Solo artists Matthew Powers is a creative enigma. What is he? A musician who plays bass as a sideman with some high profile acts? A singer-songwriter who pens some very delicious melody-driven pop songs? A composer of synth-heavy dance music? or maybe a writer of guitar how-to books and a sci-fi novel serialized on hi blog? Well we’re going to have a conversation with Matthew about his creativity and listen to a few tracks from his eclectic catalog.
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So the calendar turns it’s way to the end of another year and as we usually do we look back and see where we’ve been and then look forward to where we’re going. Resolutions be damned!!! Musically it’s always a good thing to look back so we can pat ourselves on the back and say – We done some pretty good work there, man!
So let me throw some titles out there that caught my ear and the ears of a few of my musical friends. These are some selections from 2009 that are great examples of independent songwriting and producing. I look forward to hearing what 2010 has to offer.
These CDs are listed in no particular order, they’re ALL damned good! Please click on the album art and visit the artists’ websites and buy the music. Support Independent Music!
Happy New Year,
~Darryl
Thanks to Cameron Mizell, Steve Lawson, Cindy Smith D’Adamo for their suggestions.
“Old Man Dreamin’” by, John Batdorf
Track – ‘What D’ya Got?’
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“Happinesss + Victory” by Donna Fullman
Track – ‘Stone’
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“Solitary Songs” by, Miriam Jones
Track – ‘Helicopter’
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“On Your Back Porch” by, Lauren Zettler
Track – ‘Shapes’
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“Moonlight and Theremin” by, Karen Ramos
Track – ‘Raincoat’
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“Bony Jars” by, The Bootz Orchestra
Track – ‘Our Daughters’
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“Vinyl” by, D’Haene Band
Track – ‘Wouldn’t You Like To Know’
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“Chase You” by, Mike Stocksdale
Track – ‘The Old Band’
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“Uncovered” by, Coco & Lafe
Track – ‘Introduce Myself To You’
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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.
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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!
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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 -
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~ Darryl
