Singer-Songwriter Series:
Dubbed "Among the best folk-rock artists in the country" by the Tucson Weekly, Namoli Brennet has been touring with her own brand of moody and inspiring folk since 2002. A recent Iowa transplant, Brennet was based out of Tucson, AZ for a decade and her music still carries some of the stark, persistent beauty of the desert. She's a breathtaking and moving performer, and her sweet, road-weary voice is as quick to deliver her wit and humor as it is a turn of phrase. Among her influences she names Patty Griffin and Eliza Gilkyson, but she manages to carve out a vocal niche of her own using her sweet, edgy alto. Zocalo magazine calls her music "Gorgeous and introspective."
She's a top-notch songwriter who's well known for her insightful lyrics and poetic language, but it's her live performances that set her apart from the conventional label of singer/songwriter. On stage she reveals deft acoustic guitar chops, often incorporating foot percussion, loops, vocoder and Kaki-King style tapping to create a broad, layered soundscape. Namoli's 2012 Release, "Live" was recorded over the course of 6 months and 10,000 miles. It shines an intimate spotlight on a performer who is at once arresting and vulnerable - powerfully honest and honestly powerful.
A 4-time Outmusic award nominee who was recently named in the inaugural Trans 100 list, Namoli was also the recipient of the Tucson Folk Festival Songwriting Award and a finalist in the ISC songwriting competition. Her 2010 release 'Black Crow' garnered critical acclaim and was named one of KXCI FM's top albums of the year, and her 2015 release 'Ditch Lilies' was nominated for the German Music Critics Award. Namoli's music has been featured on NPR, PBS and in films including the Emmy-award winning documentary "Out in the Silence", which details the struggle of a gay teen growing up in rural Pennsylvania. She spends 5 to 6 months a year on the road in the US and Europe.
She's a top-notch songwriter who's well known for her insightful lyrics and poetic language, but it's her live performances that set her apart from the conventional label of singer/songwriter. On stage she reveals deft acoustic guitar chops, often incorporating foot percussion, loops, vocoder and Kaki-King style tapping to create a broad, layered soundscape. Namoli's 2012 Release, "Live" was recorded over the course of 6 months and 10,000 miles. It shines an intimate spotlight on a performer who is at once arresting and vulnerable - powerfully honest and honestly powerful.
A 4-time Outmusic award nominee who was recently named in the inaugural Trans 100 list, Namoli was also the recipient of the Tucson Folk Festival Songwriting Award and a finalist in the ISC songwriting competition. Her 2010 release 'Black Crow' garnered critical acclaim and was named one of KXCI FM's top albums of the year, and her 2015 release 'Ditch Lilies' was nominated for the German Music Critics Award. Namoli's music has been featured on NPR, PBS and in films including the Emmy-award winning documentary "Out in the Silence", which details the struggle of a gay teen growing up in rural Pennsylvania. She spends 5 to 6 months a year on the road in the US and Europe.
"I am lost by design", sings Alanna Eileen in The Mirror and the Mime. In this moment we already know the landscape here will be deep, its path winding. The musicality which is threaded through both of Eileen's two haunting EP's, Absence and Keepsake, is layered like artful strokes of paint to canvas; pulsations of heart and sound reverberating between the vulnerable chest cavity and the floor. Hushed phantom tones of emotive swirl make tipsy the entry into Eileen's soundscape. Displaced, yet sure-footed, these are soft, mournful compositions of the in-between. One imagines a light step through dark space, a poet's heart clearing way through underbrush toward an unknown shore laid out against the thick fog of one's travels. Songwriting become equal parts processor of reality and repository for longing. There is an almost sacred element at work in Eileen's lyrics. "The sky is more than I know how to see". A painter's heart in awe of the everyday. "It’s such a mysterious procedure", says Alanna, "there’s a touch of alchemy or magic to it. It feels like a gift, almost, because it can’t be planned. It’s like a storm brewing." Rain broke loose from the soul tarries along the edges of the unknown, and in that place these songs hesitate to name their maker. Yet "something always remains," grafted onto the mystery is that place where the light and dark share their kindred stories long into the night, and in that night one can only but hope to pocket these tokens from the wayside, reminders, for later, of all that has been lost and all that has been found. The song - here - is a canvas of endless possibilities.
In a time when the narratives of the heart are becoming increasingly diluted, Taryn Laronge brings back to the table that spirited muse that is a songwriters calling, an internal grappling with the pain of the past and the myriad of ways in which that pain moves us forward. Honesty and self examination are at the forefront of Laronge's compositions, which sit comfortably in that rich tradition of confessional female songwriters that have helped to define, in this writers mind, what music can do almost better than any other language, repair, heal, and bind people together in ways that are hard to put your finger on. But the pulse is there. Taryn sings it the way she's lived it, you can hear it in her voice, how the story and the telling of it are embodiments both of dark and of light, one making room for the other. A songwriter must go deep against the odds that what they come out with may or may not be what they expected to find. In this sense it is all about the journey. Laronge is a traveler who, having taken those odds, leaves us with songs that are both compass and path. Their heart is big, their soul is strong, their love is pronounced and their hunger for more life is the high note that lingers long after the last note of Little Doorways is played. The album, after all, ends with Dear Life, in more ways than one.
Athens, Georgia is the stuff of musical legend. A rich springboard for some of the very best bands and songwriters of our time. Pylon were and still are one such band. A weird, funky, fiery art rock ensemble fronted by the strong force of Vanessa Briscoe Hay, Pylon's sound got inside of your body, torqued your muscles and your mind. Now Vanessa is back with Pylon Reenactment Society and her presence is as captivating and spirited as ever. Vocally, you can hear the arch of a bands story, you can hear the span of a life. Loss and resurrection, it's all there, encoded in these songs. "Creativity and ideas are things that just happen, and no one really knows where they come from," Vanessa says. "I wouldn’t say that they are impossible to keep alive, because to me, they exist independently from our conscious selves. If you are open to these things and make a little time for them, there they are. If they are going to happen, they will, I really have no control over the creative process. As I get older, I see that it ebbs and flows." For now, it is flowing, and its heart, all these years later, is still intact, wildly beating, creating, and giving new voice in all of the right ways. Time marches on, and so do we, battle born, wiser, gentler and kicking still. An artist can only wait for the moment to hit, for the idea to take on skin and walk through fire to meet the sky. Pylon Reenactment Society's shine is writ large. A sky anthem of truth, clarity and utter roar.
Caitlin Canty is an American singer/songwriter whose music carves a line through folk, blues, and country ballads. Her voice was called “casually devastating” by the San Francisco Chronicle and NPR Music describes her songs as having a “haunting urgency.”
Motel Bouquet, Canty’s third record, features ten original songs that hold her darkly radiant voice firmly in the spotlight. Produced by Grammy-nominated Noam Pikelny (Punch Brothers) and recorded live over three days in Nashville, the album boasts a band of some of finest musicians in roots music, including fiddler Stuart Duncan and vocalist Aoife O’Donovan. Rolling Stone hails Motel Bouquet as “dreamy and daring” with “poetic lyrics and haunting melodies.”
Since the release of her critically-acclaimed Reckless Skyline in 2015, Canty has put thousands of miles on her songs, circling through the U.S. and Europe. She warmed up stages for The Milk Carton Kids and Gregory Alan Isakov and recorded with longtime collaborators Darlingside and with Down Like Silver, her duo with Peter Bradley Adams. She won the Troubadour songwriting competition at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, and her song, “Get Up,” was nominated for Song of the Year in the Folk Alliance International Music Awards. Canty’s original recordings have recently appeared on CBS’s Code Black and on the Netflix original series House of Cards.
Raised in small-town Vermont, the daughter of a school teacher and a house painter, Canty earned her degree in biology in the Berkshires and subsequently moved to New York City. She spent her days in the city working as an environmental sustainability consultant and her nights making music at Lower East Side music halls and bars. In 2009, she quit her job and set out to make music full time. In 2015, she packed up her house plants and her 1939 Recording King guitar and drove to Nashville, TN, which she now calls home.
Motel Bouquet, Canty’s third record, features ten original songs that hold her darkly radiant voice firmly in the spotlight. Produced by Grammy-nominated Noam Pikelny (Punch Brothers) and recorded live over three days in Nashville, the album boasts a band of some of finest musicians in roots music, including fiddler Stuart Duncan and vocalist Aoife O’Donovan. Rolling Stone hails Motel Bouquet as “dreamy and daring” with “poetic lyrics and haunting melodies.”
Since the release of her critically-acclaimed Reckless Skyline in 2015, Canty has put thousands of miles on her songs, circling through the U.S. and Europe. She warmed up stages for The Milk Carton Kids and Gregory Alan Isakov and recorded with longtime collaborators Darlingside and with Down Like Silver, her duo with Peter Bradley Adams. She won the Troubadour songwriting competition at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, and her song, “Get Up,” was nominated for Song of the Year in the Folk Alliance International Music Awards. Canty’s original recordings have recently appeared on CBS’s Code Black and on the Netflix original series House of Cards.
Raised in small-town Vermont, the daughter of a school teacher and a house painter, Canty earned her degree in biology in the Berkshires and subsequently moved to New York City. She spent her days in the city working as an environmental sustainability consultant and her nights making music at Lower East Side music halls and bars. In 2009, she quit her job and set out to make music full time. In 2015, she packed up her house plants and her 1939 Recording King guitar and drove to Nashville, TN, which she now calls home.
Ukraine’s On The Wane are holding a sonic mirror up to the times. Conflict, brutality, hypocrisy, lies, remember when this was something music wrapped its bruised voice around? On The Wane's guitarist Eugene Voitov certainly does. "Music is on the wane in our days, it isn’t the thing that can unite people around the world anymore," Voitov says. There is a raw and vital rage that crystallizes in the live wire sounds of Schism, the bands latest album. Much is done in the moment of the jam, piecing sounds together like a puzzle. A similar ethos to Throbbing Gristle's early experimentation of live, collaborative sonic soul searching. On The Wane, unlike their namesake, are most certainly not disappearing. A far cry from defeat, it's the loudest voice piecing the night in search for truth and a way out of the deadlock of a bankrupt culture. Beauty is ugliness walking the high wire between two worlds, the one that wants to forget and the one that wants to remember. On The Wane chooses the latter. The apocalypse may be in the rear view mirror, and like the saying goes, much closer than it appears. But while the world is still here, music that shreds its way into truth will always burn brightest. The point is to walk out of the shadows cast by such a light. To make music matter again, and, just maybe even the world.
Risa Rubin creates poetic tapestries of lived-in musical landscapes, much like a scrapbook filled with all of those unspoken truths which must find voice lest the most authentic parts of ourselves go speechless, in a life far too long and important for silence. The roots here are planted in the shadows of familial soil but are assuredly growing trees of their own making in the second chapter of life that is Jewish Unicorn. An album of immense courage, scarring, beauty and humor. Rubin's unique compositions and the utterly original, haunting voice which delivers these indelible stories of confusion, insecurity, and finding our selves in the midst of so much life-flooding, is a testament to the power of art and its ability to, if not transform us, at least help us find the necessary tools to tell our stories, and on our own terms. Risa goes for the truth every time, even when it hurts, especially when it hurts. Jewish Unicorn is the voice that speaks after all of the flood waters have receded just enough to allow something else to come through.
"We all have aspects of smoke and aspects of sugar," writes Mari Quinn-Makwaia, but what comes from that in-between space is where all the possibility lies. Brooklyn based Funk Rock band Smoke and Sugar are reinventing the musical languages of community and artistic vitality. Against a backdrop of encroaching gentrification come the lively sounds of this impassioned five piece ensemble, adding to the spaces that they are in. "As long as the so-called transplants are infusing the city with their life as much as they’re taking from it then there can still be dyanmic growth" Mari says. As a native New Yorker Mari has seen first hand what has become of the city she grew up in; "It’s hard not to think that we’re witnessing the most extreme version of gentrification when five years can result in unrecognizable neighborhoods and neighbors. I hope that chains, clubs and high rises don’t end up defining my city because that would feel like conformity and status-oriented hierarchy driving out all the city’s weird kinks that I grew up through." But this isn't a defeatist story, it is one of immense hope, light and groove. After all, Smoke and Sugar are the embodiment of life and celebration. "To inspire people to dance - in their heads, their hearts and their bodies," Mari says, while holding the tensions and working through the difficulties, that is Smoke and that is Sugar. As any gardener knows, you have to prepare the soil for what comes next, Smoke and Sugar are planting the seeds, we each have to bring the water.
Surviving a misdiagnosed illness which nearly killed her and more than a few of life's most difficult onslaughts, Jenn Vix puts full emphasis on creating from an intense need to survive. "I could not emotionally handle listening to music for about a year," she says. Then, like a reprieve in the eye of the storm, a fateful encounter with John Ashton (Psychedelic Furs) at a live radio gig rekindled Vix's creative muscles; a fire, surely, had been nearly burning all along. "I didn't think I had it in me." Jenn says. "I pushed myself to do it; I didn't/don't want to give up. The title track, "Unlocked," is about longing to be freed up from pain, fear, and loss, and oddly enough, I wrote it right before I got sick." Having come through the jagged edges of the impossible, Vix offers her take and advice on self care/boundaries, caution, keeping good friends/band-mates close, (never go into the trenches with someone you have to keep an eye on) and leaves us with one of life's most important reminders, no matter what path you're on; "Please do not listen to anyone who tells you to give up."
"Which heart beat is yours and which one is mine," sings Beth Whitney on Tides Are For Sirens, such a question seems to endure the length of the album, where one begins and where one ends, how our lives and stories are tied into one another, how we survive, how we heal, how we go on when we are almost convinced we can't. The Wild Unrest is a very personal album with wide open arms, it pulls listeners in because we have all, in our own unique way, reached such low points, treacherous internal crossings where wild waters rushed against us, and yet we've all dared to cross, if we're lucky we survive what we think we cannot, we bear losses that cannot always be made whole. "I'm in such a strange season that I find myself re-reading chapters of my life that I thought I'd known well," Beth says, "we are all hurling through space trying to make sense of our experiences. I think a good song can unravel and weave a piece of the mystery in an edible way." This music has been deeply lived in and indicates that it is possible to emerge from even our darkest chapters, that our epilogue is survival, the internal and external, wild crossing. "There is something to be said for sitting in the pain for its time," Whitney says, "scrambling out of it before its ready doesn't seem to be working, and the pressure to convey positivity and joy every minute is not a good one." That an album might be something like a loved one who skips their meals to sit with you till the fever lifts, "I hope it is like that somehow."
Paula Boggs has worn more than a few hats in her lifetime, a musician and songwriter logging in a decade now as the front-woman for the Paula Boggs band, a lawyer, a former federal prosecutor, and an Army Airborne veteran. Up until this year, when she and other members decided to resign, she was also a longstanding member of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, originally appointed by President Obama. Boggs has spent a lifetime in service in various fields and capacities, but it is with music that one feels the soul speak through those life chapters. As Paula puts it: "Music is our best shot at “hearing” each other." On the bands new album Elixir: The Soulgrass Sessions, the call to connection, action and human understanding is poignantly at work through each of the songs, and if ever there were a time when such music was necessary, it is now. "Every day is a canvas" and we must use our brush well, if the surface happens to be our world what would you want to see reflected back at you, truth, beauty, love, understanding? These are the themes threading through Boggs' vast musical book, the life chapters lead one to a present not just born of experience, but of a lot of hope too; "I’ve now lived through enough freakout moments to know the sun will rise the next day," Paula says, adding: "It’ll rise for you too."
There are voices that we all know, iconic cadences, and then there are vocal hauntings, sounds of a life that has gone up against the ropes. In an alternative universe where Marianne Faithful and Hope Sandoval are leads in The Highwaywomen, in our reality, Lo Carmen steps in with such raw musical authenticity we shake and shiver at the sounds pouring out of a spooked jukebox in a bar just off the highway. Sometimes dreamy and light, like heat hallucinations in the desert, sometimes disquieting, as even the darkest country songs are also frightful warning shots of a wrong turn ahead on the long road of life. "I’ve learned that the harder something seems," says Carmen, the better the song you’ll probably get out of it. There’s a song in everything if you look hard enough." Lo's new album, Lovers Dreamers Fighters,which releases today, was recorded at Nashville's Welcome to 1979 and The Butcher Shoppe studios. Featuring a duet with Bonnie "Prince" Billy along with an impressive all-star line up of musicians, "it was the perfect place to make this album," says Carmen, "with the perfect people to bring it to life. I was just trying to keep the smile off my face at how every song was sounding exactly how I dreamed it would." Here Lo talks about the new album and her life in music which has taught her, perhaps most poignantly that "there’s room for everyone in the world, no matter what it is you’re trying to bring into it." These songs, like the best of friends, "will always lend an ear to what you have to say."
"We are all experiencing the same things, in completely different ways," says Kelly Mcfarling. "I think revealing your own moment through your limited lens can reveal larger more expansive truths." Many of those truths on her latest record, Water Dog, are told as learning moments of time and experience, how the shaping of our own lives become informed by all that we go and hopefully come through intact. "I struggle with letting go, of expectations, of my childhood, of what I should and shouldn’t be. I’m always trying to learn more about letting go gracefully, because I’m realizing that it is something that continues to be required," says Mcfarling. Growing, as Kelly points out, can be seismic and uncomfortable, but can also be hugely revelatory of inner transformations we've yet to encounter. Music often plugs directly into the parts of us that know what we know because we feel what we know, we wear it in our bodies, stories both told and untold, and if music is a language we all speak, it's also a language that we all share. We may have more in common than not, even if a million things stand in the way of acknowledging that. Songs are those bridges over troubled waters, and water is the stuff of life and the compass point of this record. "I found a lot of inspiration from water. I chose the name water dog because I love to watch the reckless abandon and joy of dogs playing in the water. It became a totem for me during this time, and a reminder. I think diving into things is how we come to know the things we know, whether that's an outward or inward journey."
From the opening shot of "Time" (Dir. Michael Hogan) Brenna Manzare crafts what feels and functions like a gorgeous musical short film about family, sense of place, the memories that accrue to the spaces we have passed through and perhaps left behind, how every encountered shape, sound and color of our lives informs us then and now, as if "we're alive in two dimensions" as Manzare sings. As if, in the taking, time also gives something back. It is a rich, multi-layered song, and where Manzare's strengths come to bear most are in her poetic approach to song structure, to lyricism and the depth, the utter aliveness of the picture being painted. Through a single track it feels as if a whole universe has been constructed. A photo album of memories lost and reclaimed. Although Manzare has yet to record a full length album, there can be no doubt, as "Time" itself is proof of, that when she does it will be an album to be reckoned with. After all, the most worthwhile labors, well, they take time. "The most important lesson I’ve learned" says Brenna, "is that you have to surrender yourself to the unpredictability of creating." But, when it does come, the songs that it leaves us are proof that both the surrender and the waiting were well worth it.
The best truths are the one's closest to home, natural as the air we breathe, the story of our lives are local configurations of the human heart. On Something New, Ottawa Ontario singer-songwriter Ana Miura paints an intimate musical portrait of family, love, small towns and all those ties that bind us to ourselves. "On a literal level," Ana writes, "the record is about me finding someone new in my romantic life, but in a bigger way it’s about the changes and the dynamics of life and how we are always growing. As we pass through life we express each phase in our own unique way – Something New is my fingerprint from the last few years." Songs that resound with deep spirit and heart, markers of then and now and of all that is still to come, the life and beauty pouring through Something New is the work of an incredibly gifted songwriter whose narratives enrich our own lives, as the truths closest to home are also the ones that carry us the longest distance, both anchor and drift. Miura gives us something to lean on, learn from and, pointing us true north, in the unique way of songs that know 'where they are going and where they have been'.
With Going Gone, Foote's vocal and lyrical honesty collects its fallen objects along a darkening shore line, gems on the underside of that quiet hour of our experience, Silence, a song which stands out, in part due to how beautifully its instrumentality is constructed and in part; how the voice that sings it absolutely soars and sears, where we, listener and composer, are "tall like an oak tree, it comes crashing down, bend till it broke me, till we broke ourselves down" And "though we fear the start of night it always comes around," the things we try to keep at bay have their own methods of finding us. A soulful and poetic album, each song comes brimming over with its struggles and its strength, quiet hour or bustling daybreak, the liminal space that makes a song spark with life lingers in our hearts and minds ever after. There are no magic tricks to making all of this happen, just sitting with yourself and writing it all out until something sticks and wont go away. Going Gone, here for an instant, fleeting and spectacular, if ever an album deserved a place in your home and in your heart, it is this one.
Interview here
Interview here
Boston MA, songwriter Tory Silver approaches music much like a puzzle, the non traditional routes of composing, taking disparate chords and weaving them through the ether till the threads bloom into pattern, offer up ways of challenging song structure while perfectly balancing controlled chaos and melody. Silver's voice seems to be almost at one with her guitar, and the compelling mix of bossa nova, alternative rock, blues and jazz all commingle, diorama like, to dizzying effect, turned one way, hear a mountain, turned another the ocean. By approaching the guitar as if it were a canvas, each song has the integrity of something fought over, decisive musical brush strokes, shading blues and bossa nova reds, spontaneous but methodical. On Observere, the diversity and feel of something highly original comes into view, you may want to dance or wail or both, there are more than a few universes of sound tucked away in this painting of an album. Listen to it from the left, from the right, from the center, each time it feels slightly different. As Tory puts it "a few simple chords can hit deep, and the feeling is almost instant." Observere is the kind of musical trip you'll want to take when surprise, soul and shifting color is the destination you desire most of all.
"A lot of the stories I’ve written about have to do with distance," says New York songwriter Gabrielle Marlena, whose new albumGood Music For You releases this Friday. The songs on this record grapple with "leaving behind love" and all of the strain a relationship takes on when two people are separated by continents, "Today it’s so easy to live in the past through social media, so it’s harder to let go of things, and it inspires a lot of music in me." Rescue you, which comes from a piece of advice given to Marlena by her sister: "No one’s going to rescue you" is a uniquely memorable song with a classic, dreamy, Mazzy Star like quality, punctuated with twangy guitars and Gabrielle's soaring, soulful voice, "I've forgotten how to put myself to sleep," the song becoming a meditation on self-love, independence, and perseverance. What does it mean to define ourselves apart from our partners, to come to our own aid in hours of crises, to find the answers, like a phone call, coming from within? Each time a song is reopened so too are the wounds of broken hearts and lost love, but in the moment when that first chord is struck and the voice amplifies and fills the room, when ears and hearts are open, healing, it seems, fills up the space between what happened and where one is now. Hearts always break again, but maybe they break differently, when we become the ones capable of rescuing ourselves. Good Music For You, is exactly that; cathartic, self aware and asking big questions. "Communication," after all "is so important, and it’s the only thing that will get you through."
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/self-expression-solves-everything-an-interview-with-gabrielle-marlena
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/self-expression-solves-everything-an-interview-with-gabrielle-marlena
From the glittering dream laden hills of Los Angeles comes the lush, crepuscular sounds of LUCKYandLOVE (Loren Luck and April Love). Imagine a skate park at dusk with speakers high as walls, heavy, polyphonic sounds vibrating and rearranging the air like so many light particles splitting in two, Lucky + Love, pouring into your ears. A haunting and precise sound carving itself into your cognitive memory, music travelling like gypsies through the ether.
The real creative ingenuity of this duo is that they've found a way to build on the rich legacy of their predecessors (Cocteau Twins Depeche Mode), without simply repeating the past, these are new sounds glowing in the dark, twined around the warm, lush vocals of April Love.
Their music video, Digging in The Earth, has the kind of wild creative presentation that The Cramps would be proud of. B-movie aesthetics and camp, a nod to 90's era Gregg Araki, where ants carry a T.V. aloft like food, and, well, dance.
The spiritual presence of David Lynch and Siouxsie Sioux hover somewhere above the rich, mysterious musical world on display here. Which is to say unexpected moments of beauty and allure that are well worth the trip taken with this duo. Hop in the car, preferably at night, and listen to Lucky + Love, an album that takes you to the stars.
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/nobody-ever-said-this-was-easy-an-interview-with-april-love
The real creative ingenuity of this duo is that they've found a way to build on the rich legacy of their predecessors (Cocteau Twins Depeche Mode), without simply repeating the past, these are new sounds glowing in the dark, twined around the warm, lush vocals of April Love.
Their music video, Digging in The Earth, has the kind of wild creative presentation that The Cramps would be proud of. B-movie aesthetics and camp, a nod to 90's era Gregg Araki, where ants carry a T.V. aloft like food, and, well, dance.
The spiritual presence of David Lynch and Siouxsie Sioux hover somewhere above the rich, mysterious musical world on display here. Which is to say unexpected moments of beauty and allure that are well worth the trip taken with this duo. Hop in the car, preferably at night, and listen to Lucky + Love, an album that takes you to the stars.
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/nobody-ever-said-this-was-easy-an-interview-with-april-love
Last year indie-pop powerhouse Allo Darlin' announced the breakup of their band and would play their very last show in London that December. But for lead singer Elizabeth Morris this was but another chapter in an ongoing musical-life, conjoined elements that are hard to pry apart, since, as Elizabeth says, playing and writing music has informed every aspect of her life since she was a child. Coming of age in the 90's, when female singer-songwriters were on our air waves and our televisions in full force, for those who weren't there it can be hard to appreciate the ground breaking significance of that time, but for Morris it became the thing that gave voice to a life's calling, the empowered muses of song and expression that ignited an inextinguishable creative passion in her. "I think if you want to do it," says Elizabeth, "you will find a way." A great musical project's closing leads to other open doors, a new band, Elva, in her new home of Norway, with her husband Ola Innset, Jørgen Nordby and Diego Ivars is in the works. "At this stage," Elizabeth says, "it's lovely just enjoying playing music again and learning to play with new people. We're really relaxed and have these lovely rehearsals in our basement," proving that every closing chapter is but another one beginning.
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/elizabeth-morris-on-finding-a-way-to-do-what-you-love
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/elizabeth-morris-on-finding-a-way-to-do-what-you-love
On Sitting with Sounds and Listening for Ghosts, Sun Riah sews together an album that at times feels more like a book of poems. A quiet but pronounced meditation of grief and the painfully long process of making sense, if ever we can, of what has been lost. Stephenson explores the spaces of her Grandmothers house, rooms that, once so full of life, become engulfed in absence with her passing. The haunting power of this work is not just its universal applicability, but the recognition that where we come from, landscapes, houses, family, all of the many ties that bind us to our own identity, and what becomes of us once those threads come undone, constitutes the fabric, the language by which we know ourselves.
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/sun-riahs-haunting-meditations-of-loss-home-identity
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/sun-riahs-haunting-meditations-of-loss-home-identity
"Writing", says Canteri, "(great, average or terrible) is therapy. It’s creation." The Australian singer-songwriter, who has released two solo albums, When We Were Young and Late At Night, in addition to three stellar records with the Alt. Country band The Stillsons, is currently at work on a new album with Jeff Lang. "Sometimes I feel it’s hard to quantify just how much of my life and relationships revolve around music," Canteri says. "Playing music definitely keeps you humble… one month you’re playing to an amazing huge crowd at a festival, next month you’ll be playing to one man and the bar tender." Canteri's songs bear incredible depth, range and eclecticism, an arresting array of bluesy folk, rock and roll, alt. country grit and tender introspection, songs that scratch beneath the surface and linger in your head long after you've heard them. After a decade in music I think it is safe to say that Cat Canteri has secured a unique and enduring place for herself in music. And to those on a similar path who are being swallowed by doubt, it's important to remember: "Be compassionate to yourself. Be kind to yourself," and most importantly, "Never give up. Never give in."
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/cat-canteri-on-human-connection-strength-in-numbers
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/cat-canteri-on-human-connection-strength-in-numbers
Belgium's Annabel Lee is a unique and lively garage pop, post punk band fronted by songwriter Audrey Marot. Their debut album Wallflowers was released this June on Luik Records and features an array of highly addictive songs such as Best Good Friend, (the original working name of the band) and the riot grrrl reminiscent track Period Sex. Audrey talks with AHC about the origins and current configuration of the band, sibling bonds forged through a shared love of music, and using daily life as inspiration.
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-annabel-lees-audrey-marot
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-annabel-lees-audrey-marot
Brisbane, Australia singer-songwriter Angharad Drake on her latest album, Ghost, shooting for longevity through unabashed authenticity, side stepping the temporariness of fashion and sticking to your guns. "If you want to be a musician you're already setting yourself up for a lot of failure. It's a tough business." The songs born of determination and honesty often are the strongest, most durable things. And if poetic authenticity is any measurement of success, then Drake's Ghost is certainly a hit from those higher planes where true art unravels, a place where we can "listen and decide for ourselves what is good."
Check out the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-angharad-drake
Check out the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-angharad-drake
Dorothea Tachler, lead singer of the Brooklyn based band My Favourite Things, currently set to release their new album, Fly I will, because I can this July, talks with AHC about her inspirations, musical instincts and why we should never assume things will last forever; leaving expectations at the door, and digging deep into the creative vision at hand.
Read our exclusive interview with Dorothea Tachler here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-dorothea-tachler
Read our exclusive interview with Dorothea Tachler here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-dorothea-tachler
Resistance is built of love, and where these dangerous times will take us depends on those who are carrying the light into the dark. Ruth Mundy takes up the call of her political-musical forebears, Woody Guthrie, Billy Bragg, Leonard Cohen, Joan Baez, to speak truth to power. The title of her debut album, Don't Be A Monster, says it all. Be decent, be good, be brave. "It’s other people’s response to my songs which can save me," says Ruth, "it reassures me that I’m doing something worthwhile, and also reminds me that other people are struggling with the same stuff and that we are all looking out for each other." Songwriters like Ruth Mundy are needed now more than ever. Every added perspective of compassion and resistance to the tapestry of our world is but the price of our humanity. Will we pay it forward, will we stay human, will we refuse to be monsters? It might be uncertain, but Mundy's songs wager that it's worth the risk to find out what we're made of; heart and spirit, or darkness and cruelty.
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-ruth-mundy
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-ruth-mundy
"What’s the focus point?" asks Nadia Reid, "Is it to get on a big stage and have attention? Or is it this insatiable urge to write and play, write and play? You have to start from the very bottom. And be patient." That patience and perseverance has paid off in the form of Reid's second album, Preservation, where experience from roads less traveled finds relief in returning home to the ones we love. "I’ll never know what it's like on the other side of the songs that I write," says Reid, "but for me, [it] is a huge healing process... There’s this place I have to tap into. Sometimes I get there and sometimes it feels impossible. I don’t know what it is. But when I’m there, I’m present and songs tend to flow, and it all feels right." An unstoppable inner strength pours through the songs of Preservation, asking "How dark, how heavy?" if it's true that music is an anchor, than Reid's is no exception, a tried and true, durable sound that echoes inside of us, familiar terrains come to new light.
Full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-nadia-reid
Full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-nadia-reid
To know that what we do matters, that is both the challenge and the challenge's calling. With a sound almost woven out of the earth, Martha Reich sings from the brittle openings of the heart. To hear one must listen, beyond receiving; absorbing. Some music is better suited than others to work on such deep fronts, Reich's songs are certainly up to that task. "When I listen and follow my heart," Martha says, "I never go wrong or get lost." To take in the art that comes from such a place opens up our lives in ways that are impossible to measure but so important to hold onto. As Reich says; "Don't give up what's in your heart to do." "Sow more seeds," instead.
Full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-martha-reich
Full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-martha-reich
"I don't know if I have a God but my mother likes to think I have hers" begins Jersey Devil, the debut solo album of Brennan, a member of the Boston MA punk rock band Dazey and The Scouts, here we find a decidedly different sound, a mix of lo fi, tape deck folk in the tradition of The Velvet Underground and Bill Callahan. Brennan's vocal styling has a very earnest lived-in quality which comes across in these songs as if there is almost no separation, which is to say that we believe not only the authenticity of this music but also the voice that carries it.
Check out the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-brennan-wedl
Check out the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-brennan-wedl
"Just cause I'm broke don't mean I need fixed" Wolf sings in Kill No More, the opening track off her latest album Country Pop Hit. Lo brings to mind Gillian Welch with a sense of humor and irony, but no less sincere and heartbreaking, as evidenced in the somber closing number Gone Are the Days... "of nothing left but the stain". Poetry, grit and wit are all effortlessly woven throughout a record that feels equal parts timeless and modern. "I think a true musical education requires you to face the parts of yourself that present struggles, darkness, misunderstanding, secrets—a lot like good lovers" Lo says, when asked from whence inspiration comes, quite simply or not so simply; different lovers. Here Lo walks us through "a house called Girl Island, misguided romances along the way, despair, time spent walking. busking and talking to people in the city" while leaving us with the sound reminder that we don't get to choose what saves us.
Read our interview with Lo Wolf here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lo-wolf
Read our interview with Lo Wolf here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lo-wolf
"Being an independent artist is a constant hustle," says Lola Rhodes, "and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ve always loved being scrappy, paving my own path towards the things that I want." The L.A. based singer-songwriter is to be admired when it comes to building an audience, utilizing platforms like Periscope and Patreon, Rhodes is nose to the grindstone in almost every capacity and aspect of her creative career. And, by all indications, it's payed off. Her self titled debut, which is available via Bandcamp and other outlets, bears the mark not only of building something with your own hands, but of possessing an unbeatable determination and spirit. "Music connects me to myself in ways I didn’t know that I needed to be healed" says Rhodes, "and it connects me to my listeners in the same ways."
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lola-rhodes
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lola-rhodes
Brooklyn based singer-songwriter Lara Ewen on out-of-tune pianos, The Ramones, her latest album The Wishing Stone Songs, and how music is a lot like love; you need someone else in the room to make it real.
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lara-ewen
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lara-ewen
Melbourne singer-songwriter Anna Cordell says that when she picks up the guitar, it's a symbolic thing. Searching for the in-between moments, the sudden pauses and gaps in the flow of living, her music a type of sight leading one toward the hidden. "The cracks in the walls are where the magic happens," Cordell writes. "But they are hard to see sometimes- easy to bypass, easy to skirt over." Anna's last record, These Walls, which was met with much critical praise upon its release, is soon to be joined by another, no doubt equally praise worthy album this fall. Here Anna talks with AHC about her inspirations, fitting music into fashion and vice versa, making art for the right reasons and about all those who do what they do "because they have to. Because it is human. "
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-anna-cordell
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-anna-cordell
To my mind there are two very distinct kinds of artists in the world: those who create because they can and those who create because they have to. Vancouver Singer-songwriter, poet and playwright Rodney DeCroo, without question, belongs to the latter. The work not only fits the life lived and the experiences undergone, but precisely because its creation is a matter of survival, the insights offered come to us in full form, no empty platitudes or easy answers. What one knows best is what one has been through, and the songs, the poems, the plays, like beacons in the night, open up paths for similar souls to follow. While we each walk our own, familiar stories and songs go a long way as our companions on those singular, treacherous roads that lie ahead. DeCroo describes music as a road map back to himself. "How I survived those years" Rodney says, "is still a mystery to me. Songs express the mysteries of being human that go beyond my ability to talk about them. That's why we need them."
Read our exclusive interview with Rodney DeCroo here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-rodney-decroo
Read our exclusive interview with Rodney DeCroo here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-rodney-decroo
Salem, Oregon singer-songwriter Molly Kate, says that many (if not all) of her songs reflect her early environment in the Pacific Northwest, a deep sense of place that gets spun into the flow of folk stories that fill our ether, scrapbooks of personal experience; mountains, verdant forests and overcast coasts. "I can’t remember a time when I didn’t feel music in my bones, in everything I do" Kate says. "I know that the songs I write now will become a capsule later on for this time in history. I think musicians, writers, and artists in general, are the documenters, the folklorists. If we write what we know, what we see, how the world is making us feel at this time, it solidifies something that’s often intangible." Here Molly talks to AHC about her musical inspirations, a new album slated for the summer and offers some heart warming advice to her younger self.
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-molly-kate
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-molly-kate
Amy Duncan is a Scottish singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. She has recorded five albums: Pilgrimage (2006), Story of a Girl (2007), Potential-Space (2010), Cycles of Life (2013) Undercurrents (2016), which was released under her own label, Filly Records and her brand new album, Antidote.
"There is a sense of hope in Antidote," Amy writes, "I was searching for a cure, a way of being, that could move beyond the depressive cycle. Knowing the past cannot be changed, it is ultimately about moving forward, with the intention to choose to live life in a positive way."
check out the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-amy-duncan
"There is a sense of hope in Antidote," Amy writes, "I was searching for a cure, a way of being, that could move beyond the depressive cycle. Knowing the past cannot be changed, it is ultimately about moving forward, with the intention to choose to live life in a positive way."
check out the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-amy-duncan
Sub Pop recording artist Jesca Hoop, on her new album, Memories Are Now, and the inspirational forces at work in her music.
Hoop's style has been characterized as largely experimental with folk, rock, and electronic influences. Her early mentor, Tom Waits, described it as, "like a four-sided coin. She is an old soul, like a black pearl, a good witch or a red moon. Her music is like going swimming in a lake at night".
She often finds that, "I have an identity crisis every time I write a catalog of songs, I think: what is this music? Where does it fit?". She explained her tendency to move between a number of styles as, "I am impressed by the power of music and its ability to transform the vessel it enters. I am everyday affected by it. If I want to change my mood, I change my music".
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-jesca-hoop
Hoop's style has been characterized as largely experimental with folk, rock, and electronic influences. Her early mentor, Tom Waits, described it as, "like a four-sided coin. She is an old soul, like a black pearl, a good witch or a red moon. Her music is like going swimming in a lake at night".
She often finds that, "I have an identity crisis every time I write a catalog of songs, I think: what is this music? Where does it fit?". She explained her tendency to move between a number of styles as, "I am impressed by the power of music and its ability to transform the vessel it enters. I am everyday affected by it. If I want to change my mood, I change my music".
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-jesca-hoop
"You are in so much pain, I did not inflict it, I cannot take it away" Stephanie Forryan sings in Helpless, a song that says so much in the simplest, most purest of ways. Forryan talks us through how letting the moment inspire us, creatively, bends its branches into our daily life as well, "Let the way you feel right now inform and change the choices you make as you sing and play" Stephanie writes, and "as you get better at doing that with music you also get better at doing that in life."
Check out the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-stephanie-forryan
Check out the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-stephanie-forryan
From the rugged terrain of Northern Ireland comes a songwriter who, as The Irish Times puts it, is "a bit of a wonder." Hannah McPhillimy, however, is solidly grounded when it comes to what she does, "I still feel a fool explaining to people what it is that I do" McPhillimy remarks, "- surely, I sometimes ask myself, singing at unsuspecting punters can’t be viewed as a legitimate life direction?" But ultimately it's what art lets loose into the world, something which would have been found lacking if not for our unique, singular contribution, that makes any creative calling incredibly worthwhile. As McPhillimy puts it, "the buzz of bringing entirely new art to life, throwing it out to strangers across the world and finding, oddly enough, that it has found a place and a home with them is like no other I have known." A string of well crafted, thoughtful musical releases, the most recent of which is last years Wind Machine shows the mark of a songwriter who pens from deep within, it might be thought of as a given but not all musicians create from the depths, some play it safe on the surface, not so when it comes to McPhillimy. As she remarks to what this creative journey has taught her, main among many life lessons is that "Not knowing where you’re going is not a good enough reason to stop going there." Adding, soberly, that "life is opaque/uncertain/incomprehensible for everyone, you might as well make moves towards the things that make you feel most alive. Or if you can't do that, do the things that make for the funniest stories – that’s life lesson number two."
Check out the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-hannah-mcphillimy
Check out the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-hannah-mcphillimy
Last month saw the release of Little Thieves, Elli Perry's latest LP, which has been described as a story of renewal and rebirth, chronicling the journey of transformation and ultimately finding the strength necessary to start again. Perry's voice conveys the very real sense that it has been places, and each song on the record carries testimony to the sense of displacement, heartbreak, longing and scrappy resolve while also consoling the listener in those sweet spots that hide out along the way. Here Elli talks about the ways in which "being more or less permanently transient teaches you a lot about gratitude and respect for the people and places that care for you, take you in, and allow you to keep moving on down the road," how she first started playing music professionally by age 12 and has never really looked back since, concluding that the secret, ultimately, is to just keep going, to make art that you believe in, that can hold you and others up.
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-elli-perry
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-elli-perry
To singer-songwriter Brad Sanzenbacher it's all about community. And not just in music, you find it all sorts of places, Brad says, "I think anyone who goes to the same place every week and sees the same group of people is going to find themselves healing. Whether that’s an open mic night, a kickball league, or whatever, it’s the sense of community that heals." The journey, Sanzenbacher says, has been one of trying to do the best he can, keeping in mind that he's had to learn it all along the way. How we get to A and B doesn't matter as much as the images, the world building that comes through in a well painted song. Pulling all of the senses out of the musical kit bag, "Honeysuckle. Lilac. Perfume. Nostalgic smells; a secret weapon in lyrics." Building diorama's that pull you in is a large part of what you aim for, Brad says, a good song has a lot of moving parts, and a songwriter, the ones who are paying attention, are constantly working to fit those pieces together.
Full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-brad-sanzenbacher
Full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-brad-sanzenbacher
"Music has saved me countless times, and it really does feel spiritual to me in that sense," Barth says, adding, "That it’s something that has never turned it’s back on me and shows up for me again and again and helps me through tough times." Growing up in a musical household, Barth's father, an opera singer, and her mother a choreographer, Lesley grew up on the sounds of Carole King, James Taylor, Carly Simon, influences one can hear on Barth's debut LP, Green Hearts. A soulful and equally introspective record that takes one back to the musical landscape of a different era of songwriters, the 1970's, when confessional female pop, soul and folk ruled the airwaves, Janis Ian, Joni Mitchell, of which Barth eloquently describes, after having first heard the song “Case of You,” "It was almost like the song was a physical presence in the room – it really felt like there was life before that moment and then life after that moment." One gets the sense that this is the approach Barth uses in writing and composing her own songs, leaning into each one, fine tuning toward the essential, with strong, unforgettable tracks like The Falling, resulting in one of the most intelligent, evocative pop albums to appear in recent years. "I fall squarely in the Dizzy Gillespie camp of “if it sounds good and it feels good, it is good.” I think things that tend to feel good to me are things that are a good mixture of clever, honest, and surprising. And when things feel good you just want to keep doing them." And we, the listeners, want to keep listening.
Full Interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lesley-barth
Full Interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lesley-barth
Minneapolis singer-songwriter Jake Allan has a bare bones, straight-to-the-heart-of-matters, lived in quality to his voice and lyrics, after all, he says, it is simplicity and truth that make songs a bit more steady on their feet. "Many people try to make things harder than they need to be. I’m certainly guilty of this too" Allan says, adding "don't get ahead of yourself and don't look back. Just be." Citing Steve Earle and Bob Dylan as abiding influences, one can also hear a bit of John Mellencamp breaking through, "Just because you're alive doesn't mean you know who you are" he sings on Wherever You Are, cutting away the lyrical fat and getting down to the bone of truth. On Somewhere to Somewhere and Everywhere in Between, Allan's latest record, we find a songwriter who has, as he puts it, "set out to create sources of love, danger, and truth for the listener," while also sifting through what Jake calls a "general unknowingness. Not knowing much about living, or being a son, or being a man, but trying to figure it out." When music asks these questions we can't help but pay attention, these are, after all, the kind of things we all find ourselves wondering and wanting to know about our own lives. How to be honest, true and better at all the things we continually have to learn along the way, never quite getting it right but aiming to come in as close as we can every time.
Full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-jake-allan
Full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-jake-allan
"I've got me to keep me down" sings Lael Neale on Pale Light of the Sun, weaving slow, 60's era sounds throughout a record of poetically introspective, literary songs, Neale has an almost timeless quality to her voice, slightly reminiscent of Fairport Convention's Sandy Denny or Kate Wolf. Although it was a combination of Cat Stevens and Harold and Maude that first sparked her inspiration for songwriting. "I wanted to tell stories in images made emotional through sound" Neale says, of that defining moment when creative paths were revealed. "Inspiration isn’t about magic, it’s about showing up" she adds. Here Lael talks about the importance of maintaining a childlike enthusiasm, the early and initial sense of awe and wonderment, how to show up with all your attention, the difference between looking and seeing and staying open to the creative possibilities that might, at any moment, come pouring through.
Full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lael-neale
Full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lael-neale
UK singer-songwriter Tracey Browne has spent over a decade crafting genuine, gutsy, heartfelt folk-rock songs. Having toured extensively with fellow UK recording artist Thea Gilmore, Browne is currently at work on a brand new album, Doctrine of Song, the first since 2012's 'Everyone Is Ordinary'. Here Tracey talks about how she got started, what and who inspires her and offers some grounded advice on the pitfalls and misconceptions of the music biz, "No-one is better than the next person just because they’ve got a shiny poster and some quotes telling everyone they are ‘one to watch’." says Browne, "I have been humbled by the fact that there are a million other singer songwriters out there, because we are putting something positive into the world by being honest enough to create and let it be seen." Cultivating community, putting both shoulders to the wheel and letting the songs land where they will, a humble, worthwhile and necessary calling.
Check out the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-tracey-browne
Check out the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-tracey-browne
Montreal-based singer/songwriter Roxanne Potvin says that one of the most valuable lessons she has learned about creativity (and life) is: what scares you is usually what means the most to you. And if what means the most is the music, Roxanne has faced that fear head on, resulting in an admirable and enduring body of work. Her latest album, For Dreaming, recorded after a five year break from music, is the well crafted result of all the years Potvin has spent cultivating and composing simplicity; only keeping what is necessary, the bare bones of emotion. As Bob Mersereau once wrote of Potvin, "The beauty, well, that’s the sound of somebody who has learned how to make the sounds in her heart come alive.” "I think the most significant thing being a songwriter has taught me" Roxanne says, "is how much of yourself is shown to you in the process." Here we get a small glimpse of what those things are.
Check out the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-roxanne-potvin
Check out the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-roxanne-potvin
"Music," Duncan says, is "a journey of continual discovery. There’s no linearity to what I do. And I love it for that reason." Last month saw the release of Doll's debut EP, Hurricane, written in an East Village apartment in NYC, a catalyst for the songs that came through on this record, "it's where I lived when I was young with my family. I’d become very stuck in my surroundings at home in the UK and I think creating this EP saved me in a way," Duncan says, of finding her muses, and bringing them out, across the water. We caught up with Doll to talk about how she got started on this path, her earliest and fondest musical memories and her new EP, Hurricane.
Check out the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-doll-duncan
Check out the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-doll-duncan
"No one gets anywhere with out the help of someone else" writes Ali Holder, whether in the form of inspiration or actual help. "I am not my art, we are separate things" adds the Austin, TX singer-songwriter, of the many life lessons that she has learned along the way, including staying tough, being kind to yourself and others. Holder's sound has been described as equal parts outlaw country and Lilith Fair. Literary figures also loom large on her inspiration's horizon, the characters of Stephen King and the "word herding" of songwriter James McMurtry have all become central parts of her creative constellation. "If I did not have a creative outlet, I am not sure how that would have manifested itself in me. Being able to get all the darkness out of my hands and out of my mouth is truly life saving," Holder says of the healing, reparative power of music. And if you find yourself beginning to doubt the value of whatever it is that you do in this life time, learn to "let the universe surprise you" Holder offers, "over do it, under do it," but most of all just do it. Jump in, stay true to yourself, and live a life that makes you want to sing inside.
Read our interview with Ali here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-ali-holder
Read our interview with Ali here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-ali-holder
"It starts with a single note" Beckwitt says, "to change a person’s life, influence one’s soul." Everything that made us must be brought out into the open, transformed through song, poetry, art, "we end up creating the things that we needed in our darker times." In her song “One More,” Elisabeth sings about her struggles with addiction, now, five years clean, Beckwitt says "it will always be a part of my life, but all I can hope is that through talking about it and through music I can help anyone who might also be struggling, and continue to heal myself." Having come through a great many things, Beckwitt has found that by creating with the difficulties of our past often we touch the lives of others, giving them something to hear and hold onto in their own dark times.
Read our interview with Elisabeth here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-elisabeth-beckwitt
Read our interview with Elisabeth here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-elisabeth-beckwitt
"In the 12 years she has toured the world with Lake Street Dive, Bridget Kearney has fine-tuned many things: adjusting to jet lag, sleeping in moving vehicles, hauling her acoustic bass up and down stairs, keeping her cool in front of cameras, thousands of people and personal heroes. But the skill she has honed most obsessively is songwriting. “For me it's the best part of music,” says Kearney. “That's the best feeling: after those few hours that you spend working on the song, and you have this thing that you've made, and you’re like, ‘Wow. This didn’t exist before. I’m so excited about what just happened.’" Now, at long last, Kearney steps into the spotlight with her first solo effort, the wry, big-hearted pop album, Won’t Let You Down. The record, like its title, promises not to disappoint."
Read our interview with Bridget here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-bridget-kearney
Read our interview with Bridget here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-bridget-kearney
Austin, TX singer-songwriter Nichole Wagner, whose new ep, Plotting the Constellations dropped in January, writes that "Music, at the end of the day, is a service." And as to the mysterious how of it all, when it comes to songwriting "every once in a while something falls from the sky and you’re in the right spot to catch it…and it just feels “right” — or it says whatever it is you’re trying to say in the way you needed to hear it." Nichole talks with AHC about the important role that music has played for her throughout her life and says that her biggest hope, at the end of the day, is that others find joy or solace out of what she's created.
Read our interview with Nichole here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-nichole-wagner
Read our interview with Nichole here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-nichole-wagner
Berry Robertson describes Permafrost as "an emotional or mental state of being where you feel very frozen, very numb, very unsure, very scared and very stuck." Also an apt description for growing up, the young, self taught singer-songwriter finds in music a place to process her life, cope and share stories that are deeply rooted in her day to day. "It's something that I need to do not just something I enjoy doing or feel like I want to do. Music is all about connection to me."
Read our interview with Berry here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-berry-robertson
Read our interview with Berry here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-berry-robertson
Homes/Lives, by Harri Endersby, is an electronic folk album of incredible beauty, the sound of the spheres aligning in our modern moment. Here Harri talks about the influence of a sense of place on her work, the North East of England, where, as she puts it "some scenes and memories are just so beautiful that they need to be sung about." Homes/Lives is a musical photo album of those landscapes, and through the artist's eyes we see the world a little wider and more achingly beautiful than before.
Read our interview with Harri here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-harri-endersby
Read our interview with Harri here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-harri-endersby
Chthonic is a rare album, a living metaphor. In the deep thematics of the underworld, Julia Lucille carves out a landscape of struggle and rebirth, a phoenix rising from the ashes, building a home of its own in a world that may be none too welcoming. Transformations need no permission to occur, they are born, either way, in mid flight or crash, and it is the unspoken in each of us that emerges when our psychic, physical ropes fray. In putting this album together, Julia admirably strove to highlight feminine aspects instrumentally "rejecting guitar parts and tones that sounded too aggressive or masculine in favor of balance and subtlety." Here emerges the evolution of a "passive girl becoming queen of the underworld," of "going really deep down into the darkest places emotionally and then coming back up," edges shimmering. In a time where our collective dreaming seems to be on decline, Chthonic sparks out into the manufactured darkness, piercing the veil and letting in much needed light.
Read our interview with Julia here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-julia-lucille
Read our interview with Julia here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-julia-lucille
Sarah White became involved with the growing music community in Charlottesville and played in several bands towards the end of the 90's (White Trash Cookin', Pat Nixon, Miracle Penny). At the time the record label Jagjaguwar was based out of Charlottesville (before moving to Indiana to merge with Secretly Canadian) and released her first solo album in 1997, a collection of lo-fi four-track recordings made over a 3-year period dubbed All My Skies Are Blue.
In 2000, she released her second album, also on Jagjaguwar, entitled Bluebird which was more melodic and was recorded in a studio. The record garnered her a wide range of positive reviews and comparisons to artists like Cat Power and Edith Frost. Later that year she recorded and self-released Pickin' Strummin' And Singin'... The Versatile Sarah White which was a collection of early country standards and traditional songs.
Of her record Bluebird, The San Francisco Bay Guardian wrote: “A delicately bare and pretty album that ensures the singer-songwriter a place in the company of Cat Power’s Chan Marshall and Edith Frost. Yep, that good.” And Dave Matthews has written “Sarah’s music kills me, beautifully from the ground up, no plastic.”
Read our interview with Sarah here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-sarah-white
In 2000, she released her second album, also on Jagjaguwar, entitled Bluebird which was more melodic and was recorded in a studio. The record garnered her a wide range of positive reviews and comparisons to artists like Cat Power and Edith Frost. Later that year she recorded and self-released Pickin' Strummin' And Singin'... The Versatile Sarah White which was a collection of early country standards and traditional songs.
Of her record Bluebird, The San Francisco Bay Guardian wrote: “A delicately bare and pretty album that ensures the singer-songwriter a place in the company of Cat Power’s Chan Marshall and Edith Frost. Yep, that good.” And Dave Matthews has written “Sarah’s music kills me, beautifully from the ground up, no plastic.”
Read our interview with Sarah here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-sarah-white
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."
Read our interview with Vera here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-vera-van-heeringen
Read our interview with Vera here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-vera-van-heeringen
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.
Read our interview with Gabrielle here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-gabrielle-louise
Read our interview with Gabrielle here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-gabrielle-louise
"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."
Read our interview with Sarah here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-sarah-loucks
Read our interview with Sarah here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-sarah-loucks
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. 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.”
Read our interview with April here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-april-verch
Read our interview with April here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-april-verch
Laura Cantrell is a country music artist based in New York City. Born in Nashville, TN, she came to New York to attend Columbia College, and found that her abiding interest in country music helped her stay connected with her family roots. That interest was the motivation behind her long-running radio program on WFMU in Jersey City, NJ, “The Radio Thrift Shop.” Beginning on WFMU in 1993, the program was a Saturday afternoon staple in the New York area for 13 years, then moved to WFMU.org and ran for two seasons on BBC Radio Scotland as a summer replacement in 2005 and 2006. In her ten-year recording career, Cantrell has released three acclaimed albums: “Not The Tremblin’ Kind,” “When The Roses Bloom Again,” and “Humming By The Flowered Vine.” She has toured extensively in the United Kingdom, Europe and Ireland, and was a favorite of pioneering British disc jockey John Peel, who called her 2000 album “Not The Tremblin’ Kind” “my favorite record of the last ten years, possibly my life.” Cantrell recorded several Peel sessions for the BBC from 2000-2004 and appeared on the first Peel Day program on Radio One commemorating the first anniversary of Peel’s death. Cantrell’s music has been celebrated in the press including features in The New York Times, “O” Magazine, Elle, and the Wall Street Journal. Cantrell’s music has been featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” “On Point,” and “Weekend Edition.” She has performed on “A Prairie Home Companion,” “Mountain Stage,” and the “Grand Ole Opry,” and appeared on the television programs “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” and the Sundance Channel’s “Spectacle: Elvis Costello. Last spring, Cantrell released Kitty Wells Dresses: Songs Of The Queen of Country Music, a recording she made in honor of one of her heroines, the great Kitty Wells. A meditation on femininity in country music, the set takes its title from an original song written in tribute to Wells. At present, Cantrell is at work on her fourth album of original material.
Read our interview with Laura here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-laura-cantrell
Read our interview with Laura here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-laura-cantrell
Ariana Brophy is the songwriting equivalent of mulled wine; sweet, nostalgic, perfectly paired with a rainy evening and a fireplace. With vocal clarity that would suggest she has been singing a lifetime, she writes songs that weave heartbreak, love, hope and loss onto a canvas of stylized fingerpicking and expert harmony. She crafts her songs with a tuned eye for storyline and a remarkable ear for the moments a heart witnesses before the mind. She is adept at playing to the imagery around her and exploring what it means to genuinely feel. Her first EP ‘Ink And Water’ was nominated for an Edmonton Music Award in 2016, and her second EP ‘Sweet Things’ was released Sept 2016. The summer of 2016 saw Ariana playing Canmore Folk Music Festival, as well as singing harmonies for multiple artists at Edmonton Folk Festival. She continues to sing harmonies on almost any night, for over a dozen other musicians.
Read our interview with Ariana here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-ariana-brophy
Read our interview with Ariana here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-ariana-brophy
Described as the love child of Sting and Edith Piaf, British singer-songwriter MIRI blends heart and grit, distilled through a smooth, melodic pop filter. MIRI co-promotes and co-hosts highly acclaimed monthly live music night "Blue Monday" at The Boogaloo in London; collaborating in 2016 with award winning music venue Green Note on two sold out female artist focused events called "Girls To The Front”. Performing regularly around the UK & Europe MIRI has gained a reputation for her eclectic gigs and stage presence. Past live shows include 100 Club for The Official Bob Marley Birthday Celebration, alternative reggae artist Natty's Vibes & Pressure at Passing Clouds, and supporting American folk artist Laura Veirs at Bush Hall. Behind the scenes MIRI works with the charity School Ground Sounds which provide additional opportunities for young people to enhance their musical education. MIRI has been a guest mentor for Wired4Music's drop in for young people aspiring to have a career in music and is also on the FAC's BEAT Board.
Read our interview with MIRI here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-miri
Read our interview with MIRI here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-miri
Jaden Larue is a native to California, but her musical roots can be found far from the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles. She grew up in a quiet Northern California mountain town, where she started her musical journey at an early age. She began learning to play the piano when she was only 4 years old, discovering the fundamentals of music and creativity that would eventually lead her to Los Angeles, Nashville, San Francisco and many places in between. But it wasn't until she was 15 that she really found inspiration in the voices of Janis Ian, The Beatles, Patsy Cline, Tom Waits and her grandfather's old records. From then on, she began living her life as a singer-songwriter, performing her music at venues all across the country and eventually landing in Southern California and making it her home. Besides being a new voice for her generation, the kind that uses her art to share her pure and simple truth, she also heads up community events to support various non-profit organizations and invests herself into arts programs all over Los Angeles.
Read our interview with Jaden here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-jaden-larue
Read our interview with Jaden here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-jaden-larue
Emily Jane White is an American singer and songwriter from Oakland, (CA), who has released five solo albums and toured internationally.
On 2 November 2007, White released her first album, Dark Undercoat, through Double Negative Records. It was released on Talitres in Europe and as a vinyl LP in 2008 by Saint Rose Records. It included the song "Wild Tigers I Have Known", the title track of the Cam Archer film of the same name. Archer would later direct a number of videos for the album.
Victorian America, was released in October 2009 in Europe on Talitres, and on 27 April 2010 in the U.S. by Milan Records. It was recorded in San Francisco and Oakland. White had written a number of songs that she worked on with her band for "basically a year and a half before we went and recorded". Compared to her debut, she described it as "more of an ambitious record".
Her third album is entitled Ode to Sentience. The first single, "Requiem Waltz", first appeared on American Songwriter.
In December 2013, White released Blood/Lines that included a contribution by Marissa Nadler. It was described as "a new stylistic development in her repertoire" and having a "neo-gothic feel".
In June 2016 the release of the new album was confirmed and preceded by the single "Frozen Garden". In July 2016, White released her fifth album They Moved in Shadow All Together that was described as "bringing her concern for race and gender equality to the fore of her poetic folk-pop".
Read our interview with Emily here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-emily-jane-white
On 2 November 2007, White released her first album, Dark Undercoat, through Double Negative Records. It was released on Talitres in Europe and as a vinyl LP in 2008 by Saint Rose Records. It included the song "Wild Tigers I Have Known", the title track of the Cam Archer film of the same name. Archer would later direct a number of videos for the album.
Victorian America, was released in October 2009 in Europe on Talitres, and on 27 April 2010 in the U.S. by Milan Records. It was recorded in San Francisco and Oakland. White had written a number of songs that she worked on with her band for "basically a year and a half before we went and recorded". Compared to her debut, she described it as "more of an ambitious record".
Her third album is entitled Ode to Sentience. The first single, "Requiem Waltz", first appeared on American Songwriter.
In December 2013, White released Blood/Lines that included a contribution by Marissa Nadler. It was described as "a new stylistic development in her repertoire" and having a "neo-gothic feel".
In June 2016 the release of the new album was confirmed and preceded by the single "Frozen Garden". In July 2016, White released her fifth album They Moved in Shadow All Together that was described as "bringing her concern for race and gender equality to the fore of her poetic folk-pop".
Read our interview with Emily here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-emily-jane-white
Carrie Rodriguez, a singer-songwriter from Austin, Texas, finds beauty in the cross-pollination of diverse traditions. A passionate performer, she effortlessly melds fiery fiddle playing, electrifying vocals and a fresh interpretation of new and classic songs with an “Ameri-Chicana” attitude. Her newest project, the upcoming Spanish/English album “Lola,” is both a return to her musical roots and something of a departure where she delivers her own twangy, Texas-bred twist on Mexican Ranchera songs, creating culturally blended music for a culturally blended world.
Inspired by the 1940’s-era recordings of Carrie’s great aunt, Chicana singing sensation Eva Garza, the album is a mixture of new and old songs. It features Spanish songs written by some of Carrie’s favorite Mexican composers, as well as her own Ranchera-inspired original songs written in English, Spanish and “Spanglish.”
Carrie, an Austin native, began playing violin at age five. Her training quickly became the passion and focus of her childhood, and by age 10, she had performed as part of a group at Carnegie Hall. She continued the classical track in her first year at Oberlin Conservatory, then shifted gears to pursue her true love affair with the fiddle—staying true to her Texas roots—at the Berklee College of Music.
Early in her career, a collaboration with singer-songwriter Chip Taylor resulted in four highly acclaimed duet albums. Her subsequent solo albums highlight the diversity of her musical identity, from her debut “Seven Angels on a Bicycle” to 2013’s “Give Me All You Got,” which reached no. 1 on the Americana Music Charts.
Carrie has toured, recorded and co-written songs with legendary artists such as Lucinda Williams, John Prine, Bill Frisell, Rickie Lee Jones, Mary Gauthier, Los Lobos, Alejandro Escovedo and Los Lonely Boys, among others. She has made numerous television and radio appearances, including Austin City Limits, The Tonight Show and A Prairie Home Companion. She has been profiled in many publications, including Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Times of London, The New Yorker, the Washington Post and many more.
“She’s the trifecta for me – beautiful singer, soulful songwriter, and kick-ass fiddler.” —author Brené Brown
Read our interview with Carrie here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-carrie-rodriguez
Inspired by the 1940’s-era recordings of Carrie’s great aunt, Chicana singing sensation Eva Garza, the album is a mixture of new and old songs. It features Spanish songs written by some of Carrie’s favorite Mexican composers, as well as her own Ranchera-inspired original songs written in English, Spanish and “Spanglish.”
Carrie, an Austin native, began playing violin at age five. Her training quickly became the passion and focus of her childhood, and by age 10, she had performed as part of a group at Carnegie Hall. She continued the classical track in her first year at Oberlin Conservatory, then shifted gears to pursue her true love affair with the fiddle—staying true to her Texas roots—at the Berklee College of Music.
Early in her career, a collaboration with singer-songwriter Chip Taylor resulted in four highly acclaimed duet albums. Her subsequent solo albums highlight the diversity of her musical identity, from her debut “Seven Angels on a Bicycle” to 2013’s “Give Me All You Got,” which reached no. 1 on the Americana Music Charts.
Carrie has toured, recorded and co-written songs with legendary artists such as Lucinda Williams, John Prine, Bill Frisell, Rickie Lee Jones, Mary Gauthier, Los Lobos, Alejandro Escovedo and Los Lonely Boys, among others. She has made numerous television and radio appearances, including Austin City Limits, The Tonight Show and A Prairie Home Companion. She has been profiled in many publications, including Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Times of London, The New Yorker, the Washington Post and many more.
“She’s the trifecta for me – beautiful singer, soulful songwriter, and kick-ass fiddler.” —author Brené Brown
Read our interview with Carrie here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-carrie-rodriguez
Shlomo Franklin grew up on a farm milking cows in Bethel, New York. He soon developed his own style of music inspired by the neighboring grounds of Woodstock. His musical influence includes Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Nirvana and Johnny Cash. Shlomo Franklin is favorably recognized by his smile, kindness and warmth he sheds onto every person he meets.
Read our interview with Shlomo here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-shlomo-franklin
Read our interview with Shlomo here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-shlomo-franklin
Sophie Rae is a Chicago songwriter with a deep appreciation and understanding of the blues. In Leading Lady we hear "Nothing in my pocket and nothing to gain, work hard at your woman's work and you'll be promised fame, it ain't the same", a gutsy sound that harkens back to the Odetta era of folk & blues. Think Fairport Convention, think boot stomping, Lead bellly, Kelly Joe Phelps, think good music, done as only Sophie Rae can, shooting from the hip with soul, swerve and some serious guitar chops. Wise to the ways of the world and ready to shout it out, quite simply, this is the blues.
Read our interview with Sophie here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-sophie-rae
Read our interview with Sophie here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-sophie-rae
From New Jersey, John Gorka is a world-renowned singer-songwriter who got his start at a neighborhood coffeehouse in eastern Pennsylvania. Though small, Godfrey Daniels was and is one of the oldest and most venerable music institutions and has long been a hangout for music lovers and aspiring musicians. In the late 1970’s, John was was one of these aspiring musicians. Although his academic coursework at Moravian College lay in Philosophy and History, music began to offer paramount enticements. Soon he found himself living in the club’s basement and acting as resident MC and sound man, encountering legendary folk troubadours like Canadian singer-songwriter Stan Rogers, Eric Andersen, Tom Paxton and Claudia Schmidt. Their brand of folk-inspired acoustic music inspired him, and before long he was performing his own songs – mostly as an opener for visiting acts. Soon he started traveling to New York City, where Jack Hardy’s legendary Fast Folk circle (a breeding ground for many a major singer-songwriter) became a powerful source of education and encouragement. Folk meccas like Texas’ Kerrville Folk Festival (where he won the New Folk Award in 1984) and Boston followed, and his stunningly soulful baritone voice and original songwriting began turning heads. Those who had at one time inspired him – Suzanne Vega, Bill Morrissey, Nanci Griffith, Christine Lavin, Shawn Colvin – had become his peers.
In 1987, the young Minnesota-based Red House Records caught wind of John’s talents and released his first album, I Know, to popular and critical acclaim. With unusual drive and focus, John hit the ground running and, when an offer came from Windham Hill’s Will Ackerman in 1989, he signed with that label’s imprint, High Street Records. He proceeded to record five albums with High Street over the next seven years: Land of the Bottom Line, Jack’s Crows, Temporary Road, Out of the Valley and Between Five and Seven. His albums and his touring (over 150 nights a year at times) brought new accolades for his craft. His rich multifaceted songs full of depth, beauty and emotion gained increasing attention from critics and audiences across the country, as well as in Europe where his tours led him through Italy, Belgium, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, Switzerland and Germany. He also started sharing tours with many notable friends—Nanci Griffith and Mary Chapin Carpenter among them. All this brought his music to an ever-widening audience. His video for the single “When She Kisses Me” found a long-term rotation on VH-1’s “Current Country,” as well as on CMT and the Nashville Network.
In 1998, after five successful recordings and seven years at Windham Hill/High Street, John felt the need for a change and decided to return to his musical roots at Red House Records. The choice was driven, in part, by the artistic integrity that the label represents in an industry where the business of music too often takes precedence. The 1998 release After Yesterday marked a decidedly different attitude towards making music for John, and his next release The Company You Keep held fast to his tradition of fine songwriting, yet moved forward down new avenues. Its fourteen songs displays John’s creative use of lyrics and attention to detail. Andy Stochansky played drums and shared production credits with John and Rob Genadek. Ani DiFranco, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Lucy Kaplansky and Patty Larkin contributed stellar guitar work and vocals to this fan favorite. Old Futures Gone was informed by his life as husband and father of two young children and also contained the colorful experience of many hard years on the road. Writing in the Margins followed in 2006 and was an engaging collection of sweet and serious songs that spanned many musical genres—folk, pop, country and soul—and featured guest vocalists Nanci Griffith, Lucy Kaplansky and Alice Peacock. Now with this, his 11th studio album, he returns to his roots with So Dark You See, his most compelling and traditional album to date.
In addition to his 11 critically acclaimed albums, John released a collector’s edition box featuring a hi-definition DVD and companion CD called The Gypsy Life. Windham Hill also released a collection of John’s greatest hits from the label called Pure John Gorka. In 2010, he also released an album with his friends and Red House label-mates Lucy Kaplansky and Eliza Gilkyson under the name Red Horse. Getting high praise from critics and fans alike, it landed on the Billboard Folk Charts and was one of the most played albums on folk radio.
Many well known artists have recorded and/or performed John Gorka songs, including Mary Chapin Carpenter, Nanci Griffith, Mary Black and Maura O’Connell. John has graced the stage of Austin City Limits, Mountain Stage, etown and has appeared on CNN. His new song “Where No Monuments Stand” is featured in the upcoming documentary Every War Has Two Losers, about activist and Oregon Poet Laureate William Stafford (1914-1993).
John Gorka lives in Minnesota and when not on the road, he enjoys spending time with his wife and children. He continues to tour, playing festivals, theaters and clubs all over North America and Europe.
Read our interview with John here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-john-gorka
In 1987, the young Minnesota-based Red House Records caught wind of John’s talents and released his first album, I Know, to popular and critical acclaim. With unusual drive and focus, John hit the ground running and, when an offer came from Windham Hill’s Will Ackerman in 1989, he signed with that label’s imprint, High Street Records. He proceeded to record five albums with High Street over the next seven years: Land of the Bottom Line, Jack’s Crows, Temporary Road, Out of the Valley and Between Five and Seven. His albums and his touring (over 150 nights a year at times) brought new accolades for his craft. His rich multifaceted songs full of depth, beauty and emotion gained increasing attention from critics and audiences across the country, as well as in Europe where his tours led him through Italy, Belgium, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, Switzerland and Germany. He also started sharing tours with many notable friends—Nanci Griffith and Mary Chapin Carpenter among them. All this brought his music to an ever-widening audience. His video for the single “When She Kisses Me” found a long-term rotation on VH-1’s “Current Country,” as well as on CMT and the Nashville Network.
In 1998, after five successful recordings and seven years at Windham Hill/High Street, John felt the need for a change and decided to return to his musical roots at Red House Records. The choice was driven, in part, by the artistic integrity that the label represents in an industry where the business of music too often takes precedence. The 1998 release After Yesterday marked a decidedly different attitude towards making music for John, and his next release The Company You Keep held fast to his tradition of fine songwriting, yet moved forward down new avenues. Its fourteen songs displays John’s creative use of lyrics and attention to detail. Andy Stochansky played drums and shared production credits with John and Rob Genadek. Ani DiFranco, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Lucy Kaplansky and Patty Larkin contributed stellar guitar work and vocals to this fan favorite. Old Futures Gone was informed by his life as husband and father of two young children and also contained the colorful experience of many hard years on the road. Writing in the Margins followed in 2006 and was an engaging collection of sweet and serious songs that spanned many musical genres—folk, pop, country and soul—and featured guest vocalists Nanci Griffith, Lucy Kaplansky and Alice Peacock. Now with this, his 11th studio album, he returns to his roots with So Dark You See, his most compelling and traditional album to date.
In addition to his 11 critically acclaimed albums, John released a collector’s edition box featuring a hi-definition DVD and companion CD called The Gypsy Life. Windham Hill also released a collection of John’s greatest hits from the label called Pure John Gorka. In 2010, he also released an album with his friends and Red House label-mates Lucy Kaplansky and Eliza Gilkyson under the name Red Horse. Getting high praise from critics and fans alike, it landed on the Billboard Folk Charts and was one of the most played albums on folk radio.
Many well known artists have recorded and/or performed John Gorka songs, including Mary Chapin Carpenter, Nanci Griffith, Mary Black and Maura O’Connell. John has graced the stage of Austin City Limits, Mountain Stage, etown and has appeared on CNN. His new song “Where No Monuments Stand” is featured in the upcoming documentary Every War Has Two Losers, about activist and Oregon Poet Laureate William Stafford (1914-1993).
John Gorka lives in Minnesota and when not on the road, he enjoys spending time with his wife and children. He continues to tour, playing festivals, theaters and clubs all over North America and Europe.
Read our interview with John here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-john-gorka
You may know her as the front woman of rock ‘n’ roll band, The Furrs, but Cohen has recently emerged with two striking singles, ‘I Don’t Feel So Alive’, and ‘Sever The Walls’, off her self-produced 10 track album, “Full Closure And No Details”, set to be released early 2016. Coming off the back off a wild BIGSOUND show with her full band, Cohen has cemented herself as a unique songwriter, mixing eclectic pop with honest lyricism to create an infectious sound.
PRAISE FOR GABRIELLA COHEN
“They don’t seem to be playing for cool points, and their onstage demeanor reminds me of The Libertines in 2002 before they got big.” NME
“With what unabashed, rebellious sound she has on it, you’ll be hard pressed to fit her in easily in a box.” HILLYDILLY
“This is what separates Cohen from her peers because she is on a quest to deliver more than just pop music.” HEAVY AND WEIRD
‘'Gabriella can be relied upon for keeping your ears hanging on just that little bit longer with her honest to goodness charm and pull as a performer. That happens again here, just as I'm about to drift she drops in a hymnal organ refrain and rips a guitar solo.’ DAVE RUBY HOWE
Read our interview with Gabriella here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-gabriella-cohen
PRAISE FOR GABRIELLA COHEN
“They don’t seem to be playing for cool points, and their onstage demeanor reminds me of The Libertines in 2002 before they got big.” NME
“With what unabashed, rebellious sound she has on it, you’ll be hard pressed to fit her in easily in a box.” HILLYDILLY
“This is what separates Cohen from her peers because she is on a quest to deliver more than just pop music.” HEAVY AND WEIRD
‘'Gabriella can be relied upon for keeping your ears hanging on just that little bit longer with her honest to goodness charm and pull as a performer. That happens again here, just as I'm about to drift she drops in a hymnal organ refrain and rips a guitar solo.’ DAVE RUBY HOWE
Read our interview with Gabriella here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-gabriella-cohen
UK singer-songwriter Little Lapin continues to wow audiences worldwide with her heartfelt songs and distinctive voice. Her debut album ‘Remember The Highs’, released in May 2015, captured the attention of many music blogs, magazines and radio DJs with Unsigned and Independent Music Magazine announcing it as “Best International Album of 2015”. The title track and opening track featured on BBC 6 Music (Tom Robinson's BBC Introducing and 6 Music Recommends with Steve Lamacq).
July 16th saw the release of Little Lapin’s highly anticipated sophomore album ‘Holding Out For The Kicks’ . The nine track album was recorded in London and showcases her sophisticated and conscientious songwriting and ability to combine heartfelt lyrics with earworm melodies. ‘Californian Sun’ was the first release from the album (released April 2016) and it garnered much support from music blogs with ‘Independent Clauses announcing, “This track is breezy alt-country at its finest.”. Her ability to shed light on contemporary culture, whilst maintaining a warm delivery is winning her an army of fans with ‘Californian Sun’ enjoying spins on BBC 6 Music (Steve Lamacq and Gideon Coe) and Amazing Radio.
More recently Little Lapin released her stunning new single Narrabeen which captured the attention of BBC Introducing Cornwall and subsequently Radio 2 host Bob Harris who featured it on his Radio 2 Bob Harris Sunday show.
"Her voice is just so full of warmth and sass and that little endearing touch of cynicism; 'Narrabeen' is stunning!" BBC Introducing Cornwall.
“Little Lapin has the potential to become one of Britain’s most exciting and innovative singer songwriters. Thinking about it as her album seduces once again, she already is”. The Ringmaster Review.
Read our interview with Little Lapin here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-little-lapin
July 16th saw the release of Little Lapin’s highly anticipated sophomore album ‘Holding Out For The Kicks’ . The nine track album was recorded in London and showcases her sophisticated and conscientious songwriting and ability to combine heartfelt lyrics with earworm melodies. ‘Californian Sun’ was the first release from the album (released April 2016) and it garnered much support from music blogs with ‘Independent Clauses announcing, “This track is breezy alt-country at its finest.”. Her ability to shed light on contemporary culture, whilst maintaining a warm delivery is winning her an army of fans with ‘Californian Sun’ enjoying spins on BBC 6 Music (Steve Lamacq and Gideon Coe) and Amazing Radio.
More recently Little Lapin released her stunning new single Narrabeen which captured the attention of BBC Introducing Cornwall and subsequently Radio 2 host Bob Harris who featured it on his Radio 2 Bob Harris Sunday show.
"Her voice is just so full of warmth and sass and that little endearing touch of cynicism; 'Narrabeen' is stunning!" BBC Introducing Cornwall.
“Little Lapin has the potential to become one of Britain’s most exciting and innovative singer songwriters. Thinking about it as her album seduces once again, she already is”. The Ringmaster Review.
Read our interview with Little Lapin here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-little-lapin
Liz Stringer was playing piano before she could talk. The dye was cast young. Some argue that she still communicates better with music than with conversation. She grew up in Melbourne, Australia, the youngest of three kids. Her Dad was a music teacher, her Mum a literature and history teacher. The house reverberated with music of some kind constantly. There were instruments and books on every surface. And the backyard was littered with Aussie rules footies, cricket bats and tennis racquets. Ball sports and art. It was a good way to grow up.
At thirteen Liz won a music scholarship to an elite private girls school. She spent a few years there, making the most of the grand pianos and the sports facilities. It was a supportive, but rigid, environment. It was against school rules for students to eat in their uniform when not on school grounds. What the actual fuck. At fifteen she started playing guitar. At sixteen she went to Germany, started a band and recorded her first demo with those boys. Onto cassette. She’s declined to divulge the name of that band. Too embarrassing, she reckons. She cut her performing teeth in Germany. And learned how to drink beer and smoke cigarettes. Everyone smoked back then.
She returned to Melbourne, went to her local high school, and began to write more and more songs. Tripping on acid in her mates’ shed, drinking cold beers on hot summers days in the park next to her school. The guitar went everywhere with her.
After she finished high school she went back to Germany, picked up the band where they’d left it, borrowed a black Fender Stratocaster and a Bassman amp, secured a rehearsal studio in a World War II bunker and rehearsed religiously over the next three years. They played a few gigs. And had a lot of fun.
Then she went to England. To follow love, and obtain enough work to sustain her continuing life in Europe. She learned how to barkeep, she wrote more and more songs, played some solo shows and began to focus on the acoustic guitar again.
2003 she was back in Melbourne. And by 2006 had made her first album, “Soon” with her best mate, drummer Adam May. Ten years later it’s 2016 and she’s released four subsequent albums and is about to release her 5th studio record. She recorded it in Portland, Oregon. She wanted adventure again. She needed it. And she also fell in love. With Canada. So she started to plant roots and now she has a record deal and a bunch of beautiful friends there. She also gets back to her mob in Germany as often as she can.
She’s toured around Australia perpetually for years. She’s played every major festival. She’s revered by her musical peers for her inherent musical talent and low tolerance for bullshit. She neither has, nor wants, industry attention and validation. She’s a musician. It’s pretty simple, really.
Read our inteview with Liz here heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-liz-stringer
At thirteen Liz won a music scholarship to an elite private girls school. She spent a few years there, making the most of the grand pianos and the sports facilities. It was a supportive, but rigid, environment. It was against school rules for students to eat in their uniform when not on school grounds. What the actual fuck. At fifteen she started playing guitar. At sixteen she went to Germany, started a band and recorded her first demo with those boys. Onto cassette. She’s declined to divulge the name of that band. Too embarrassing, she reckons. She cut her performing teeth in Germany. And learned how to drink beer and smoke cigarettes. Everyone smoked back then.
She returned to Melbourne, went to her local high school, and began to write more and more songs. Tripping on acid in her mates’ shed, drinking cold beers on hot summers days in the park next to her school. The guitar went everywhere with her.
After she finished high school she went back to Germany, picked up the band where they’d left it, borrowed a black Fender Stratocaster and a Bassman amp, secured a rehearsal studio in a World War II bunker and rehearsed religiously over the next three years. They played a few gigs. And had a lot of fun.
Then she went to England. To follow love, and obtain enough work to sustain her continuing life in Europe. She learned how to barkeep, she wrote more and more songs, played some solo shows and began to focus on the acoustic guitar again.
2003 she was back in Melbourne. And by 2006 had made her first album, “Soon” with her best mate, drummer Adam May. Ten years later it’s 2016 and she’s released four subsequent albums and is about to release her 5th studio record. She recorded it in Portland, Oregon. She wanted adventure again. She needed it. And she also fell in love. With Canada. So she started to plant roots and now she has a record deal and a bunch of beautiful friends there. She also gets back to her mob in Germany as often as she can.
She’s toured around Australia perpetually for years. She’s played every major festival. She’s revered by her musical peers for her inherent musical talent and low tolerance for bullshit. She neither has, nor wants, industry attention and validation. She’s a musician. It’s pretty simple, really.
Read our inteview with Liz here heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-liz-stringer
From the opening track Summer of Feathers off of Jessie Winslow's Bare EP, we hear this whispery question tug at our sleeves, "Can you feel the fire in our hearts?" As fingers snap like a bodily percussion throughout the earthy and soft introduction of an over-too-soon solid artistic canvas, Winslow opens a small window onto a musical landscape we can only hope will continue to unfold its magic further on down the road, with the next batch of whispery sounds sure to leave us as enchanted & curious as do the songs of Bare.
Read our interview with Jessie here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-jessie-winslow
Read our interview with Jessie here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-jessie-winslow
Kate O'Callaghan is that rare bird that manages to combine evocative melodies with intelligent considered lyrics, covering a gamut of emotions from the sublime to the cathartic and blending together to create a totally original sound.
Distinctive in both writing style and beautiful vocal delivery, Kate draws reference from a very diverse range of sources, from historical figures and local heroes to nature and her surroundings in a skewed, refracted version of folk that is haunting, poignant and uplifting. Her aspect is very much her own, and in arranging songs she explores the less obvious paths tonally as much as the expected.
A singer/songwriter and musician based in Co. Donegal, Ireland, Kate has collaborated with various artists/groups, including Boston based roots collective Session Americana, singer/songwriters Finbarr Doherty (Irl), Jennifer Kimball (US), The Henry Girls (Irl), Duke Special (N.Irl), Mark Black (Irl) and the Inishowen Gospel Choir (Irl).
Kate has also toured and/or opened shows for several acts incl. Peter Mulvey and Birds of Chicago (US/ in association with Roadworks Tours IRL), Gretchen Peters (Grammy nominated Nashville Singer/songwriter), Amelia Curran (CA)
Read our interview with Kate here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-kate-ocallaghan
Distinctive in both writing style and beautiful vocal delivery, Kate draws reference from a very diverse range of sources, from historical figures and local heroes to nature and her surroundings in a skewed, refracted version of folk that is haunting, poignant and uplifting. Her aspect is very much her own, and in arranging songs she explores the less obvious paths tonally as much as the expected.
A singer/songwriter and musician based in Co. Donegal, Ireland, Kate has collaborated with various artists/groups, including Boston based roots collective Session Americana, singer/songwriters Finbarr Doherty (Irl), Jennifer Kimball (US), The Henry Girls (Irl), Duke Special (N.Irl), Mark Black (Irl) and the Inishowen Gospel Choir (Irl).
Kate has also toured and/or opened shows for several acts incl. Peter Mulvey and Birds of Chicago (US/ in association with Roadworks Tours IRL), Gretchen Peters (Grammy nominated Nashville Singer/songwriter), Amelia Curran (CA)
Read our interview with Kate here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-kate-ocallaghan
Caitlin Purvis was singing as soon as she could speak and began composing songs when she was 4 years old as a means of expression and simply because it brought her joy. This has never changed.
Since then, Caitlin has lived in many countries around the world and travelled to many more, always with her guitar in tow and journal at her side. She’s written hundreds of songs, many lost in the wind and others scribble down. Her live performances have been saved for inspired moments of spontaneity; she has performed at open mics locally and abroad, bars in Colima, Mexico, and one special performance opening for Riders on the Storm (aka The Doors) at Casa de la Cultura in Ecuador. That is another story in itself.
Caitlin was always encouraged to record her music and to pursue her passion, yet there was always something holding her back – Fear.
In 2015, a medical condition forced her to face this fear because another lay in its wake. Fear of failure, fear of success or simply fear of being heard; it no longer mattered and all of a sudden seemed trivial. She knew it was now or never as her voice might never be the same.
And so this EP: Wasting Days came to be. This five song collection remains authentic, organic, and vulnerable. Caitlin considers herself a girl of the world and one with many tastes, so wanting to remain true to herself, Caitlin decided not be typecast into a particular genre. It is her voice that is the constant throughout her music and what bridges the genres: Pop, soul, boot-stomping (as she likes to call it) reggae and folk. These songs are just a taste of what Caitlin has to offer.
Read our interview with Caitlin here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-caitlin-purvis
Since then, Caitlin has lived in many countries around the world and travelled to many more, always with her guitar in tow and journal at her side. She’s written hundreds of songs, many lost in the wind and others scribble down. Her live performances have been saved for inspired moments of spontaneity; she has performed at open mics locally and abroad, bars in Colima, Mexico, and one special performance opening for Riders on the Storm (aka The Doors) at Casa de la Cultura in Ecuador. That is another story in itself.
Caitlin was always encouraged to record her music and to pursue her passion, yet there was always something holding her back – Fear.
In 2015, a medical condition forced her to face this fear because another lay in its wake. Fear of failure, fear of success or simply fear of being heard; it no longer mattered and all of a sudden seemed trivial. She knew it was now or never as her voice might never be the same.
And so this EP: Wasting Days came to be. This five song collection remains authentic, organic, and vulnerable. Caitlin considers herself a girl of the world and one with many tastes, so wanting to remain true to herself, Caitlin decided not be typecast into a particular genre. It is her voice that is the constant throughout her music and what bridges the genres: Pop, soul, boot-stomping (as she likes to call it) reggae and folk. These songs are just a taste of what Caitlin has to offer.
Read our interview with Caitlin here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-caitlin-purvis
Singer-Songwriter, Chloe Kat Wandering-Wonderer, Los Angeles, CA, then to Nashville, TN,
then to everywhere. A citizen of the world, whose ethos is the fluxing state of travel and wandering in that deep spiritual sense of seeking out the unknown/unfound, always three-steps-ahead-of-us, mysteries of life.
Read our interview with Chloe here heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-chloe-kat
then to everywhere. A citizen of the world, whose ethos is the fluxing state of travel and wandering in that deep spiritual sense of seeking out the unknown/unfound, always three-steps-ahead-of-us, mysteries of life.
Read our interview with Chloe here heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-chloe-kat
Sara Melson’s new collection of songs, helmed by producer Rick Parker (Lord Huron, Ravonettes, BRMC, Joseph Arthur) confirms why the artist’s insightful, inspiring lyrics and arresting, distinctive voice led Yahoo Music to choose her as their “New Buzz Artist,” calling her “one of the most fearless singer-songwriters on the planet.”
Her timeless songs blur boundaries between genres, and her skills as a pianist, guitarist, writer, and singer are evident throughout. Previously, A Million White Stars (2013) was selected for an iTunes homepage feature, as was The Beachwood Canyon Sessions EP (2012). Sara’s self-produced debut album Dirty Mind was released on Nettwerk Records (2008); her songs have appeared in numerous films & TV shows, including Grey’s Anatomy and a national multi-spot Chevy campaign.
At home performing solo or with full band, she has shared the stage with Ben Folds, Juliana Hatfield, Ben Lee, Inara George, Neil Halstead, and Lissie, among others, and has sung backing vocals for Moby on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Dandy Warhols, and Mojave 3 on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic.
In addition to her career in music, Sara is also known for her acting, having landed prominent guest stars and recurring roles on shows such as Beverly Hills 90210, Frasier, The Wonder Years, Murder She Wrote, Melrose Place, and many others, as well as parts in Harold Becker's "Malice", George Hickenlooper's "The Low Life" and "The Big Brass Ring", and teen cult horror flick "Dr. Giggles" for Universal.
Read our interview with Sara here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-sara-melson
Her timeless songs blur boundaries between genres, and her skills as a pianist, guitarist, writer, and singer are evident throughout. Previously, A Million White Stars (2013) was selected for an iTunes homepage feature, as was The Beachwood Canyon Sessions EP (2012). Sara’s self-produced debut album Dirty Mind was released on Nettwerk Records (2008); her songs have appeared in numerous films & TV shows, including Grey’s Anatomy and a national multi-spot Chevy campaign.
At home performing solo or with full band, she has shared the stage with Ben Folds, Juliana Hatfield, Ben Lee, Inara George, Neil Halstead, and Lissie, among others, and has sung backing vocals for Moby on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Dandy Warhols, and Mojave 3 on KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic.
In addition to her career in music, Sara is also known for her acting, having landed prominent guest stars and recurring roles on shows such as Beverly Hills 90210, Frasier, The Wonder Years, Murder She Wrote, Melrose Place, and many others, as well as parts in Harold Becker's "Malice", George Hickenlooper's "The Low Life" and "The Big Brass Ring", and teen cult horror flick "Dr. Giggles" for Universal.
Read our interview with Sara here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-sara-melson
Lisa Gatewood, a singer-songwriter from Milwaukee, WI, pens songs that dig deep into the human condition, asking both the big and small questions that keep us up late at night, that give us gravity. At their best moments, certain songs tug at the inner wiring of our hearts, reminding us of fences we've yet to mend, things we've forgotten to say, lives that we've put on hold or neglected to live wild and bravely. Here are "songs for the lost and found, the accidental sailors who have all but drowned." And it is the all-but-drowning which keeps our hope alive.
Read our interview with Lisa here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lisa-gatewood
Read our interview with Lisa here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lisa-gatewood
Deidre & the Dark is a musical project led by Deidre Muro, based in Brooklyn, New York. Heavily influenced by nostalgia, Deidre seeks to bring joy, beauty, mystery and sass together while exploring our not-so-distant cultural past. She also uses this philosophy when curating events, environments, style and experiences.
Deidre's past band, Savoir Adore, released The Adventures of Mr. Pumpernickel and the Girl with Animals in her throat EP, on May 6, 2008, after being signed to the Cantora label. In 2009 they released a full-length debut album, In the Wooded Forest, that was described as a mix of "electro-pop and indie-rock". In 2014, Deidre Muro left the band, forming Deidre & the Dark.
Read our interview with Deidre here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-deidre-muro-of-deidre-the-dark
Deidre's past band, Savoir Adore, released The Adventures of Mr. Pumpernickel and the Girl with Animals in her throat EP, on May 6, 2008, after being signed to the Cantora label. In 2009 they released a full-length debut album, In the Wooded Forest, that was described as a mix of "electro-pop and indie-rock". In 2014, Deidre Muro left the band, forming Deidre & the Dark.
Read our interview with Deidre here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-deidre-muro-of-deidre-the-dark
Lisa Loeb is a singer/songwriter, producer, touring artist, actor, author and philanthropist who started her career with the platinum-selling number 1 hit song, “Stay (I Missed You)” from the film Reality Bites, as well as two back-to-back albums that were certified Gold--Tails and Firecracker. A trailblazing independent artist, Lisa was the first musician to have a number 1 single while not signed to a recording contract. She followed that remarkable feat with the hit singles, "Do You Sleep," "I Do" and "Let's Forget about It” and the albums Cake and Pie, The Way it Really Is, and No Fairy Tale.
A native of Dallas, Loeb earned a degree in comparative literature from Brown University, where she experienced her first taste of real musical success with the duo Liz and Lisa (with Elizabeth Mitchell of Ida). The pair built a substantial following on campus and often booked shows in New York on the weekends. Fellow singer-songwriter Duncan Sheik also played in the band during Loeb’s final year of college.
When Loeb moved to New York City after graduation, she continued to develop her vision, this time as a solo artist, and hone her artistic talents while carefully managing the business side of her career. This led to Reality Bites and “Stay” in 1994, and the rest, as they say, is history. The fact that “Stay” became a number one single in 1994 and still resonates with people today is a testament to Loeb’s gift as a songwriter and storyteller.
Read our interview with Lisa here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lisa-loeb
A native of Dallas, Loeb earned a degree in comparative literature from Brown University, where she experienced her first taste of real musical success with the duo Liz and Lisa (with Elizabeth Mitchell of Ida). The pair built a substantial following on campus and often booked shows in New York on the weekends. Fellow singer-songwriter Duncan Sheik also played in the band during Loeb’s final year of college.
When Loeb moved to New York City after graduation, she continued to develop her vision, this time as a solo artist, and hone her artistic talents while carefully managing the business side of her career. This led to Reality Bites and “Stay” in 1994, and the rest, as they say, is history. The fact that “Stay” became a number one single in 1994 and still resonates with people today is a testament to Loeb’s gift as a songwriter and storyteller.
Read our interview with Lisa here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lisa-loeb
Jennifer Kimball is a musician known for her unusual choice of notes, her passion for dissonance and her willingness to create harmony where none has been envisioned before. She began songwriting in earnest in 1995 after leaving her first band, the critically acclaimed duo, The Story. Her first solo record, Veering from the Wave, was released on Imaginary Road/PolyGram in 1998.
A force in the local music scene, Kimball is a slow and steady songwriter and frequent collaborator and contributor to other people's projects and/or shows. In addition, she is responsible for the holiday-ish music collaboration called Wintery Songs in Eleventy Part Harmony which celebrates it's seventh annual tour in 2016.
The release of her new record Avocet is a particular joy as it’s beginning came as a surprise birthday recording session at Q Division in Somerville, MA. Four tunes were recorded that day; two of them are included on Avocet. Kimball chose one of her surprise bandmates, the saxophone player Alec Spiegelman to finish the record. And the result of their collaboration is a splendid sonic experience; a record shimmering with elegant instrumentation arranged and produced by Spiegelman. Ten Jennifer Kimball songs of unflinching poetry in the face of loss, love and other mid-life subjects like reading, dreaming and bitter truths. Two of Spiegelman’s bandmates from Cuddle Magic (Dave Flaherty, drums and Christopher McDonald, keyboards) continued the sessions at Old Soul Studios, Catskill, NY; and a superb guitarist from Brooklyn, Ryan Dugré rounded out the recording band.
The result is a splendid chamber pop over and through which floats the unadorned and honest voice of a truly literate songwriter; a voice which conveys warmth without affect. The voice of Jennifer Kimball.
Read our interview with Jennifer here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-jennifer-kimball
A force in the local music scene, Kimball is a slow and steady songwriter and frequent collaborator and contributor to other people's projects and/or shows. In addition, she is responsible for the holiday-ish music collaboration called Wintery Songs in Eleventy Part Harmony which celebrates it's seventh annual tour in 2016.
The release of her new record Avocet is a particular joy as it’s beginning came as a surprise birthday recording session at Q Division in Somerville, MA. Four tunes were recorded that day; two of them are included on Avocet. Kimball chose one of her surprise bandmates, the saxophone player Alec Spiegelman to finish the record. And the result of their collaboration is a splendid sonic experience; a record shimmering with elegant instrumentation arranged and produced by Spiegelman. Ten Jennifer Kimball songs of unflinching poetry in the face of loss, love and other mid-life subjects like reading, dreaming and bitter truths. Two of Spiegelman’s bandmates from Cuddle Magic (Dave Flaherty, drums and Christopher McDonald, keyboards) continued the sessions at Old Soul Studios, Catskill, NY; and a superb guitarist from Brooklyn, Ryan Dugré rounded out the recording band.
The result is a splendid chamber pop over and through which floats the unadorned and honest voice of a truly literate songwriter; a voice which conveys warmth without affect. The voice of Jennifer Kimball.
Read our interview with Jennifer here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-jennifer-kimball
Katie Haverly's music emerges from a time, which we now take for granted, in the late 90's, when women were creating a revoution in the industry, crafting songs that were unabshedly, unapologetically about their own lives and the often painful confrontations with a world of double standards, tricky obstacles, and all the while bucking conventional expectations, these were songwriters who fought back, forging paths that are still blazing to this day.
Katie's first album 'Face Down' came out in 1999, at a time when the spot light was waning on this songwriters reneissance. "I can still do good with my guitar yet" she sings in "I forget" and has continued to do just that.
Releasing three more albums since her debut 17 years ago, most recently The Aviary, of which Haverly writes “There’s this sensation in a large aviary that there is freedom and movement with the exotic plants and flowers and water and different types of birds. But the fact is: the birds are not free. The songs in this album explore how we cut off our own ability to have an expansive life, especially as women. I’m interested in how we allow ourselves to be limited or confined by others’ expectations and assumptions, or too often, by our own.” The Aviary is threaded with a desire for women to be more fully honored and supported in a culture that does not always value them. Some of the songs’ tensions deal with Haverly’s experience and the experience of so many female musicians who have met with obstacles and condescension while pursuing their art. The message is clear: women artists need to be heard.
Read our interview with Katie here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-katie-haverly
Katie's first album 'Face Down' came out in 1999, at a time when the spot light was waning on this songwriters reneissance. "I can still do good with my guitar yet" she sings in "I forget" and has continued to do just that.
Releasing three more albums since her debut 17 years ago, most recently The Aviary, of which Haverly writes “There’s this sensation in a large aviary that there is freedom and movement with the exotic plants and flowers and water and different types of birds. But the fact is: the birds are not free. The songs in this album explore how we cut off our own ability to have an expansive life, especially as women. I’m interested in how we allow ourselves to be limited or confined by others’ expectations and assumptions, or too often, by our own.” The Aviary is threaded with a desire for women to be more fully honored and supported in a culture that does not always value them. Some of the songs’ tensions deal with Haverly’s experience and the experience of so many female musicians who have met with obstacles and condescension while pursuing their art. The message is clear: women artists need to be heard.
Read our interview with Katie here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-katie-haverly
Heidi Spencer & the Rare Birdswere mainstays on the Milwaukee club scene for a few years, cutting two previous self-released albums before being signed to former Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde's U.K. independent Bella Union imprint and releasing Under Streetlight Glow. Born in 1974, Spencer is the daughter of Milwaukee underground magazine co-founder and musician Jim Spencer (he is best known for the solo offering Second Look, regarded in some circles as an early-'70s countercultural masterpiece). After the premature death of her father, she found his guitar in the basement and taught herself to play. She spent much of her youth after school living an itinerant lifestyle in over a dozen states before returning to Milwaukee to make films (some of which have been featured in festivals) and write songs.
Spencer began playing at 15, and writing songs at 18, inspired in equal parts by Dolly Parton, Edie Brickell, Emmylou Harris, Stevie Nicks, and Tom Petty -- though her sparse, ethereal sound doesn't reflect any of them save perhaps for Parton's earliest, more folk-inpired recordings. She formed the Rare Birds, featuring drummer/producer Bill Curtis, guitarist Matt Hendricks, Jess Hrobar on piano, double bassist Dave Gelting, and harmony vocalist Renee Pratt. The band's first offering, Matches and Valentines, was self-released in 2003, and followed by Luck We Made in 2005. While Spencer's sound contains many trace elements of traditional British and folk music and recognizable Americana traits, her incantatory music, evidenced best on 2011's Under Streetlight Glow, is unique, with its sparse atmospherics, hallucinatory lyrics, and melodies balanced against an economy of tension that reflects a bounty of yearning.
Read our interview with Heidi here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-heidi-spencer
Spencer began playing at 15, and writing songs at 18, inspired in equal parts by Dolly Parton, Edie Brickell, Emmylou Harris, Stevie Nicks, and Tom Petty -- though her sparse, ethereal sound doesn't reflect any of them save perhaps for Parton's earliest, more folk-inpired recordings. She formed the Rare Birds, featuring drummer/producer Bill Curtis, guitarist Matt Hendricks, Jess Hrobar on piano, double bassist Dave Gelting, and harmony vocalist Renee Pratt. The band's first offering, Matches and Valentines, was self-released in 2003, and followed by Luck We Made in 2005. While Spencer's sound contains many trace elements of traditional British and folk music and recognizable Americana traits, her incantatory music, evidenced best on 2011's Under Streetlight Glow, is unique, with its sparse atmospherics, hallucinatory lyrics, and melodies balanced against an economy of tension that reflects a bounty of yearning.
Read our interview with Heidi here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-heidi-spencer
Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Courtney Hartman started playing guitar at the young age of eight, after having already spent several years on the fiddle and mandlin. Her early years were spent steeped in American Roots music, and today she has fused a diverse range of influences from Norman Blake to Bill Frisell, creating music that acknowledges and pays homage to her roots, while pushing beyond its defined boundaries.
Courtney left her native Colorado for Boston, where she studied in the American Roots Music program at Berklee College of Music. It was there that she joined Della Mae, and began to grow as a songwriter, contributing songs to the group’s second and third albums. Her solid rhythm playing and melodic improvisations has brought her accolades from the guitar oriented press. She appeared on the cover of Acoustic Guitar’s 2014 30 under 30 issue where her flatpicking prowess was lauded as “Staggeringly good” by the editors and the Fretboard Journal heralded Courtney as “...easily one of the greatest flatpicking guitarist performing today.”
Courtney now lives in Brooklyn and tours frequently, playing some two-hundred days a year, both at home in the states, and in countries as far off as Pakistan and Vietnam as part of the US State Department’s Music Exchange program; an experience that has had a profound impact not only on her music, but her world view. Her literary songwriting is filled with stories about changing relationships, life on the road, and—implausibly enough—a song that finds beauty and longing in jet lag. In addition to her solo work and touring with Della Mae, Courtney has worked with a range of musicians including Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker’s Mike Campbell, Buffy St. Marie and Hot Rize’s Bryan Sutton. Her solo project, Nothing We Say, was just released on Sept 30.
Read our interview with Courtney here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-courtney-hartman
Courtney left her native Colorado for Boston, where she studied in the American Roots Music program at Berklee College of Music. It was there that she joined Della Mae, and began to grow as a songwriter, contributing songs to the group’s second and third albums. Her solid rhythm playing and melodic improvisations has brought her accolades from the guitar oriented press. She appeared on the cover of Acoustic Guitar’s 2014 30 under 30 issue where her flatpicking prowess was lauded as “Staggeringly good” by the editors and the Fretboard Journal heralded Courtney as “...easily one of the greatest flatpicking guitarist performing today.”
Courtney now lives in Brooklyn and tours frequently, playing some two-hundred days a year, both at home in the states, and in countries as far off as Pakistan and Vietnam as part of the US State Department’s Music Exchange program; an experience that has had a profound impact not only on her music, but her world view. Her literary songwriting is filled with stories about changing relationships, life on the road, and—implausibly enough—a song that finds beauty and longing in jet lag. In addition to her solo work and touring with Della Mae, Courtney has worked with a range of musicians including Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker’s Mike Campbell, Buffy St. Marie and Hot Rize’s Bryan Sutton. Her solo project, Nothing We Say, was just released on Sept 30.
Read our interview with Courtney here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-courtney-hartman
Carley Baer's original blend of 'folk/pop with a ukulele twist' turns heads everywhere she goes. Currently based in Milwaukee, WI, she entertains audiences on guitar, ukulele, and accordion, dazzling the masses with her crystal-clear voice, high-energy performance, and coyly confident stage demeanor.
Her latest release, Life Goes On After All, came about in the dark of night. The album features a combination of live and MIDI instruments, resulting in new and exciting sounds not often heard from this acoustic folksinger.
Carley’s true power lies in her live performances, where she's been described as 'captivating' and 'charismatic', with one attendee proclaiming, 'It's impossible to walk away from one of her performances without a smile on your face.'
Read our interview with Carley here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-carley-baer
Her latest release, Life Goes On After All, came about in the dark of night. The album features a combination of live and MIDI instruments, resulting in new and exciting sounds not often heard from this acoustic folksinger.
Carley’s true power lies in her live performances, where she's been described as 'captivating' and 'charismatic', with one attendee proclaiming, 'It's impossible to walk away from one of her performances without a smile on your face.'
Read our interview with Carley here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-carley-baer
"It's no secret that I reek of the old world." Such poetic lyricism runs deep through the songs of Rae Fitgerald. The Columbia, Missouri singer-songwriter's latest release "Popular Songs for Wholesome Families" is a tapestry both rich in sound and brave in scope, a flourish of originality and earnestness, resolute, determined, exploratory. "What does it mean to quit the machine" one of the many questions asked on this unique and vibrant album.
Read our interview with Rae here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-rae-fitzgerald
Read our interview with Rae here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-rae-fitzgerald
Annie Cilley's new EP is three stories told through song. Acoustic instruments, voices, strings, samples, and electronics decorate the worlds in which these stories take place - a forest, an ocean, and a haunted mind.
Three Songs incorporates elements of electronic music, chamber jazz, gypsy jazz, and folk music.
Annie’s background as a gypsy jazz singer, folk fiddle player, and electronic musician help inform her sound. The landscape of her birthplace, rural Petaluma, CA, informs the imagery in her lyrics and the whimsical stories that they tell.
Read our interview with Annie here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-annie-cilley
Three Songs incorporates elements of electronic music, chamber jazz, gypsy jazz, and folk music.
Annie’s background as a gypsy jazz singer, folk fiddle player, and electronic musician help inform her sound. The landscape of her birthplace, rural Petaluma, CA, informs the imagery in her lyrics and the whimsical stories that they tell.
Read our interview with Annie here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-annie-cilley
RoseRed And The Butterflies, aka Lydia Nicolaides is a prolific singer/songwriter from north London Enfield, with a DIY ethos. She pens catchy lyrics and silver tongued melodies that tell stories in a refreshing and original way. With a mixture of realism, fun, quirkiness and sadness,
RoseRed’s music can move effortlessly from lightness into dark, and her style crosses a variety of genres, from Folk to Rock; from Country to Reggae. ‘Imagine Mary Poppins on acid’ playing the guitar and dancing like a pixie.
RoseRed released her eagerly awaited debut album ‘Just A Glimmer’ in 2010 an album which she wrote, recorded, produced and funded herself, in-between several years of playing the London gig circuit and which got voted and won the Fatea Magazine debut album of the year 2010 Award.
She has had two of her songs feature in two British Independent Films 'Jesus Versus The Messiah' and 'Chinese Burns'. She has currently finished recording her second album New Age Drifter.
Read our interview with Lydia here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lydia-nicolaides
RoseRed’s music can move effortlessly from lightness into dark, and her style crosses a variety of genres, from Folk to Rock; from Country to Reggae. ‘Imagine Mary Poppins on acid’ playing the guitar and dancing like a pixie.
RoseRed released her eagerly awaited debut album ‘Just A Glimmer’ in 2010 an album which she wrote, recorded, produced and funded herself, in-between several years of playing the London gig circuit and which got voted and won the Fatea Magazine debut album of the year 2010 Award.
She has had two of her songs feature in two British Independent Films 'Jesus Versus The Messiah' and 'Chinese Burns'. She has currently finished recording her second album New Age Drifter.
Read our interview with Lydia here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lydia-nicolaides
Hope, reconciliation, struggle, travel, tireless searching, the music of Mimi Gilbert covers a lot of ground, digging deep where water hides just beneath the surface of things. Songs that act as a catalyst of transformation come into the world rarely enough, when they do emerge, their resonance, a sound so deep, full, and reverberating, can alter us in unmeasurable ways. The rewards of what we do, as artists, as human beings, can all too often be fleeting and ephemeral, like water rushing through our hands. But if you are creating despite all of that, then it is probably something else, something deeper that you're after. Gilbert's album, Strangers Won't Exist, is a testament to that act of laboring over the impossible, voicing the unexpected, and emerging with those diamonds in the rough that are life's greatest, most hard fought for truths.
Read our interview with Mimi here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-mimi-gilbert
Read our interview with Mimi here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-mimi-gilbert
Often likened to artists such as Alison Krauss, Joni Mitchell, and Patty Griffin, Mia Rose Lynn writes and sings from a place of sincerity and simplicity. Roots music has always been in Lynne's heart. A northern California native, she grew up singing harmonies in the family western swing band and fell asleep in the Winnebago on summer nights to the sounds of campsite jamming at bluegrass festivals. Lynne went on to pursue a career in musical theatre, touring nationally and internationally. Along the way, she found herself in Nashville, where her love for roots music resurfaced and the songs began to write themselves. Since her recent move, Lynne has had the opportunity to perform professionally in both Nashville's songwriter and theatre scene. She won the 2014 American Songwriting Awards in the folk category, and was recently a finalist in both the Great American Song Contest and Hollywood Songwriting Contest. Paul Liberatore of the Marin Independent Journal describesLynn's music as, “Original Americana-style songs that come at romantic relationships with honesty, wit and none of the tropes and cliches that lesser songwriters so often fall back on. Lynne brings life experience without sounding world weary, sincerity without self importance.”
Read our interview with Mia here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-mia-rose-lynne
Read our interview with Mia here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-mia-rose-lynne
A multi-instrumentalist and poet from Portland Oregon, Gillian Frances sets gloomy daze to electric guitar. Her new EP, Born Yesterday, described as faery folk, has a distinctly slow, simmering sound, reminiscent of a mid-90's Cat Power. Having spent a year playing in the indie band This Is The Kit, an experience which she says taught her a lot about what it takes to be a musician and a bandleader, she is now forging her own solo career as well as playing in two other bands Hex Vision & Sufer Rosie
Read our interview with Gillian here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-gillian-frances
Read our interview with Gillian here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-gillian-frances
Whitney Pea's sound is playful and original with lyrics that often illustrate the connection between the human heart and nature. She is loved for her soothing voice and genuine approach to songwriting. Her latest catalog of songs (Available 2016) were recorded in a barn-turned recording studio. Producer Joe Lapinski captured Whitney's knack for charming the listener into a love-affair with nature.
Read our interview with Whitney here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-whitney-pea
Read our interview with Whitney here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-whitney-pea
Lucy Isabel is a singer-songwriter, originally from Monmouth County, New Jersey. From the age of six, she knew she wanted a career in the arts. She attended a performing arts high school, where she was a piano major. From there, Lucy went on to Yale University. As a Theater Studies major, Lucy participated in numerous stage productions, performing both in musicals and plays. During her time at Yale, Lucy taught herself to play guitar and began writing music of her own.
In her senior year at Yale, Lucy began singing with the prestigious all-female, all-senior a cappella group, Whim 'n Rhythm. With Whim, Lucy gained priceless insight as a member of a professional, touring music act. Over the course of her senior year, Lucy toured domestically with Whim, performing in cities such as New York, Boston, Providence, New Orleans, Austin, Dallas, the Sarasota area, West Palm Beach, and San Francisco. The year culminated in a nine week World Tour. The group performed in eleven countries in total, beginning with Japan and proceeding through South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, India, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Morocco, England, and Ireland. Lucy's experience with Whim 'n Rhythm was easily the most rewarding experience of her life, not only because of the unbelievable travel, but also because of the unbreakable bonds she formed with the other members of her group; these bonds are proof positive of the power of a shared love for music.
In the fall of 2014, Lucy embarked on her next journey: a three-month, solitary road trip around the continental US. Relying on the kindness of strangers, Lucy was able to visit 42 states, performing at open mics and in people's homes as she went. Following this adventure, she made her move to Nashville, TN where she continues to perform. In June 2016, she released her debut EP, Along The Way. It is available on all major online music platforms.
Read our interview with Lucy here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lucy-isabel
In her senior year at Yale, Lucy began singing with the prestigious all-female, all-senior a cappella group, Whim 'n Rhythm. With Whim, Lucy gained priceless insight as a member of a professional, touring music act. Over the course of her senior year, Lucy toured domestically with Whim, performing in cities such as New York, Boston, Providence, New Orleans, Austin, Dallas, the Sarasota area, West Palm Beach, and San Francisco. The year culminated in a nine week World Tour. The group performed in eleven countries in total, beginning with Japan and proceeding through South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, India, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Morocco, England, and Ireland. Lucy's experience with Whim 'n Rhythm was easily the most rewarding experience of her life, not only because of the unbelievable travel, but also because of the unbreakable bonds she formed with the other members of her group; these bonds are proof positive of the power of a shared love for music.
In the fall of 2014, Lucy embarked on her next journey: a three-month, solitary road trip around the continental US. Relying on the kindness of strangers, Lucy was able to visit 42 states, performing at open mics and in people's homes as she went. Following this adventure, she made her move to Nashville, TN where she continues to perform. In June 2016, she released her debut EP, Along The Way. It is available on all major online music platforms.
Read our interview with Lucy here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lucy-isabel
Kristin Hersh is an American singer, songwriter and author, known for her her solo work and with her rock bands Throwing Muses and 50FootWave. She has released ten solo albums. Her guitar work and composition style ranges from jaggedly dissonant to traditional folk. Hersh's lyrics have a stream-of-consciousness style, reflecting her personal experiences.
Throwing Muses was formed in 1981 when Hersh and Tanya Donelly were freshmen in high school. Friends from school, including Elaine Adamedes, Becca Blumen, Leslie Langston and David Narcizo, were part of the group with Narcizo becoming a long-term member. Hersh initially wrote and sang most of Throwing Muses' songs, often in changing tempos. Donelly also contributed songs and lead vocals.
They were signed to 4AD, the first American group to be signed on the British label, and released their first EP Chains Changed in 1986. Two releases followed, The Fat Skier and the album House Tornado. The 4AD Throwing Muses biography describes its sound at the time as "... joining the dots between elliptical post-punk, harmonious folk jangle and rockabilly thunder without ever settling into standard genre patterns." For the Muses 1986 UK tour, the Boston-based Pixies, embarking on their first European tour, was the opening band.
The band signed a U.S. deal with Sire/Reprise Records in 1987 and began touring the U.S. and Europe while recording albums, with Hersh writing most of the songs. The band became a trio when Donelly left the group after 1991's The Real Ramona.
In 1994, Hersh began an additional career on Sire/Reprise and 4AD as an acoustic solo performer, beginning with Hips and Makers, an album sparsely arranged around her vocals, guitar, and a cellist, in contrast to the volatile, electric sound of her band work. Michael Stipe of R.E.M. made an appearance on this first solo album. After receiving some airplay and major media coverage for the Muses album University in 1995, Hersh moved to Rykodisc for the band's 1996 album, Limbo, and released her solo album, Strange Angels in 1998.
Throwing Muses functions as a noncommercial musical enterprise, focusing on touring over record sales and airplay. In a 2014 interview, Hersh stated, “As far as I’m concerned, music is not a commodity. It’s something that people have earned by being human. They have a right to hear it, and a right to share it, as they always have in churches and parties. That’s how music happens.”
Hersh's vocal style ranges from softly melodic to impassioned screaming. Simon Reynolds in The New York Times pointed to Hersh's "mesmerizing" explorations of "rage, aggression and mental chaos" as evidence of female rock artists of the early 1990s pushing against gender role boundaries to express "more than simply vulnerability or defiance" in their work.
Ann Powers, also in the Times, wrote of Hersh's musical style: "Her plastic, sometimes obsessively circular song structures emphasize staggered rhythms and extreme dynamic shifts, and her voice, a carnal cry that pushes through her body gathering up air, lends her often oblique lyrics an oracular veneer."
Read our interview with Kristin here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-kristin-hersh
Throwing Muses was formed in 1981 when Hersh and Tanya Donelly were freshmen in high school. Friends from school, including Elaine Adamedes, Becca Blumen, Leslie Langston and David Narcizo, were part of the group with Narcizo becoming a long-term member. Hersh initially wrote and sang most of Throwing Muses' songs, often in changing tempos. Donelly also contributed songs and lead vocals.
They were signed to 4AD, the first American group to be signed on the British label, and released their first EP Chains Changed in 1986. Two releases followed, The Fat Skier and the album House Tornado. The 4AD Throwing Muses biography describes its sound at the time as "... joining the dots between elliptical post-punk, harmonious folk jangle and rockabilly thunder without ever settling into standard genre patterns." For the Muses 1986 UK tour, the Boston-based Pixies, embarking on their first European tour, was the opening band.
The band signed a U.S. deal with Sire/Reprise Records in 1987 and began touring the U.S. and Europe while recording albums, with Hersh writing most of the songs. The band became a trio when Donelly left the group after 1991's The Real Ramona.
In 1994, Hersh began an additional career on Sire/Reprise and 4AD as an acoustic solo performer, beginning with Hips and Makers, an album sparsely arranged around her vocals, guitar, and a cellist, in contrast to the volatile, electric sound of her band work. Michael Stipe of R.E.M. made an appearance on this first solo album. After receiving some airplay and major media coverage for the Muses album University in 1995, Hersh moved to Rykodisc for the band's 1996 album, Limbo, and released her solo album, Strange Angels in 1998.
Throwing Muses functions as a noncommercial musical enterprise, focusing on touring over record sales and airplay. In a 2014 interview, Hersh stated, “As far as I’m concerned, music is not a commodity. It’s something that people have earned by being human. They have a right to hear it, and a right to share it, as they always have in churches and parties. That’s how music happens.”
Hersh's vocal style ranges from softly melodic to impassioned screaming. Simon Reynolds in The New York Times pointed to Hersh's "mesmerizing" explorations of "rage, aggression and mental chaos" as evidence of female rock artists of the early 1990s pushing against gender role boundaries to express "more than simply vulnerability or defiance" in their work.
Ann Powers, also in the Times, wrote of Hersh's musical style: "Her plastic, sometimes obsessively circular song structures emphasize staggered rhythms and extreme dynamic shifts, and her voice, a carnal cry that pushes through her body gathering up air, lends her often oblique lyrics an oracular veneer."
Read our interview with Kristin here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-kristin-hersh
Kim Barlow is an enduring presence in the Canadian indie-folk scene. An eccentric songwriter, skillful on guitar, clawhammer banjo, and sometimes cello, she’s recorded six albums of her own work, earned two Juno nominations, and has collaborations on the go at all times. Her newest band is Ida Red, a foot-stomping collective started with Gaspereau songster Heather Kelday.
Having left her long-time Yukon home and relocated to Nova Scotia, Barlow finds herself back where she came from. With twin toddlers in the house, she is on hiatus from the touring circuit, but is rapidly gaining momentum with her new projects in the Annapolis Valley. Watch for her - teaching banjo and ukulele at home in Canning and at Moe’s Music Place in Windsor; hosting the Friday old-time sessions at the Canning Legion; or gigging solo, with Ida Red, and other musical companions around the province.
Read our interview with Kim here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-kim-barlow
Having left her long-time Yukon home and relocated to Nova Scotia, Barlow finds herself back where she came from. With twin toddlers in the house, she is on hiatus from the touring circuit, but is rapidly gaining momentum with her new projects in the Annapolis Valley. Watch for her - teaching banjo and ukulele at home in Canning and at Moe’s Music Place in Windsor; hosting the Friday old-time sessions at the Canning Legion; or gigging solo, with Ida Red, and other musical companions around the province.
Read our interview with Kim here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-kim-barlow
With a voice that’s “out of this world” (Green Man Review), Kym Tuvim has won over audiences and critics across the globe. Her music has earned honors from the likes of Acoustic Guitar and The Performing Songwriter magazines to the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in New York (Emerging Songwriter Finalist, 2005 & “Most Wanted” Preview Tour, 2006). Her seasoned guitar work borrows from folk, pop, jazz and blues, seamlessly blending genres with an intricate and deep groove, while her songwriting delivers lyrics that are truthful, smart and emotionally vulnerable. A versatile and captivating performer, her down to earth, openhearted style can have the audience laughing one moment and tearing up the next.
Kym grew up surrounded by music. Her father is a pianist and her mother's father was a pianist, composer and bandleader. Kym was writing songs before she started school and was a multi-instrumentalist by 15. In 1987, she moved to Seattle to study jazz at Cornish College of the Arts under such greats as Julian Priester, Jim Knapp and Hadley Caliman. After graduating, she took to honing her craft in local Seattle venues. When she released her 1996 demo When Allegra, the lo-fi cassette won raves and support from regional and national folk radio and press, as well as a spot at the 1996 Napa Music Festival's Emerging Songwriter's Contest. In 1998, Kym released her first full-length CD. Later that year, The Performing Songwriter Magazine selected it as one of their "Top 12 DIY Releases" and featured a cut from her debut on their 6th CD compilation.
Kym tours regularly around the country performing her music in listening rooms and festivals, house concerts and colleges. When at home in Seattle, she teaches piano to a long list of blossoming maestros.
Read our interview with Kym here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-kym-tuvim
Kym grew up surrounded by music. Her father is a pianist and her mother's father was a pianist, composer and bandleader. Kym was writing songs before she started school and was a multi-instrumentalist by 15. In 1987, she moved to Seattle to study jazz at Cornish College of the Arts under such greats as Julian Priester, Jim Knapp and Hadley Caliman. After graduating, she took to honing her craft in local Seattle venues. When she released her 1996 demo When Allegra, the lo-fi cassette won raves and support from regional and national folk radio and press, as well as a spot at the 1996 Napa Music Festival's Emerging Songwriter's Contest. In 1998, Kym released her first full-length CD. Later that year, The Performing Songwriter Magazine selected it as one of their "Top 12 DIY Releases" and featured a cut from her debut on their 6th CD compilation.
Kym tours regularly around the country performing her music in listening rooms and festivals, house concerts and colleges. When at home in Seattle, she teaches piano to a long list of blossoming maestros.
Read our interview with Kym here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-kym-tuvim
Carrie Newcomer is an American singer, songwriter and author. She has produced 15 solo CDs and has received numerous awards for her music and related charitable activities. She has done numerous collaborations with authors, academics, philosophers and musicians. In 2009 and 2011 she traveled to India as a cultural ambassador, including musical performances organized by the US State Department. In 2012 she made a similar trip to Kenya on behalf of the Interfaith Hunger Initiative. Her range of causes, activities, collaborations and philosophies significantly influences her music.
Her first solo album was Visions and Dreams. Vision and Dreams was originally released on Windchime records and then later re-released with two additional tracks by Rounder records. Between 1993-2010, she released twelve additional albums on Philo/Rounder.
In 2010, Rich Warren host of the Midnight Special radio program selected Carrie Newcomer as one of the 50 most significant singer-songwriters of folk music for the last 50 years. Warren also selected her Geography of Light as one of his (13) favorite CDs for 2008. He said "Newcomer is philosopher, sage, mystic and poet with an alto voice that I would follow to the ends of the earth. She also finally reached the perfect balance of accompaniment/production with her voice. The thoroughly engrossing songs require several listenings to see all the light (and dark) within them. Newcomer improves with every CD and her poetry grows more complex and luminous."
In 2008 Boston's WUMB radio station, included her on their list of the Top Most Influential Artists of the past 25 years. In 2010 Chicago's WBEZ radio and The Chicago Tribune included her on their list of Top 50 folk artists of the last 50 years. In 2007, her album The Geography of Light received the Artist of the Year and Album of the Year awards from Folk Wax Magazine. In 2003 her Album "The Gathering of Spirits" also received the Artist of the Year and Album of the Year awards from Folk Wax Magazine.
In 2003, Newcomer was named Woman of the Year by the City of Bloomington’'s Commission on the Status of Women. "The 2003 Woman of the Year, Carrie Newcomer, is best known as a singer/songwriter; however, Jennifer Bass, nominator, says Newcomers significant contributions go beyond her music. Nine years ago Newcomer and her husband Robert Meitus organized Bloomington’s first Soup Bowl Benefit and they continue to assist with the benefit. What is less known is Carrie's dedication to community and her generous support of local and national organizations,” said Bass. “She has donated money from sales of her cd’s to the Nature Conservancy and she has participated in benefit concerts in St. Louis and Tucson." Newcomer's "I Wish I May, I Wish I Might" was chosen as the official song of the two year Food For Thought campaign by The Indiana Humanities Department.
In 2003 her song "I Should Have Known Better" was recorded by Nickel Creek on their Grammy Winning Best Contemporary Folk Album "This Side".
Read our interview with Carrie here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-carrie-newcomer
Her first solo album was Visions and Dreams. Vision and Dreams was originally released on Windchime records and then later re-released with two additional tracks by Rounder records. Between 1993-2010, she released twelve additional albums on Philo/Rounder.
In 2010, Rich Warren host of the Midnight Special radio program selected Carrie Newcomer as one of the 50 most significant singer-songwriters of folk music for the last 50 years. Warren also selected her Geography of Light as one of his (13) favorite CDs for 2008. He said "Newcomer is philosopher, sage, mystic and poet with an alto voice that I would follow to the ends of the earth. She also finally reached the perfect balance of accompaniment/production with her voice. The thoroughly engrossing songs require several listenings to see all the light (and dark) within them. Newcomer improves with every CD and her poetry grows more complex and luminous."
In 2008 Boston's WUMB radio station, included her on their list of the Top Most Influential Artists of the past 25 years. In 2010 Chicago's WBEZ radio and The Chicago Tribune included her on their list of Top 50 folk artists of the last 50 years. In 2007, her album The Geography of Light received the Artist of the Year and Album of the Year awards from Folk Wax Magazine. In 2003 her Album "The Gathering of Spirits" also received the Artist of the Year and Album of the Year awards from Folk Wax Magazine.
In 2003, Newcomer was named Woman of the Year by the City of Bloomington’'s Commission on the Status of Women. "The 2003 Woman of the Year, Carrie Newcomer, is best known as a singer/songwriter; however, Jennifer Bass, nominator, says Newcomers significant contributions go beyond her music. Nine years ago Newcomer and her husband Robert Meitus organized Bloomington’s first Soup Bowl Benefit and they continue to assist with the benefit. What is less known is Carrie's dedication to community and her generous support of local and national organizations,” said Bass. “She has donated money from sales of her cd’s to the Nature Conservancy and she has participated in benefit concerts in St. Louis and Tucson." Newcomer's "I Wish I May, I Wish I Might" was chosen as the official song of the two year Food For Thought campaign by The Indiana Humanities Department.
In 2003 her song "I Should Have Known Better" was recorded by Nickel Creek on their Grammy Winning Best Contemporary Folk Album "This Side".
Read our interview with Carrie here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-carrie-newcomer
At just 16 years old, Courtney Marie Andrews left home in Arizona for her first tour. She traveled up and down the West Coast, busking and playing any bars or cafés that would have her. Soon after, she took a Greyhound bus four nights straight from Phoenix to New York to do the same on the East Coast. For a decade or so since, Courtney’s been a session and backup singer and guitarist for nearly 40 artists, from Jimmy Eat World to Damien Jurado. She never stopped writing her own material, though. Picking up admirers like Jurado and Ryan Adams along the way, she has quietly earned a reputation as a songwriter’s songwriter.
With plans to settle down for a bit and focus on her own songs, Courtney moved to the Northwest in 2011 to record her last full-length record On My Page. However, the record had hardly been released before she was on the road again performing other artists’ songs, eventually leading her overseas to play guitar and sing with Belgian star Milow. At the tour’s end, though, the other session players joined her to record her 2014 EP Leuven Letters in one take.
It was during this time that Courtney also wrote many of the songs on Honest Life. She found herself realizing the impact of growing up on the road and this constant reconciling between her and other’s art and identity.
Read our interview with Courtney here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-courtney-marie-andrews5938048
With plans to settle down for a bit and focus on her own songs, Courtney moved to the Northwest in 2011 to record her last full-length record On My Page. However, the record had hardly been released before she was on the road again performing other artists’ songs, eventually leading her overseas to play guitar and sing with Belgian star Milow. At the tour’s end, though, the other session players joined her to record her 2014 EP Leuven Letters in one take.
It was during this time that Courtney also wrote many of the songs on Honest Life. She found herself realizing the impact of growing up on the road and this constant reconciling between her and other’s art and identity.
Read our interview with Courtney here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-courtney-marie-andrews5938048
Tracy Grammer is an American folk singer known for her work as half of the folk duo Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer and for the solo career that she has continued since Carter's death. She released three albums with Dave Carter during her lifetime, at first doing instrumental work and providing backing vocals, and then, by their last album together, singing lead vocals on half of the tracks. Four albums by the duo have been released following Carter's death. She has also released three solo recordings, some of which have included previously unreleased songs by Carter, as well as two songbooks.
Following Dave Carter's death in 2002, Grammer made the decision to play solo at several of the dates that they had scheduled, most notably an engagement at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. Taking into account Carter's expressed wish that eventually she would sing all of the songs, she continued playing Carter's music. She has continued to tour solo and has released three solo albums. The first, The Verdant Mile, is an EP containing her first original composition, the title track, a eulogy for Carter.
Her second solo release, Flower of Avalon, consists of ten tracks, nine of which were written by Carter before his death, and one of which is a traditional folk song arranged by William Jolliff. The album was co-produced by Grammer and John Jennings. Featured artists include Mary Chapin Carpenter, who provided many backing vocals, and Jim Henry, Grammer's touring partner and Signature Sounds label mate.
Her third album, Book of Sparrows, was released in November, 2007 and is a seven-song EP featuring covers of songs by Tom Russell, Kate Power, David Francey, Dave Carter, and Paul Simon.
She released an album on Red House Records in February 2012, Little Blue Egg, which contained 11 previously-unheard duo recordings that had been recovered from the Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer archives. Later that year, she and Red House released Joy My Love, a limited-edition EP containing five more of the duo's archived recordings.
In January 2014, Tracy Grammer joined 21 other female singer-songwriters in a project headed by Cary Cooper called "RealWomenRealSongs." The project requires each participant to write and upload one song per week for 52 weeks to the RealWomenRealSongs YouTube channel.
Read our interview with Tracy here heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-tracy-grammer
Following Dave Carter's death in 2002, Grammer made the decision to play solo at several of the dates that they had scheduled, most notably an engagement at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. Taking into account Carter's expressed wish that eventually she would sing all of the songs, she continued playing Carter's music. She has continued to tour solo and has released three solo albums. The first, The Verdant Mile, is an EP containing her first original composition, the title track, a eulogy for Carter.
Her second solo release, Flower of Avalon, consists of ten tracks, nine of which were written by Carter before his death, and one of which is a traditional folk song arranged by William Jolliff. The album was co-produced by Grammer and John Jennings. Featured artists include Mary Chapin Carpenter, who provided many backing vocals, and Jim Henry, Grammer's touring partner and Signature Sounds label mate.
Her third album, Book of Sparrows, was released in November, 2007 and is a seven-song EP featuring covers of songs by Tom Russell, Kate Power, David Francey, Dave Carter, and Paul Simon.
She released an album on Red House Records in February 2012, Little Blue Egg, which contained 11 previously-unheard duo recordings that had been recovered from the Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer archives. Later that year, she and Red House released Joy My Love, a limited-edition EP containing five more of the duo's archived recordings.
In January 2014, Tracy Grammer joined 21 other female singer-songwriters in a project headed by Cary Cooper called "RealWomenRealSongs." The project requires each participant to write and upload one song per week for 52 weeks to the RealWomenRealSongs YouTube channel.
Read our interview with Tracy here heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-tracy-grammer
Becca Roth is an LA based singer/songwriter originally from Philly.
"Unstable" is Roth's debut release on LA based indie label, Pop Cautious Records.
Read our interview with Becca here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-becca-roth
"Unstable" is Roth's debut release on LA based indie label, Pop Cautious Records.
Read our interview with Becca here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-becca-roth
A newcomer with a rich background, Victoria Lord has sung alongside the likes of Mara Tremblay and Sunny Duval, and as amember of the Jolie Jumper trio.
Read our interview with Victoria here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-victoria-lord
Read our interview with Victoria here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-victoria-lord
Lauren Mettler's voice, nuanced and beguiling, captivates her listeners as she leads them through epic romantic ballads, comedic anecdotes, and poignant anthems. A versatile indie songstress, her repertoire displays shades of the blues, world music, and is sprinkled with sweet little ditties reminiscent of favorite jazz classics.
Read our interview with Lauren here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lauren-mettler
Read our interview with Lauren here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lauren-mettler
Kate Tucker and the Sons of Sweden is a Seattle-based indie quintet formed in 2007.
Their self-titled debut was produced by Ryan Hadlock (Metric, The Lumineers) and features guest vocals by American folk luminary Damien Jurado. Upon release, their single “Faster than Cars Drive” topped the blog charts, charted CMJ radio, and received heavy rotation on Starbucks in-store playlists. In 2009 the Hear Music label debuted the band’s cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire” on the Starbucks Sweetheart compilation.
Songs from their first record have been featured on major television networks and indie films including "Everything Went Down" on ABC Family's Make It or Break It and on The WB's One Tree Hill.
In 2009 Tucker left the Sons of Sweden to work on what would become the album White Horses, produced by Blake Wescott. Ed O’Brien (bass), Mark Isakson (guitars), and Nic Danielson (keys) continued to collaborate with Tucker on studio recordings.
Songs from the White Horses album featured on television include:
In 2010, Tucker took the lead role in a feature film entitled Everything Went Down, marking her acting debut. The film was based in part on Tucker's songs, and also stars Vancouver theatre artist Noah Drew. Everything Went Down was written and directed by Dustin Morrow. The film is expected in theaters sometime in 2013.
On April 7, 2011 the original lineup of Kate Tucker and the Sons of Sweden reunited to play what could be called their final farewell show at the Tractor Tavern in Ballard, Washington.
Tucker relocated to Nashville, Tennessee in 2012 where she took up the Sons of Sweden project again, this time with new members, Wes Chandler, Ethan Place, and Matthew Thompson. Nic Danielson continues to be a main collaborator from afar along with Mark Isakson.
Read our interview with Kate here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-kate-tucker
Their self-titled debut was produced by Ryan Hadlock (Metric, The Lumineers) and features guest vocals by American folk luminary Damien Jurado. Upon release, their single “Faster than Cars Drive” topped the blog charts, charted CMJ radio, and received heavy rotation on Starbucks in-store playlists. In 2009 the Hear Music label debuted the band’s cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire” on the Starbucks Sweetheart compilation.
Songs from their first record have been featured on major television networks and indie films including "Everything Went Down" on ABC Family's Make It or Break It and on The WB's One Tree Hill.
In 2009 Tucker left the Sons of Sweden to work on what would become the album White Horses, produced by Blake Wescott. Ed O’Brien (bass), Mark Isakson (guitars), and Nic Danielson (keys) continued to collaborate with Tucker on studio recordings.
Songs from the White Horses album featured on television include:
- "Where are You (I am Already Gone)" was played on United States of Tara Season 3 Episode 2 and Pretty Little Liars Episode 15.
- “First to Leave” on CSI Miami.
In 2010, Tucker took the lead role in a feature film entitled Everything Went Down, marking her acting debut. The film was based in part on Tucker's songs, and also stars Vancouver theatre artist Noah Drew. Everything Went Down was written and directed by Dustin Morrow. The film is expected in theaters sometime in 2013.
On April 7, 2011 the original lineup of Kate Tucker and the Sons of Sweden reunited to play what could be called their final farewell show at the Tractor Tavern in Ballard, Washington.
Tucker relocated to Nashville, Tennessee in 2012 where she took up the Sons of Sweden project again, this time with new members, Wes Chandler, Ethan Place, and Matthew Thompson. Nic Danielson continues to be a main collaborator from afar along with Mark Isakson.
Read our interview with Kate here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-kate-tucker
beccs is a Brooklyn based musician from Boston. She grew up playing classical cello but at the age of 16 she migrated to songwriting at the piano. With an evolving alternative, soul style, beccs’ sound is in the realm of Fiona Apple meets Amy Winehouse meets Laura Nyro. Her music delves into the dark and intimate with a voice that is just as vulnerable as it is dramatic. Normalizing deeply personal pains and desires, beccs’ songwriting lures her listeners into a dynamic shared experience of self-exploration and celebration.
beccs has performed in Madrid, Boston and New York City, including the New York Times Critics' Pick The Mysteries at The Flea Theater and GRLCVLT's F*ck Rape Culture Event, which drew 1,000 people to recall the "Stanford rape case" judge. Her debut single, Scared of Me, won 1st runner-up in the national Campus MovieFest Elfenworks Social Justice Songwriting Competition: the song credits those women who are oft-dismissed as hot messes but are actually inherent soldiers. beccs'music video "Therapy" premiered on the front page of NYLON Magazine who hailed the artist one of their "favorite cool girls". The title track of beccs’ forthcoming debut EP Unfound Beauty was heard at Cannes Film Festival May 2015, featured in the short film Yellow Heart (dir. Sophia Harvey). The song also appears in All Of Me, a documentary film on eating disorders by award-winning filmmaker Bess O' Brien. The debut EP Unfound Beauty, recorded by acclaimed producer Richard Barone and Grammy nominated audio engineer Steve Addabbo, is now available on CD and all digital platforms.
Read our interview with beccs here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-beccs
beccs has performed in Madrid, Boston and New York City, including the New York Times Critics' Pick The Mysteries at The Flea Theater and GRLCVLT's F*ck Rape Culture Event, which drew 1,000 people to recall the "Stanford rape case" judge. Her debut single, Scared of Me, won 1st runner-up in the national Campus MovieFest Elfenworks Social Justice Songwriting Competition: the song credits those women who are oft-dismissed as hot messes but are actually inherent soldiers. beccs'music video "Therapy" premiered on the front page of NYLON Magazine who hailed the artist one of their "favorite cool girls". The title track of beccs’ forthcoming debut EP Unfound Beauty was heard at Cannes Film Festival May 2015, featured in the short film Yellow Heart (dir. Sophia Harvey). The song also appears in All Of Me, a documentary film on eating disorders by award-winning filmmaker Bess O' Brien. The debut EP Unfound Beauty, recorded by acclaimed producer Richard Barone and Grammy nominated audio engineer Steve Addabbo, is now available on CD and all digital platforms.
Read our interview with beccs here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-beccs
Mary Palma is a country singer-songwriter from Phoenix, Arizona. Inspired from an early age by her parents' eclectic musical tastes, she taught herself guitar and started writing songs. From there, she learned banjo and mandolin, further planting her roots in folk and country music. She grew up with Springsteen, the Dixie Chicks, the Grateful Dead and of course, Britney Spears.
She has been called "the next Taylor Swift" by her peers and "the new Stevie Nicks" by her family, comparisons she cherishes deeply. The heart of her music will always be lyric-writing and simple arrangements. With this new work, she aims to revive classic country music with her own special twist. No shotguns, no tractors, no painted on cut off jeans. Plenty of whiskey.
Read our interview with Mary here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-mary-palma
She has been called "the next Taylor Swift" by her peers and "the new Stevie Nicks" by her family, comparisons she cherishes deeply. The heart of her music will always be lyric-writing and simple arrangements. With this new work, she aims to revive classic country music with her own special twist. No shotguns, no tractors, no painted on cut off jeans. Plenty of whiskey.
Read our interview with Mary here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-mary-palma
Anne Heaton is an American pop-influenced folk singer/songwriter and pianist from New York City. She majored in liberal studies at the Notre Dame, and grew up in the Chicago suburb of Wilmette. She regularly toured with "Live from New York" on the eastern coast of the United States. In 2007, Heaton moved to Boston, and generally tours and performs with multi-instrumentalist Frank Marotta.
Heaton sang in a cover band in college and later found her calling in music and songwriting. She cites Peter Gabriel, Tori Amos and The Indigo Girls as her biggest influences. After college, Heaton made her way to NYC. There she played in a Latin band and sang in a gospel choir in Harlem.
Heaton's debut release in 2002, Black Notebook, was met with critical acclaim and garnered "Top DIY Pick" from Performing Songwriter Magazine.
In 2004, she released Give In, which she created in collaboration with Mike Denneen. Her sophomore release, Give In, in 2005 was called "tender, amusing, barbed and spiritual by turns" by The Washington Post.
Heaton toured extensively across the US in support of her albums. In 2004, Heaton won the Soul City Café competition and earned the opening slot for Jewel during her West Coast tour. Heaton has also played with/ opened for Melissa Ferrick, HEM, Jill Sobule, The Pernice Brothers, Catie Curtis, Jennifer Kimball, Jonatha Brooke, and Edie Carey.
Blazing Red, released March 3, 2009, is Heaton's latest offering. She teamed up with Gary Maurer (of HEM) to produce Blazing Red and gathered funds to record the album by taking preorders from fans. Heaton says “this record is about going inward to connect to the truest part of yourself in order to make changes in your life.” The raw honesty and emotional content of Blazing Red has resonated positively with audiences. New York Times Online praised 'Jump' the opening track of Blazing Red, calling it “absolutely gorgeous."
She was also a participant in what is known as the second wave of Lillith Fair.
Read our interview with Anne here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-anne-heaton
Heaton sang in a cover band in college and later found her calling in music and songwriting. She cites Peter Gabriel, Tori Amos and The Indigo Girls as her biggest influences. After college, Heaton made her way to NYC. There she played in a Latin band and sang in a gospel choir in Harlem.
Heaton's debut release in 2002, Black Notebook, was met with critical acclaim and garnered "Top DIY Pick" from Performing Songwriter Magazine.
In 2004, she released Give In, which she created in collaboration with Mike Denneen. Her sophomore release, Give In, in 2005 was called "tender, amusing, barbed and spiritual by turns" by The Washington Post.
Heaton toured extensively across the US in support of her albums. In 2004, Heaton won the Soul City Café competition and earned the opening slot for Jewel during her West Coast tour. Heaton has also played with/ opened for Melissa Ferrick, HEM, Jill Sobule, The Pernice Brothers, Catie Curtis, Jennifer Kimball, Jonatha Brooke, and Edie Carey.
Blazing Red, released March 3, 2009, is Heaton's latest offering. She teamed up with Gary Maurer (of HEM) to produce Blazing Red and gathered funds to record the album by taking preorders from fans. Heaton says “this record is about going inward to connect to the truest part of yourself in order to make changes in your life.” The raw honesty and emotional content of Blazing Red has resonated positively with audiences. New York Times Online praised 'Jump' the opening track of Blazing Red, calling it “absolutely gorgeous."
She was also a participant in what is known as the second wave of Lillith Fair.
Read our interview with Anne here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-anne-heaton
Anna Tivel has spent some quality hours in a dodge caravan repeating lyrical lines over and over until the words fall in time with the windshield wipers, or until the gas light comes on.
A nationally touring artist with a deep love of quiet stories, Anna is beginning to carve a place for herself in the songwriting world. She was a winner at this year’s Kerrville Songwriting Contest, and has shared the stage with heroes and friends across the country.
Anna was raised in the forest and farmland of rural northern Washington and currently calls Portland, OR home. Her songs reflect both the stark colors of small town life, and the hard, sharp lines of the city. Anna’s album, Before Machines, was hailed by No Depression as “raw, yet superbly composed and executed, intelligent, personal and deeply expressive.” Her newest album, Heroes Waking Up, was produced by guitar mastermind Austin Nevins (Josh Ritter, Anais Mitchell, Kris Delmhorst). The album was released by Portland's well-loved Fluff and Gravy Records and called "vastly expressive in its stark beauty," by Glide Magazine.
“Anna Tivel’s voice is haunting, exhibiting the timbre of a precocious child, whispering to a teddy bear underneath the covers.” – The Bluegrass Situation
“Anna Tivel brings a raft of beautiful songs with brine-soaked images of Pacific Northwest tidepools, oceans, and the birds that wheel above them in the gray skies.” – Devon Leger, No Depression
Read our interview with Anna here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-anna-tivel
A nationally touring artist with a deep love of quiet stories, Anna is beginning to carve a place for herself in the songwriting world. She was a winner at this year’s Kerrville Songwriting Contest, and has shared the stage with heroes and friends across the country.
Anna was raised in the forest and farmland of rural northern Washington and currently calls Portland, OR home. Her songs reflect both the stark colors of small town life, and the hard, sharp lines of the city. Anna’s album, Before Machines, was hailed by No Depression as “raw, yet superbly composed and executed, intelligent, personal and deeply expressive.” Her newest album, Heroes Waking Up, was produced by guitar mastermind Austin Nevins (Josh Ritter, Anais Mitchell, Kris Delmhorst). The album was released by Portland's well-loved Fluff and Gravy Records and called "vastly expressive in its stark beauty," by Glide Magazine.
“Anna Tivel’s voice is haunting, exhibiting the timbre of a precocious child, whispering to a teddy bear underneath the covers.” – The Bluegrass Situation
“Anna Tivel brings a raft of beautiful songs with brine-soaked images of Pacific Northwest tidepools, oceans, and the birds that wheel above them in the gray skies.” – Devon Leger, No Depression
Read our interview with Anna here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-anna-tivel
Rachel Mason weaves fantastical narrative songs into elaborate and spellbinding performances.
"One of the most creative forces in the world"-Impose Magazine.
"One of the most entertaining artists in art-rock"
-NY Music Daily
Read our interview with Rachel here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-artist-rachel-mason
"One of the most creative forces in the world"-Impose Magazine.
"One of the most entertaining artists in art-rock"
-NY Music Daily
Read our interview with Rachel here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-artist-rachel-mason
Jolie Holland is an American singer and performer who combines elements of folk, traditional, country, rock, jazz, and blues. She was one of the founding members of The Be Good Tanyas.
ANTI- labelmates Tom Waits and Sage Francis are both outspoken fans of Holland's: Waits nominated her for the Shortlist music prize while Francis has said that Holland's album Escondida was his most listened to album of 2005. Holland collaborated with Francis on two tracks on his album Human the Death Dance.
Read our interview with Jolie here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-jolie-holland
ANTI- labelmates Tom Waits and Sage Francis are both outspoken fans of Holland's: Waits nominated her for the Shortlist music prize while Francis has said that Holland's album Escondida was his most listened to album of 2005. Holland collaborated with Francis on two tracks on his album Human the Death Dance.
Read our interview with Jolie here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-jolie-holland
A shark lover who writes songs, Cassidy Andrews is a young singer-songwriter from Brooklyn New York.
Read our interview with Cassidy here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-cassidy-andrews
Read our interview with Cassidy here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-cassidy-andrews
The earthy and melodic music of singer/ songwriter Elspeth Summers speaks to the soul. She has been playing music for nearly 10 years, and in her musical journey has developed into a multi-instrumentalist and powerful vocalist. She grew up in the Nevada desert and Lake Tahoe mountains. Raised from hippie parents with magic and plants, she was submerged in nature for many days, months, and years. Music found her when she was 15 and instantly became her most profound passion.
This passionate Americana, Folk, and Indie-styled artist has a well-travelled sound, having toured across the West Coast, correlating with over 50 different musicians, and playing at numerous events, including Stars of Tomorrow, California Coast Music Camp, and McCloud Mountain Bluegrass Festival.
She promotes activism, environmental preservation, and love with her bluegrass tunes, sweet, ethereal and ambient in nature.
She truly speaks to the conscious youth of our future in a beautiful artistic fashion, and brings a touch of natural beauty to her listeners through all of her songs. Elspeth Summers is a beautiful addition to the ever-expanding world of indie music, as well as the world of activism, and brings the two together in this beautiful music.
Read our interview with Elspeth here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-elspeth-summers
This passionate Americana, Folk, and Indie-styled artist has a well-travelled sound, having toured across the West Coast, correlating with over 50 different musicians, and playing at numerous events, including Stars of Tomorrow, California Coast Music Camp, and McCloud Mountain Bluegrass Festival.
She promotes activism, environmental preservation, and love with her bluegrass tunes, sweet, ethereal and ambient in nature.
She truly speaks to the conscious youth of our future in a beautiful artistic fashion, and brings a touch of natural beauty to her listeners through all of her songs. Elspeth Summers is a beautiful addition to the ever-expanding world of indie music, as well as the world of activism, and brings the two together in this beautiful music.
Read our interview with Elspeth here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-elspeth-summers
Singing, stories and songs are the first things Alana Amram remembers. She hit the road at 2 weeks old, touring around America with her musical family. She napped in a guitar case at the foot of the stage. Books about horses, a passion for trespassing, searching for lost caves and ginseng treasures in the upstate New York wilderness was what fed her curiosoty. She kept notebooks chronicling her adventures and poems.
Her first solo release was a 7” on Noiseville Records. She recorded it inside the record store she worked at after they had closed for the night. She started a band called “The Rough Gems” after a Walt Whitman poem. She was signed to Zealous Records (Velour Music Group) and released the E.P. “ALANA AMRAM & THE ROUGH GEMS” in 2008. They went to SXSW and did their first of many tours.
Alana has opened, sang and played alongside an array of bands and musicians as varied as her musical taste. The short list includes: Pete Seeger, Nels Cline, Peter Rowan, Steve Earle, Abigail Washburn, Tommy Ramone, Judy Collins, The Church, Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Langhorne Slim, Danava, Nicole Atkins, Hurray For The Riff Raff, Nikki Lane, Alberta Cross, Anti-Flag, Psychic TV, ? & the Mysterians, Sky Saxon, Odetta, Boss Hog, Mac Demarco, Jenny O, The Chapin Sisters, Daddy Long Legs, Black Oak Arkansas, Cherrie Currie, John McCuen, Janis Ian, Israel Nash Gripka, Deertick, Steve Aoki and many many others.
Read our interview with Alana here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-alana-amram
Her first solo release was a 7” on Noiseville Records. She recorded it inside the record store she worked at after they had closed for the night. She started a band called “The Rough Gems” after a Walt Whitman poem. She was signed to Zealous Records (Velour Music Group) and released the E.P. “ALANA AMRAM & THE ROUGH GEMS” in 2008. They went to SXSW and did their first of many tours.
Alana has opened, sang and played alongside an array of bands and musicians as varied as her musical taste. The short list includes: Pete Seeger, Nels Cline, Peter Rowan, Steve Earle, Abigail Washburn, Tommy Ramone, Judy Collins, The Church, Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Langhorne Slim, Danava, Nicole Atkins, Hurray For The Riff Raff, Nikki Lane, Alberta Cross, Anti-Flag, Psychic TV, ? & the Mysterians, Sky Saxon, Odetta, Boss Hog, Mac Demarco, Jenny O, The Chapin Sisters, Daddy Long Legs, Black Oak Arkansas, Cherrie Currie, John McCuen, Janis Ian, Israel Nash Gripka, Deertick, Steve Aoki and many many others.
Read our interview with Alana here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-alana-amram
Singer songwriter, painter, essayist - Tom Russell has recorded thirty five highly acclaimed records, & published five books: 120 Songs of Tom Russell; Tough Company - Letters with Charles Bukowski; Blue Horse Red Desert: the Art of Tom Russell; Bloodsport a crime novel published by Aschehoug, Norway; and - And Then I Wrote: The Songwriter Speaks, with Sylvia Tyson.
Tom Russell songs have been recorded by Johnny Cash, Doug Sahm, Nanci Griffith, K.D. Lang, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Ian Tyson, Iris Dement, Joe Ely, and a hundred others.
Tom Russell graduated from The University of California with a Master's Degree in Criminology. He was recently awarded the 2015ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for excellence in music journalism
In 2015 Russell released a 52 track "folk opera" on the West, The Rose of Roscrae, was deemed: maybe the most important Americana record of all time by UK Folk, the top Folk album of 2105 by Mojo Magazine, and hailed in top ten lists in two dozen publications including The Los Angeles Times. He has appeared on the David Letterman TV show five times.
Tom Russell is Johnny Cash, Jim Harrison and Charles Bukowski rolled into one. I feel a great affinity with Tom Russell's songs, for he is writing out of the wounded heart of America.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti (Poet)
Tom Russell is an original, a brilliant songwriter with a restless curiosity and an almost violent imagination. “Blood and Candle Smoke” is vintage Russell, and the Graham Greene connection is a ‘beaut.
Annie Proulx (The Shipping News, Brokeback Mountain)
Tom Russell is the last great American voice.
Ken Bruen (The Dramatist, The Cross)
How great is Tom Russell? Isn't he the best? I'd like to quit my job and travel with him...if the money can be worked out...
David Letterman, Late Night with David Letterman
Read our interview with Tom here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-tom-russell
Tom Russell songs have been recorded by Johnny Cash, Doug Sahm, Nanci Griffith, K.D. Lang, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Ian Tyson, Iris Dement, Joe Ely, and a hundred others.
Tom Russell graduated from The University of California with a Master's Degree in Criminology. He was recently awarded the 2015ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for excellence in music journalism
In 2015 Russell released a 52 track "folk opera" on the West, The Rose of Roscrae, was deemed: maybe the most important Americana record of all time by UK Folk, the top Folk album of 2105 by Mojo Magazine, and hailed in top ten lists in two dozen publications including The Los Angeles Times. He has appeared on the David Letterman TV show five times.
Tom Russell is Johnny Cash, Jim Harrison and Charles Bukowski rolled into one. I feel a great affinity with Tom Russell's songs, for he is writing out of the wounded heart of America.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti (Poet)
Tom Russell is an original, a brilliant songwriter with a restless curiosity and an almost violent imagination. “Blood and Candle Smoke” is vintage Russell, and the Graham Greene connection is a ‘beaut.
Annie Proulx (The Shipping News, Brokeback Mountain)
Tom Russell is the last great American voice.
Ken Bruen (The Dramatist, The Cross)
How great is Tom Russell? Isn't he the best? I'd like to quit my job and travel with him...if the money can be worked out...
David Letterman, Late Night with David Letterman
Read our interview with Tom here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-tom-russell
Vanessa Peters is a Texas-based singer and songwriter. Her songs have a short-story quality about them and her lyrical abilities are often praised among reviewers. The music blog Heartache With Hard Work states, "It's one mark of a great song that it can work on a number of different levels. And almost every song here does that. They work as allegory, as symbols for some of the grand concepts: love, fear, loss, friendship, fear. They work as literal short stories."
In 2003, Peters released her first album, Sparkler, and in 2004 did a cross-country solo tour. The same year, she also recorded her first album with Ice Cream on Mondays and they released the album, Thin Thread, in January 2005. The collaboration with Ice Cream on Mondays produced three albums and numerous tours across Europe and America in which Peters was usually accompanied by the band's lead guitarist, Manuel Schicchi.
Peters has also produced solo records over the years, most notably the acoustic EP Blackout. One of the tracks, "Afford to Pretend", was featured on NPR's All Songs Considered Open Mic in 2006. Peters has also had the song "Love Story" featured on MTV's The Real World: New Orleans and the song "The Next Big Bang" featured on Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
Her last album recorded with Ice Cream on Mondays, Sweetheart, Keep Your Chin Up, was well received by critics on both sides of the Atlantic and debuted at #12 on The Euro Americana Chart
Read our interview with Vanessa here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-vanessa-peters
In 2003, Peters released her first album, Sparkler, and in 2004 did a cross-country solo tour. The same year, she also recorded her first album with Ice Cream on Mondays and they released the album, Thin Thread, in January 2005. The collaboration with Ice Cream on Mondays produced three albums and numerous tours across Europe and America in which Peters was usually accompanied by the band's lead guitarist, Manuel Schicchi.
Peters has also produced solo records over the years, most notably the acoustic EP Blackout. One of the tracks, "Afford to Pretend", was featured on NPR's All Songs Considered Open Mic in 2006. Peters has also had the song "Love Story" featured on MTV's The Real World: New Orleans and the song "The Next Big Bang" featured on Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
Her last album recorded with Ice Cream on Mondays, Sweetheart, Keep Your Chin Up, was well received by critics on both sides of the Atlantic and debuted at #12 on The Euro Americana Chart
Read our interview with Vanessa here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-vanessa-peters
Rachael Cantu started her career fronting a southern Californian indie rock band called Quite Satellite while still in high school. She later wrote and performed as a solo artist in Los Angeles and San Diego, and opened for bands such as The Get Up Kids, Saves the Day and Karate.
After moving to Boston, her reputation grew amongst fellow artists. Cantu opened for Canadian indie pop duo Tegan and Sara on two North American tours, and also for Limbeck and Ben Lee.Cantu's first release was the EP Blood Laughs. After signing to Q Division Records, in 2006 she released her debut album Run All Night. The album has been well received by critics, and was successful in the independent album charts. Since then she has toured North America to promote the album.
Tegan Quin of Tegan and Sara appeared as a backing vocalist on Saturday, as well as Tony Goddess of Papas Fritas. Cantu has also recorded songs with Limbeck, Kori Gardner of Mates of State, and Jason Gnewikow of The Promise Ring.
Musically, Cantu has been described as "something of a mix of The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde, PJ Harvey, Sarah McLachlan, and Norah Jones". She has also been compared vocally to Björk and Patty Griffin.
In January 2009, Cantu's song "Devil's Thunder" was featured on ABC's "Private Practice." In February 2009, Cantu's self-titled EP was released. In 2009 and 2010, she opened on various dates for blues legend B.B. King. In November 2009, she released her second studio album, Far and Wide, created with Vancouver-based producer Garth Futcher (best known for his work with Be Good Tanyas)
Read our interview with Rachael here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-rachael-cantu
After moving to Boston, her reputation grew amongst fellow artists. Cantu opened for Canadian indie pop duo Tegan and Sara on two North American tours, and also for Limbeck and Ben Lee.Cantu's first release was the EP Blood Laughs. After signing to Q Division Records, in 2006 she released her debut album Run All Night. The album has been well received by critics, and was successful in the independent album charts. Since then she has toured North America to promote the album.
Tegan Quin of Tegan and Sara appeared as a backing vocalist on Saturday, as well as Tony Goddess of Papas Fritas. Cantu has also recorded songs with Limbeck, Kori Gardner of Mates of State, and Jason Gnewikow of The Promise Ring.
Musically, Cantu has been described as "something of a mix of The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde, PJ Harvey, Sarah McLachlan, and Norah Jones". She has also been compared vocally to Björk and Patty Griffin.
In January 2009, Cantu's song "Devil's Thunder" was featured on ABC's "Private Practice." In February 2009, Cantu's self-titled EP was released. In 2009 and 2010, she opened on various dates for blues legend B.B. King. In November 2009, she released her second studio album, Far and Wide, created with Vancouver-based producer Garth Futcher (best known for his work with Be Good Tanyas)
Read our interview with Rachael here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-rachael-cantu
Matthew Ryan is an American musician, singer and songwriter, born in Chester, PA and inspired by such artists as The Replacements, and Leonard Cohen; he logged several years in a series of bands before signing with A&M Records as a solo artist in 1996.
No Depression magazine has described him as, “Equal parts Springsteen, Westerberg and Ryan Adams, Ryan is a powerhouse of a storyteller for almost two decades. A forefather of the Alt-country scene, Ryan has yet to receive as much commercial success as some of his contemporaries.” Ryan is known for his ”hushed rasp, with words catching like vows destined to be broken – one of modern music's most potent whispers."
Ryan has released 12 albums to date, including collaborations with Neilson Hubbard in the band Strays Don't Sleep, and with ambient/post-rock band Hammock. Ryan’s music has been featured in One Tree Hill, Ash Wednesday, Dawson's Creek, The 24th Day, & House. His most recent album, Boxers was released in 2014.
Read our interview with Matthew here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-matthew-ryan
No Depression magazine has described him as, “Equal parts Springsteen, Westerberg and Ryan Adams, Ryan is a powerhouse of a storyteller for almost two decades. A forefather of the Alt-country scene, Ryan has yet to receive as much commercial success as some of his contemporaries.” Ryan is known for his ”hushed rasp, with words catching like vows destined to be broken – one of modern music's most potent whispers."
Ryan has released 12 albums to date, including collaborations with Neilson Hubbard in the band Strays Don't Sleep, and with ambient/post-rock band Hammock. Ryan’s music has been featured in One Tree Hill, Ash Wednesday, Dawson's Creek, The 24th Day, & House. His most recent album, Boxers was released in 2014.
Read our interview with Matthew here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-matthew-ryan
Paula Cole is an American singer-songwriter. Her single "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?" reached the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1997, and the following year she won a Grammy Award for Best New Artist. Her song "I Don't Want to Wait" was used as the theme song to the television show Dawson's Creek.
Cole got her first big professional break when she was invited to perform on Peter Gabriel's 1993–94 Secret World Live tour. Shortly after this, she was signed on with her first record company Imago Records. Through this record company, she released her first album Harbinger in 1994. Within that year of Harbinger's release, Imago Records went out of business. In 1995, she was signed on to Warner Bros. Records. The record company reissued Harbinger in the Autumn of 1995.
To replace Sinead O'Connor who left the tour, Cole joined the two last legs of Peter Gabriel's 1993-94 Secret World tour. A video of the tour was released as Secret World Live, with Cole covering all the primary female vocals and featured in duets with Gabriel, especially the song "Don't Give Up" on which she sang the part that Kate Bush recorded with Gabriel in 1986. The film received the 1996 Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video. Cole was also the main female vocalist on Secret World Live, the audio album documenting the tour.
Cole released her debut album, Harbinger, in 1994 with Imago Records. She appeared with Melissa Etheridge to sing a duet on VH1 though she was not well known at the time.
Harbinger featured songs dwelling on Cole's personal thoughts on discrimination and unhappiness. The songs were musically lush but driven and bleak. The accompanying artwork featured photographs of Cole with a boyishly short haircut, wearing loose fitting black sweatclothes, combat boots and nose ring. The Imago label folded and promotion of Harbinger was limited, affecting its sales. A single, "I Am So Ordinary", was released with a black and white video that reflected the album's artwork.
In late 1996, Cole released her second album on Warner Bros. Records, This Fire, which was entirely self-produced. The album's debut single, "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?", went to #8 on Billboard magazine's pop chart. The follow-up single "I Don't Want to Wait" reached #11, its popularity in part due to its use as the theme song for the hit teen drama series Dawson's Creek. The single "Me" (#35 Airplay chart) was also released as a radio only single. The title "Hush, Hush, Hush", a duet with Peter Gabriel, talks about AIDS and about a young man dying in his father's comforting arms. "Feelin' Love" was a single that was included on the soundtrack to City of Angels.
Cole toured with Sarah McLachlan's Lilith Fair. Cole was nominated for several Grammy Awards in 1997. Among them was "Producer of the Year" (Cole was the third woman to ever be nominated in this category after Janet Jackson in 1990 and Mariah Carey in 1992); she did not win, but she did go on to win "Best New Artist" that same year.
Since 2013, Cole has been on the voice faculty at Berklee College of Music while continuing an active performing career.
Read our interview with Paula here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-paula-cole
Cole got her first big professional break when she was invited to perform on Peter Gabriel's 1993–94 Secret World Live tour. Shortly after this, she was signed on with her first record company Imago Records. Through this record company, she released her first album Harbinger in 1994. Within that year of Harbinger's release, Imago Records went out of business. In 1995, she was signed on to Warner Bros. Records. The record company reissued Harbinger in the Autumn of 1995.
To replace Sinead O'Connor who left the tour, Cole joined the two last legs of Peter Gabriel's 1993-94 Secret World tour. A video of the tour was released as Secret World Live, with Cole covering all the primary female vocals and featured in duets with Gabriel, especially the song "Don't Give Up" on which she sang the part that Kate Bush recorded with Gabriel in 1986. The film received the 1996 Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video. Cole was also the main female vocalist on Secret World Live, the audio album documenting the tour.
Cole released her debut album, Harbinger, in 1994 with Imago Records. She appeared with Melissa Etheridge to sing a duet on VH1 though she was not well known at the time.
Harbinger featured songs dwelling on Cole's personal thoughts on discrimination and unhappiness. The songs were musically lush but driven and bleak. The accompanying artwork featured photographs of Cole with a boyishly short haircut, wearing loose fitting black sweatclothes, combat boots and nose ring. The Imago label folded and promotion of Harbinger was limited, affecting its sales. A single, "I Am So Ordinary", was released with a black and white video that reflected the album's artwork.
In late 1996, Cole released her second album on Warner Bros. Records, This Fire, which was entirely self-produced. The album's debut single, "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?", went to #8 on Billboard magazine's pop chart. The follow-up single "I Don't Want to Wait" reached #11, its popularity in part due to its use as the theme song for the hit teen drama series Dawson's Creek. The single "Me" (#35 Airplay chart) was also released as a radio only single. The title "Hush, Hush, Hush", a duet with Peter Gabriel, talks about AIDS and about a young man dying in his father's comforting arms. "Feelin' Love" was a single that was included on the soundtrack to City of Angels.
Cole toured with Sarah McLachlan's Lilith Fair. Cole was nominated for several Grammy Awards in 1997. Among them was "Producer of the Year" (Cole was the third woman to ever be nominated in this category after Janet Jackson in 1990 and Mariah Carey in 1992); she did not win, but she did go on to win "Best New Artist" that same year.
Since 2013, Cole has been on the voice faculty at Berklee College of Music while continuing an active performing career.
Read our interview with Paula here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-paula-cole
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, the grandson of Irish railroad workers (who seemed to be in the habit of leaping from trains), Jeff Finlin is a fascinating, unique artist. His career has taken many twists and turns.
He began with wanderlust, traveling America using every form of transportation, with the exception of rickshaw (still on the bucket list). Having played in bands in Boston, Ohio and L.A, he finally wound up in Nashville with long-time mate and Academy Award nominee Gwil Owen ("A Softer Place to Fall") to form the rock band “The Thieves”, which released the acclaimed "Seduced by Money", produced by Marshall Crenshaw on Capitol Records. In 1993, he went on to produce the self-released "Lonely Light" before going on to produce the Little Dog/ Mercury release, "Highway Diaries".
The Chicago Sun Times said:
"Fiinlin writes with the minimalist grit of Sam Shepard and Raymond Carver - tune in and you will hear an elusive magic."
Next it was on to New York, where Jeff incorporated the likes of Mark Ribot (Tom Waits and Elvis Costello) and Tony Garnier (Bob Dylan), to produce “Original Fin”, which was released on BMG/Gravity in the UK and Ireland and NBFNY in the U.S.
Music Row Magazine called the record: "A do it yourself piece of musical brilliance - Simply manna to the literate songwriter’s soul."
In 2000, Jeff was invited to perform at Sir Paul McCartney’s “Buddy Holly Tribute” at the Mermaid Theatre in London. Then in 2002 "Somewhere South of Wonder” came out garnering Finlin, 'Album of the Year' accolades on Virgin Radio's Captain America Show . A tour opening for Steve Earle in the U.K. and Ireland followed.
In 2005, Jeff's Song "Sugar Blue", from the 2002 album "Somewhere South of Wonder" was selected by Cameron Crowe for the soundtrack of his film "Elizabethtown". "Angels in Disguise" was released on Warner Brothers Records in the UK and then on Rykodisc in the United States in 2006. Jeff released the final installment of his trilogy, "Ballad of a Plain Man", in 2008 and "The Tao of Motor Oil", in 2010.
Having played venues all over the world, including The Barrowlands - Glasgow , Scotland, Shepard’s Bush Empire-London UK, The Olympia—Dublin IE, Royal Concert Hall-- Edinburgh UK, Jeff continues to tour the world in support of his work.
In the spring of 2013 Jeff Released the epic “My Moby Dick” along with an extensive book of prose titled “Time Less Travel”
.
Peter Cooper of the Nashville Tennessean said of the record- “Some folks come to Nashville, amble over to Music Row and look for a cookie-cutter solution. Hand Jeff Finlin a cookie cutter, and he’s liable to melt it down and then forge it into something sharper and more dangerous.”
Read our interview with Jeff here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-jeff-finlin
He began with wanderlust, traveling America using every form of transportation, with the exception of rickshaw (still on the bucket list). Having played in bands in Boston, Ohio and L.A, he finally wound up in Nashville with long-time mate and Academy Award nominee Gwil Owen ("A Softer Place to Fall") to form the rock band “The Thieves”, which released the acclaimed "Seduced by Money", produced by Marshall Crenshaw on Capitol Records. In 1993, he went on to produce the self-released "Lonely Light" before going on to produce the Little Dog/ Mercury release, "Highway Diaries".
The Chicago Sun Times said:
"Fiinlin writes with the minimalist grit of Sam Shepard and Raymond Carver - tune in and you will hear an elusive magic."
Next it was on to New York, where Jeff incorporated the likes of Mark Ribot (Tom Waits and Elvis Costello) and Tony Garnier (Bob Dylan), to produce “Original Fin”, which was released on BMG/Gravity in the UK and Ireland and NBFNY in the U.S.
Music Row Magazine called the record: "A do it yourself piece of musical brilliance - Simply manna to the literate songwriter’s soul."
In 2000, Jeff was invited to perform at Sir Paul McCartney’s “Buddy Holly Tribute” at the Mermaid Theatre in London. Then in 2002 "Somewhere South of Wonder” came out garnering Finlin, 'Album of the Year' accolades on Virgin Radio's Captain America Show . A tour opening for Steve Earle in the U.K. and Ireland followed.
In 2005, Jeff's Song "Sugar Blue", from the 2002 album "Somewhere South of Wonder" was selected by Cameron Crowe for the soundtrack of his film "Elizabethtown". "Angels in Disguise" was released on Warner Brothers Records in the UK and then on Rykodisc in the United States in 2006. Jeff released the final installment of his trilogy, "Ballad of a Plain Man", in 2008 and "The Tao of Motor Oil", in 2010.
Having played venues all over the world, including The Barrowlands - Glasgow , Scotland, Shepard’s Bush Empire-London UK, The Olympia—Dublin IE, Royal Concert Hall-- Edinburgh UK, Jeff continues to tour the world in support of his work.
In the spring of 2013 Jeff Released the epic “My Moby Dick” along with an extensive book of prose titled “Time Less Travel”
.
Peter Cooper of the Nashville Tennessean said of the record- “Some folks come to Nashville, amble over to Music Row and look for a cookie-cutter solution. Hand Jeff Finlin a cookie cutter, and he’s liable to melt it down and then forge it into something sharper and more dangerous.”
Read our interview with Jeff here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-jeff-finlin
Catherine MacLellan is a Canadian folk singer-songwriter, currently based in Prince Edward Island. The daughter of Canadian songwriter Gene MacLellan, she was born and raised in Summerside, Prince Edward Island.
Before beginning her solo recording career, she sang with The New Drifts, a four-piece band featuring Island musicians James Phillips (guitar, mandolin), Stéphane Bouchard (bass) and Dave Gould (drums & percussion). She spent time working at the box office of Summerside's Harbourfront Jubilee Theatre, a 527-seat theatre where she made her soft seat début as a solo performer.
MacLellan released two albums, 2004's Dark Dream Midnight and 2006's Church Bell Blues, independently before signing to True North Records, which rereleased Church Bell Blues in 2007. She followed up with Water in the Ground in 2009; Dark Dream Midnight was included as a bonus disc with physical copies of that album. She toured Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom throughout 2009 to support the album, including performances on CBC Radio's Canada Live and The Vinyl Cafe. Her album Silhouette was released by True North Records in July 2011. Her album "The Raven's Sun" was released August 2014.
Read our interview with Catherine here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-catherine-maclellan
Before beginning her solo recording career, she sang with The New Drifts, a four-piece band featuring Island musicians James Phillips (guitar, mandolin), Stéphane Bouchard (bass) and Dave Gould (drums & percussion). She spent time working at the box office of Summerside's Harbourfront Jubilee Theatre, a 527-seat theatre where she made her soft seat début as a solo performer.
MacLellan released two albums, 2004's Dark Dream Midnight and 2006's Church Bell Blues, independently before signing to True North Records, which rereleased Church Bell Blues in 2007. She followed up with Water in the Ground in 2009; Dark Dream Midnight was included as a bonus disc with physical copies of that album. She toured Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom throughout 2009 to support the album, including performances on CBC Radio's Canada Live and The Vinyl Cafe. Her album Silhouette was released by True North Records in July 2011. Her album "The Raven's Sun" was released August 2014.
Read our interview with Catherine here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-catherine-maclellan
" Her lilting voice and heartfelt lyrics are eerily close to the work of the late British songstress Sandy Denny, the highest compliment I could hand down to this brilliant artist."- Paste Magazine
Allysen Callery is a self-taught folk artist from Bristol, Rhode Island. Growing up she was heavily influenced by her parent's British Isles Folk Revival records of the late 60′s early 70′s.
Read our interview with Allysen here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-allysen-callery
Allysen Callery is a self-taught folk artist from Bristol, Rhode Island. Growing up she was heavily influenced by her parent's British Isles Folk Revival records of the late 60′s early 70′s.
Read our interview with Allysen here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-allysen-callery
Shari Ulrich, (born 17 October 1951) is a Canadian musician-songwriter born in the United States. She has won a Juno Award for "Most Promising Female Vocalist of the Year", and worked as a television host, actor, film composer, and songwriting educator. A multi-instrumentalist, she plays violin, mandolin, guitar, piano and dulcimer.
Ulrich performed on the coffeehouse circuit around Vancouver in the early 1970s. In 1973, she met up with Rick Scott and Joe Mock, and together they formed the Pied Pumkin String Ensemble which first performed that year.
Her break came when she was hired to tour with Valdy and his Hometown Band. Shortly afterward, she won a 1981 Juno Award for "Most Promising Female Vocalist" and received Juno nominations in the following two years for "Best Female Vocalist".
Ulrich has written for Sesame Street and composed theme music for several networks, including the CBC. She is also a member of the folk music group UHF with Bill Henderson (Chilliwack) and Roy Forbes.
Ulrich continues to perform solo (often accompanied by daughter Julia Graff on violin, piano, mandolin, guitar, accordion and vocals) and to occasionally tour with the Pied Pumkin, UHF, BTU and bluegrass group The High Bar Gang.She lives on Bowen Island, British Columbia.
Read our interview with Shari here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-shari-ulrich
Ulrich performed on the coffeehouse circuit around Vancouver in the early 1970s. In 1973, she met up with Rick Scott and Joe Mock, and together they formed the Pied Pumkin String Ensemble which first performed that year.
Her break came when she was hired to tour with Valdy and his Hometown Band. Shortly afterward, she won a 1981 Juno Award for "Most Promising Female Vocalist" and received Juno nominations in the following two years for "Best Female Vocalist".
Ulrich has written for Sesame Street and composed theme music for several networks, including the CBC. She is also a member of the folk music group UHF with Bill Henderson (Chilliwack) and Roy Forbes.
Ulrich continues to perform solo (often accompanied by daughter Julia Graff on violin, piano, mandolin, guitar, accordion and vocals) and to occasionally tour with the Pied Pumkin, UHF, BTU and bluegrass group The High Bar Gang.She lives on Bowen Island, British Columbia.
Read our interview with Shari here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-shari-ulrich
Gina Villalobos is an American singer-songwriter and composer. From 1992 thorough 2013, she extensively toured and recorded in the United States, the UK and Europe, writing songs and making music in bands and as a solo artist. Counting her most recent release, Sola (2014), Villalobos has released five solo studio albums. She continues to sing and compose in her work as a music creator at Feverpitch, where she services the motion picture industry, specifically those companies making movie trailer music. She creates sound effects, produces music, and composes original scores.
In her early 20s, Villalobos fronted and played guitar in the acoustic folk trio Liquid Sunshine. Together, they recorded the albums Sweet Commitment and Barbary Lane, as well as the self-titled Liquid Sunshine EP before disbanding in 1996. Between 1997 and 2001, Villalobos fronted the band The Mades, with whom she recorded two albums, before starting her solo career with 2002’s Beg From Me.
In 2004, she caught the attention of respected U.S. publications like Paste, No Depression, Acoustic Guitar, and Harp. In anticipation of her sophomore studio album, Live from KXLU Radio was released, containing a live recording with songs off the new album. With her second outing, Rock 'N' Roll Pony, the European press and radio praised the CD, which reached #3 on the Euro-Americana charts, and by 2005, Villalobos was performing in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. She toured with Laura Veirs in 2005 on her UK tour. Her 2007 self-release Miles Away repeated her previous successes in the U.K. press and on BBC Radio 2. Around that time, the alternative rock band World Party invited Villalobos to tour the States with them, and her songs started showing up in movies and TV shows like One Tree Hill and Army Wives. Two years later, Gina delivered Days on Their Side.
Villalobos has been associated with Anne McCue, and has been recognized for her contribution to California songs.
In 2014, after an extended hiatus and having taken the time to produce the album since January 2012, Sola was released. She produced and Erik Colvin engineered, as he’s done for each of her previous three offerings. Augmenting Gina’s vocals and guitar are guitarist Kevin Haaland (Andy Grammer), back for his fourth Gina Villalobos album, and returning guitarist Josh Grange (Sheryl Crow, k.d. lang, Beck, Dixie Chicks); Also credited are Eric Heywood (Son Volt, Ray LaMontagne, The Pretenders, Alejandro Escovedo) on pedal steel. Upright bass was performed by Ian Walker (k.d. lang, Cher, Paula Cole, The Ditty Bops). Quinn (Tracy Chapman, Daft Punk, Paula Cole) was the drummer.
In late 2015, The Golden Globe Award and Emmy Award-winning Amazon Studios TV show, Transparent selected the arrangement featuring the Gina Villalobos/Eric Colvin produced version of the 1971 Sly and the Family Stone hit "Family Affair" featuring the vocals of Ruby Friedman for use in the trailer promoting the launch of Season 2
Read our interview with Gina here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-gina-villalobos
In her early 20s, Villalobos fronted and played guitar in the acoustic folk trio Liquid Sunshine. Together, they recorded the albums Sweet Commitment and Barbary Lane, as well as the self-titled Liquid Sunshine EP before disbanding in 1996. Between 1997 and 2001, Villalobos fronted the band The Mades, with whom she recorded two albums, before starting her solo career with 2002’s Beg From Me.
In 2004, she caught the attention of respected U.S. publications like Paste, No Depression, Acoustic Guitar, and Harp. In anticipation of her sophomore studio album, Live from KXLU Radio was released, containing a live recording with songs off the new album. With her second outing, Rock 'N' Roll Pony, the European press and radio praised the CD, which reached #3 on the Euro-Americana charts, and by 2005, Villalobos was performing in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. She toured with Laura Veirs in 2005 on her UK tour. Her 2007 self-release Miles Away repeated her previous successes in the U.K. press and on BBC Radio 2. Around that time, the alternative rock band World Party invited Villalobos to tour the States with them, and her songs started showing up in movies and TV shows like One Tree Hill and Army Wives. Two years later, Gina delivered Days on Their Side.
Villalobos has been associated with Anne McCue, and has been recognized for her contribution to California songs.
In 2014, after an extended hiatus and having taken the time to produce the album since January 2012, Sola was released. She produced and Erik Colvin engineered, as he’s done for each of her previous three offerings. Augmenting Gina’s vocals and guitar are guitarist Kevin Haaland (Andy Grammer), back for his fourth Gina Villalobos album, and returning guitarist Josh Grange (Sheryl Crow, k.d. lang, Beck, Dixie Chicks); Also credited are Eric Heywood (Son Volt, Ray LaMontagne, The Pretenders, Alejandro Escovedo) on pedal steel. Upright bass was performed by Ian Walker (k.d. lang, Cher, Paula Cole, The Ditty Bops). Quinn (Tracy Chapman, Daft Punk, Paula Cole) was the drummer.
In late 2015, The Golden Globe Award and Emmy Award-winning Amazon Studios TV show, Transparent selected the arrangement featuring the Gina Villalobos/Eric Colvin produced version of the 1971 Sly and the Family Stone hit "Family Affair" featuring the vocals of Ruby Friedman for use in the trailer promoting the launch of Season 2
Read our interview with Gina here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-gina-villalobos
There’s something to be said for experience, for taking the time to grow into your own skin. All sturdy things need time to root firmly into the ground to find their strength.
Lynn Miles is one of Canada’s most accomplished singer/songwriters. With twelve albums to her credit, the winner of multiple Canadian Folk Music awards (2011 English Songwriter of the Year), and a 2003 Juno award for Roots and Traditional Solo Album of the Year, she has certainly found her strength over time.
Through a career that has seen her move from Ottawa to Los Angeles and back again, with stops in Nashville and Austin TX., and a healthy touring schedule that regularly takes her through the US, Europe and across Canada, she has always created and performed music with unbridled feeling and vulnerability.
Read our exclusive interview with Lynn here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lynn-miles
Lynn Miles is one of Canada’s most accomplished singer/songwriters. With twelve albums to her credit, the winner of multiple Canadian Folk Music awards (2011 English Songwriter of the Year), and a 2003 Juno award for Roots and Traditional Solo Album of the Year, she has certainly found her strength over time.
Through a career that has seen her move from Ottawa to Los Angeles and back again, with stops in Nashville and Austin TX., and a healthy touring schedule that regularly takes her through the US, Europe and across Canada, she has always created and performed music with unbridled feeling and vulnerability.
Read our exclusive interview with Lynn here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lynn-miles
Kristina Stykos is a music producer, recording engineer, songwriter and performer based in Vermont. Her recording studio, Pepperbox Studio, is solar, wind and generator powered and fully off-the-grid.
After her first self-produced release, In The Earth’s Fading Light (2005), was designated “Best Vermont Album of the Year” by the Barre Montpelier Times Argus, Kristina completed the next phase of her audio engineering education by earning a production certificate at the Berklee School of Music in Boston.
Since then she’s engineered & produced over 15 albums for herself and clients, many of those released on her own indie label: Thunder Ridge Records.
Kristina’s solo album Wyoming Territory (2013), was supported in its development by the Ucross Foundation & Brush Creek artist residencies of Wyoming.
Her recent albums include two collaborative projects, Beautiful Blood (2013) with singer-songwriter Steve Mayone of Boston, and Raven (2011) co-produced with Grammy-nominated pianist Philip Aaberg of Montana.
"This certainly is not the voice of a bubblegum pop chanteuse. Stykos now delivers strong songs, with a mature, seemingly all-knowing vocal style." - Art Edelstein, arts reviewer, Barre Montpelier Times Argus.
Read our exclusive interview with Kristina here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-kristina-stykos
After her first self-produced release, In The Earth’s Fading Light (2005), was designated “Best Vermont Album of the Year” by the Barre Montpelier Times Argus, Kristina completed the next phase of her audio engineering education by earning a production certificate at the Berklee School of Music in Boston.
Since then she’s engineered & produced over 15 albums for herself and clients, many of those released on her own indie label: Thunder Ridge Records.
Kristina’s solo album Wyoming Territory (2013), was supported in its development by the Ucross Foundation & Brush Creek artist residencies of Wyoming.
Her recent albums include two collaborative projects, Beautiful Blood (2013) with singer-songwriter Steve Mayone of Boston, and Raven (2011) co-produced with Grammy-nominated pianist Philip Aaberg of Montana.
"This certainly is not the voice of a bubblegum pop chanteuse. Stykos now delivers strong songs, with a mature, seemingly all-knowing vocal style." - Art Edelstein, arts reviewer, Barre Montpelier Times Argus.
Read our exclusive interview with Kristina here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-kristina-stykos
Lisa Cerbone's early attempts at playing a musical instrument were furtive efforts. As a teenager, she would wait until the members of her little brother's band left their practice area, then creep in to have a go at the instruments they had left behind. Stymied when she tried to play songs written by others, she proceeded to write her own. She grew into a respected, creative, and abundantly productive singer/songwriter, putting out her eponymous first recording in 1993. Ichiban Records, a label out of Atlanta, scooped her up and subsequently issued two more of Cerbone's recordings, Mercy and Close Your Eyes. She earned two consecutive Washington Area Music Association awards (Wammies) as alternative music's Best Female Vocalist. Her songs have been featured in movies and on television programs, among them Homicide: Life on the Streets.
With a University of Maryland degree under he belt, Cerbone became a teacher in the public school system for five years. By 1992 she was dissatisfied and ready to give up her full time career as a teacher. She kept a hand in teaching as a writing tutor, but she steered her life back to music, this time much less furtively than the manner in which she had begun years before. She decided to give herself two solid years of strong effort to make her mark in the music world. Financing for her independent first album came from her teacher's salary, and in less than 24 months, Ichiban Records' offer of a contract was on the table. Close Your Eyes in 1995 was a re-release of her debut from several years earlier, although it features several small changes from the original. Her next album, Mercy, was recorded live and issued in 1997. In 2003 Cerbone released the lovely Ordinary Days, which was produced by Mark Kozelek (Red House Painters, Sun Kill Moon), followed by the sparse and graceful We Were All Together in 2008. She has performed across North America, including gigs with Lori Carson, Ben Harper, the Cowboy Junkies, and Lloyd Cole. Born in New Jersey, she lives with her family in Baltimore, MD.
Read our exclusive interview with Lisa here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lisa-cerbone
With a University of Maryland degree under he belt, Cerbone became a teacher in the public school system for five years. By 1992 she was dissatisfied and ready to give up her full time career as a teacher. She kept a hand in teaching as a writing tutor, but she steered her life back to music, this time much less furtively than the manner in which she had begun years before. She decided to give herself two solid years of strong effort to make her mark in the music world. Financing for her independent first album came from her teacher's salary, and in less than 24 months, Ichiban Records' offer of a contract was on the table. Close Your Eyes in 1995 was a re-release of her debut from several years earlier, although it features several small changes from the original. Her next album, Mercy, was recorded live and issued in 1997. In 2003 Cerbone released the lovely Ordinary Days, which was produced by Mark Kozelek (Red House Painters, Sun Kill Moon), followed by the sparse and graceful We Were All Together in 2008. She has performed across North America, including gigs with Lori Carson, Ben Harper, the Cowboy Junkies, and Lloyd Cole. Born in New Jersey, she lives with her family in Baltimore, MD.
Read our exclusive interview with Lisa here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-singer-songwriter-lisa-cerbone
