a lot of people who would say otherwise, but that just applies to my current ideals about my own body of work. If the melody isn't sticky and/or beautiful, I'm usually unable to do a good job interpreting the number, whether it's my own song or a cover. I had a music teacher in middle school tell me that he thought "memorable melodies are built from a series of small intervals, and beautiful melodies include large intervalic leaps." I think that's probably very true. An example I always think of that everyone knows is Für Elise. Think about how your heart soars when the first large intervalic leap comes after a series of tiny movements in the melody. That's contrast, too! AHC: Do you consider music to be a type of healing art, the perfect vehicle through which to translate a feeling, a state of rupture, hope lost and regained? Does the writing and creating of the song save you in the kinds of ways that it saves us, the listener? Gabrielle: Wow. I love that you put it like that. The writing and creating of the song saves me. It absolutely does. I've had a ton of hardship in my life - like anyone, you know. Dad was an alcoholic, my parents never really had enough money. They loved each other passionately, but fought all the time. Dad died not so long ago--at 60. My youngest brother hadn't even gone to college yet. I felt like someone chopped me off at the knees. But songs are the handle I hang onto. Writing them and learning them. And writing short stories, in my journal, my blog. It doesn't seem to matter if what I'm writing is true, or good, or has perfect spelling or grammar. It's all my kind of therapy. I gave a TEDx talk about it last February. It was called "Autobiography and How to Exhale." AHC: What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town? On-tour, on-the-road? Gabrielle: I love the community aspect of music: playing with my family, jams with other musicians, song-circles with other songwriters. I've told you a lot about my folks, but my siblings all play, too. One brother is an amazing percussionist - he played marimba on my last record on the song "The Graveyard Ballet." My sister sings and is now starting to play the guitar, too, so we have great fun harmonizing. My youngest brother is a punk rocker! He just graduated with a degree in sound engineering, so he has been kind enough to run the board at some of my concerts, which is just too cool. AHC: When you set out to write a song, how much does 'where the world is' in its current moment, culturally, politically, otherwise, influence the kinds of stories you set out to tell? Gabrielle: I have quite a few songs that are influenced by current events, and social commentary has been a big part of my career. I've written songs for environmental campaigns, scored and co-directed a documentary on water conservation, spoken at colleges about sustainability and alternative fuel use, advocated for the occupy movement (Amy Goodman aired a folk-rap song of mine in tandem with the occupy coverage in 2011) and at one point, I even put together a musical that was based on the idea of a touring Chautauqua. It was really about the need for more connectivity to the natural world. I've always had strong opinions about that, and while I don't expect people to agree with me, I do expect artists to push the boundaries of thinking for our culture. We should always be prompting people to ask questions rather than accept the status quo. I subscribe to the motto attributed to Woodie Guthrie-- that songwriters should "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." One of my more recent songs, "Try the Door", was written immediately after Michelle Obama's speech in NH, where she said Trump's degrading comments about women "shook her to the core." AHC: Do you have any words of advice for other musicians and singer-songwriters out there who are just starting out and trying to find their voice and their way in this world? What are the kinds of things that you tell yourself when you begin to have doubts or are struggling with the creative process? Gabrielle: Advice is so tough for me! We're all learning as we go. I just think it's really important to wait out the tough spots. That whole "grit" idea. And the idea that "success" is not an identical portrait. It's totally unique to you, yeah? More pragmatically, it really helped me once I started recording in the studio and video-taping my performances. You just can't imagine how something is coming across while you're doing it. You need to be able to look at yourself the way a judging spectator does, or you won't know where you need to improve. It's also good to remember that you don't have to release everything you record. It's just as valuable to do it for the sake of learning from the process. That takes the pressure off and allows you to focus on the art until you've really got something you're really in love with, you know? I released a lot of stuff in the beginning that I wish I could get back, (I've been known to steal old records from radio station libraries when I return for an interview.) But then again, that's also just my story - I released stuff as a teen and my audience just watched me grow, I guess. I feel like I'm just coming into my true identity as a songwriter now. AHC: Do you have any new projects in the works you'd like to tell people about? Gabrielle: Well, I just came off the heels of releasing a record in the fall, If the Static Clears, so now I'm enjoying a little bit of time getting settled in my new place and starting to do some writing. I've been loving cooking at home! It's so hard to eat well on the road, and forget doing things like remembering to take your vitamins! I just got a beautiful custom guitar that my friend Dan Wetzel of True North Bluegrass built for me, as well as an upright piano. So there's a lot of music happening in my home right now! I'll get back in the studio at some point, and I'll definitely be touring this summer, but for the time being, I'm pretty happy hanging out in this gestation period... NEW NEIGHBORHOOD GUIDELINES Congratulations, new tenant, and welcome to the company! You have been generously assigned exquisite modern housing by the management that will act not only as an enviable display of comfort for distinguished living, but an expertly calibrated engine of energy-efficient inspiration and production. Labor and leisure, together at last! Inclusion in the community of our verdant compound is no small honor, and for the assurance of a long and synergistic relationship, we ask only that you observe a handful of simple ground rules: 1. An RSVP is required for the enjoyment of our indoor delights: fine dining facilities, craft workshops, and prestige cinema. 2. Report any signals of bad hygiene to the Neighborhood Watch. 3. If approached by bad hygiene, brandish your company flashlight and dial it to blinding power. Assistance will rush to your aid. 4. Report traumatic memories to your superintendent for repair. 5. We will be cancelling any scheduled assemblies of your dark thoughts, and detaining any parties that continue to demand some respect for a change. 6. Your efforts may one day coax love out of hiding, but never look directly at love in its approach or it will run from you in fear and never return. Focus only on the work in front of you, and you will have outsmarted love. 7. For those unable to wait, we have innovated a weapon that will guide you to the most rational possible selection for a life partner at the cost of the fewest possible casualties, as per calculated risk. 8. In the event of diminished morale, report to the Department Of Clairvoyance for the administration of guided meditation programs, holistic nutritional packages, and other instruments of psychic decompression for workplace enhancement. The office can be reached at the hours listed in the guidebook, barring observance of federal holidays and, of course, the occurrences of illness in the staff. 9. At the sound of the afternoon alarm, everyone will meditate on the divine ecosystem of safety, prosperity, and cleanliness in lieu of eating lunch. 10. The company server has been positioned directly beneath a leak in the ceiling and will require regular maintenance. This will cost you money. 11. Everything is a camera, so continue having fun. 12. Volunteers for the installation of flora in the Zen garden will be awarded with two extra hours of sleep to be redeemed within 90 days. 13. Show nothing but love to sadists, for they too are made of stars. 14. You are free to terminate our working relationship at will, but management has misplaced the records on where outside the compound walls are buried active land mines. 15. Intermittently display your achievements and belongings for the edification and inspiration of the famished hunter-gatherers clamoring at our walls. Visibility is generosity. 16. Children are permitted in the staff’s cultivation of a family to love, but they must cleave to the listed parameters of gourmet cultural education, performance of benevolent values, and the wearing of knitted hats with animal ears. 17. For those unable to procure organic children, we will be providing workshops in which our experts demonstrate the least wasteful method with which to fashion walking, talking resin dolls by hand. 18. In gratitude for his writing that is quoted on the snack room refrigerator magnets, Lao Tzu has been kindly permitted on the company grounds, but you are categorically forbidden from letting him sleep in your condominium. 19. We always welcome civil criticism for your catharsis, but always remember that it is management that makes your garbage disappear for you. 20. Should at any point your interest decline in the indefinite sale of your labor, you are welcome to attend our seminars on ownership and thus become us. Otherwise, see item 14. 21. Let the past be buried. There is a brilliant future for you! Bio: Alex Rochinski is a Boston-born writer and musician currently based in New York. His work has appeared in Nat. Brut and Noncanon Press.
Photo by Ryan Nolan
"Inspiration can come and go like the wind." Sarah Loucks writes. "There are times when songwriting feels so fluid that I don’t even feel like I’m a part of it." Sarah carefully carves worlds you can feel out of a landscape you can recognize; the human heart and experience. There is a precision and a wandering to these songs, and if music is the journey, the destination is always two steps ahead of us, "the wind instead of the tree" or both at once, shiver when touched and as we hear these sonic chapters unfold, crinkled turnings of the life-page. In her own words "Writing has always been been my guiding light, the nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach and the relief like light rain after a storm. As much as my songs can be serious, I find most things funny and ultimately, I try to rule my life from a place of happiness. I practice thankfulness and I believe that love is the only place I want to live within." AHC: What has this journey in music, so far, been like for you, the highs and the lows, and what sort of life lessons do you feel you've picked up along the way? Sarah: I suppose, in short, you could say that the highs are high and the lows are very low. This journey in music has brought me to so many places that I could never have expected. Like anything you immerse yourself into, it can make you feel like you’re sinking to the bottom but also floating at the surface. It’s hard to regulate but your love for it keeps propelling you forward. I think the most valuable lesson I’ve learned along the way is that nothing comes as you expect it to. That being said, I’ve learned to relax. I’ve learned that you cannot control everything and there are zero guarantees. You need to hold your ground. You need to always throw yourself into it and often you need to just let go. AHC: What first drew you to music and what was your early musical environment like growing up? Were there pivotal songs for you then that just floored you the moment you heard them? Sarah: For as long as I can remember, I just always wanted to play music. It wasn’t like a light went on one day or something caused it to ‘click’. It’s just always been like that. I have a lot of fond memories of being a child and hearing my dad just wailing on his trumpet. It’s probably the reason why I’ve always loved listening to jazz and feel at home listening to artists like Chet Baker. My dad’s love for music was also my love for music. I remember being small and begging for a piano. All I wanted to do was learn how to play. My love for songwriting came later. That love wasn’t born out of another songs inspiration, but came from a sincere desire to communicate. It seemed like the most natural place to speak from. It wasn’t just words or poetry, but you could use your voice to intensify your expression. AHC: Do you remember the first song that you ever wrote? Or that first moment when you picked up a pen and realized that you could create whole worlds just by putting it to paper? Sarah: I remember writing my first song like it was just the other day. I’ve held onto that piano and I still write on it. I was 14 years old and you could say that everything changed in my small world. I realized I could make people feel something between the words and the chords. It was cathartic and I remember thinking that it felt easy. After that first song, I just kept writing. AHC: Which musicians have you learned the most from? Or writers, artists, filmmakers etc? Sarah: I have a hard time narrowing down that list. For every song you learn or listen to, there’s something to be picked up. Creativity is perpetually happening around you and if you look or listen closely enough, there’s a lesson. Sometimes it comes from an unexpected place, but those moments of inspiration are priceless. There’s nothing more inspiring and frustrating when you hear a song and think that you wish you’d written that song and simultaneously think, I need to get home so I can write. Those moments are honestly the best. I should mention that although I hide it well, I’m extremely competitive by nature hence why I find those moments both inspiring as well as frustrating! AHC: What do you think makes for a good song, as you're writing and composing, is there a sudden moment when you know you've found the right mix, that perfect angle of light, so to speak? Sarah: I wish there were a clear answer for this, but usually there is a feeling when things are working. It’s that desired state of flow. Some of my favourite songs have been the ones where I felt like they were just falling into place. It can feel like I’m just there witnessing it come together, as if I really had nothing to do with it. Sometimes it’s not as simple or as easy as that. Sometimes you know you have a section and then you feel pushed out of that flow. Those are the songs that I won’t complete for months or even years. I hold onto those pieces for great lengths of time knowing that at the right time and with the right perspective I can finish them. Completing those songs are very rewarding. Regardless of how the song comes together, I learned very quickly that when it feels done you shouldn’t push it. Just walk away and come back to edit later. AHC: Do you consider music to be a type of healing art, the perfect vehicle through which to translate a feeling, a state of rupture, hope lost and regained? Does the writing and creating of the song save you in the kinds of ways that it saves us, the listener? Sarah: Absolutely. I started writing as a young teenager and it was the perfect way to work through anything that was going on. It’s still serves the same purpose for me. Some of the most challenging things in life I find difficult to write about, but I know I’ve started to process them once I start writing about them. It’s 100% a method to cope, process and heal. Selfishly, I start writing the songs for my own healing but as they’re being written, I’m hoping I can write it in a way that will speak to someone else as well. AHC: What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town? On-tour, on-the-road? Sarah: I think it’s safe to say that among some of the first things to pop into my mind are the moments I’ve shared with other musicians. It’s moments on stage with other players when everyone is feeling the same thing and you’re connected. That feeling is pretty unparalleled. Other fond memories would include the conversations you have with people after shows. It’s incredibly rewarding when people feel like they know you and will open up to you. It makes me feel like I’m doing more than just singing songs and entertaining people. I’ve often struggled with the vanity of entertaining even though I’m the first one to acknowledge the importance of the Arts as a whole. It’s a personal struggle for me. So when I feel like it can move beyond performing and into building relationships, I’m beyond engaged. AHC: When you set out to write an album of songs, how much does 'where the world is' in its current moment, culturally, politically, otherwise, influence the kinds of stories you set out to tell? Sarah: In this current state of our world, it can definitely play a part and I imagine that the songs I’ll be writing in the near future will be greatly influenced by current politics. Generally, I find that I’m writing from experiences I’m facing first hand and spinning them to have a larger context. The other influencer can be something that I’ve witnessed and feel strongly about. You can write from so many places but I’m typically writing from a first person perspective even though I might just be the outsider. AHC: With the traditional ways that we listen to music rapidly changing, does it affect how you write and put together an album? Too often people are downloading and engaging with singular songs rather than albums as on ordered and thematic canvas, do you regret that your work may not be received in the way it was intended or created? Sarah: I think this is something that nearly every musician is struggling with right now. We’re living in a demanding society that has a very short attention span. As an artist, it’s hard to let go of the traditional concept of an album. I’ve been fighting this for quite some time. I’ve just released a new full-length album and while I was recording it I couldn’t help but feel as though this might be the last time I do things this way. Time will tell and I’m pretty stubborn, however, it’s hard to deny where things are going. There is something magical about listening to an album from start to finish though. It’s just not the same as listening to a single. One of the sweetest things in life is putting on an album that’s nostalgic and you feel immediately transported. There’s no way a single can replace that feeling. Full albums give more opportunity to tell a tale. The thought of losing that feels like an incredibly loss. AHC: Do you have any words of advice for other musicians and singer-songwriters or anyone who is struggling to create something of value out there, who are just starting out and trying to find their voice and their way in this world? What are the kinds of things that you tell yourself when you begin to have doubts or are struggling with the creative process? Sarah: Having been through some ups and some serious downs I can say that it’s hard. It’s really really hard, but if you love it and you know it’s what you’re supposed to do, then continue doing it. It’s a part of who you are and it will always be there. You can even try to walk away for a while like I did, but it will always be there. There was a long time where I couldn’t write a thing and felt like the flame went out. I wondered if that was it for me. So I left music behind to see if music had left me behind. It followed me though. It followed me wherever I went like a great responsibility. At that point I realized that no matter what shape it took, it would always be there. If you have those doubts like so many of us do, just play. If you feel like you can’t write, play songs that inspire you. If you need a break, take a break. If it’s a part of you, it’s not going anywhere. AHC: Do you have any new projects you'd like to mention? Sarah: I recently released my 3rd full-length album, “Without Meaning To”. I recorded it at Little Bullhorn Studios in Ottawa, Ontario. It’s independently released and it’s personal, weighty but hopeful. I worked with Dave Draves on this project and it’s something I’m really proud of. It’s available on Bandcamp, iTunes, Spotify and a bunch of other digital retailers. If you still own a CD player, the physical album can be purchased from my website at www.sarahloucks.ca 2/5/2017 1 Comment Five Poems by James DiazThe Narrow Pass You feel heart break is a type of sky but who put us under it? and why these useless names for things we can only touch break in half? are you as deep as I think you are, buried under the wool (these could be track marks, the ones I counted on my father's arms as he held me) late at night I thought the sound of every train was god coming to burn my house to the ground and who would you love if you had only today? And what if today never came? Coming Back For More We tarry we tear ourselves limb to limping we hold the fort down inside our throat and nothing fits us just like a glove we have screams and scars under our eyelids fifty two names for the blank spaces the lost time our parents gave us along the back of our thighs god put her tongue sloppy wet on our skin till we begged her to stop we were belly up in the meantime the underbrush was no safe space puddles were public pools and no one cared what kind of language you used in those parking lots burning under our feet I want you to highlight my edges, I mean like my status or hold my chafing soul against the salt of your imperfect skin say human one more time and I'll scream each generation haunts itself damaged broken bastards that stand out a little too much when they say "he's kind of hard to take" they mean they're incapable of seeing themselves in the other this is how you divide what is broken by breaking the division like an almond inside your wound pray that that pain will keep you humble coming back for more. Reading Jorie, as a life boat I was the one who opened up trauma everywhere I went it spilled out of me like light shoved through the cracks onto some other place I never knew beat so early the pain can feel like home you might even try to build something just like it with your own two battle scarred hands compass adjacent body and eyes nerve blind in the night searching for a self that doesn't shatter who failed to hold you? and that place where you were never touched, can you feel it now? Don't you think that you ought to live long enough to find out what you're capable of making up for? Keepsakes When all was lost you were not how tightly you held on until letting go became easier than burning it all down. After Normal Cracks Open Thrift store, dime bins falling left across the map of your veins & waking up to the silence of broken windows a kind of orphan name at the back of your throat sorry for not calling to say all of this on the phone. Bio: James Diaz is a writer, editor and activist, living in upstate New York. His work has appeared in HIV Here & Now, Chronogram, Cheap Pop Lit, Ditch, and Foliate Oak. His first collection of poems, This Someone I Call Stranger, is forthcoming from Indolent Books (2017). He is founding editor of the literary arts & music journal Anti-Heroin Chic.
Photography by David Irvine
Fiddler, singer, and stepdancer April Verch knows how relevant an old tune can be. She was raised surrounded by living, breathing roots music—her father’s country band rehearsing; the lively music at church and at community dances; the tunes she rocked out to win fiddle competitions. She thought every little girl learned to stepdance at the age of three and fiddle at the age of six. She knew nothing else and decided early on that she wanted to be a professional musician. While Verch is perhaps best known for playing traditional fiddle styles from her native Ottawa Valley, Canada, her performances extend into old-time American and Appalachian styles and far beyond, for a well-rounded tour-de-force of North Americana sounds. Verch and her fellow trio members pare down their arrangements, highlighting the simple pleasures of upright bass, guitar, clawhammer banjo, voices, fiddle, and stepping in intimate conversation. At the heart lie Verch’s delicate voice, energetic footwork, and stunning playing. Sometimes she sings, steps and fiddles all at once, with apparent ease and precision. Verch is - as they say - a triple threat in performance, her live show a beautiful companion to her music: versatile, robust, and masterfully executed. Even as she plays with the tradition she inherited, Verch keeps the community-fired celebratory side of her music at the forefront, honing a keen awareness of how to engage contemporary listeners. And Verch never forgets the roots of her music, that connection to the people out there in the audience, on the dance floor, to the community sparked by a good song. “It’s about joining together to celebrate everyday life, through music. We’re all in this together.” AHC: What has this journey in music, so far, been like for you, the highs and the lows, and what life lessons do you feel you've picked up along the way? April: I’ve been around music and playing music for as long as I can remember, so it’s very much a “way of life” for me. In many senses, the business aspect of it is like any other job, in that there are things you love about it and things you find hard or challenging… It’s not an easy way to make a living. I guess when I think of the “lows”, that comes to mind first. All of that being said, I feel like I am living my dream. That’s where the highs come in, for sure. This is what I’ve always wanted to do - play, perform, record and share music. And it’s an honour and privilege to be able to do that. I don’t take it for granted and am so thankful for the opportunities that music has brought me. It’s difficult to separate the life lessons that I’ve learned through my journey in music from all of the others, but I think that overall, it’s taught me to be a more compassionate, understanding and caring human being, in large part from getting to travel to so many different places and meet so many people from various walks of life. It’s provided me a glimpse into what life is like for people in different areas, and that is educational and humbling. AHC: What first drew you to music and what was your early musical environment like growing up? Were there pivotal songs for you then that just floored you the moment you heard them? April: I grew up surrounded by music as my Dad played (he had a local country band that played for dances on weekends), and my parents were fans of the local music scene and we were always attending events, dances, festivals where music and dancing were part of the fun. I think more than any one song or tune or even person, what drew me in and what I still remember is the vibe at these events. When there was music and dancing, people had stopped working so hard, and were having a good time and celebrating. And I liked being part of that. And I liked that music provided that outlet. I still do! AHC: Do you remember the first song that you ever wrote or played? Or that first moment when you picked up a pen and realized that you could create whole worlds just by putting it to paper? April: I wrote my first fiddle tune when I was about 9 or 10 years old. We were camping as a family and I realized it was my parents wedding anniversary that weekend and I didn’t have a gift. But I knew how much they loved fiddle tunes, and so I decided I would write them a tune. I didn’t write lyrics until more recently, and I remember first feeling very vulnerable in putting words to music. Often times I was saying very specific with a fiddle tune but nobody knew it. In writing lyrics all of the changed immediately and it was both liberating and scary all at once. AHC: Which musicians have you learned the most from? Or writers, artists, filmmakers etc? April: I’ve learned a tremendous amount for John Hartford. He was such an immense talent and well-rounded artist. I have studied his playing, his writing, his performances, his business sense, his all around “artistry”. I still find inspiration in all that he contributed. AHC: What do you think makes for a good song, as you're writing and composing, is there a sudden moment when you know you've found the right mix, that perfect angle of light, so to speak? April: For me, that spark that I think you’re speaking of comes when I’m able to put forth something that is completely honest. That’s not always as easy as it seems it would be. It’s not just the desire to be honest…it’s finding a way to say that truth in a manner that conveys the meaning in a straight forward, or poetic, or beautiful way, or whatever way is necessary to strike a chord and ring within us. AHC: Do you consider music to be a type of healing art, the perfect vehicle through which to translate a feeling, a state of rupture, hope lost and regained? Does the writing and creating of the song save you in the kinds of ways that it saves us, the listener? April: I believe music to be extremely healing. I still find myself capable of expressing things through music that I can’t in any other way. And I absolutely love how personal it is. How it can mean different things to different people, even though the musician or composer might have meant something totally different. Music meets us where we are, provides us with what we need based on our own situation and experiences. And when it causes us to feel, or remember, or inspires us, it has achieved its purpose. I think sometimes it does that for the composer, the musician and the listener, and sometimes for only one of that group. And that’s okay. AHC: What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town? On-tour, on-the-road? April: I have so many wonderful musical memories. I think the common thread that ties them all together is the people - whether it be a jam session with inspiring musicians, or tunes with just my Dad at home, or an intimate venue where the crowd was up close and the evening was magic, or a bigger festival where someone came up and shared a story of how something we did touched them in a personal way. My fondest memories have happened all over the place, but always there was a human connection that made it meaningful. AHC: When you set out to write a song, how much does 'where the world is' in its current moment, culturally, politically, otherwise, influence the kinds of stories you set out to tell? April: The answer to that question varies by the inspiration. Sometimes I’m writing for a person, or a memory of a different time and place, so the current world doesn’t really enter into it. Other times the situation we’re in right now in this world comes directly into play. For me, that’s a pretty conscious decision. My favorite songs are rather timeless though, so that’s also something I bare in mind. It doesn’t preclude me from referencing the current moment, sometimes it might be beneficial to the message to do so, but it’s something I weigh carefully in that regard. AHC: Do you have any words of advice for other musicians and singer-songwriters out there who are just starting out and trying to find their voice and their way in this world? What are the kinds of things that you tell yourself when you begin to have doubts or are struggling with the creative process? April: I think that doubts and struggles are not only normal, regardless of what stage you’re at in your writing, but also beneficial. I try to see those challenges in a positive light. Rather than suppressing them, take a moment to examine them, see where they are coming from and why, and just accept that it’s okay to feel that way or encounter those struggles. Our job is to learn from them and to become better at what we do by caring about them. I tell myself, “it’s okay” and instead of beating myself up about it, I choose to overcome. And I remind myself that the best way to do that is just to be honest. When I force something or try to pretend I’m something I’m not, it just doesn’t work. If I embrace what’s happening, that’s when I come up with my strongest music. AHC: Do you have any new projects in the works you'd like to tell people about? April: I’m always excited about all of my upcoming tours. Performing live has always been my passion. I tour with The April Verch Band, my trio, and also have a new duo with Joe Newberry. Joe and I have a new release coming out in a few months, and AVB is heading back into the studio this year as well, so that project is in pre-production. I find that music leads me down so many unexpected and wonderful paths, and I always looks forward to seeing what unfolds! Keep up with April by visiting aprilverch.com/ |
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April 2024
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