Tag: Ondara

The Show on the Road – Music That Moved Me in 2022

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

How can one try and summarize the soundtrack to their life in a year? Indeed, we are in year three (!) of this endless pandemic and I find I am more and more drawn to pure escapism, fantasy and what I might call the “new nostalgia”? Personally, I don’t go more than a few hours in the day (or during sleep at night) without something on, whether it’s playing on my bluetooth speakers around the house, or in headphones as I walk the dog or the toddler around the neighborhood, or in the car rolling to the next spot.


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As I teeter towards 40, I admit I love old school radio – while driving especially – and while most of the year has felt like a bit of a creative slog, I was thrilled to finally launch my own radio show on actual airwaves which you can listen to on Saturday mornings. And as a new dad, I am not ashamed to say that playlists like morning classical chill or sadgirl piano background are what actually got me through.

But what about the songs that moved me? I live for a new song that knocks me out of my reverie: unexpected lyrics, or ripping solos, or funky beats that slap me across the face and make me go, “WHAT. WAS. THAT?” And there are some songs in the list below that surely did that. But does one song sum up a whole year? A year that began with me almost losing my wife to a horrifying rare syndrome while giving birth to our daughter? Of seeing her recover courageously and witnessing my daughter growing like a grinning weed that careens from room to room like a joyful banshee? Or traveling the country playing songs I wrote to sometimes empty or sometimes full theaters or festivals or saloons of happy or heckling strangers? Or talking to dozens of hard-working bands and songwriters with my mic from Nova Scotia to London, from Minneapolis to New Orleans, or right in the front bar of LA’s hallowed Troubadour? How can songs, like short stories, be stitched together to create the novel that is your life?

Maybe one can’t really sum up a year like 2022 with a few songs. But if you are curious about some of the music that did truly move me or make me smile or got me through, this is it! I truly love these tracks. I will always love them. Are all of these safe for your to blast at work? Probably not! But let’s get started, shall we?

Anna Moss feat. Rainbow Girls, “Big Dick Energy”

While this song has only been out a month or so, it really might be my song of the year. I’m new to Anna’s work, but call me quite intrigued: her videos from around her Bay Area base keep popping into my feed like folky soul gems with plenty of dark humor to spare. Think John Prine meets Grace Slick.

But when she put out “Big Dick Energy,” with its slithering flute, pulsing beat and openly cocky lyrics (and accompanying video of a shirtless dude being chased by aggressive ladies throughout San Francisco) I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing. She mentions in an Instagram piece that while there are plenty of jokes to be had in the tune, “being a woman in a patriarchal society can feel so heavy…” and the song arrived really because she was tired of “not being seen or heard for your full humanity, but only being seen as a sex object for mens pleasure…” However you want to confront the patriarchy, this song is a jam. I can’t get enough. Turn it up.

The Deslondes, “Five Year Plan” (Ways & Means)

Say what you want about Spotify’s discovery algorithm, but it really does know what I want a lot of the time. A song that it kept knowingly nudging me towards is this cheerfully melancholy mission statement from Sam Doores and his group who are based in New Orleans. How to describe their sound? Maybe it fits into that modern nostalgia movement I keep hinting at. Rootsy ragtime soul? No. It just feels good listening to them. Regardless, I too have been thinking how I can become a “better man” this year – while feeling like a howling child and a full grown tax paying adult (and now dad) at the same damn time.

We don’t know who or where we will be in five years – and that’s OK. And somehow we needed Sam in his wise, gravely voice and jangly piano to remind us that just keeping on is a victory in itself.

Melissa Carper, “Makin’ Memories” (Daddy’s Country Gold)

Maybe my favorite artist find of the year, Melissa has been making groovy “new old-time” music in plain sight for years with several bands from Austin to New Orleans. But it was with 2021’s Daddy’s Country Gold and this year’s Ramblin’ Soul that she put her solo work front and center. The results are marvelous. Imagine transporting yourself to a Texas honky tonk from some bygone era you just barely missed. I want to go there.

To be honest, there’s nothing revolutionary about this track I picked here – truly I just can’t get it out of my head. Her friends and bandmates may call her “daddy,” but I like how she describes herself the “Hillbilly Holiday” for she does have a similar high-lilting vocal cadence – and yet at the same time, she also is the upright bassist in her band. She may not be a young rising talent, but things are coming from her, I feel it.

Seratones, “Good Day” (Love & Algorhythms)

This funk rock outfit from Shreveport, Louisiana has been making deeply danceable jams for years, but this groovy and riotously positive bop which came out earlier in the year really lifted me up when I was in a dark spot. I remember turning on 88.5FM The Socal Sound in the parking lot of Cedars-Sinai hospital as I was on the verge of tears leaving my wife in the ICU. I was driving my tiny daughter home by myself, not sure if my wife would ever join us. I instantly forgot everything and listened to the whole thing at full volume.

This song contains multitudes: prayers, declarations, hope, dreamy synths and old school Jackson 5 guitar patterns, bubble sounds, bird sounds? Harmonies for days, massive gospel lead vocal showpieces, you name it. If you’re feeling down, this might turn you around fast.

Ondara, “An Alien in Minneapolis” (Spanish Villager No. 3)

Ondara came from Kenya and now lives in Minneapolis where he has been creating some of the most innovate modern folk music of the last five years, garnering a Grammy nod in the process. I was able to talk to him a few months back for the Show on the Road podcast, and it felt like getting a masterclass on what the immigrant artist experience really is in our fractious unfinished country. The sense of alienation and hope and expectation shine through on this catchy opening track from his sensational new LP.

Oddly, it feels like if Fleetwood Mac teamed up with Tracy Chapman. You will dig.

Onda Vaga, “Milagro”

I have tried to make a point of listening to more music from other countries, sung in other languages, this year. As Americans, we are spoiled to have an endless array of English-language art created for our every taste, from folk music to hip-hop to jazz to rock ‘n’ roll. Not to be overly obvious here, but there is a whole crazy world out there also creating magical music from Buenos Aires to Capetown, from Prague to San Juan. Why not look a bit beyond your comfort zone?

I’ve been a fan of this group for years. They began in 2007 in Uruguay but are now based in Argentina (congrats on the World Cup!) and I just rediscovered them through this beautiful harmony-rich track. Put it on and take a little vacation with your ears.

Silvana Estrada, “Tristeza” (Marchita)

The daughter of luthiers from Veracruz, Mexico, Silvana has been taking the world by storm with her rustic blend of vocal-bending flamenco and Mexican folkloric traditions, snagging the Best New Artist award at the Latin Grammys this year.

A friend of a friend who I trust to always send me the best Spanish-language music connected me to her a few years back and I can’t get enough of what she’s creating. Her videos, often shot in public squares around Mexico, are especially entrancing. I was lucky to be her first English-language podcast taping last year, and she told me that this track speaks to the pervasive sadness we all have when we wonder why a love affair went wrong.

The Heavy Heavy, “Sleeping On Grassy Ground” (Life and Life Only)

When you put this track on, the dreamy reverb and soaring harmonies alone bring you into a sun drenched field during Woodstock – or maybe onto a sandy beach in Malibu having a picnic with friends while on mushrooms. But really it’s an act of fantasy by two talented young Brits based in Brighton, which is neither sunny nor currently in the year 1969. Sure, “new retro” may be a dumb genre placeholder, but as I got to talk to them for my podcast – I realized that what they are creating is a kind of delicious time machine for our ears.

Why do those old records our parents swayed to in high school still sound so good? Maybe we all need the chance to get back to that utopian late sixties feeling where anything was possible. I often find myself feeling a bit skeptical about how the young people will change the world for the better, but somehow this self produced rock-n-roll EP (which could be a glorious Mamas and The Papas outtake) reminds me to just sit back and sway to the music, and make that be enough.

The Cactus Blossoms, “Hey Baby” (One Day)

Look, there is a time and place for music that “goes hard” or blasts you into a new headspace. Death metal remains very popular around the world, but what I needed most this year? Something chill, and sweet and deeply groovy. I love bands (unlike my own) where I know exactly what I’m about to get – like a savory double-double animal style at In-N-Out. It always hits the spot no matter the city or time of day you order it.

These Minneapolis-based brothers Jack Torrey and Page Burkum have a new record out this year in One Day that traffics in their signature sibling harmonies, chugging guitars and Everly Brothers-adjacent vintage roots-n-roll, but seems to add a little edge behind the vocal tenderness. And teams up with another forever favorite of mine, the ever squirmy Jenny Lewis. The eleven love-lorn songs hit me right where I needed it.

This opening track feels like it was written in the passenger seat of an old car as it was flying though the endless flat highways of the midwest I grew up in. The narrator casually wonders if it “will all work out.” What a question. Then he slyly reminds himself, like the quiet pep talk we all need: “It always works out.” Touché.

Dustbowl Revival, “Be (For July)” (Set Me Free)

Yes, it’s always a bit awkward to say my own music is one of my year-end favorites, but let me step back for a moment. Sometimes a song can be a savior of sorts – a comfort during dark times for us adults, but also a piano lullaby to calm even the most enraged, tired youngster.

This song was like my Swiss-army knife this year. I started writing it on the 1918 piano that arrived like magic during the pandemic from my wife’s family in Ohio. At first it was about how we couldn’t quite get pregnant and the sadness that comes from that quest. Then, my wife did get pregnant and we had no idea who this little creature would be. It was an ode to their future. Then she was born and my wife almost died bringing her to us – and the song changed one last time. It became the song I played alone at home wondering how we all would end up. How I could plan a new life and write an epitaph. It was the song that swayed my daughter to sleep. Even now when she bawls in exhaustion, all me and Mom have to do is hum the chords and she seems to know – everything might be OK in the end.

Not to gush, but I am immensely proud of how this song turned out – especially with the harmonies from our amazing new singer Lashon Halley and the cello and violin parts added from our old fiddle phenom Connor Vance. Maybe it will give you some solace or comfort if you need it. I’m simply glad it exists!

Monica Martin, “Go Easy, Kid”

Maybe my most played and beloved song of the year, this tender opus to “not being so damn hard on ourselves” has two versions: the cinematic original from 2021 (my pick) or the updated piano-forward cut featuring its co-creator James Blake. Whichever one you pick, this song is a revelation. It took me into those long tours when I wondered if my music had any meaning – but also made me grateful that I did put my heart out into the world over and over without fear. We are all trying to get better and we can all be easier on each other. Sure I didn’t need this song to remind me of that, but maybe I did.

Monica is from Wisconsin but has been a best-kept secret in the LA scene for years. Seemingly on the verge of some kind of stardom each year with her rich and intimate vocal mastery, she has appeared with funk heroes Vulfpeck and on Mumford and Sons frontman Marcus’s Self-Titled solo debut among many others, but she has yet to release a full record herself. If this is a glimpse of what’s to come, her future LP made up of poetic, lush story songs will surely be in my collection the moment it drops.

Photo Credit: Silvana Estrada by Jackie Russo, Seratones by Joshua Asante, Melissa Carper by Lyza Renee

The Show On The Road – Ondara

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, we talk with Kenyan singer-songwriter Ondara, who came to Minneapolis in search of his voice as a young musician, and found a new creative persona which he now embodies called The Spanish Villager. He has since taken audiences by storm, garnering a Grammy-nomination and now returning with a stunning, politically-charged new LP.

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Spanish Villager No: 3 is produced by Ondara and Mike Viola (Jenny Lewis, Dan Wilson) with collaborations from Taylor Goldsmith and Griffin Goldsmith of Dawes, Sebastian Steinberg, Tim Kuhl and Jeremy Stacey. While he would still call himself a folk singer like his Minneapolis hero Bob Dylan, Ondara (like Dylan) has gone a bit electric on the new offering, harnessing his massive vocal power with a full band around him.

Ondara’s immigrant journey is truly one for the storybooks, and while he has dutifully paid homage to American folk protest singers in his previous work, the newest Spanish Villager work shows him really finding his own sound, at once sharply modern and steeped in a dark history he can’t wait to mine.

Basic Folk – Ondara

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

When Ondara was a little boy growing up in Nairobi, Kenya, music was both everywhere and just out of reach. He walked around the market listening to vendors playing music from stereos, stopping to listen when he heard something that caught his attention. His family couldn’t afford musical instruments, and the household radio was constantly in demand so he would wait until everyone was asleep so that he could listen to music by himself. He began writing poems, and eventually a cappella songs. He figured that if Bob Dylan could create a legacy setting insightful poems to music, so could he.

 

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In 2013, Ondara won the green card lottery and moved to Minneapolis, because a) he had a family member there, and b) his hero Bob Dylan came from there. Ondara quickly discovered that Minnesota was a little different than he had dreamed. He was working temp jobs to buy his first guitar, writing dozens of songs that would eventually become his debut album, Tales of America, and getting his foot in the door in the Minneapolis open mic scene. But he found that it was difficult to put a band together, that the life of a songwriter was lonely, and that, in America, the color of his skin came with a whole set of expectations about how he should behave (and even about what kind of music he should create).

Ondara has worked to understand these expectations without bowing to them. He shared during our conversation that being Black in America means joining a tradition of art and resistance, and that helping The Cause matters to him. And his ability to contribute to the cause has grown exponentially, since Ondara hit the road in support of his hit debut album, and opening for artists like Neil Young, Lindsey Buckingham, and the Lumineers.

Since then, Ondara has looked outward for subject matter, releasing a pandemic-inspired album in 2020 based on his friends’ stories of quarantine dating and struggling to pay the rent. He has also undertaken a significant spiritual journey as he struggles to reconcile fame and the demands of capitalism with his desire to become a grounded, useful, wise, grown-up adult. His solution, for now, comes in the form of the Spanish Villager, the hyper-performative character at the center of his new album.

Editor’s Note: Basic Folk is currently running their annual fall fundraiser! Visit basicfolk.com/donate for a message from hosts Cindy Howes and Lizzie No, and to support this listener-funded podcast.

Photo Credit: Nate Ryan

BGS Celebrates Black History Month (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

We invite our readers to celebrate Black History Month as we always do, by denoting that celebrating Black contributions in bluegrass, country, and old-time — and roots music as a whole — requires centering Black creators, artists, musicians, and perspectives in our community daily, not just in February.

Over the past year we’ve recommitted ourselves to fully incorporating Black Voices into everything we do and we hope that our readers and listeners, our followers and fans, and our family of artists constantly celebrate, acknowledge, and pay credit to Blackness and Black folks, who we have to thank for everything we love about American roots music.

Following a look back on our BGS Artists of the Month, Cover Story, and Shout & Shine subjects, we close our listicle celebration of Black History Month this year with a sampling of some of the most popular features, premieres, music videos, Friends & Neighbors posts, and 5+5 interviews that have featured Black, African American, and otherwise Afro-centric music. We are so grateful for the ongoing, vital contributions of Black artists, writers, creators, and journalists to American roots music and we’re proud to pay credit exactly where it’s due, in this small way.

Black history is American roots music history and all of these incredible folks certainly prove that point.

An edition of our Roots on Screen column featured an interview with Branford Marsalis and dove into his soundtrack for the new Netflix film based on August Wilson’s 1982 play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

Bona fide soul man Jerry “Swamp Dogg” Williams took us behind the scenes of his album, Sorry You Couldn’t Make It, showing humorous, casual, candid moments from the project’s creation — and giving us all the opportunity to be there, even though we “couldn’t make it.”

Sabine McCalla simply blew us away with her Western AF video session of an original, “Baby, Please Don’t Go,” last year, and we were ecstatic to include her on the BGS Stage lineup for Cabin Fever Fest last weekend, too.

Joy Oladokun’s vision and determination, and her unrelenting trust in both, paid off on a texturally varied second album, in defense of my own happiness (vol. 1), a self-produced exercise in vulnerability and subject of a feature interview. Oladokun will perform a few of her folk-pop songs as part of our Yamaha Guitars + BGS Spotlight Showcase during Folk Alliance’s virtual Folk Unlocked conference this week, as well.

The preeminent hip-hop-meets-bluegrass band, Gangstagrass, stopped by for a 5+5 and to plug their latest, No Time for Enemies. Gangstagrass were another excellent addition to our Cabin Fever Fest lineup and we look forward to being able to catch them in-person again, soon.

To mark Juneteenth 2020, we published a thoughtful round up of new movement music, a sort of patchwork soundtrack for protest, struggle, civil rights, and progress including songs by Leon Bridges, Chastity Brown, Kam Franklin (listen above), and more.

We were ecstatic to feature Valerie June, Rhiannon Giddens & Francesco Turrisi, Ben Harper, and Yola during our five-episode virtual online variety show, Whiskey Sour Happy Hour, last spring. The show raised over $50,000 for COVID-19 relief — through MusiCares and personal protective equipment via Direct Relief. WSHH season 2? We want that to happen, too! Stay tuned.

Pianist Matt Rollings’ collaboration with Americana-soul duo The War & Treaty was — UNDERSTANDABLY — a mini viral hit, taking off on our social media channels.

Rhiannon Giddens also powerfully and captivatingly warned all of us not to call her names with a new song recently: “The framework in the song is a love affair, but it can happen in any kind of connection,” she explained in a press release. “The real story was accepting my inner strength and refusing to continue being gaslit and held back; and refusing to keep sacrificing my mental health for the sake of anything or anyone.”

We visited once again with now mononymous Kenyan songwriter, Ondara, whose pandemic album, Folk n’ Roll Vol. 1: Tales of Isolation, kept many of us company during sheltering in place.

Speaking of which, Crys Matthews and Heather Mae didn’t let guidelines around social distancing keep them down, as evidenced on “Six Feet Apart.”

Our country-soul queen, Yola, wowed all of us with a Tiny Desk (Home) Concert and some acoustic renderings of her resplendent countrypolitan songs.

As did veteran bluesman Don Bryant, who after a lifelong career writing and recording earned his first Grammy nomination in 2020 for You Make Me Feel, a record that is nothing less than a physical incarnation of rhythm and blues. His Tiny Desk (Home) Concert is entrancing.

Selwyn Birchwood rightly reminded blues fans that it isn’t all sad; in fact, if you aren’t partying to the blues you’re doing it wrong. Just listen to “I Got Drunk, Laid and Stoned” to find out.

Leigh Nash and Ruby Amanfu joined forces on a Congressman John Lewis-inspired number entitled “Good Trouble” just last week, a perfect song to mark Black History Month.

Last year, to mark Women’s History Month (coming up again in March!) we spotlighted the huge influence and contributions of Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten, a folk singer and picker famous for playing her guitar left-handed — and upside down and “backwards!” Though Cotten spent most of her adult life working as a housekeeper, her original folksongs and her idiosyncratic picking style still inspire bluegrass, old-time, and blues musicians alike.

Country singer-songwriter Miko Marks returns this year with new music for the first time in thirteen years, after effectively being shut out of Music City and its country music machine because of her Blackness. A recent single release reclaims “Hard Times,” a song composed by Stephen Foster, who was an American songbook stalwart and folk music legend who performed in minstrel shows and in blackface.

Chris Pierce challenges his listeners with a new song this month, “American Silence,” because as he puts it, “It’s important to not give up on reaching out to those who have stayed silent for too long about the issues that affect those around us all.” A timely reminder to all of us — especially those of us who are allies and accomplices — as we approach the one-year anniversary of this most recent racial reckoning in the United States.

And finally, to close this gargantuan list — which is still just the tip of the iceberg of Black music in bluegrass, country, and Americana — we’ll leave you with a relative newcomer in country-soul and Americana, Annie Mack. Mack’s gorgeous blend of genres and styles is anchored by her powerful and tender voice and we were glad to be stopped in our tracks by her debut EP, Testify. 

Editor’s Note: Read part one of our Black History Month collection here.

Photo credit (L to R): Chris Pierce by Mathieu Bitton; Elizabeth Cotten; Annie Mack by Shelly Mosman.

WATCH: Ondara Opens the Window to Our “Isolation Blues”

Posted on by Editor

Lockdown has stolen headlines from a lot of great musical releases in 2020. One such release that maybe didn’t get its due is Folk n’ Roll Vol. 1: Tales of Isolation, an album by Kenya-born singer Ondara. Released in May, Folk n’ Roll is a spectral snapshot of the hard times that we all have felt during the global coronavirus pandemic. Ondara (formerly J.S. Ondara) uses his pure vocal tone and raw guitar-playing to communicate the incredible emotions that he and others have felt in a time of separation and uncertainty, with songs like “Pulled Out of the Market,” “From Six Feet Away,” and the tune featured in this video, “Isolation Blues.”

The steady, pulsating drive of the acoustic guitar lays a foundation for Ondara’s ghostly voice to fly over and cut right to the uneasiness that has become familiar to so many in 2020. The video depicts confusion and anxiety in a very relatable way. The first release since his debut, Tales of America, Ondara was quick to write, record, and release the album, making it a true window into the human experience in the early stages of a global pandemic. To reflect on what we’ve come through and to hear our shared human experience manifested into song, watch the video for “Isolation Blues” below.

Photo credit: Ian Flomer

BGS 5+5: Ondara

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Ondara
Hometown: Nairobi, Kenya
Latest Album: Folk n’ Roll Vol. 1: Tales of Isolation

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

I accidentally discovered Bob Dylan’s music after losing a bet about the authorship of the song “Knocking on Heaven’s Door.” I was 17 years old at the time, a confused and troubled teenager, uncertain about his future. I enjoyed writing stories, but I didn’t know how to turn any of that into a career. The pressures from everyone I knew, to pursue a more traditional career such as law or medicine were mounting; but I felt an itch for something else. Something I was unable to name, unable to imagine, and with no guidance or encouragement I had no way of discovering what it was.

Finding Dylan was like a scratch to that itch. After listening to records such as Freewheelin’, Highway 61, and Blonde on Blonde, and being completely taken by the writing, I was hit by a burst of inspiration. I had this very wild thought that perhaps I could turn the stories I’d been writing into songs, then I could travel the world and play those songs, and perhaps I could turn that into some kind of a career. It was a crazy and impractical thought since there was no path from where I was to anything like that, but it was something to dream about. Whether the dream came true or not was irrelevant, sometimes as a boy you just need a dream, and finding Dylan is what showed me that dream. “A boy’s devices will always create mayhem, therefore a boy needs a dream, because without a dream the boy is left to his devices.”

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

I played a show in Paris last year at a venue called Élysée Montmartre. It was a very memorable show for a few reasons. At the time, I was touring Europe playing shows solo with my guitar, but for that Paris show I wanted to do something different since it was going to be a bigger concert than the rest. I decided I would put together a band. I asked my team to contact some musicians and we assembled a last-minute band just a few days before the show. None of the musicians knew the songs prior, and we only had time for one short rehearsal.

Despite being entirely unprepared it ended up being one of my favorite shows. There was a magical feeling that we were all speaking the same language. The musicians and I understood the language as we played the songs as though we had been playing them for years; the audience understood it as well as they listened to us play. By only communicating in this universal language of music we all had a communion of spirit. This communion is what I miss the most, now that concerts have become rare.

At that same concert, the lights went out towards the end of the show; for about 15 minutes of black out the audience lit the room with their phones and took over the show by singing a new song I had taught them. A memorable night it was. It always is in Paris.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

We go through most of life on autopilot. The piloting mechanism being cultures, trends, upbringing, education, trauma, and many other things that define us yet we have no control over them. Stories and other forms of art are a mirror to this subconscious state of the society, a way for us, the participants of life, to view ourselves. In a way it is how we watch ourselves sleep. And as we view ourselves, we see our folly.

We have a better chance of fixing our faults if we can see them. If we can’t see them, then we’re not consciously aware of them, and if we’re not aware, then there is nothing to fix. So then people remain oppressed because we have become hateful and uncaring but we can’t see it. Stories are a conduit to compassion, and I am of the mind that compassion is the medicine, so if I had a mission statement, it would be to tell many stories and to tell them far and wide.

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?

Gazing at paintings is one of the things that bring my ever-racing mind a few moments of quiet. I get lost in them in a meditative way. When I was younger I thought paintings spoke to me; not in a figurative way, but in a literal fashion. They would tell me the sorrows and joys of the world, and I would write them down in the form of stories. Now in my adulthood, I still hear them, I’m just more aware that it’s my mind being slightly insane.

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

I accidentally found a song called “Forget Her” by Jeff Buckley when I was about 9 years old. It was the early 2000s and back home in Nairobi, pirated music was as prevalent as the ubiquitous roasted maize, sold on the streets. Music vendors would set up shop in markets or by the streets; they would go online and download random songs, put them on a CD and sell them. Oftentimes, nobody knew the songs they were selling, not even the vendors knew them. They just downloaded random songs online, an attempt at finding something interesting to sell to increase their income at a time of economic difficulty. In the streets, they would advertise the music by playing it loudly to invite customers, sometimes they would call you as you walk past and ask you to listen to some of their new downloads. If you liked a song you would then buy the CD. It was like wine tasting but for music.

I found many bands that I fell in love with that way: Jeff Buckley, Death Cab for Cutie, Radiohead, among others. Finding that song “Forget Her” was a pivotal moment for me. I was so fascinated by Jeff’s singing that I would lock myself in my room and try to imitate him. I was always fascinated by words, but around this time is when my interest in singing began. Since then, I always knew I wanted to be a musician but because there was no path towards a career of that kind, that desire remained stifled until much later when I couldn’t ignore it anymore, and when the universe conspired to send me to America.

Photo credit: Ian Flomer