Tag: Video premiere

WATCH: Turner Cody and the Soldiers of Love, “Lonely Days in Hollywood”

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Artist: Turner Cody and the Soldiers of Love
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York
Song: “Lonely Days in Hollywood”
Album: Friends in High Places
Release Date: June 4, 2021
Label: Capitane Records

In Their Words: “‘Lonely Days in Hollywood’ is one of the older songs on Friends in High Places. I wrote it years ago at my friend’s house in Paris. After a night of singing traditional Jewish songs, I awoke humming those haunting, cantorial melodies. Eventually, the phrase lonely days in Hollywood appeared out of nowhere. I’d never been to LA, but I conceived the song to be in that noir-ish Raymond Chandler/Day of the Locust vein — a wanderer is on the outskirts of an alluring yet hostile place with a seedy underbelly; a place where promises are broken and dreams of stardom go to die.

“The song is a kind of meditation on the transactional nature of our culture of celebrity; how our dreams belie reality and nothing is for free. The song was originally more up-tempo, but Nicolas Michaux’s arrangement is slower and groovier. He also made a slight change to the chord progression that moved the song away from its klezmer roots. The result is moody and dark and reminiscent of Serge Gainsbourg. This recording came out of a true collaboration. The song travelled a long way from its original form but I love how it turned out.” (Read more below the video.)

“The Capitane Records team dreamt up a truly ambitious plan for the shooting of the video, especially as it turned out to be in the midst of the pandemic. To get the right feel, we needed a location that invoked Los Angeles without necessarily being Los Angeles. Not an easy task. But as it turned out, we had a connection to a photographer on the island of Ibiza who, along with her friends, could provide us the help we needed. And so, after a month of back-and-forth with various embassies, we converged on the island in March.

“Valentine Riccardi (our point person) had already scouted a bunch of locations of out-of-the-way beaches, country roads, old churches, and a beautiful organic farm. As the island was free of tourists due the pandemic, its usually bustling downtown was desolate, providing us the perfect lonely, dystopian backdrop we needed. Valentine’s friend and muse Susana Tartalos played the role of savior and paramour to my down-and-out and wandering cowboy who drifts from hotel room to hitchhiking odyssey to rain-soaked jalopy only to end up at a fire ceremony in the hands of his new companion. Ibiza is a beautiful and enchanted place, whose beaches, seascapes, pastures, and mountain ranges were perfect for the video. Valentine’s friends and their children were like an extended family to us over the two weeks we were there. Like the song, the video was truly a group effort.” — Turner Cody

Photo credit: Charles Paulicevich

WATCH: Charly Lowry & The Heart Collectors, “Navigating to Hope”

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Artist: Charly Lowry & The Heart Collectors
Hometown: Charly Lowry: Pembroke, North Carolina; The Heart Collectors: Hinterland Byron Bay, NSW, Australia
Song: “Navigating to Hope” from Folk Alliance‘s Artists In (Their) Residence program
Release Date: June 1, 2021

In Their Words: “It’s safe to say this global ordeal has proven that no one being has all of the answers; we are all navigating this plane the best way we know how. The Heart Collectors and I find ourselves on opposite sides of planet Earth, navigating to hope. We likened our experiences during this time to being aboard a ship, fighting against Poseidon’s watery fists and underneath dark, ominous skies. We do so with the understanding that we are in this together, and instead of accepting the defeat of a sinking ship, we remain steadfast in our voyage to find our lighthouse, our beacon of hope. This type of imagery was key in the songwriting process and aided us in delivering a message for the downtrodden. Whatever your case may be, we encourage you to seek your peace first, and then move your vessel onward and forward to hope for a new day, season, or way of being.” — Charly Lowry

“Coming together in collaboration from all points on the earth is an extraordinary experience, and one that makes our world so much bigger. Hearing and being present to the stories of people and cultures from one side of the world to another made us see how we literally are all in this together, we have all suffered this at once. Not in our life time has a global experience like this ever been the case, and it brings everything to a level. Things that seemed important became unimportant. The heartbreak of individuals suffering has a profound way of naturally breaking us open to be so much more capable than the usual way of dealing with existence. Finding each other and joining in this online type of creative common room has been the unifying strength to move forward, one step at a time.” — The Heart Collectors

Photo credit: Courtesy of Folk Alliance, Charly Lowry, and the Heart Collectors

WATCH: Dana Sipos, “Breathing Barrel”

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Artist: Dana Sipos
Hometown: Hamilton, ON (currently residing in Victoria, BC)
Song: “Breathing Barrel”
Album: The Astral Plane
Release Date: June 25, 2021
Label: Roaring Girl Records

In Their Words: “‘Breathing Barrel’ is ultimately a meditation on being at peace with the present moment. Written immediately upon returning home to the city from a music residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts, deep in the foothills of the Rockies, this song is an attempt to integrate a very powerful experience into the more mundane, everyday life. I was trying to trick or convince myself to ‘be July in the wintertime’ — ‘July’ being the Banff Centre in the middle of a bleak Toronto winter, trying to buoy myself and bring back that feeling of abundance and ripe possibility. So in visiting many landscapes, changing seasons, and fleeting moments while focusing on staying present, ‘Breathing Barrel’ turned into a bit of a dreamscape.

“The video was created by Victoria musician Trevor Lang, with dozens of high-resolution scans of vintage magazine cutouts, finely tuned to line up with the rhythm of the song. The pairing of vintage magazine cutouts with the text made to look as though it was coloured in by hand and was intended to mirror the warm and analog textural quality of the recording, the feeling of paper and pencil. The slightly unusual frame rate of this video (eight frames-per-second as opposed to the typical stop-motion animation of either six or 12 frames-per-second) was intended to give the video a familiar but unique rhythm akin to the drum machine featured throughout the song.” — Dana Sipos

Photo credit: Chris Dufour

WATCH: The Pine Hill Haints, “Satchel Paige Blues” (Live at Standard Deluxe)

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Artist: The Pine Hill Haints
Hometown: Florence, Alabama
Single: “Satchel Paige Blues” (Live at Standard Deluxe)
Album: The Song Companion of a Lonestar Cowboy
Release Date: May 14, 2021
Label: Single Lock Records

Editor’s Note: The Pine Hill Haints have played every edition of the 280 Boogie, the yearly festival hosted by the music venue Standard Deluxe in Waverly, Alabama. This is the festival’s 20th year.

In Their Words: “Satchel Paige was in it to win it. The scouts were gonna come check him out, and it rained. He was dressed in his uniform holding a ball and glove. He was screaming that he wanted to play on the mound. I can totally identify with that. That’s why I wrote the song. It’s a mean blues number and I wrote it because the Haints totally identify with him.

“Growing up, I heard Auburn had the best punk rock scene in Alabama, so that’s where I went to college. My life changed down there when I was in school. Waverly still has a remnant of that scene, to me. It’s one of the first places I started to come to terms with who I was — my country side — and that has nothing to do with cowboy hats and instrumentation. It has something to do with muddy rivers and eagles, and that’s what country really is. That’s Waverly. We played there around a bonfire long before there was a 280 Boogie. People would dance all night. It was special. It still is. If playing at Standard Deluxe is what ‘making it’ is, that’s all I want. Anything beyond that is extra.” — Jamie Barrier

Photo credit: Abraham Rowe

WATCH: Sam Robbins, “Raining Sideways”

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Artist: Sam Robbins
Hometown: Portsmouth, New Hampshire, currently Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Raining Sideways”
Album: Finally Feeling Young
Release Date: May 14, 2021

In Their Words: “‘Raining Sideways’ is one of the songs that means the most to me on the album, and it’s probably the most requested song I get live. It all just sort of came out at once, and it unlocked a new depth in my writing. I had never tried to write a song about my dad, or my relationships to the men in my life. ‘Raining Sideways’ is weird, doesn’t have a real chorus or hook, but that’s what I love about it. It’s just a stream of consciousness song that is one of the most real things I’ve ever written.” — Sam Robbins

Photo credit: Libby Danforth

WATCH: Last Year’s Man, “Still Be Here”

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Artist: Last Year’s Man
Hometown: Eugene, Oregon
Song: “Still Be Here”
Release Date: April 30, 2021

In Their Words: “I wrote this song after a conversation with Ben Allen. Ben is a really fantastic composer and musician who recently started a sync agency in Vancouver, Washington. We talked about me writing something for his company that walked the line between burdened and hopeful and this song is what came almost immediately. I think we’re all eager for life to get back to what it was in some way or another and this is a love song built out of the idea that it will.

“For the video, I spent hours on archive.org not really knowing what I was searching for. It was dumb luck stumbling on these public domain videos from the 1930s and 40s. I started with a clip just to see and the music happened to line up with the dancing for a moment and it felt really beautiful. I pieced it together from there and was surprised by the wide range of emotion I felt from watching people dance in these old movies along with my song. It’s one of those happy accidents.” — Tyler Fortier, Last Year’s Man

Photo credit: Tyler Fortier

WATCH: Rachel Baiman, “No Good Time for Dying”

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Artist: Rachel Baiman with Atwood Quartet and Kyshona
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “No Good Time for Dying”
Album: Cycles
Release Date: June 11, 2021
Label: Signature Sounds

In Their Words: “Of all the songs on the record, this one felt the most cinematic, production-wise. Perhaps because I see this as the real story (of my late grandmother) playing out in my head each time I sing it. That’s why it seemed so fitting to collaborate with Atwood Quartet for this special live version of the song. Ben Plotnick wrote the incredible string parts, which both mimic and enhance the original album production. Kyshona was an artist I thought of immediately for the vocal harmonies, because of the quality of her voice and general spirit as a human. I was really grateful that she was up for it! After a year in which we’ve all had to face so much tragic death, this song feels like a reckoning of sorts, and a moment to process and hope for better in the future. I also want to give a special thanks to my neighbor Mike Malkiewicz for letting us transform and use his beautiful backyard stage.” — Rachel Baiman

Photo credit: Gina Binkley

WATCH: Bob Malone, “The River Gives”

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Artist: Bob Malone
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Song: “The River Gives”
Album: Good People
Release Date: May 21, 2021
Label: Delta Moon Records

In Their Words: “My manager was putting together talent for the Rebuilding West Virginia Telethon, which aired on PBS stations across the country after the devastating 2016 floods in West Virginia. He asked if I could contribute a video for the show, and if it could be done in two days! Immediately after that phone call, I sat down at the piano and this song just came pouring out. The next day I got together with my producer Bob DeMarco and engineer Steve McDonald — we made the video of me playing and singing the song live in the studio, edited it, and sent it off at the 11th hour. The song was never released beyond that original airing, and we never really got the chance to produce the song like we wanted to. So for this new album, we added band and background vocals to that original solo performance.” — Bob Malone

Photo credit: Jim Mimna

WATCH: Lady Nade, “Willing”

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Artist: Lady Nade
Hometown: Bristol, UK
Song: “Willing”
Album: Willing
Release Date: June 18, 2021

In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Willing’ as a message of acceptance, loyalty and friendship. I’ve often tried to fit in, which has meant I lost myself for a while, I’ve been working really hard in the last couple of years to be aware of that. Realising being individual is what being human means, these feelings are particularly poignant for everyone after this prolonged period of separation we’ve all been through. The video was filmed in my hometown in Bristol along the route of the BLM protests last summer. I end the video at the base of the statue of Slave Master Edward Colston, which was dismantled during those protests. The way the video and song came together portray the message of self, as well as community.” — Lady Nade

Photo credit: Arthur René Walwin

WATCH: Richie Furay, “Go and Say Goodbye”

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Artist: Richie Furay
Hometown: Yellow Spring, Ohio
Song: “Go and Say Goodbye”
Album + DVD: 50th Anniversary Return to the Troubadour
Release Date: April 23, 2021
Label: DSDK Productions, distributed by MRI Entertainment

In Their Words: “‘Go and Say Goodbye’ is one of my all-time favorite Stephen Stills songs. I’ve recorded it in every band configuration I’ve been in — Buffalo Springfield, Poco, and the Richie Furay Band. Stephen shared the song with me before there ever was a Buffalo Springfield as we sat in his apartment in Los Angeles on Fountain Avenue, learning all the songs he had written for what would become the first Buffalo Springfield album. Over the years I’ve given it a few arrangement changes, musically, while keeping the original feel and dynamic of the song.” — Richie Furay

Pictured: Richie Furay and his daughter Jesse Furay Lynch. Photo Credit: Howard Zryb