When I set out to put together my weekly radio show with three female musicians I had no idea how it would fly. Well, it flew just fine thank you. The final segment was planned to be an interview/review of a double-release by the band, Silver and Moonlight. However, and as a great surprise to me, the interview segment blossomed into an exhaustive analysis of music making, improvisation, the inner workings of band live and composition, and a look into the mind of a gifted and artistic young lady…I would dare say a modern, artistic renaissance woman.
A little background:
Kiaya Abernathy is a vocalist, lyricist, multi-instrumentalist, spectacular visual artist, and a very creative photographer. If that isn’t enough, she’s strong-willed, perceptive, and enlightened. That would all be understandable if she were in her forties, but if you take off a decade and a have you are closer to the truth.
Kiaya is dedicated to bringing to the masses art in all of its expression. In this interview, she speaks for all of us who struggle to bring forth creative and meaningful music into a world where sameness and commercial gain eclipse meaning and foresight.
As you listen to Kiaya speak about her band, her father, her ideas, and her hopes for the future, think of the way things could be. The way music would change if her worldview were a reality. If music were set free from the chains of what has to be.
A blistering funk/soul track by Maryland’s own Vonn Love, sets the tone for a ride that will have you moving for the next 5 plus minutes! Vonn Love’s clever approach to the subject of “woman” is at once engaging, tongue in cheek, and just plain fun. His ability to combine the best of soul, funk, and blues is tops in the genre.
Love’s sharpshooter guitarist Mark Jeffery Campayno adds some real fire to this biblical bash taking his PGM 150 Paul Gilbert Ibanez and ripping into the strings with a pentatonic, blues, funk, fusion, fury that fits both the mood and the groove of this bouncy and bravado-rich track.
Vonn Love’s mystery vocalist adds the right amount of soul and sass to this collaborative masterwork by mockingly wailing throughout the middle section of the tune.
Love is always full of surprises and he doesn’t disappoint here. His very clever refrain, “Look at this mess y0u got us in” is the “Adam Complex” at it’s finest. Ya Adam, sure, blame it all on the woman.
If Love keeps this up, there’s going to be some real juice comin’ his way soon.
Music is music yes? Well, no. As the days pass it becomes clear that music style and music blending are now becoming as one. Sub-genres, new genres, and blended forms are shaking the foundation of what once was a fairly stable set of norms for each culture.
Music is in this state of flux because of the massive increase in the ability of humans to communicate. Instant access to practically to anywhere in the world has enabled a sharing of art and culture unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Music is now being composed that may contain elements from two or more cultures. This is now the norm and the movement is picking up even more momentum as each day passes.
Take Anurag Mishra, a native of Mumbai, India. He creates music that is eclectic and mixed with culture and pure intuition. A man after my own heart he writes, “I can type and type but words have no meaning really. Just listen, that will be enough.” His musical vignettes are snapshots, or better to say, short stories of his life experience mixed with elements of his native and western musical experiences and intuition.
His mix of nature and urban background sounds are as real and alive as his music. How does one conceive of such creativity? Anurag himself is a man who can be passionate and incredibly humorous. He wears his heart on his sleeve and can be at once, or in part, highly emotional and extremely patient and kind. But, that is what makes his music so varied and engaging.
Using his instrumental musings as musical poetry is part and partial of what Anurag is about. His three-song collection The Journey is a prime example. When Anurag says, “I recorded these songs on an old broken mandolin, the tuning alone took hours, but man the tone of old wood. :)” you understand immediately that he is an old soul. He is clearly a composer free and uninhibited ready to create that which is delivered by the process of “creative composing“. He is a self-taught savant ready always for the music to call.
His compositions come to us as not just sounds, but pieces of our lives. For him, bringing music to the earth is almost a religious experience. He takes it seriously and fights hard to get every once of feeling into his works. He is a master of arpeggiated emotionalism in this case taking cello and mandolin and creating what can only be described as a miracle of moving symbolism in musical dialogue. “Wings” is by far his greatest work thus far. Moving me to a state of paralysis until it ends, its notes fall as pedals of sound pulling at every fibre of my being.
“Breathing” sounds like a classical etude until the entrance of the cello. It’s then that you realize he’s done it again. He’s opened your heart. Out it comes, good memories, bad memories; people flash before your eyes. You see that. which you wished to let go of. Then, instantly the music brightens a little and life becomes once again bearable and recoverable. The song ends abruptly with no warning, but not too soon. For Anurag, you see, will write as long as he needs to. No more, no less. Be assured however, that the message will be there for you. But, only you.
In the last composition, “The Red Earth”, you are struck by the beauty of the world. All the earth, not just your small part of it. He describes the piece as “changes from light to dark, or dark to light”. Don’t dare ask for more of an explanation than that. He won’t give it and in this change I speak of, your interpretation pulls more weight. Creators of world instrumental music are happy to listen to your descriptions as it gives them a window into a world they wish to discover.
At the end of this short but powerful collection, you realize that in music at least the universe and it’s inhabitants can live as one. We can understand each other. We can overcome and embrace who we are. We can create freely. Anurag Mishra’s 8:13 seconds of breathtaking soundscapes prove that the world is changing quickly around us.
Exotic and glamorous, Lana Del Rey is an old soul. She is from another time, and I for one, am glad the time is now. A good friend described her music as “exotic”. That’s more accurate that any other description I could come up with.
Brave melodic motifs, unusual leaps, daring scale choices, and surprising twists of phrases, this young lady has unapologetically taken pop music to a higher level well beyond the trite and true banality that calls itself popular music.
She does it so naturally that it’s as though she was born to be the change agent in popular vocal music. But there’s more. Lana isn’t a one trick pony. She is more. Sure, her music is avant guade meets 1940’s style standards, but add to her lyrical strength where she holds back nothing in her black or white description of life and you have a complete artist in every sense of the word.
Take her new single, High By The Beach, from her forthcoming new album, Paradise. Lana does not sugar coat subjects, nor does she doesn’t edit her thoughts for radio. She’s not outrageous flashing about like a firefly trying to wow us. No not this girl. “You take the wheel, I don’t wanna do this anymore. It’s so surreal, I can’t survive if this is all that’s real”. Or take her mission statement for moving on after a relationship, “Everyone can start again, not through love but through revenge. Through the fire, we’re born again. Peace by vengeance brings the end”.
This is not a contrived and processed pop star. Lana Del Rey is an intelligent musician who delivers an orchestrated musical palate that has not been heard for decades, if ever. What’s even better is the way in which she continues to experiment, not seeming to care what the expectations are. Using old-school string sounds with lush orchestration, mixing in beats that are not only current but incredibly appropriate, and adding blazing guitar when needed, we finally have a model of what creative and expressive music can be in world of the chronically vapid.
As for her lyrics, they are deep, harsh, sweet, sarcastic, and full of life’s best and worst moments. At times, I swear she is writing about my experiences. That’s how a real artist connects with an artist in any area of expression. Her prose can only come from one who has lived with extremes in ups and downs. The girl has been there and back and knows exactly how to express it. My God, if I could write one phrase half as good as she can…
Lana Del Rey has hit on something. A music that is both from another time and at the same time, timeless. A woman, strong, beautiful, daring, vulnerable, and smart, I for one am taken in by someone who understands life as I see it.
Guitar tutorial for “High By The Beach” by Lana Del Rey
PERFORMANCE NOTES:
Key: B Minor Capo Key: A Minor
Scales used in melody: B Natural Minor/B Harmonic Minor
*Capo Guitar at fret 2.
The chords should not give you much trouble technically. The challenge wiil be what you do with them.
How will you interpret this music?
How will you turn a synthesizer-based composition into one that works on an acoustic guitar that has no sustain? Where the notes die quickly where you are the one who must create a sustained effect?
Chord progression for the verse/chorus is:
Am F Dm E
This stays unaltered until the bridge.
Once the bridge does occur, the new progression breathes new life into the structure.
Chord Progression for Bridge:
Dm C G Dm / Dm C G Dm/E7
This new section provides the perfect escape from the previous (and only other) chord progression in Lana’s composition.
[Lana del Rey]
Boy, look at you, looking at me
I know you know how I feel
Loving you is hard, being here is harder
You take the wheel
I don’t wanna do this anymore
It’s so surreal, I can’t survive
If this is all that’s real
All I wanna do is get high by the beach
Get high by the beach, get high
All I wanna do is get by by the beach
Get by baby, baby, bye, bye
The truth is I never
Bought into your bullshit
When you would pay tribute to me
Cause I know that
All I wanted to do is get high by the beach
Get high baby, baby, bye, bye
Boy look at you, looking at me
I know you don’t understand
You could be a bad motherfucker
But that don’t make you a man
Now you’re just another one of my problems
Because you got out of hand
We won’t survive
We’re sinking into the sand
All I wanna do is get high by the beach
Get high by the beach, get high
All I wanna do is get by by the beach
Get by baby, baby, bye, bye
The truth is I never
Bought into your bullshit
When you would pay tribute to me
Cause I know that
All I wanted to do is get high by the beach
Get high baby, baby, bye, bye
Lights, camera, acción
I’ll do it on my own
Don’t need your money, money
To get me what I want
Lights camera action
I’ll do it on my own
Don’t need your money, money
To get me what I want
All I wanna do is get high by the beach
Get high by the beach, get high
All I wanna do is get by by the beach
Get by baby, baby, bye, bye
The truth is I never
Bought into your bullshit
When you would pay tribute to me
Cause I know that
All I wanted to do is get high by the beach
Get high baby, baby, bye, bye
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lanned to be an interview/review of a double-release by the band, Silver and Moonlight. However, and as a great surprise to me, the interview segment blossomed into an exhaustive analysis of music making, improvisation, the inner workings of band live and composition, and a look into the mind of a gifted and artistic young lady…I would dare say a modern, artistic renaissance woman.
nd a have you are closer to the truth.
The Studio Rocks w/Mark Campayno
blistering funk/soul track by Maryland’s own Vonn Love, sets the tone for a ride that will have you moving for the next 5 plus minutes! Vonn Love’s clever approach to the subject of “woman” is at once engaging, tongue in cheek, and just plain fun. His ability to combine the best of soul, funk, and blues is tops in the genre.
middle section of the tune.
Exotic and glamorous, Lana Del Rey is an old soul. She is from another time, and I for one, am glad the time is now. A good friend described her music as “exotic”. That’s more accurate that any other description I could come up with.
@MarkGTR 