World United Music: country rock

Showing posts with label country rock. Show all posts

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Michael Mazochi

About: Michael Mazochi

Michael Mazochi has been perusing the evolution of expression for the better part of a decade. His work ranges from folk, to country, to indie rock, to pop, to rock and roll. His more instrumentally dense work with his band "The Von Furs" now called "The Michael Mazochi Band" is an exploration of pop, psychedelic, garage and good old fashioned rock n' roll while his solo work tends towards the more intimate confessions of a solo artist.

The Von Furs began life as a studio project for Michael (past winner of Folk Album of the Year and Folk Singer/Songwriter of the Year at the LA Music Awards). Based in Los Angeles, and following an extensive string of placements on hit t.v. shows like "New Girl", "True Blood", "Hart of Dixie", and "Gossip Girl" along with a spot in a "Coca-Cola" commercial, he decided it was time to put together a band of friends and musicians to play the songs he had been writing and recording. Blending a love for 60's Americana (Bob Dylan, Neil Young), Classic British Pop (The Beatles, The Kinks) and Indie Rock (Pavement, The Walkmen) The Von Furs set out to fill a gap in the fabric of modern indie rock. Building upon time spent in upstate NY and a cabin in the Angeles National Forest while tucked away and working tirelessly, Mazochi blended together his influences to produce something new and timeless.

Michael released "The Von Furs" energy filled alternative rock album "Love and Taxidermy" in 2016.

After a lengthy break from releasing full length albums under his name, Michael Mazochi returns with "The Cold War". The album is a look at the modern age and how it effects us as human beings. The 14 track album is a vibrant, exciting, and sometimes harrowing look at the effects of the times we live in and how we all need to find some sense of peace in the chaos that surrounds us.

"The Cold War" is mostly the work of one music obsessive who locked himself up in a small apartment and tried to make sense of the world around him. The album was made one piece at a time with nearly every instrument being played by Mazochi from drums to vocals. The presence of Maxwell Butler in a good handful of the songs provides a lift whenever and wherever he lends his talents.

"The Cold War" was Mazochi's most concise and directed album, one that seeks to look forward into the future while staying grounded in the past.

Since then Michael has released a folk electronica based album titled "Here Comes the Night" (2017) which is a unique exploration into the electronica / folk universe that clearly shows Michael's diverse skills as an artist as he combines his search for truth and his progressive music talents to produce a very unique album.The album was written, recorded, mixed, produced, and mastered by Michael Mazochi. ~ Favorite track: "Watching the Lines"

Band Members:

Michael Mazochi - Vocals, Guitar, Album Stuff

Tedd Buffa - Bass
Jordan Gravely - Guitar
Richard Ponce - Guitar, Keys
Elly Swope - Drums, Vocals

CONTACT: Michael Mazochi

Michael Mazochi Music Playlist

Michael Mazochi LINKS:
Official Website
Soundcloud
Reverbnation

Last FM
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube

BUY MUSIC
Bandcamp
CD Baby
iTunes

Saturday, October 1, 2011

My Cousin the Emperor

About: My Cousin the Emperor

My Cousin, The Emperor is the stage name for singer-songwriter and guitarist Jason Reischel.
My Cousin, The Emperor’s music has been called “all that’s right with the genre of country music” (Under The Radar), “more honest than most of the dribble coming out of Nashville” (My Old Kentucky Blog), and “Gram Parsons-influenced, rich country folk” (AOL Music). Reischel has been compared to such artists as Paul Simon, Elliot Smith, Tim Buckley, The Band, Townes Van Zandt, and Nick Drake.

Raised in Asheville, North Carolina but now residing in Brooklyn, New York, My Cousin, The Emperor was named “Best Band in Brooklyn 2010” by NPR station WNYC. The title track from the 2009 album “A Long Way From Home” won the Independent Music Award for Song of the Year (Alt-Country). Since 2005, Reischel has released three full-length albums and two EPs, and is currently in the recording studio.

Contact: mycousin.theemperor@gmail.com

My Cousin the Emperor – Official Website

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Christopher Robin Band

BIO: Christopher Robin Band

Since he picked up the guitar and taught himself how to play at the age of 14, his musical roots have included personal lessons from artists like Michael Hedges, Gregg Allman, Wayne Henderson and Garth Webber, yet his tone, chord structure, feel, searing solos and sense of melody remain truly his own.

At the age of 16, Christopher Robin started writing all of his own music and now draws from his own catalog of 200 plus songs.

"All of my songs are true stories - I've had residency in seven different states - and there's been a lot of stories. They're about all the things I've done, from sailing on tall ships to being a cowboy in Colorado , to playing for Kings, Queens , Princes and Princesses in Europe , or the Hells Angels in California , to your typical love-on-the-rocks kind of thing."

At the age of 18, he studied with independent luthier Brad Nickerson, building his own acoustic guitar to perform upon. After completing his guitar in 1993 he moved to San Francisco to start his career as a performing singer/songwriter. Working side jobs as a guitar tech for the Jefferson Starship, and the
Gregg Allman Band.

Christopher Robin has accomplished what every musician sets out to do; he has developed a unique, individual voice, a music undeniably his own, a sound that is recognizable from the first note.

Christopher has opened for, shared the stage or recorded with a long list of artists including Joe Higgs, Clarence Clemmons, Gregg Allman, Robert Cray, Lee Sklar, Ray Brinker, The Marshall Tucker Band, Shooter Jennings, Jackie Pearson, Garth Webber, Reggie Young, Del McCoury, Jimmi Hall, Peter Yarrow, Eddy "The Chief" Clearwater, Paul Thorn, Berry Oakley Jr., Loren Rowan, Bee Spears, Richie Albright, Mark Matejka, Big and Rich, Don Was, Tony Joe White, and Steve Cropper among others.

Additionally, Christopher is still called upon to sing and play guitar for the original "Lady Outlaw", Jessi Colter. These experiences have earned him the reputation of being a true musician's musician in addition to being a high-energy crowd pleaser.

With three CD's under his belt, Christopher and his band of all-star players, including his "Little Brother" Trevor Taylor, continue to maintain an extensive national touring schedule.

Contact:

Truth Music
29860 North 42nd Street
Cave Creek, AZ 85331

West Coast
Kim Camacho
480.620.2112
KimTruthMusic@gmail.com

East Coast
Allison Stockel
203.645.3259
Allison@ridgefieldplayhouse.org

Christopher Robin Band – Official Website

"From Fairfield, Conn. to a little apartment in San Francisco to Music City, USA - Nashville, Tenn. to the mapmakers - singer/songwriter Christopher Robin has seen and done it all, a traveled troubadour cut from the same cloth as the music legends he so reveres" ~ Play Magazine

"After more than a decade of paying his dues and soaking up the wisdom of seasoned, storied performers, however, Christopher Robin is now poised to become one himself" ~ Play Magazine

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Jack Savoretti

About: Jack Savoretti

Four years ago, Jack Savoretti quit making music. He’d had enough – of scratching a living as an independent artist, of business bust-ups, of being touted as a soon-to-be star. He’d spent two years (and all of his savings) in legal dispute with a former manager and seen the release of his second album so botched it barely came out. He was 26 and recently married, with a baby on the way. “I thought that was my run, I’d had fun and now it was time to get a proper job,” says Savoretti. “I was done with music and, honestly, I didn’t mind.”

What happened next couldn’t have surprised the singer more. “As soon as I said, ‘screw this’, I couldn’t stop writing,” he recalls. “I wrote out of anger, although the songs were more of a cry for help. It was the best, most personal music I’d ever made. I realised I had really learnt how to write, how to express exactly what was in my head.”

That album, 2011’s critically-acclaimed ‘Before The Storm’, saw Savoretti turn a corner. That he was an exceptional singer was never in dispute – those gorgeous, gritty, soul-soaked vocals that caused such a fuss when he first emerged and saw his DIY debut, 2007’s ‘Between The Minds’, championed by Radio 2 – but by his own admission, his early work was him finding his feet.

‘Before The Storm’ reignited Savoretti’s passion, taught him how to put himself in his songs and, crucially, led him to the musicians who helped him helm ‘Written In Scars’, his impressive new album and his first to be released by a major label, with whom he signed earlier this year. “A lot of the songs were written with Sam Dixon, who is Adele’s musical director and Sia’s main co-writer”, says Savoretti. “I also wrote with Matt Benbrook who has worked with Paolo Nutini, Jake Bugg and Faithless and finally, of course, with my guitarist Pedro Vito and Seb Sternberg (Pedro’s production partner). I drew inspiration from them all.

“The heartbeat of the album is rhythm. It’s all about groove, drums and bass. The sound was key – it came before the songs or the subject matter. I completely changed the way I’d previously written, abandoning structure for a looser, loopier, almost circular approach.“

What Savoretti didn’t spot until ‘Written In Scars’ was underway was the influence of music from his family past. “Most of my musical influences come from my parents,” says Savoretti, “My mum was into The Eagles, Crosby Stills & Nash and Motown. My dad played mostly Italian music from the ‘60s and ‘70s. In the past I suppressed that as an influence but, for the first time, on these songs, it appeared.’

What Savoretti calls the Euroclash of his past emerges in the album’s rich, warm textures and brooding atmospherics, as well as in the Spanish-style guitar that opens both the title track, a rousing revolution anthem, and future single ‘Home’. It’s there in the melancholy piano and soulful phrasing of ‘Back To Me’ and in the darkness that envelops ‘The Hunger’, a song through which bass beats like a pulse.

Most striking, however, is the loose-limbed nature of songs driven largely by percussion. Gone are Savoretti’s troubadour days, although that impassioned voice remains – if anything, grittier and gutsier than before. That groove he mentioned is everywhere, from the dreamy ‘Don’t Mind Me’, a midtempo song with a hip-shaking sexiness, to even the gorgeous, folk-tinged, strings-backed ‘Broken Glass’. That circular approach to songwriting makes sense as soon as you hear ‘Home’s mesmerising chorus, the repeated piano riff of the spectacular The ‘Other Side Of Love’ or the frenzied finale of ‘Fight Til The End’.

Savoretti’s reliance on rhythm is at its most obvious, and most glorious, on Tie Me Down, the first single to be released from the album, leading an EP out in October. A recurring acoustic guitar riff, tribal bass drum beats and a galloping groove back an instantly infectious, near hypnotic vocal on a stompalong of a song that couldn’t spell out Savoretti’s new sound more clearly.

Lyrically, ‘Written In Scars’ largely deals with struggle, or rather overcoming struggle – hence the title. “Some of that struggle is personal,” says Savoretti, “but much is about the struggles going on everywhere at the moment. It’s about emerging from strife, with fists in the air.”

One song that doesn’t fit the theme is ‘The Other Side of Love’, which deals with the dark side of love, described via tales of an abusive relationship and of a boy frightened to come out, albeit set to deceptively uplifting percussion and strings.

“’The Other Side Of Love’ has a slightly different sound, as well as different subject matter,” says Savoretti. “It probably suggests the next phase for me, after this album.”

The sole track that looks back is ‘Nobody ‘Cept You’, a beautiful cover of an obscure Bob Dylan song that Savoretti discovered at his lowest ebb.

“That song genuinely saved my life,” he says. “I was in Santa Monica, at Jackson Browne’s studio, to make my second album and someone played me a Dylan bootleg that had ‘Nobody ‘Cept You ‘on it. At the time, I wanted to grab my shit and run, away from everything and everyone but that song inspired me to go on, to be grateful for what I have.

“It’s definitely nerve wracking recording a Dylan song, but thankfully, not many people know it and even fewer have covered it; it’s not ‘Mr Tambourine Man’. It is also amazing how many people shut up at a gig when you introduce a Dylan song. It’s a song that’s helped me in so many ways.”

CONTACT: Jack Savoretti

Jack Savoretti Music Playlist

Jack Savoretti Live Playlist

Jack Savoretti LINKS:
Official Website
Soundcloud
Last FM
Reverb Nation
Facebook
Twitter
Wikipedia

VIDEO
YouTube
VEVO

BUY MUSIC
Official Store
iTunes
Amazon