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Ripple News - KIllola Partner with Aderra, Inc. to Reinvent the Capability of Physical Albums, Giving Fans an Album that Keeps on Giving
In what could signal the breaking down of the wall between artists and their fans, SoCal garage-pop rockers KILLOLA (www.killola.com) have joined forces with Aderra, Inc. (www.aderra.net) to create a multi-media, living and breathing electronic “umbilical cord” that instantly connects the creative process with the audience. Embracing USB/internet technology in a very fashion-forward manner, Killola and Aderra have introduced an immediate connection with their fans who purchase “Killola Dogtags” either from the band’s merch table while on the road or via the band’s website. While the dog tag may look like a mere trendy fan accoutrement with the band’s logo etched into the surface, it transforms into a matrix of ever-expanding music and video content when jacked into a computer.
Aderra, Inc. has been recording live concerts on USB drives for artists of all genres, such as Lady Gaga, Metallica, OK Go, The Pixies, David Guetta, Brian Wilson, and David Gray, but Killola is one of the first bands to embrace Aderra’s new PushOvr™ technology and take it even further. Instead of static MP3s and unevolving digital files that keep fans in anticipation for a band’s new album or recorded music, Killola will create a fluid and growing bridge between themselves and their fans, releasing new music and live performances AS THEY HAPPEN.
Fans who purchase the Killola USB dogtag receive not only the band’s new album, Let’s Get Associated, but also their previous studio albums (Louder! Louder! [2006] and I Am The Messer [2008]). In addition, when fans plug the USB drive into their computer, they also receive exclusive updates from the band including new songs, remixes, live recordings, music videos and photos. For example, once the band feels that a new song is ready to be sent to their fans, they can upload it onto their USB network, which then distributes it instantly to USB owners.
“It’s not just MP3 files on a disk,” explains Killola frontwoman Lisa Rieffel. “The USB drive is interactive. It has sounds, pages, navigation, pictures, HD videos, hidden easter-eggs, and 'living' content. You can click through the Killola USB album for a good hour, just finding stuff and geeking-out on the experience.” Planned for debut on Thursday, July 22nd is the first streaming video of a “truly” live performance, which will be broadcast simultaneously worldwide and accessible only to fans with the USB.
Let’s Get Associated will also be available via physical CD on August 10th, and digital distribution channels such as iTunes.
The Coppertone - Hidden Dreams
There are two different ways to view the blues, one is to see it as a limited musical form with only so many variations, so that when a genuinely exciting bluesman comes along, say, a Stevie Ray Vaughn or Joe Bonamassa, we end up complimenting them by degrees or on their technical veracity. The other way is to come to the blues from the emotional end, and view the 12 bar turnarounds as emotional bookends to the sorrow or lust or longing or passion of the singer. The Black Keys have been straddling this line for albums, and the reality is that very few bluesmen or women are willing to belly up to the bar and take the John Lee Hooker approach: sparse drums, unusual counts, playing behind the beat and, god help the singer, let the vocals and the guitar stand naked in space.
The Coppertone’s album Hidden Dreams takes a cue not only from John Lee Hooker but Portishead as well. Amanda Zelina’s voice, alone, has the emotional strength to stand alone in the opening tracks "Heroine" and "Nighttime Wishes," but can get placed into the maelstrom of of sound that is the fourth track, "Satisfied Mind." The drums aren’t quite John Bonham’s "When the levee Breaks", but the crunch of the guitars is utterly unexpected from the sparse blues sound of the first three tracks. Instead of pretending that the last 80 years of music hadn’t happened, Amanda elegantly, forcefully makes the case that with the blues as her base she’s going to use anything she damn well pleases for her songs.
"Heroine" opens the album, Nick Skalkos’ ambient drums shaking in the big empty room, before Amanda’s echoing voice cries out, her long vocal lines contrasting with the rhythmic guitar bouncing along, syncopated to the drums. Lacking other members to fill out the sound, we can practically hear the walls echoing their sound. And that’s the whole point. John Lee Hooker and Son House made records in shoeboxes that did nothing to take a hint of the edge off of their harrowing tales of deep south blues. In face, that ambient sound can help to define much of the sound and very few bands use it much if at all these days. Those early blues albums make you hear the room, not just the musician.
In part, Zelina’s skill at the blues lies in her influences. Hooker and Son House taught her what not to play, self evident in the restraint that she shows on the song. There is nary a note wasted and quite a few that you expect that stay in her back pocket waiting for another son
With slow rise of feedback, "7 of Spades" is practically metal filtered through the old school mike distortion once favored by Mark Sandman of Morphine. Nick’s entire drum kit is shaking providing the backbeat to Amanda’s heavy guitar riff. She teases the riff with bits of slide mixed in, something unlikely to show up in your average metal album. So much emptiness/but nothing to give/sold your soul to the devil/but you still can’t save. All the anger in the world cracks open and pours out of the wronged woman.
Hidden Dreams, a title track pushed down to the sixth track, lives and dies from the heavy backbeat, slow and steady, like a heartbeat that Amanda can sing a song of lonliness and despair over. The rhythmic touches can’t hide the heaviness of the bass here, as if Zelina has been listening to the deep depair of Robert Johnson’s thumb hitting those bass strings as the sound that grounds everything else in the world to that one thumping beat.
"Mile type of Love" takes us closer to Nashville, edging into the storytelling that has launched a thousand bumper stickers over the years. The earnestness of the love affair that might have driven Patsy Cline to tears, Amanda sings the closer to the night’s set as the love that she set free didn’t come back. So what did she do? Driven 700 miles/and picked up all the pieces/we left a long time ago. Pour another cheap beer for the drummer.
But its up to the second to last track, "Run," to fuse some of the best efforts into one beautiful dirge, the urgent tension of John Lee Hooker’s rhythms mixed with the porcelin Portishead vocals, and you have 2 minutes and 53 seconds of liquid emotion that leaves you gasping for more when it fades out. The fact that the final song, "Ramblin’," is a slide guitar drenched cover of Robert Johnson’s "Ramblin’ on my mind", should lay Zelina’s intentions laid bare. And the beauty of it is, given the high stakes gambling that she’s taking on with her influences, The Coppertones do an excellent job of ceding not a bit of ground
Its not a long record, but delicious from beginning to end, each track worth a listen. Damn but there are a lot of good bands up in Canada these days!
With a slide guitar and a bottle of bourbon – the fearless rock iguana
JUDGE MINTY
Judge Minty promises to be a brilliant fan film about an old judge taking the Long Walk.
A trailer has been cobbled together, enjoy:
Courtesy of Judge Minty
A trailer has been cobbled together, enjoy:
Courtesy of Judge Minty
Zoroaster - Matador
Matador features 9 songs in 45 minutes and takes you on a trip through all the elements of the heaviest shit out there. Opening song “D.N.R.” starts off thrashy before morphing into some OM-ish drones. Will Fiore’s guitar is crushingly heavy but with lots of definition (Orange Thunderverb amps are awesome!). Very tall bassist Brent Anderson has a towering tone and drummer Dan Scanlan really pounds those tubs hard. It’s gotta be murder for him to be heard in their practice space with all those amps. Will and Brent share vocal duties.
“Ancient Ones” has a rocking Black Sabbath groove with some hoarse vocals that are almost black metalish in places. There’s even a tambourine in the mix. “Odyssey” is indeed a tripped out journey. Great groove and dynamics. “Trident” has some great guitar solos that remind me of the great Helios Creed. My favorite song is probably “Firewater.” It’s really tripped out. The bass and drums lay down a pretty speedy groove while all sorts of insane guitar noise is detonated on top of it. Longer songs like “Old World” and “Matador” both clock in around 7 minutes and don’t wear out their welcome. “Black Hole” is one of the faster songs and is followed up with the much slower “Odyssey II.”
Matador flows really well as an album. Play it start to finish for a very satisfying listen. The other Zoroaster music I’ve heard has had very murky production and really long songs. I’m glad they cleaned up the sound and cut some of the fat off the songs. Matador reminds me of another favorite album of 2010, Ufomammut’s Eve. Both these bands combine the heaviest of the heavy with acidic Hawkwind and Pink Floyd space jams.
Zoroaster just wrapped up a tour with Black Tusk and Dark Castle but are hitting the road again in Zeptember with Nachtmystium and The Atlas Moth. Everyone says the Zoroaster live experience is an all out assault on the senses with bright lights and a huge sound. --Woody
buy here: Matador
The Colourist - EP
Every once in a while, a band comes along that is absolutely addicting and you can’t seem to get their music out of your mind. I love unexpectedly coming across bands that turn out to be hidden gems. Such was the case when I first came across The Colourist. Last September I visited the Troubadour in Los Angeles to see The Honey Brothers, a New York new wave folk band, playing their first Los Angeles show in almost two years and the first West Coast concert with drummer Adrian Grenier, star of the hit HBO show Entourage. Finally seeing The Honey Brothers was awesome, but I was blown away by the first opening band, The Colourist, and became completely captivated by their music. Immediately I came home that night and bought their EP off iTunes. Unfortunately it got mixed up inmy iTunes Library until recently.
With an energetic and enticing female drummer, you can’t help but get a Matt & Kim vibe from Maya Tuttle as she pounds the skins on her drum kit and sings beautifully with backup vocals. Guitarist Adam Castilla commands lead vocalswhile Justin Wagner (keyboards/vocals) and Kollin Johannsen (bass/guitar) keep the band in place. The self-proclaimed Orange County “jungle rock” quartet is one of those catchy bands you can’t stop thinking about once you hear their music. Their music sweeps listeners away with their catchy choruses that take the listener on a pop melody adventure. Their Death Cab for Cutie sound is the perfect soundtrack for summertime and even better for a laid back time. They blend dance, electro-pop, rock, and folk to create a sound that is completely their own. It’s truly troublesome trying to label this band, but why does that even matter when they sound amazing?
The four song self-titled EP leads off with “Oh Goodbye,” which was nominated last year for best song at the 2009 Orange County Music Awards. Simply irresistible, you can’t help but get caught up in this song. This is one of the best pop songs I have heard in the past five years! The band blends perfectly on “Oh Goodbye” that will leave you wanting more. “Fair Weather Friends” begins with a xylophone creating a soft sound before building into a heavier sound with pounding drums and energetic guitar riffs. This song shows the diversity and potential the band has transitioning from genre to genre flawlessly. The distinguished drumming styles of Tuttle, the charisma of Castilla and the hypnotic harmonies in “Cold October” just elevate this EP to a whole new level. The EP ends with “Yes Yes” an electronic pop song that has hook, after hook leaving you singing along the entire time.
Overall, this entire EP has one hook after the other and you might even catch yourself singing the songs long after you stopped listening. The future looks bright for this unsigned band as they continue to make great music in Southern California.
--Mr Brownstone
buy here: The Colourist - EP
The Derek Trucks Band - roadsongs
The Derek Trucks Band album "roadsongs" is Derek Truck's 2010 offering. It is a two CD, 14 track live album recorded and produced by Trucks (guitar) with Todd Smallie (bass and vocals), Yonrico Scott (drums and vocals), Kofi Burbridge (keyboards, flute and vocals) Matt Mattison (lead vocals), Count M'Butu (percussion and vocals), Mace Hibbard (tenor saxophone and horn arrangements), Paul Garrett (trumpet) and Kevin Hyde (trombone) during two April 2010 concerts at The Park West in Chicago, IL. The two CD set includes performances of six tracks of original material Trucks wrote or co-wrote ("I'll Find My Way"; "Get What You Deserve"; "Days Is Almost Gone"; "Already Free"; "Down Don't Bother Me"; and "Don't Miss Me") plus covers of Bob Dylan's "Down In The Flood"; Frank ("Toots" of Toots & the Maytals) Hibbert's "Sailing On"; Mongo Santamaria's "Afro Blue"; M. Smith's and J. Taylor's "I Know"; Bob Marley's "Rastaman Chant"; Big Bill Broonzy's and C. Segar's standard "Key To The Highway"; Allen Toussaint's "Get Out Of My Life Woman"; Jimi Hendrix's "Who Knows"; and Eric Clapton's and Bobby Whitlock's classic "Anyday."
The song choices are fantastic. The band is tight and each track accentuates the "Most Interesting Slide Guitar Player In The World's" chops. The Allman Brothers' influence can be heard on every track. Trucks regularly produces slide guitar music that is on par with one of the greatest slide guitarist the world has known - the late Duane Allman. The Derek Trucks Band's sound is a mash-up of the Allman Brothers sound with that of the Eric Clapton of Derek and the Dominoes era. Although Derek Trucks can, and does, play some fingerstyle guitar, this live album is about his slide guitar acumen. It is southern slide guitar bluesrock at its best with a dash of horns added for flavor.
The recording venue for this live album was intimate. According to The Park West website "Park West can hold up to 900 people for receptions and can comfortably seat groups of 100 to 700." It is this intimacy that seems to inspire the band throughout the album. The audience is awestruck, appreciative, but mixed down to be unintrusive. The recording is impeccably mastered by Dave McNair. McNair is known for mastering recordings by Stevie Ray Vaughan, Los Lobos, Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nelson, Miles Davis, Angelique Kidjo, and Kelly Willis.
I don't alway listen to new southern bluesrock slide guitar, but when I do, I choose the Derek Trucks Band "roadsongs." Stay thirsty my friends!
- Old School
Buy here: Roadsongs
The Single Life – 7 Inches of Fun – Featuring The Holy Mess, The Life, Filter, and Frontier(s)
Hell yes!! The words “punk rock” seems to have been absconded by just about anybody these days who fancies themselves an outsider, dropping that tagline onto their pathetic noise regardless of what the music actually sounds like. But 90% of what comes across the Ripple desk with the moniker “punk rock” to me isn’t real punk. I don’t know, maybe it’s because I was spinning Fear, Anti-nowhere League, Circle Jerks, The Damned and The Sex Pistols back in the day. So much of what comes across as “punk” is really just cleverly marketed, barely disguised, annoying whining.
Which is why The Holy Mess was such a refreshing change of pace for me. From the very first second that the needle dropped down onto the pounding cascade of drums and chaotic guitars that started “A Soulful Punk Tune . . . “ I was hooked. Here was a band that found the wormhole time-tunnel to bring back the full-on vitriol and passion of classic punk, without losing any of today’s edge and skill. Barely contained vocals and a grab-you-by-the-throat chorus really nailed this song into my cortex. This has gotta be on my list of the top ten of new punk singles of the year! Yes, why can’t they all be like this?
Having first played the disc on the b-side, I was as elated as a schoolgirl when I flipped the white vinyl platter over to discover another steaming slab of pure old school punk vibrancy. Timeless in approach, these songs could’ve been written in 1980 or anytime since. Great hooks, sloppy everything. Can’t get enough. On top of that, Evil Weevil Records did a great job with the package, with an inserted photo lyric sheet.
Besides, you gotta love any band who’s myspace address is www.myspace.com/fucktheholymess.
A while back I extolled the virtues of long-lost Seattle record label, Green Monkey Records. With renewed energy, Tom Dyer, the fearless head Monkey maniac has resurrected the label that originally ran from the mid-80’s to early 90’s. If you like classic post punk, garage rock, and random pre-grunge madness, you gotta check these guys out. Their newly released It Crawled From the Basement Anthology has to be one of my favorite re-issues of 2010.
Now, they’re coming back with some cool brand new releases, but for today’s purposes, we’re riding the Wizard’s time machine back to 1990 and this crazy white vinyl slab of near-Cramps, perfection. With a deep throated vocal riding over a demented quasi-rockabilly beat, laced with intermingling, swirling, and singing guitars, “Do it Again,” has got it all going on. Add a touch of a post-U2 pop sensibility and we’re really cooking. Just down-home, balls out fun. Flipside, “A Broken Man,” doesn’t let up long enough for a hummingbird to flap its wings. Let’s toss some vintage The Call into our reference points here and toss in some killer loose-strung, western gunfighter guitar sounds, a mild-Doors-y mid song breakdown, and you’ll get the picture.
The Life were one of the clear highlights from the It Crawled from the Basement Anthology, and this killer single only reconfirms how good these cats were. With Green Monkey back in action, I’m hoping we get some reissued The Life stuff. In the meantime, this tasty platter (on white vinyl) can still be found. Check Green Monkey Records first to see if Tom has any in his closet.
www.greenmonkeyrecords.com/
Long-time industrial rockers Filter come roaring back this month with their first new album in a while, The Trouble with Angels, and lead off with the single "The Inevitable Relapse." Originally released as a Record Store Day special, we get two versions of this mechanized assault of industrial mayhem.
Filter, at their best, could always keep up with the best of them, and with "The Inevitable Relapse" we find the band fully-tuned and running on rocket fuel. This song is a kick-ass, pulsasting, dancefloor ready slab off grinding guitars, pummeling beats, and industrial crunch. Not to be out done, the flipside strips the song down to its bare essence. If you’re a fan of NIN, this is right up your alley.
I must have been very good in a previous life. How else can I describe the embarrassment of riches that Postman Sal slogged into Ripple North when the same package that brought the fresh true-punk sounds of The Holy Mess also brought the post-post punk treat that is Frontier(s)?
Leading up their debut full-length release There Will Be No Miracles Here, this juicy platter just screams to be heard. Bringing on a kinda post-Husker Du tuneful hardcore, mixed with indy rock, jangling guitars, and more than a little bit of the old Enigma Label chutzpa, Frontier(s) have crafted two serious cuts of brimming post-hardcore rock.
Featuring Chris Higdon, formerly of Elliot and Falling Forward, Frontier(s) cranks out two truly strong tracks of emotive, churning post-punk bliss. "The Plains" rides its reverb/feedback intro into a solid wall of guitars and pulsating bass lines. Drums dot the atmosphere like hail falling from a darkened heavy and pregnant sky. Higdon’s vocals, breathy, throaty, and raw work like a charm, deepening the emotional resonance of the song. "Radiomine" is more of a hallucinogenic, shoegazing trip through emotive lanes of post hardcore soul-searching. Walls of churning guitars crash against each other like waves of a turbulent ocean. Think of something like The Velvet Underground for a modern generation and you won’t be too far off.
Can’t wait for the album to come out.
--Racer
A Sunday Conversation with Behind the Sun
Joining us today, are Aaron (guitar) and Gad (vocals) to enlighten us on all things Behind the Sun.
When I was a kid, growing up in a house with Cat Stevens, Neil Diamond, and Simon and Garfunkel, the first time I ever heard Kiss's "Detroit Rock City," it was a moment of musical epiphany. It was just so vicious, aggressive and mean. It changed the way I listened to music. I've had a few minor epiphany's since then, when you come across a band that just brings something new and revolutionary to your ears.
What have been your musical epiphany moments?
Gad: One epiphany moment would surely be the first time I heard The Beatles - Revolver on the old stereo, on vinyl, with the headphones on my head. And the following shock waves - The Doors, The Who, Zeppelin, Mad Season, Tool, Opeth and Pearl Jam
Aaron: I would have to say the first time I heard Miles Davis' Bitches Brew. I think I was 17. I was like "what the [expletive] is THIS??? What I am hearing here??? Is this even LEGAL??? It was like nothing else I'd ever heard.
Talk to us about the song-writing process for you. What comes first, the idea? A riff? The lyrics? How does it all fall into place?
Aaron: I read an article once about Jimi Hendrix where his producer said when Jimi wrote the music first the songs were awesome and when he wrote the lyrics first it was incredibly hard after that to fit the ideas into a song format. I find that this is a very common problem. The music tends to suggest the lyrics but not the opposite. So I almost always start with a riff or two --- then I look for a clever line to put in the chorus and go from there. We wrote and rewrote the lyrics to our song "The Professionals" from the album 3 or 4 times, keeping only the chorus from draft to draft. As heavy or convoluted as some of the riffs may be, I'm a big believer in a catchy chorus and title.
Gad:For me, getting to know a new word or a new phrase in English will sometimes spark an idea or better say - will be the missing piece in a puzzle that's been laying in my head.Other than that, when I find myself traveling across the country, mostly to remote and unfamiliar locations, I get inspiration from the sights, the people and the colors.
Aaron: Almost all of my ideas come from current events and relationships with people in my life. Although I am writing a song for the NEXT album about Brian Wilson which I think is going to be pretty crazy.
Your music seems to very deeply reflect the area where you live, can you talk to us about that?
Gad:Naturally, our music will reflect what we experience in this turmoiled region. We find it hard to write without what's weighting on our hearts and minds finding it's way into the music and the lyrics. we try to avoid dealing with the politics, not only because we all have different point of view on how the problems can be solved, but mostly because we're trying to end songs with a more optimistic message...
Aaron: I have to say there's a lot of pessimism and cynicism in the lyrics I wrote but that may be more of personal problem...
Gad: Another way for us to try and deal with the problems of this region, is to go back to the old stories of this great country and draw inspiration and guidance from past victories and failures.
Aaron: I can tell you that Gad's song "15th dawn" is about his reserve duty in the army and "Wishful Thinking" was inspired by the incredibly stupid leadership this country had at the time of the 2nd Lebanon War. After that it gets more abstract but the influence of the middle east is in there.
What is your musical intention? What are you trying to express or get your audience to feel?
Gad:It depends. If it's a personal song, a song that deals with relationships, friends and life in general - It's more of a sharing-the-experince kind of thing - "here's what I feel/think about what's probably going on with your life too".When the song's more about failing rulers or anti-war, we're trying to pass a different message to whomever's listening, whether the listener's from Israel or not from around - let's learn some lessons learned with pain and suffer, let's do this differently.
In songwriting, how do you bring the song together? What do you look for in terms of complexity? Simplicity? Time changes?
Aaron: I usually bring in riffs for a verse and chorus to the band and then we figure out where we want to take it. Sometimes we change the tempo completely and go off in a different direction entirely. I'm a big believer in keeping the big themes simple in terms of music and lyrics because I think it has more of a powerful impact. That said, time changes can bring a bit of spice to the music and grab the listener and demand his or her attention for a particular section or transition. I also like odd time signatures because they can instill a unusual feeling in the audience, like the 5/4 time in the verses of "Still" for example. The beginning and end of "Wishful Thinking" also involve some unusual time signatures, which I think pushes the listener off balance a bit and gives a feeling of being on a lurching cruise ship. At least that's how I was feeling that day.
How's the Israeli music scene?
Gad:First of all, it's important to say we do have a very vibrant and various music scene here. Besides the local oriental Mediterranean music and pop music, there are 2 major scenes in the Israeli rock - metal and indie.
The Israeli metal scene is full of good bands, some are around for quite a while now (Salem, Orphaned Land and Almana Sh'chora/"Black Widow") and some are not active for that long but are doing quite well such as The Fading that won the 2009 Waken Festival battle of the bands and Betzefer (signed with Roadrunner records). Without a doubt, the biggest, most successful representative from this scene would be Orphaned Land. They are signed up with Century Media and they're playing the biggest metal festivals all over he world.
Israeli indie rock has it's fair share of successful bands/artists but it's a more .... indie success. Names such as Asaf Avidan & the Mojos, Rockfour, Eatliz and Izabo have all enjoyed some success in and outside of Israel.
As a result, we have 2 kind of festivals, metal or indie, all year around.
Aaron: I love Israeli music (Infectzia, Barry Saharov, Arik Einstein, Shalom Hanoch, Amir Benayoun) but sadly I don't think it has any influence at all on what I'm writing. I didn't grow up on Israeli rock like the rest of the band. My mother was listening to the most commercial and banal Israeli pop when I was a child and I preferred Iron Maiden and Metallica.
Aaron: We had a bass player who was in another band at the same time and we both booked shows on the same day. He was supposed to play with his other band hours before our show but of course there was a delay and he only made it to the end of our set. But the show must go on so we borrowed a bass from the opening band and passed it around each song between myself and the other lead guitarist each song trading off who was playing the bass. It required some setlist and mental gymnastics. By some chance, we spotted our ex-bass player in the audience also and we also brought him on stage to play a song with us.
There's that and also a near riot we played to at a poorly organized "co-existence" festival in Lod. The show was put on in a vacant lot in a run-down area of the city not far from the most notorious open air drug markets in the country. Some kids in the audience of thousands of impatient locals tried to rush the stage causing problems for the acts playing. Some other friendly people in the crowd lit dumpsters on fire to show their appreciation. The band before us had some not so wonderful things to say about the police and the country in general. So by the time it got around to our slot the police decided to shut down the show and disperse the crowd. Not sure we would've survived that one anyway so maybe its for the best. Needless to say we haven't been invited back to Lod.
What makes a great song?
Gad:A well balanced mixture of sweeping energetic music, a chorus filled with hooks and mind grabbing lyrics
Aaron:You should feel like you are somewhere else... someone else. you are telling a story (or reporting a story maybe). Even if its an instrumental. Stravinsky was telling a story too without words. (OK he had ballet dancers. We don't have that kind of a budget here.)
Tell us about the first song you ever wrote?
Aaron:The first song I ever wrote that got played by a band I was in was called 1984. I think I had just read the novel in class in 7th grade. Maybe it wasn't the most original song (or title, or concept) but it was very encouraging to play a song you wrote in front of an audience. Even if they had no idea what the hell the singer was singing.
Gad:So far I can only speak lyrics wise. The first song I wrote for the band (and made it in) was a song called "Sunflower". The song sort of portrayed my desire or my efforts to get the best out of close people when you know they have a lot more to offer, a much bigger potential. I was so proud when it got Aaron's care musically.
We played Sunflower live for a while but looking back at it, the song wasn't *that* good....I guess it was more of a stepping stone for us on our way to writing, arranging and executing better songs.
Gad: I can't really put my finger on a specific song (again, I'm only speaking lyrics-wise). I'm proud of any of the songs I wrote that made it in and are still being played by the band, just as I'm proud of any of the songs we play in general, where I feel I contributed a little bit to it's progress with a vocal line or with a little part for an instrument.
One particular example which I still remember with a lot of joy is the time we played "Strong Wind", at the time still a "regular" song, in a rehearsal and I started "stretching" the lines, to ease some of the tension. It almost immediately resulted in the song turning into a jam and made it easier to turn it into a platform in which we could show our love for jam-rock (Dead, Phish, Gov't Mule, Allman Brothers)
Aaron: I'm very proud of my guitar solos in "Still" and "Strong Wind". For years I was the "rhythm guitar" player until my good friend Assaf pushed me in the direction of writing and playing leads. I'm still light years behind Assaf but I like to think I am at least moving in the right direction.
Who today, writes great songs? Why?
Gad: Music-wise, I can think of a few bands/artists that really caught my ear -
Jack White with the Racontures - Jack White, in general, is a very talented musician but his work with the Racontures really stands out in my mind. Though his feet stand firmly in the muddy banks of the delta blues, he somehow found the way to reach all the way to 2000's and with lots of catchy melodies and real passion in his singing and guitar playing - he won me over. The Racontures's 2nd album is really awesome.
Josh Homme - Whether with QOTSA, Kyuss, Desert Sessions or the latest outfit The Crooked Vultures - Homme always finds the twisted, interesting way to introduce you into his vision of how rock music should sound.
Mikael Åkerfeldt/Opeth - with memorizing melodies, vocal harmonies, beloved progressive parts and highly executed music in general were the first to open up a bridge for me to cross into heavy metal, heavier than I ever listened to before.
Lyrics wise I always thought Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder write beautiful songs. so far, minus Cornell's "Scream" material, they hardly ever failed to deliver the goods.
Aaron: Most of the music I listen to is from about 1950 (dawn of cool jazz and bebop) - 1980 (the end of the road for most progressive rock and 60s bands) but of the "new" music I'd agree with Gad about Opeth. I also like Hiromi (Japanese piano phenom). She just made an album with Stanley Clarke who I loved in Return to Forever. Strangely the "new" music I listen to is usually metal so I'd say Tool, Mastodon, Opeth ...
Vinyl, CD, or digital? What's your format of choice?
Gad: Spin the black circle! :-)
Aaron: I understand the vinyl concept as a purer analog wave. On the other hand, why buy a vinyl record of an album which was recorded using ProTools and take it home and play it on your dinky record player which your Grandma threw out in 1965? I suspect that there's a huge nostalgia factor or a hipness factor there. On the other hand there is an advantage to playing the cd and not mp3 which is I tend to think the CD format encourages you to listen to the entire album in order as the artist intended. Nobody really uses the random function on a single cd player, do they?
We, at the Ripple Effect, are constantly looking for new music. When we come to your town, what's the best record store to lose ourselves in?
Gad:Where I live (Rehovot, about 20 km south of Tel Aviv) there aren't many record stores and only one store ("Panica") you can maybe lose youself in if you're into vinyls like me but in Tel Aviv you can for sure lose youself looking for goodies in the 3rd Ear store ("Ha'ozen Hashlishit").
Aaron: I'm very impressed by Ktzat Acheret ("a little different") in Tel Aviv on Frishman St and also the Metal Shop on the same street a few doors down. 3rd Ear is great too.
Any final comments or thoughts you'd like to share with our readers, the waveriders?
Gad:Don't ever put aside your instrument/iPod/mp3 player/cd player/record player. Let music blow your mind and take you places. Always look for the next band/artist that will excite you and support them.
Aaron: Don't be afraid to edit and revise your music, lyrics, and yourself.
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