youbloom | HEADROOM #2: Featured Artists from the Los Angeles 2015 Music Festival

28-Oct-2015 By Shannon Duvall Leave a Comment

There’s nothing quite as devilish as a little dish, is there?

You know it’s true, otherwise, you wouldn’t be here at HEADROOM, the official source of all dirt dug on the artists who’ll be tearing up the stages of this December’s youbloom LA 2015 Music Festival . We’ve got over 50 bands lined up already for this winter’s hottest fest, and with that much rock ‘n’ roll in one place, there’s bound to be something juicy to unearth.

In my other job, as youbloom‘s very own private eye, I’ve learned a thing or two about a thing or two, and before I burst at the seams, I invite you to sit down, take a load off, and bask in a little of the gossy stuff – all horse’s mouth, scout’s honor.

You know how first bands can make or break you, musically speaking? Somehow, these all led to make.

Kevin Proctor (songwriter/keys/guitar, Direct Divide): My first band was a group of fellow football players and bored teenagers who played Ted Nugent, Metallica and Slayer covers. We were called War Dance and definitely should have had one of those logos that just looks like a leafless tree. SO METAL! My second band sounded a lot like Hootie and the Blowfish.

Razz: (songwriter/vox/violin): My first band was an all-girl pop punk quartet called the BlowUpDollz. Think 90’s pop punk meets 80’s hair metal and you’ve got the gist. I LOVED that band; we were underage, unapologetic troublemakers sneaking into dive bars to play gigs. We are all still very good friends even though the band isn’t together anymore. We just had a reunion show this year that was hilarious. I definitely learned a lot about stage presence and antics from that group.

It’s a curious thing, the electric violin. At once impossible to ignore and signature (what would The Who’s “Baba O’Reilly” be without it?), it’s a rarity in rock and pop music; its full range of sounds as yet uncharted in the more well-known genres. Putting it front and center are what Direct Divide do, which is both brave and intriguing, their unique sound complemented by tight rhythms, searing vocals, and intelligently placed guitar melodies. For fans of: Lourds, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, Andrew Bird’s darker stuff

BJ Smith: When I was 17, I met up with another male vocalist and two female vocalists through a friend of my parents who managed bands. We used to toy around singing songs a capella, and quickly formed a vocal group called Black Suede. Our manager said we needed a band and knew of one looking for a vocalist. We went to Santa Ana, California to meet up with this band (they called themselves Oasis, but not the Oasis you’re thinking of). We walked into the rehearsal – they sounded great! They were funky!! They had a conga player, a dude with timbales, synths, a sax player, and a drummer with electronic triggers. They were groovin’ all the funk and R&B jams you heard on black radio stations. I was in awe, like, damn this is the S#+t! Then out of nowhere, their manager and bass player started arguing. They knuckled up and started straight out brawling! We stood there in amazement; we’d rehearsed on our way there, but still had not sung a note! When the fight was over, the bass player grabbed his gear and left, and so did half the band. It was all over before it even started. A few weeks later we came back, they had a few new members and we did our first gig together in LA. We didn’t have a sound man, our mics were feeding back…we thought we sounded great until we were done, and the DJ started spinning the songs we’d just played as a way to mock us! That was last gig Oasis featuring Black Suede ever did; nevertheless, I got the bug, and the rest was history!

Cool, clever, and impassioned, the masterly BJ Smith has the kind of industry chops you hear whispered about across the bartop when he walks into the room. He produces. He sings and plays. He writes songs. He tours with top brass; picks his own band members; slides an R&B song your way like passing a love note. He’s impeccable. Don’t miss him. For fans of: Luther Vandross, Freddie Jackson, your own heartbeat

Brian Kirk (drums, Round 12): The first band I was in was with my two cousins who lived 35 and 120 miles away. We would practice once a month (if we were lucky). We were a “christian punk” band and we were booed off stage at our first performance.

A truly eclectic band if ever there was one. Vocals are raw and obstinate. Instrumental phrases seem cobbled together by a deranged Gepetto who was listening to Motorhead at the time. You can bang your head one minute, sway drunkenly the next. It’s capable, engaging, and likeable, as if it can’t be restrained by just one choice. For fans of: Frank Zappa, Stiff Little Fingers, Van Der Graaf Generator (we know)

Matthew Irwin (rhythm guitar/lead vox, Foreign Affairs NI): The first band I was in didn’t have a name. When I was 15 I was desperate to create my own music and play punk rock songs in any way I could! So I got into contact with a few friends on social media and we jammed and unsuccessfully played one show! We didn’t have a drummer so we borrowed another bands’ and he arrived late and too drunk to hold a beat! I was also a massive cringe – it was all very embarrassing. However, it did make me feel cool at the time so it wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

An ardent, sincere take on a well-loved genre. Sounds are clean and tight. There’s energy and storytelling in spades. Foreign Affairs NI show up with their hearts on their sleeves, ready to sleep on your kitchen floor if you’ll let them play a gig. This is how the best pop punk should be. For fans of: The Ataris, You Know The Drill, The Get Up Kids

Running riot: Dublin band The Riot Tapes fire things up with new single and video. World appropriately sweats.

18-Aug-2015 By Shannon Duvall Leave a Comment

“Goodbye my faith, goodbye my heart.”

Ah, Elaine Doyle, c’mere, would you ever stop being such a fantastic ride? Look at you there, running around the countryside, looking winsome and windswept, not a bother on you as you purr lyrics in perfect time and stare down the sunset like some badass bog Madonna.

Are your legs tired? Cause you’ve been running through my mind all day.

Well then, at least put a scarf on, dear, you’ll catch your death of cold out there. Yes, even in August; this is Ireland, after all.

–
Just two months on from their ravishing show at youbloomDublin 2015, Reekus Records’ Riot Tapes are are off and running – rather literally, actually – with their latest release, a single called “Hello, Insanity”.

Recorded at Westland Studios in Dublin’s south inner city, and initially intended as a work-in-progress recording, the since-polished song has been receiving critical praise from fans and industry swingers alike; Joe Donnelly of TXFM has called it “…a thunderbastard of a song.”

Well.

You can see where he’s coming from. As Irish mainstream music goes, this is top stuff. The production is so clean and well-considered, it’s as if the group are aliens – seductively frank aliens – dropped off here to totally steal the show. And this is what they do, with cannonball drums and electro-effect guitar thrum burning up the reel. Donnelly goes on to liken the track to “Heads Will Roll”, by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, quite the comparison, and by all accounts spot on, if the response from listeners of his popular radio show Cheer or Sneer are anything to go on. Riot Tapes, are, quite frankly, killing it right now.

So what does a sassy band of audio assassins do when they’re not busy slaying from the airwaves and the stages of Ireland’s best fests? Why, drive up the mountains and get up to all sorts of antics, of course:

“The shooting of the video (for “Hello, Insanity”) was unusual,” says vocalist Elaine.

“Myself and Chris (our guitarist) agreed on the concept which was basically me running up the Dublin mountains singing along to the song. So one cold sunny morning the two of us headed up to the mountains in Chris’s little Fiesta. We had a camera, a tripod, and some red rope. We put the camera onto the tripod, tied the tripod into the boot of the fiesta and began shooting. Chris drove as slowly as he could and I ran after the car whilst trying to sing. The whole point of the video was to do it in one take.”

“One minute in, we had a problem: my jeans were falling down quite rapidly when I ran. Chris cut off some of the red rope and made me a belt. You can kind of see it in the video if you look really close. We did four or five takes, and used the last one for the video. It didn’t take too long to do at all.”

Talented, tenacious, quite obviously full of creative energy; it must have been off to win over more listeners after the shoot, surely? Actually, uh, not quite:

“We spent longer looking for 50 euro that fell out of my pocket while I was running than we did shooting the video!” Doyle laughs. “We never found it.”

Check out all the pants (and panting!) -related mayhem right here in the video:

Riot Tapes play The Big Viking Picnic, a gig for charity, in Kells, Ireland August 29.

A Man Without Measure: youbloom Bids Farewell to Drum Pioneer Vic Firth (1930-2015)

30-Jul-2015 By Shannon Duvall Leave a Comment

Here at youbloom, we pride ourselves on giving good advice. As musicians and creatives who love the independent ethic, we like to draw from whatever experiences we have – be they salty and extensive or brief, yet fresh – and share them with you so that all angles of this music business madness are explored and unpacked as thoroughly as we can manage. The result of our musings, we hope, is as thorough and transparent an advantage as possible, for you, the unsigned artist.

But just as often as we communicate, we have to listen. And sometimes, we simply have to stop talking altogether. Today is one of those days.

Today we have no advice, only respects to pay to a man who dedicated his life to the pursuit of the impeccable: Mr. Vic Firth.

Mr. Firth, famed, longstanding member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, teacher, and drumstick company heavyweight, passed away on Sunday.

Born Everett Joseph Firth, on June 2, 1930, in Winchester, Massachusetts, to parents Rosemary and Everett E. (himself a noteworthy trumpet and cornet player), “Vic” started learning to play the cornet himself at the very young age of four. Later, the adolescent Everett became interested in several other instruments, beginning lessons in piano, trombone, clarinet, and, perhaps most fortuitously, percussion. During this time, he also began studying and learning to write musical arrangement, and by the time he was a high-schooler, Firth was known in his hometown of Sanford, Maine, as a full-time percussionist.

By the age of fifteen, he had formed his own twelve-man band, and settled on the stage name of Vic Firth, which, he once laughingly recounted in an interview with Modern Drummer magazine, sounded less like a “…skin disease” than the name Everett.

Vic Firth in later years. Photo credit: paulauger.com

Everett “Vic” Firth. Photo credit: paulauger.com

He took regular trips to Boston – a six hour drive away – to take snare drum lessons from George Lawrence Stone, as well as lessons in keyboard percussion from a man named Larry White, who would eventually convince Vic to attend college at Boston’s New England Conservatory, where Firth would earn both a Bachelor’s degree and an Honorary Doctorate in Music. He also made frequent trips to New York City to study timpani with Saul Goodman, and spent a summer in college at the Tanglewood Music Festival in Massachusetts (where the Boston Symphony Orchestra spend their summers), the result of a scholarship award.

Having entered college as a Music Education major, Vic developed an enthusiasm for teaching, and started the NEC’s first preparatory department. Later, he would become head of the percussion department, leading it for over forty years, and influencing countless students in their musical studies, among them such distinguished musicians as John Mellencamp drummer Kenny Aronoff, and prolific jazzist Harvey Mason.

Firth became the youngest member at the time of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1952, auditioning as a percussionist at the age of 21, while still in college at the NEC. He spent the first four years jumping at every opportunity, moving quickly through the ranks from percussion to timpani, then on to roles as associate principal, assistant principal, and subsequently, principal timpanist. He would hold this position for the remainder of his 50 years with the Orchestra.

In his time with the BSO, Mr. Firth performed with such notable players as Leonard Bernstein, Leopold Stokowski, and Seiji Ozawa.

Firth at work with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Photo credit: Milton Feinberg/Courtesy of the Boston Symphony

A passionate pursuer of the very best in terms of musicianship, and, more specifically, sound, Vic turned his focus on his musical implements. Finding the commonly used drumsticks and mallets of inferior manufacturing quality, Firth began whittling his first homemade sticks in his garage and sharing them with fellow percussionists. Word spread of the sticks’ durability and wide range of functions, and by 1963, Vic Firth, Inc., perhaps his most enduring legacy, was established.

Through Vic Firth, Inc., Mr. Firth’s channeled his innovation and business savvy, which focused on setting the standard for drumstick quality, becoming indispensable in the world of drummers from every discipline.

Though we take many of the advancements today for granted, it was Firth’s insight and relentless perfectionism which drove such crucial improvements in stick design as pitch-pairing, weight-sorting, and centerless grindin g to achieve a smoother stick surface. Currently at the height of their production, Vic Firth, Inc. (now the Vic Firth Company) makes around 12 million sticks annually. “The Perfect Pair” is today a trusted emblem of superior work in the drum realm.

Vic Firth sticks, loved by many. Photo credit: ArunBli

In 1995, Vic Firth was inducted into the Percussive Arts Society’s Hall of Fame, and in 2002, retired from the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

“I believe he was the single greatest percussionist anywhere in the world,” said composer Seiji Ozawa of Firth. “Every performance that Vic gave was informed with incredible musicianship, elegance and impeccable timing.”

Craigie Zildjian, CEO of Avedis Zildjian, world-famous cymbal manufacturer (merged with the Vic Firth Company since 2010), agrees.

“Vic was a visionary in the music industry who was revered by all of us,” he said. “Never one to accept the status quo, Vic blazed trails throughout the drum world.”

Mr Firth died at his home in Boston. He was 85 years old.

All hail.