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Month: May 2008

The Kyle Sowashes-We Want Action

Published May 1, 2008 by Stephen Carradini

(www.kylesowash.com) The Kyle Sowashes – Yeah Buddy!

(www.wewantaction.com) We Want Action

A seething garage rock diary of underground music in Columbus, Ohio.

Beginning an album with a song about Andre the Giant can be considered brave, ridiculous or insightful. It’d be insightful only if you’re willing to peel back the initial layer of metaphor. On “Only Time Will Tell,” Kyle Sowash-the namesake of The Kyle Sowashes-sings, seemingly, about an 80’s throwaway reference. It’s actually a veiled reference to the lime-lit wrestling ring of small-time bars and cut-down set-lists that defines independent music. In fact, you can’t listen to The Kyle Sowashes’ second full-length Yeah Buddy! without being uprooted and transported to Columbus, Ohio’s underground. That’s because this group of musicians has coalesced around Sowash’s intense drive to make music happen in his town.

The tracks on Yeah Buddy! chronicle the hopes and failures, frustrations and elations of Sowash: a veritable one-man music scene. Flush with the cranky fuzz of overdriven guitars, held in place by straightforward rock drumming and haunted by references to an era Sowash may just keep alive by its fervor, Yeah Buddy! reminds me of albums whispered about by the outcasts in eighth grade. Yeah Buddy! reaches back to an era that Weezer codified and radio-fied by staying true to garage-rock tones. Lyrically, Sowash draws an ink-outline of underground Columbus.

“Free Ride” is my favorite track on Yeah Buddy! An infectious, bristling guitar lick socks you in the jaw in the first round. A booming floor tom hails the second guitar’s seething counter-melody, followed by Sowash’s critique of narcissistic, would-be-rock-stars he’s hosted over the years. In the second verse, Sowash asks, “Every time you pick up your guitar / do you dream of playing stadiums and not some stupid bar?” interrogating every star-searching musician that’s crashed his bedroom floor. Sowash writes from experience; you feel his personal investment in the message of “Free Ride” when his voice breaks on the last chorus: “I could get so famous and not have to get so jaded in the process!” The Kyle Sowashes turned out an underground gem in “Free Ride,” somehow channeling Sowash’s pent-up frustrations into a compact, meaningful anthem.

If at this point you’re get the feeling that Yeah Buddy! is a waste-bin of emo-anthems, then you’re dead wrong. Yeah Buddy! is confessional; it places Columbus, Ohio within the context of a thriving underground music realm via one man’s experiences. Songs like “Oh! The Shame!”-a Murphy’s law chronicle of a failed show that plummets into self-loathing before grasping after introspection-may seem like sob-stories, but Sowash isn’t cutting and laying down eye-liner, he’s putting to music what any self-conscious independent musician must wonder at some point: hey… am I getting anywhere? It takes guts and insight to ask this, plus pop-sensibility to weave a song around it. Sowash hits this question dead on without devolving into a pity-party. He echoes the sentiment in “Cutout Bin”-a post-show reverie refined by the moment where Sowash reflects, “it’s too hard not to see ourselves slipping into obscurity / but, maybe this is the song that will rock the top of the charts!” Here, Sowash mingles his doubt with hope, and that’s what keeps the underground alive: questions, introspection, and never-ending hope.

Having rocked the trenches for years, Sowash has sufficient credibility to make these songs on Yeah Buddy! real. His band cranks out a sound that screams dive-bars on overdrive. Yeah Buddy! simply works on all the right levels.

-Timothy C. Avery

Email: the_kitchen_sinks’yahoo.com

They Do It Cause They Love You.

Published May 1, 2008 by Stephen Carradini

They Do It Cause They Love You.

(spoomusic.com)Spoomusic masterminds Ariel Gross and Dave Benjamin began offering free music downloads via the Internet in 2004. Today, their site offers free albums from more than 20 artists. How did they get from there to here? It all began with sp00, Gross and Benjamin’s collaborative musical effort (or “band,” if you will). They wanted to offer their music to the listening public free of charge, without the hassle and giant flaming hoop-jumping involved in dealing with the music industry.

“The original incarnation of [spoomusic.com”> was basically a web page with a couple sp00 albums available for download,” Gross said.

“Then we started brainstorming about better ways to deliver the music. Then we started getting outside artists asking to join in on the fun. We also set up a company at some point in there.”

See, it’s just that easy. One minute you’re a couple of guys who play music together and just want to spread it around. The next thing you know, you’re running a website that provides musical platforms for lots of other quirky artists who share your strong belief that music should be free. Right?

Well, it might have helped things along a bit that Benjamin has experience in computer programming (he develops software for a living) and that Gross has training in audio production (he recently graduated from Arizona’s Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences).

By day, Benjamin wears two responsible-adult hats: he develops education software for Arizona State University, and also works for Global Alerts in Scottsdale, Ariz. Hundreds of miles away, in Champaign, Ill., Gross designs audio tracks for video games at Volition Inc. By night, these men work to change music lovers’ assumption that the only legal way to obtain new tunes is to pay $15-$20 for an album.

So does that put them in league with proponents of musical piracy, folks who think they have the right to simply take music that artists are trying to support themselves by selling? No, says Gross.

“The beautiful thing about spoomusic.com is that it is artists willingly giving away their music, so no laws are broken,” he said.

Though both Gross and Benjamin feel that the choice to distribute music for free is personal, Benjamin said he feels that music industry executives are fighting a losing battle.

“Music is free already,” he said. “The sooner music business folk realize that, the better off they will be.”

However, though he does not personally feel the need to make ends meet through music, Benjamin said, he sees no problem with people who want to do so.

“I think selling music is fine,” he explained. “But live performance is the way to go.”

Spoomusic provides an ever-growing number of albums (which can be, themselves, ever-growing) free of charge. However, artists on the site also have the option of making a few bucks by selling their tracks on sites like Napster, Rhapsody, iTunes and eMusic.

Of course, Gross says, there is an unofficial agreement that artists will provide at least one completely free album before asking to hawk their wares with spoomusic’s help. Once they’ve done that, spoomusic will make artists’ tracks available on Internet distribution labels. The only money required is the actual cost of listing tracks on the sites (around $50).

In addition to albums put out by spoomusic’s regular contributors, Gross and Benjamin also compile albums featuring various other artists along with the regulars. One is already available on the site; another is in the works. As a joke, the compilation albums go by the name “Spoon Music.” Confused? Benjamin and Gross thought you would be. And they think it’s pretty funny.

“Whenever we say spoomusic, people always go, ‘SPOONmusic?’,” Gross explained. “And we have to clarify this repeatedly. It’s like a running theme through our existence.

“So we decided to call the compilation Spoon Music, thus confusing everyone even more, which is funny to us.”

Well, now you’re in the know. It’s “spoomusic,” not “spoon music,” and it’s one place to hear free original music on the Web. Or to distribute your own free tunes, if you are so inclined. Interested artists can initiate contact by e-mailing demos@spoomusic.com, Gross said. From there, the extremely harrowing and cutthroat selection process can begin.

Actually, it’s a little less scientific than that. If any of the managing members (Gross, Benjamin, or Gross’ wife, Addie, who does PR) dig an artist’s sound, they’re in. If not, Gross said, he usually just encourages people to send in different samples.

After all, they do it because they love you.

– Amanda Bittle