Zig At The Gig podcast

Keith Kenny

 

 

 

Keith Kenny the 

One-Man Rock Band 

 

Lifetime Ago Motel is the fifth album from veteran New Jersey-based band-of-one, KEITH KENNY. It was written over a three-year period and recorded at his Studio 303 facility in Monroe, New Jersey, self-produced by Kenny. Among special guests contributing is drummer Sim Cain (Regressive Aid, Gone, Rollins Band, Dean Ween Group). Lifetime Ago Motel is being released by iNtuRecords April 2nd as a digital download, physical CD, 12” vinyl LP and via streaming platforms.

Keith's Info 

https://keithkenny.bandcamp.com/community

https://www.youtube.com/c/KeithKennyMusic

https://www.keithkenny.com/

https://www.facebook.com/KEITHKENNYMUSIC/

https://open.spotify.com/artist/7gKa4kfIHc1Jt6poBB4DK1?si=AqPQ2JRvTOaCre4ivUxWqQ&nd=1

 

Alison Self

Alison was born and raised in Petersburg, VA in a working class family that was void of musical talent. Alison is an only child and isn’t aware of any musicians in her family, (she thinks her grandpa looked at a guitar once,)but swears that she has been singing since she learned to talk. 

Alison plays a mix of honky tonk and old time country on the guitar. Her influences range from The Louvin Brothers and Kitty Wells to Roger Miller and Bessie Smith. She has a strong stage presence and her lyrics might make you cry, but you’re more than likely to laugh.

Sometime in 2006 Alison decided to buy a ukulele, by the next year she was playing small DIY gigs around Richmond VA and also spending a good amount of time busking on the street for tips.

Alison spent about 10 years based out of Richmond, Virginia where she was described as Richmond’s chanteuse “with a huge voice unlike any other female singer in Richmond” and until the end of her time living in the region (2015), became a well known musician who booked other acts in town, had side projects and toured the US.

Alison traveled west in a ’96 Oldsmobile with no working windows for most of 2015, with a stint in Southwest VA then Nashville TN, until her car broke down outside of Denver. She played some shows and worked for a few months, decided it was time to go and drunkenly bought a $20 plane ticket to Austin TX. Figuring she had nothing to lose she sold her car for $200 and got rid of mostly everything she had carried with her and made the move. She didn’t even take her guitar. Austin was home for Alison for the past two years until she decided to uproot once again and make the move to Portland OR back in October 2018. 

Alison was diagnosed with colon cancer in the winter of 2018, went through surgery and chemotherapy and finished all that in June 2019. Alison has been cancer free for almost 2 years.

Traveling and restlessness have been strong themes in Alison’s songs which are influenced strongly by her early 20s spent hitch hiking and hopping a few freight trains here and there. Simply put, Alison writes from lived experiences. Thematically her songs run along the same lines of most honky tonk singers, past and present: working class upbringing, death, trains, bad decisions and too much booze. 

 

 

 

Alison Info 

https://alisonself.com/

https://alisonself.bandcamp.com/album/honky-tonk-haze-deluxe-version

Klashing Black

Klashing Black is comprised of twin brothers Kane and Kyle Benner. Since 2006, they've been writing, recording, and performing original music together, developing their sound in every iteration of the group.

In 2017, they became a duo and released their first EP as a two-piece, called "You". The next year started with the release of their single "Nights Like These", and throughout Spring and Summer, Klashing Black brought their energetic live show to multiple states in the midwest.

August 2018 saw the release of their debut album "Who We Were. Who We Are." According to Indientry blog, their debut album, along with it's singles "Today", "In a Spin" and "Emptiness" and their companion music videos, has proven that Klashing Black have a "clear mastery of the alternative pop genre"

 

Klashing Black Info 

https://www.klashingblack.com/

https://www.instagram.com/klashingblack/

https://www.facebook.com/KlashingBlack/

https://soundcloud.com/klashingblack

https://twitter.com/KlashingBlack

 

 

Andrew Toy

Andrew Toy is a session drummer/percussionist and solo performer based in the Washington DC area. He uses percussion as the starting point for composition and sonic exploration. Using live production techniques, Andrew twists, distorts, and re-arranges the sound of the drums to create soundscapes that are at times cinematic and introspective, at other times intense and driving. By re-imagining the process that music is typically created, Andrew has crafted a sound that is inspired by IDM, minimalism, ambient, post-rock, and experimental music, yet has a life of its own.

 

 

Andrew's Info

https://www.andrewtoy.net/

See Andrew

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcRar-_yl6QoWZNNvPD1xTQ

Hear Guardrails 

https://open.spotify.com/album/7z8xUJUnwDDUkps6IXcqEw?si=zk2QKPGsRFudMsm1j29SKQ

https://www.facebook.com/atoydrummer

 

Bill Stevenson

Drummer, songwriter, and producer. Bill Stevenson is best known for work behind the drum kit for the Descendents and Black Flag. He is also an in-demand punk rock producer and co-owner of The Blasting Room, a studio located in Fort Collins, Colorado!

Elizabeth McCullough of Alpha Cat

 

Elizabeth McCullough of Alpha Cat:

How do you take the image of a black hole and make it positive? According to Elizabeth McCullough, aka Alpha Cat, "When I wrote that song I'd just read how astronomers had determined that you could actually escape a black hole, but only by going all the way through and out the other side. And that leads to all this worm hole and time travel theory, where not only do you avoid annihilation, but you arrive at a place you might never have reached otherwise. It's an amazing metaphor for transformation, and ultimately hopeful. That's why the end of the song is: you gotta go deeper it's the only way out.  

A friendship with Television bassist Fred Smith, who agreed to produce a demo, became 1999’s EP Real Boy. With only 150 copies sent to college radio stations, Real Boy ended up in the CMJ National Add Charts not once, but twice, receiving more airplay adds than such formidable and widely distributed offerings as Beck's Midnight Vultures, and Metallica's S&M. It went on to spend six weeks in the national airplay charts, unusual for an EP.  

The follow up to Real Boy, October 2001’s Pearl Harbor, was, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, unfortunately timed. With an image of a bomb and the sound effects of a glass building falling down, the CD was eerily prescient. It was not well received initially, for obvious reasons. Upon rerelease in February 2002, it did much better, receiving significant airplay on college radio, and winning a couple “best of” awards that year.  

With the Alpha Cat song “Pearl Harbor,” it' becomes apparent how longtime photographer McCullough's previous passion has informed her current love. Without an understanding of how equally light and its absence form the world we see before us, it's difficult to imagine McCullough having had the vocabulary to describe that world musically. "It occurred to me that this place was called Pearl Harbor before it was bombed, and that it must be because literally, there were pearls in the harbor. I tried to imagine what it might take to get back to where that place was about treasure, rather than destruction.”  

In 2005, following the ending of an unfortunate romantic entanglement, McCullough decided to move to L.A. to work with drummer Jason Smith, who had gigged with Alpha Cat several times in Los Angeles over the previous years. Recording began on the album Venus Smile in April of 2006, and 15 instrumental tracks were completed with the help of engineer Jon Mattox, guitarist Doug Pettibone (Lucinda Williams, John Mayer), bassist Reggie McBride, (Elton John), and Jason Smith on drums.  

Seven vocal tracks were completed as well, but by July, McCullough fell into a real life black hole, losing her voice and experiencing a profound emotional and psychological breakdown. She was unable to complete the record.  

Years of depression, hospitalizations and treatment, including a round of ECT followed with no result. But in 2013 an experimental treatment yielded some relief from the devastating suicidality that had plagued her, and she attempted a return to music. She booked the first of two gigs in London at the legendary 12 Bar Club. However, her perceived betrayal by both her heart and her music, rehearsals and the prospect of returning to the stage brought extreme anxiety and fear. She began to drink to cope. The 12 Bar gigs were virtually unattended, a sense of hopelessness set in again, and the drinking continued.  

Fortunately, McCullough decided to revisit the Venus Smile recordings that actually had been completed. She enlisted engineer Brett (Cosmo) Thorngren to do mixes of the songs, with encouraging results. And as it turned out, she had found a new champion in Thorngren. But it wasn’t until early 2019, with newfound sobriety and the retreat of long held fears, that she began to listen to those mixes anew, and began to appreciate them and realize that maybe there was something in this music after all. And then, in early June, McCullough experienced an epiphany, and decided to put out those songs as an LP. The result is the new record Thatched Roof Glass House. At long last, her journey through the worm hole seems to be complete

 

 

Elizabeth McCullough  info

https://alphacat.band/home

https://www.facebook.com/alphacatband/

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6LLx0yaBiRPaPXPZOgAqoz

 

James Muschler

James Muschler drummer extraordinaire, formally of Moon Hooch is a near and dear friend to C-Level, and we are excited to help him celebrate the release of his up coming project The Evolution of Life Forms on Earth.

The Evolution of Life Forms on Earth is a 40-minute musical simulation/abstraction/sound journey of our 4-billion year biological history, written for gongs and other acoustic percussion.

 

Pre-order is available on my bandcamp page

Jame's Info 

https://jamesmuschler.bandcamp.com/

https://www.patreon.com/jamesmuschler

 

Matthew Roads : Tropidelic

Matthew Roads : Tropidelic

Matthew Roads is a singer songwriter of the Cleveland based band Tropidelic.

“Every single second is a blessing if you count them all,” sings frontman Matthew Roads. You can hear the sincerity in his voice; the joie de vivre that oozes from everything Tropidelic does is apparent. When they take a stage, their synergy flows member to member ­– horns blow, knees kicked high and grins are passed from one man to the next. Almost immediately, it spreads to the crowd, lifting hands in the air as their feet begin to move. The pulse collectively becomes that of one.

The six-piece band from Cleveland, Ohio may be far from any tropical islands, but that doesn’t stop them from dishing out an interesting mix of reggae, hip-hop, and high energy funk for audiences across the country. Unapologetically original, Tropidelic has a deep and widespread appreciation for music that can be heard in each note. Some of the members are hip-hop heads, while others are into metal, funk or reggae. Each of these genres lends something to their collective sound. “We pride ourselves in being original in our musicality and personality as a band,” says Roads, “but also in not taking ourselves so seriously that it ruins the fun.”

Quickly elevating themselves in the live circuit, Tropidelic can be found spreading their soulful sound across the country in both intimate venues and music festivals, having shared the stage with and supported such acts as 311, Slightly Stoopid, The Dirty Heads, Pepper, The Flobots and Wookiefoot. Previously, Tropidelic has been featured at Electric Forest, California Roots Music & Art Festival, Reggae Rise Up, Warped Tour and 311 Caribbean Cruise, as well as the host of their own annual Freakstomp Music Festival.

Following on the success of their 2019 release, Here in the Heights, which debuted at #2 on the Billboard reggae charts, Tropidelic has released a series of impressive singles featuring guest appearances from Dirty Heads, Matisyahu, Devin the Dude and Shwayze. These singles have amassed over five million streams in 2020, and they are featured on their latest album, Of Illusion, which debuted on November 13^th, 2020. Of Illusion was released on Billboard’s number one reggae label, Ineffable Records. Tropidelic has put in their ten thousand hours, and they have arrived on the national scene to the delight of their ever growing and rapturous fans.

 

 

 

 

Matthew/Tropidelic's info

http://tropidelic.com/

https://open.spotify.com/artist/2SGFnb6c73UJd1vT6aGBMl

https://www.facebook.com/tropidelic/

Matthew's solo work

https://www.facebook.com/RoadsIcarus

 

Chris Butler ( The Waitresses)(Tin Huey)(The Numbers band 15 60 75)

Christopher Butler (born May 22, 1949) is an American musician, writer, and artist best known for conceptualizing and leading the 1980s new wave band The Waitresses. Among Butler's, the most notable songs are "I know what boys. like", "No Guilt," "Christmas Wrapping," and the theme song for the T.V. sitcom Square Pegs.

Butler grew up in Ohio and majored in sociology at Kent State University. He was among a crowd of students fired on by the Ohio National Guard on May 4, 1970.

Butler was active in the Kent OH music and art scene that also spawned The James Gang, Devo, Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders. In several films by KSU's film professor Richard Myers, he played guitar in the blues band City Lights with Jack Kidney. He followed Kidney into The Numbers band aka 15-60-75, founded by Jack's brother Robert Kidney, and played bass with them from 1975 to 1978. Butler was fired from the band for skipping a rehearsal to attend a photo session for his Waitresses band project, which were to be part of stiff records ' "Akron: Shine On, America" compilation, which also included tracks by Tin Huey, Jane Aire & The Belvederes, Rachel Sweet, The Rubber City Rebels, The Bizarros and chi Pig.

 

Chris talks, Cats, Covid, social media, Kent State, Film, Art, The Numbers band, Tin Huey, The Waitresses, The Return of the Tear drop, hold the world record for worlds longest pop song, Living in the Jeffrey Dahmer house,The Akron scene, Finding ways to keep the DIY house show scene and the Akron venue scene alive during covid, and Much More!

 

Chris's Info:

https://www.futurefossilmusic.com/

https://chrisbutler1.bandcamp.com/

www.facebook.com/christopher.butler.167

 

 

 

Don Rauf (Life In a Blender)

DON RAUF (VOCALS) loves W.C. Fields, Preston Sturges, and Nikola Tesla. He lives with his lovely beekeeping wife, Monique, and his cartooning, surrealistic son, Leo. He is a writer whose books include Killer Lipstick and Other Spy Gadgets. He is the proud founder of The Blowhole Theater, an annual Brooklyn variety show featuring the Blowhole Theater Players and their characters Puckerballs the Garbage Can Elf, Scottish Jesus, and Abraham Lincoln.

 

Life In a Blender

A SHORT HISTORY For over 25 years, Life in a Blender has been the canvas for singer and songwriter Don Rauf's blackly comic landscapes. The group has released albums ranging from screaming punk to orchestrated chamber pop, and has brought the high theatrics of its live act to stages from Berlin to Austin to Toronto to Brooklyn and Seattle.

Don Rauf formed the band with high school friend Dave Moody (then bassist, now cellist), and within a couple of years had acquired the drumming services of Ken Meyer. Guitarist Al Houghton and bassist Mark Lerner joined in 1992, and violinist Rebecca Weiner Tompkins signed on in 1993. While the band's core lineup has remained remarkably constant for the past 18 years, the list of former members, guest artists, and collaborators includes Chris Butler (The Waitresses, Tin Huey), Chris Rael (Church of Betty), Jonathan Gregg, John Linnell (They Might Be Giants), Gavin Smith (Les Sans Culottes), Susan Hwang (Debutante Hour), Brian Dewan, and Olivier Conan (Chicha Libre, Las Rubias Del Norte).

Life in a Blender's "Friend from Quebec" was featured in Michael Moore's Canadian Bacon, and "Mobile Wash Unit" appeared in Sara Lamm's documentary, Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox.

The band's most recent album, SATSUMA, is being released on November 20, 2020.  

 

 

 

Don Talks, Poetry, his musical journey, the CBGB scene, Life In A Blender, The New Album SATSUMA, Writing books, NYC life, Rage Puppets, Chris Bulter, They Might Be Giants, The Blowhole Theater, Bushwick book club, and much more!

 

 

Don's Info 

http://www.lifeinablender.net/index.html

https://www.facebook.com/lifeinablender