Ad-libbing and Randomness, Combined with Raw Talent
Rachael Sage, Trevor Exter and Last-Minute Surprise Guest Raheli
By Liz Singer
While communication issues were evident among the musicians onstage, the musicality of singer/songwriter/pianist Rachael Sage and her violin accompanist Jacob Lawson tied the seemingly unorganized show together. Bringing heartfelt emotions into solid piano-playing and the beautifully harmonious violin, Rachael Sage wowed the cozy crowd at Rockwood Music Hall last Friday [New York City - July 18, 2008].
Frequently apologizing in-between joking banter, Sage proved her ability to laugh at her own mistakes. Choosing to move on and fight past her nerves, she played on, song after song, her keys sounding bolder. Also improving throughout the set, her voice began to project more and more, displaying her astonishing vocal chops.
Sage's performance caught my ear from the start with the wondrous, tear-inspiring opening melody and sweet, sugary vocals on her first song, "Grave-Dancing." Looking up at the intimate audience, Sage sung straight to the wounded heart as Lawson's violin mended the soul: "You rained on me like ashes / and I may never feel the same / I refuse to play these games / I'm gonna be my own God-send." With the addition of a steady beat, as Sage banged the piano with her hand, the snappy violin twang created the perfect mix of pain and love. While some of the songs dragged on and lost their momentum, Sage's strong points were undeniably her intros, as every one got me feeling invigorated and energized.
Her appearance was clearly part of the spectacle, as she commented that her "groovy, psychedelic" outfit made her look like a "witch...[that] will melt," as she donned a pink and orange halter dress, fishnets and black boots, complete with a rose in her hair and racy teal eyeliner. With occasional finger-snapping and blues-y melodies, I felt like I was in the middle of a beatnik party, combined with a vaudeville show as her sparkly eye shadow shone from across the room.
The strongest song was "Walk Alone," with the catchiest melody, toe-tapping all the way through. The track was a testament to being single after a toxic relationship, which was a recurring, powerful theme throughout her music. With her wailing, blues-y vocals, her diverse range crossed through a handful of genres as vibrantly unique as her personality and **** complete with maroon hair.
Another highlight of the set was "Hope Wildflower," which Sage recently made a music video for. With an extra-riveting intro, the song created the sensation of running through a field of wildflowers, circling and spinning as the clouds dance above you in the sky.
With slightly Alanis-like bitterness combined with a toned-down theme of feminism, plus a self-proclaimed mantra of: "Don't take **** from anybody," the woman-power of Sage's music is incredibly evident. As an improved continuation of the 90s chick power of the Spice Girls, all in all, Sage's set was both enjoyable and inspirational to all who had the pleasure of listening. While her performance skills were still fairly amateur, the wit and cynicism found in her songs combined with strong piano skills and hauntingly sweet vocals led me to believe that Rachael Sage is definitely going places.
Following Ms. Sage was Trevor Exter, who had a voice almost identical to Tyler Hilton, combined with the surfer-****vocals of Jack Johnson (minus the flip-flops). With a constant variation between a soft and hard sound on his songs, Exter's cello-playing offered a unique twist on the typical singer-songwriter set.
But the most unexpected twist of all was the performance that followed: Since the highly anticipated Emily King was a no-call/no-show, a young woman walking down the street stopped to ask Rockwood Hall's bouncer who was performing. He then informed her of the missing Emily, and she told him that she was a singer from Philly, and was accompanied by her piano player.
The 20-minute set that followed can only be described as mind-blowing. With two original tracks off her EP 'Ready for the Sun', "Love Unrequited" and "Broken," Raheli blew the vocal skills of any other major breakthrough voice like Kelly Clarkson or Jennifer Hudson way out of the water. Awe-inspiring for every minute, her set concluded with the perfect end: Prince's "Kiss," complete with kissing noises on cue and perfect faux-falsetto.
After all my years of concert-going, including seeing Prince himself, Queen, Lauryn Hill and Alicia Keys, I have never been so in awe of the vocals filling up the room - to the point where I thought the walls were going to burst of elation. Raheli, the random singer from Philadelphia, has a voice so phenomenal that I could only keep wondering, "Why isn't she famous?" as my jawed remained dropped.
Rachael Sage - http://www.rachaelsage.com
Trevor Exter - http://www.trevorexter.com
Raheli - http://www.myspace.com/voxraheli
Print
Comment
Tag
Facebook
Digg thisMusicDishTV: Norine Braun - Crystallize
Norine Braun's jazz-y video for "Crystallize" sends sultry sounds to all viewers, all the while entertaining them with the smooth voice of a **** lady.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=nc2XpzXgOsw
MusicDishTV ( http://tv.musicdish.net ) is more than an online video channel; it is the place to find out what's happening in the music world and hear brilliant new talent before they hit the radio airwaves. Become a part of the indie music revolution - join MusicDishTV today and you're guaranteed to always have the latest dish on anything and everything related to the music industry, as well as constant exposure to the artists that make the music that keeps our world going 'round.
An Interview with Koko Dozo
Bringing a Little Madness - and Lots of Teamwork - into the Mix
An Interview with Koko Dozo
By Mark Kirby
Musical groups made up of great performers - those used to working alone or being the star - can sometimes be less than the sum of their parts, as egos clash and the group becomes like a bad basketball team, where everyone wants to score. Koko Dozo, however, is a dream team. Each member - Polarity/1, Rubio and Amy Douglas - is an equal contributor, with the entire group utilizing each member's skills and talents. Here, there are no egos clashing. On the group's debut 'Illegal Space Aliens', Koko Dozo shows that individual and group expression can meld into one.
[Mark Kirby] What incident ignited your passion to get into music?
[Polarity /1] When I was in high school I discovered Brazilian music, Appalachian folk, Eric Dolphy, 16th century Japanese court music, Bob Dylan and Mahavishnu Orchestra. My thing with Dylan got me to buy a guitar so I could express my rage over the inconveniences of life on earth.
[Amy Douglas] If I had to narrow it down, I'd say playing Stevie Wonder's "Songs in the Key of Life," seeing Chaka Khan on Soul Train, seeing Bowie everywhere on TV, hearing all the Beatles' albums, and most important, hearing Led Zeppelin.
[Mark Kirby] Describe your musical backgrounds.
[Polarity /1] I spent a semester at Berklee School of Music in Boston, which was a weird move, being that I couldn't functionally read music and my brain isn't wired for formal learning. But I could write notation a little bit and tried to prove that I was Berklee-worthy by hot-dogging the homework projects - like scoring an arrangement of Monk's "Epistrophy in 7/4," which nobody could play.
[Mark Kirby] How did the three of you meet and get together?
[Amy Douglas] I had a show called "Red Hot Mama," which was a rock vaudeville show, and I had hired Rubio as the keyboardist. When the show folded, he introduced me to Polar, the two of them having done a project called Audioplasm. We got together on a super hot summer day in 2007 and realized we had a great capacity to make incredible music based on our collective musical passions and influences, so we really had quite a stewpot brewin' by the time we started to write songs.
[Mark Kirby] How did you arrive at the name Koko Dozo?
[Amy Douglas] My ex-boyfriend had mentioned wanting to do an avant-garde project and he threw out Koko Dozo as a trial name. He did so little for me while we were together, [so] at least he gave the band a great name.
[Mark Kirby] What is the musical concept of the band?
[Amy Douglas] It's a really huge one. First and foremost it's to virtually force people to have to really listen to what we do, and to help audiences that have been pandered to and been reduced to some sort of lowest common denominator grow some brain cells back. We have some deep issues we're struggling with and we do address them in our songs, ranging from our distrust of our government, to the polarization of culture in our home of New York City and a whole bunch of other things. Our musical concept is to shrink the globe as well; the internet has made the world a smaller place and we wanted to find a way to fuse cultures, languages, **** and influences together in a way that reeks of New York City life, but will appeal to an audience that is truly global.
[Polarity /1] Conventional wisdom dictates that our way of working will guarantee that we'll never find an audience. But we know that's **** We're reaching young electro heads, world-beaters, dance-clubbers, boomers, electronica geeks, and po-po-pomo gonzoid hairy-backed noiz gimps living in the basement of the basement on diets of sticky buns and penis butter and toe jam sandwiches. The parents and the kiddies like us too. And we write in different languages and have this whole bargain-basement-space vibe that makes things really fun.
[Mark Kirby] What is the story behind the "Sun Ra-esque dress" and alien mythology?
[Polarity /1] Here's the story: we came from outer space and landed on Earth to exploit its resources - and for other reasons that we'd rather not discuss. We're from the low-rent part of the universe where you wear whatever is lying around in the alley on garbage pickup day. That, coincidentally, is the same galaxy where Sun Ra came from.
[Amy Douglas] {Laughter} Well...the word "alien" permeates much of what we do and we like to riff on the term. Alien, as we mean it internally, is the feeling of not being comfortable in one's skin, feeling out of synch with the world around you, feeling like the constant outsider. And we decided to really play with the word, and we decided that a space age "alien" theme would suit us wackos pretty well!
[Rubio] We really wanted to put the fun and craziness back in music. Too many projects take themselves too seriously these days, which is BEYOND ironic.
[Polarity /1] Our shows are fun for us, and I suppose audiences love to watch grown people making funny noises up there and bouncing around like homeless space mutants. Amy's wigs and Rubio's Viking helmet are worth the price of admission. And gazing at my psychedelic death-ray yarmulke is a life-affirming way to blow off shabbos.
Read the complete interview at http://musicdish.com/mag/?id=12303
http://www.kokodozo.com
http://www.myspace.com/kokodozo
An Interview with Koko Dozo
By Mark Kirby
Musical groups made up of great performers - those used to working alone or being the star - can sometimes be less than the sum of their parts, as egos clash and the group becomes like a bad basketball team, where everyone wants to score. Koko Dozo, however, is a dream team. Each member - Polarity/1, Rubio and Amy Douglas - is an equal contributor, with the entire group utilizing each member's skills and talents. Here, there are no egos clashing. On the group's debut 'Illegal Space Aliens', Koko Dozo shows that individual and group expression can meld into one.
[Mark Kirby] What incident ignited your passion to get into music?
[Polarity /1] When I was in high school I discovered Brazilian music, Appalachian folk, Eric Dolphy, 16th century Japanese court music, Bob Dylan and Mahavishnu Orchestra. My thing with Dylan got me to buy a guitar so I could express my rage over the inconveniences of life on earth.
[Amy Douglas] If I had to narrow it down, I'd say playing Stevie Wonder's "Songs in the Key of Life," seeing Chaka Khan on Soul Train, seeing Bowie everywhere on TV, hearing all the Beatles' albums, and most important, hearing Led Zeppelin.
[Mark Kirby] Describe your musical backgrounds.
[Polarity /1] I spent a semester at Berklee School of Music in Boston, which was a weird move, being that I couldn't functionally read music and my brain isn't wired for formal learning. But I could write notation a little bit and tried to prove that I was Berklee-worthy by hot-dogging the homework projects - like scoring an arrangement of Monk's "Epistrophy in 7/4," which nobody could play.
[Mark Kirby] How did the three of you meet and get together?
[Amy Douglas] I had a show called "Red Hot Mama," which was a rock vaudeville show, and I had hired Rubio as the keyboardist. When the show folded, he introduced me to Polar, the two of them having done a project called Audioplasm. We got together on a super hot summer day in 2007 and realized we had a great capacity to make incredible music based on our collective musical passions and influences, so we really had quite a stewpot brewin' by the time we started to write songs.
[Mark Kirby] How did you arrive at the name Koko Dozo?
[Amy Douglas] My ex-boyfriend had mentioned wanting to do an avant-garde project and he threw out Koko Dozo as a trial name. He did so little for me while we were together, [so] at least he gave the band a great name.
[Mark Kirby] What is the musical concept of the band?
[Amy Douglas] It's a really huge one. First and foremost it's to virtually force people to have to really listen to what we do, and to help audiences that have been pandered to and been reduced to some sort of lowest common denominator grow some brain cells back. We have some deep issues we're struggling with and we do address them in our songs, ranging from our distrust of our government, to the polarization of culture in our home of New York City and a whole bunch of other things. Our musical concept is to shrink the globe as well; the internet has made the world a smaller place and we wanted to find a way to fuse cultures, languages, **** and influences together in a way that reeks of New York City life, but will appeal to an audience that is truly global.
[Polarity /1] Conventional wisdom dictates that our way of working will guarantee that we'll never find an audience. But we know that's **** We're reaching young electro heads, world-beaters, dance-clubbers, boomers, electronica geeks, and po-po-pomo gonzoid hairy-backed noiz gimps living in the basement of the basement on diets of sticky buns and penis butter and toe jam sandwiches. The parents and the kiddies like us too. And we write in different languages and have this whole bargain-basement-space vibe that makes things really fun.
[Mark Kirby] What is the story behind the "Sun Ra-esque dress" and alien mythology?
[Polarity /1] Here's the story: we came from outer space and landed on Earth to exploit its resources - and for other reasons that we'd rather not discuss. We're from the low-rent part of the universe where you wear whatever is lying around in the alley on garbage pickup day. That, coincidentally, is the same galaxy where Sun Ra came from.
[Amy Douglas] {Laughter} Well...the word "alien" permeates much of what we do and we like to riff on the term. Alien, as we mean it internally, is the feeling of not being comfortable in one's skin, feeling out of synch with the world around you, feeling like the constant outsider. And we decided to really play with the word, and we decided that a space age "alien" theme would suit us wackos pretty well!
[Rubio] We really wanted to put the fun and craziness back in music. Too many projects take themselves too seriously these days, which is BEYOND ironic.
[Polarity /1] Our shows are fun for us, and I suppose audiences love to watch grown people making funny noises up there and bouncing around like homeless space mutants. Amy's wigs and Rubio's Viking helmet are worth the price of admission. And gazing at my psychedelic death-ray yarmulke is a life-affirming way to blow off shabbos.
Read the complete interview at http://musicdish.com/mag/?id=12303
http://www.kokodozo.com
http://www.myspace.com/kokodozo
MusicDishTV: The G-Man - Beep Logic
G-Man's video for "Beep Logic" functions as a revival of the 80s with its electrifying intro, complete with rad neon lighting effects and bold costumes and props. The super-upbeat tempo, psychedelic graphics and thought-provoking lines like "Sometimes there is no Logic"-- combined with the overall bizarreness--make you wonder, 'What if nothing in life made sense?'
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4LwdgUdPrcY
MusicDishTV is more than an online video channel; it is the place to find out what's happening in the music world and hear brilliant new talent before they hit the radio airwaves. Become a part of the indie music revolution-- join MusicDishTV today and you're guaranteed to always have the latest dish on anything and everything related to the music industry, as well as constant exposure to the artists that make the music that keeps our world going 'round.
Watch videos... http://youtube.com/MusicDishTV
Submit videos... http://tv.musicdish.net
Kris Searle Nominated For Best Record Of The Year & Best Male Vocal
Kris Searle Nominated For Best Record Of The Year & Best Male Vocal By LA Music Awards
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. - The prestigious LA Music Awards has nominated Kris Searle for Best Record of the Year and Best Male Vocal. London recording artist Kris Searle's new Album Slowly Diabolical has been receiving rave reviews and accolades from music professionals worldwide. "L.A Music Awards double nomination is a real sign of Kris' musical accomplishment and true recognition of his 'Super Star Talent'. The fact that it is all happening in such a short period of time has amazed me, I'm really thrilled by the response and the growing momentum that is happening for Kris" says Richard Williams Executive Producer of the newly released album Slowly Diabolical. This is "Brit-Pop/Rock at its finest", "Blasting tracks with enormous melodies and shout-out-loud lyrics" played by Kris and his incredible star studded band of musicians. This is Indie music at its finest, featuring some of the most talented musicians in the business, and this album truly has platinum potential. This exceptional album of originally composed music by the artist was produced by Dino Maddalone of Dino M 4 Recording Studios of Torrance, California and is available now online through iTunes, CD Baby, Music Dock, mp3, amazon, Rhapsody and other music outlets.
http://krissearle.com/audio/SD01-Slowly_Diabolical.mp3
About Kris Searle: Media from the UK to LA are raving! "His music draws from life experiences and projects raw emotion, a refreshing break from all the futile pap that fills much of today's pop charts."Jay Clarke of Attitude Magazine. "Sensitive and engaging", is how BBC Radio describes British-born singer-songwriter Kris Searle's music as UK audiences would like to claim the fast-rising talent as theirs alone. Kris, now promoting his new album 'Slowly Diabolical' and showcasing in Southern California, is rapidly building a career that's also attracting the interests of Los Angeles' own music industry heavyweights. Bob Leggett of Music Connection says "Searle's music touches the heart and stimulates the Soul, and deserves industry support and placement in a myriad of shows and movies. Searle is ready for the big time now!" "Kris Searle is something of a phenomenon here at ROCKWIRED, this U.K. crooner, having released his Indie CD 'Slowly Diabolical' has taken his music and his life into his own hands and is making it happen" - Brian Lush, Rockwired. "Honest and introspective songs from the heart, a voice from the soul, and a sound that appeals to a broad audience." Greg Bennett, premier designer Samick/Greg Bennett Guitars. To book Kris Searle, arrange guest appearances or interviews please forward requests to management.
http://www.krissearle.com
