Unsigned Underground

Toronto based singer-songwriter Kim Jarrett has a voice that fuses decades of pop music in a familiar and welcoming sound. Listening to Kim’s music takes me back to the soft FM stations of the 1970’s while still evoking the modern era and her own style. Kim Jarrett is an award winning songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and session player. We sat down to talk about the music scene in Canada, her upcoming CD and being an indie musician. Take a listen to this episode and please leave a comment – let us know what you think.

*note that there is an episode discrepancy on the audio – this is episode 30. I must have been so absorbed by Kim’s music that I forgot where I was!

When you listen to Morgen La Civita’s music the first thing you ask yourself is ‘Where is this girl coming from?’. The music is hard to pigeon-hole and presents a challenge to the listener when trying to divine the source of her inspiration. Americana? Yes. Blues? Yes. Popular song? Yes. Middle Eastern? Yes. Morgen definitely presents us with a melting pot of styles and influences nicely tied together with a sultry voice and excellent production value. In this episode of Unsigned Underground we talk about changing directions, writing contemporary songs while reaching into the past and Morgen’s upcoming CD “From the Basement”.

In this episode of Unsigned Underground we’ll be talking to Adam Stokes, songwriter, musician and world traveler. Adam has been all over this country spreading the word about his music and he’s been living down south – way down south as in Guatemala where he took up residence and toured Central South America while his wife worked as an archeologist. We’ll be talking about how living in another country can influence your songwriting, writing his second album and when he’s going to get back out there on the road. Listen and leave a comment!

I think that what I really dig about Miriam Jones is that I hear in her music a lot of artists I like: Glen Hansard, Dar Williams, Emmy Lou Harris, Shawn Colvin and even Leonard Cohen. But as with all excellent artists, Miriam takes those glancing comparisons and creates her own mosaic portrait of herself. Miriam’s lyrics are poetry and Miriam’s melodic sense is exquisite. Listen in on our conversation about 70’s pop music, gigging in the UK and songwriting and let us know what you think.

Lauren Zettler quit her day job. She now makes music her profession, her life and her passion. We can definitely hear that passion in the songs that she writes  – the beautiful melodies, tricky harmonies and draw-you-closer arrangements that is her signature. Lauren was on a previous episode of Unsigned Underground but only as an example and not as a focus so I’m glad to have her on so we can get to talk about her music and her dream. I’m intrigued by her recent story and I can’t get enough of her music and she’s got a new Christmas Collection out on iTunes. Listen to our conversation about following your dream, picking the right people to work with and getting into the Christmas spirit.

Tim Gleeson’s approach to music is simple: a good story, a little love, a memorable melody and some spare change. I put Tim’s new CD “No Sad Songs” on and I felt myself relax into the comfort of the back porch in mid-July. Nothing is over done and yet the songs all feel full and ripe. Tim is no slouch when it comes to performing having toured with Sister Sledge, a career as an LA session man and opening for Jazz singer Anita Bakers’ Rapture tour. Listen to Tim andI talk about the new CD and how he’s handling being an indie musician these days. Let us know what you think.

I’ve known about John Batdorf for a long long time but because of my personal musical biases I never really took the time to listen closely. I recently was reminded of his name and his music from listening to Mike Marrone’s show on The Loft on XM Satellite Radio as I drove to work early in the morning. Still it was not enough to get me to move in the direction of purchasing some music by John Batdorf or go back and listen to the early Batdorf and Rodney or even John’s band Silver. I grew up in the 1970’s listening to Zeppelin, Springsteen, Pink Floyd, AC/DC – bands like Seals & Crofts, Bread, America, and the like were not my style and as I grew older and even started (ironically) to play my own music in a style akin to those bands I still harbored a bias. But thank you lord that I have come across John Batdorf’s latest CD “Old Man Dreamin’” because it is amazing. The album is one of the few recent albums that I have enjoyed from track 1 to track 11. The playing is superb, the production is excellent and the songwriting displays a craftsmanship that is worthy of study. We had a great conversation about the present and the past – check it out and please leave a comment and visit John’s site to get the CD!

I’ve been itching to get a producer on the show for a while and I’ve finally tricked one into coming on, well not really, I just asked nicely. Cameron Mizell is actually a friend of Carla Lynne Hall’s (see episode 20) who I recently interviewed. Carla told me what great work Cameron does with his own music and then she also told me that he works with other indie artists as a producer. I checked out his website (www.cameronmizell.com) and also his blog (www.musicianwages.com) and was blown away by his guitar chops and the variety of music that he had his fingers in. Take a listen to this interesting conversation about what a producer does and how they help an artist approach their own music. You’ll be hearing music not only from Cameron, but Lauren Zettler and Erika Lloyd as well. Please leave a comment and visit the artists websites and buy their music!

~ Darryl

I found Matthew Moran on Twitter. I’m not quite sure I remember exactly where and how, but I followed his links out of Twitter and on to his website where I was taken with his approach to songwriting and to his music as a business. The more I look at musicians and songwriters in these ever evolving days of the internet download the more I see a business store front. I also see a person that can diversify and Matt is that: diversification. We had a wonderful conversation about songwriting, the music business and how technology can help the business model of the modern musician. Please leave a comment, visit Matthew’s site and support his music.

~ Darryl

Welcome to episode 19 of Unsigned Underground. I’m very pleased to be back at it and producing this podcast. I had to take sometime off to re-evaluate what I really wanted to promote with this show and I came the conclusion that I wanted to interact more with the artists I presented on the show – so I decided that I would focus mainly on interviews and not do a radio style show. There are a lot of great indie-artists out there that need to have their music exposed, but to just roll out the tune in a radio show doesn’t seem to really be the best thing.  I tune in to shows like Fresh Air and New Sounds on NPR/WNYC because I want to hear the story behind the story: why did that sing get written? what are you doing to promote yourself in this DIY  wild-west and get recognized? And of course it still comes down to the Music.

So for my relaunching episode I’m going to be talking to Coco and Lafe – two very interesting people who have taken their music and put it to the forefront of their lives. They describe themselves as a couple of “empty-nester baby-boomer back-porch songwriters turned street performers turned full-time touring musicians”. The spin that they’ve put on their music business is to tour Farmer’s Markets and then to solicit house concerts from the audience when they come up to buy a CD or sign the list. They are a throw-back to the ancient minstrels who traveled from town festival to town market playing for tips. But in these days of declining record sales and questionable recording contracts, this type of tour and self-promotion seems like genius.

Take a listen and leave a comment -

~ Darryl