Quarantine Online Sets: Version 11

Wednesday's work at home got interrupted between 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Moses Sumney popped up on Seattle's KEXP's Live at Home Youtube show. I missed his Bootleg residency due to work, illness and a fear of crowds. His Lo-Fi, minimalist music rang true during his set. He'd record his vocals and then allow those recordings to back up his singing. His set ended with his song "Doomed" that just had these sonic echos. The KEXP host also conducted an interview with Moses. Unfortunately, my laptop computer's speakers couldn't pick up his interview very well.

Moses Sumney

Then up on Buzzbands' Instagram site was Trapdoor Social. Well, it was just Skylar. His set went the full hour with him shifting from guitar to piano to a harp. Yes, a harp. A lot of the back half of the set was with Skylar multitasking. He'd start singing and at the time reading the messages that were being left on Instagram and then mid-song, responding to the messages. It was fun. He ended the set singing his song, "No Regrets." He mentioned that he hadn't sung the song in years and had written it ten years ago and had forgotten how it started. Some fans did Internet searches or something and wrote down the opening lyrics to the song. With the memory help, he started up the song.

Trapdoor Social

Thursday was a similar situation where work got interrupted again. This time between 4 p.m. and 5: 30 p.m. Up on Buzzbands' Instagram site was Sam Marine who played a couple of his country-western tunes in a sideways manner on Instagram. Some folks on Instagram started to message that he was sideways. He sort of chuckled. I'm not sure if he was playing sideways on purpose or thought folks were making a joke. Anyways, his wife came into the room (off screen) and told him to turn his phone 180 degrees.

Sam Marine

Then 30 minutes later, I jumped over to Cuffed Up's interview with Emily Kinney. Actually, I was interested in finding out how the two of them knew each other. They never got to that point, but they have an interesting conversation about music in this time of the pandemic. Emily mentioned that initially she didn't find it all that unusual to be stuck inside her house. Since she's also an actress, she's used to not working for a period of time. Then at the 30 minute mark, the video for Cuffed Up froze up though one could still hear his voice. They decided to end the conversation at that point due to the technical difficulties (which if you read one of my previous posts, you know that Emily is used to suffering through).

Cuffed Up/Emily Kinney

Quick Hit Artist Interview: Sam Marine

Sam Marine at Highland Park Bowl

Interview with the artist. Enjoy:

What’s the story behind when you knew you wanted to be a musician? I knew I wanted to be a musician when I was about 9. I had already been fascinated with music on the radio and men and women singing and playing guitar on MTV, VH1, and all the records, tapes, cd’s music docs, and movies about musicians my music obsessed young parents had. My teenage neighbors played me the guitar solo intro to Dinosaur Jr’s song “Out There” when I was 9 or 10......after that I asked for a guitar, thought about guitars, drew guitars on paper (drum kits too) everyday till I had one.

Do you have a message or objective behind your music? If so, what is it? I don’t believe I have a direct or specific message behind my music. If I anything, I’d say I hope my music makes people feel like things can get tough but sooner or later everything is gonna be alright. Also, to look out for people, be generous when you can with your time, money, ideas, etc and treat people kindly.

Own final thoughts. I was born in Gainesville, FL. Yes, I’m a MASSIVE TOM PETTY fan. However, I grew up in Vero Beach, FL. It’s a little beach town in south east Florida. Oddly enough a lot of somewhat famous people come from there. Alison Mosshart of The Kills and Dead Weather is from there. Jake Owen (country singer) is from there. My very own brother plays drums for Phosphorescent (Nashville based band). Marty Fish (tennis player) is from there as well as a handful of other athletes, writers, musicians, visual artists etc. It’s a somewhat natural progression to end up in Gainesville where the music was if you’re from Vero Beach. So I moved back to my birthplace to play rock n roll the second I was old enough. I didn’t even wait to finish high school (I got my GED later). And oddly enough, once you’ve lived in Gainesville a while another natural “next step” for most of the musicians I knew was to move to BROOKLYN!!! So I did just that. I played music around NYC for nearly 9 years before I moved to LA 5 years ago. I love LA and here I’ll stay. Thanks again.