Performance Anxiety

Today’s guest reminds me that not everyone is born at the right time. My guest is singer/songwriter Stephen Bluhm. To say he is an old soul is an understatement of the highest degree. I mean, the man put a heckelphone on his latest album. Don’t know what that is? Stephen does! And he explains it on the podcast. His latest release, Out Of The Nowhere. Into The Here, throws it WAAAAAY back. It’s a b...

Today’s guest reminds me to take my time. Please give a Performance Anxiety welcome to singer/songwriter, Lynn Drury. She has made New Orleans her home but she grew up in what sounds like every little girl’s dream, raising and training quarter horses for the rodeo circuit in Mississippi. And she always loved music but never actually considered pursuing it professionally. That is until she was walk...

Today’s guest makes me feel like royalty. It’s drummer Michael Bland and he has worked with some of the best in the business. But before that, he played in school and found out he had perfect pitch! Finding that out helped solidify his decision to be a musician. But his parents weren’t exactly thrilled about the idea and pushed him to have a backup plan. That is, until Prince called the house look...

Today’s guest makes me appreciate life a bit more. Welcome a woman who has lived the blues, Bex Marshall. She talks about how she always had this absolute need to learn how to play guitar and the huge impact karaoke had on starting her career. She was singing in a band called Blue Murder before she had to press pause on her music career and get a “real” job. But it wasn’t all that bad. She travele...

Today’s guest reminds me that not everything is always as it seems. Please welcome Lance Hoppen from the band Orleans. Prior to speaking with Lance, I hadn’t dug very deep into Orleans’ catalog. But when I did I realized that there is a whole lot going on there! The band tends to get lumped into the yacht rock genre but there is so much more to their sound. Lance gives a history lesson on the band...

Today’s guest really makes me want to be more experimental…somehow. It’s Michael Wiener of The Children…(with the ellipses). They have just released what is technically their second album. But good luck finding the first. Michael’s household growing up was not typical. His mother was a pioneering photojournalist and his father was a child Holocaust survivor. And they encouraged his pursuit of the...

Today’s guest makes me wish I had studied more in school. Meet Jason Achilles. This guy’s breadth of talent and interests just blows my mind! He’s not just a talented musician but he’s also an engineer who has recorded the sounds of Mars from a microphone system he was in charge of on the Mars rover. And apparently this kind of professional diversity runs in the family. By the way, he uses one of...

Today’s guests exemplify the virtue of patience. Please welcome Jim Suhler and Buddy Whittington of the band Texas Scratch. Their debut album was released recently…14 years AFTER it was recorded. And if you’re asking why, I’m not even sure the band can answer that. Texas Scratch is a Texas blues album that was recorded in New Jersey. Maybe that’s why it took so long…the universe couldn’t believe s...

On this episode of Side Projects, I am joined, once again, by London’s Modern Guilt. Or at least most of them. Scott, Jaz, and Andreas are joined by their producer Mikey Buckley of Desert Ships. Missing during this recording are Dan and Glyn. And Glyn is especially missing, as he has left the band; but they tell me it was on good terms. We’ll see about that. But that situation actually factors int...

Today’s guest makes me want to push through the rough times. Please welcome Blake Lewis. You might remember him from Season 6 of American Idol. But there is so much more to Blake than being one of the most unique contestants on one of the hottest properties on television. He grew up with his mom playing bluegrass banjo, which is why he rebelled into electronic music. He was the first contestant on...

Today’s guest is revelatory. I’m extremely happy to welcome author Joel Selvin to the podcast. He’s written a book called Drums & Demons: The Tragic Journey Of Jim Gordon. The title tells it all. It’s the story of one of the (if not THE) greatest drummers of all time and his mental health battle that ultimately ended in tragedy.  Joel masterfully tells the story from Jim’s beginnings, how he start...

Today’s guests make me appreciate the patience of others. Please welcome, for the third attempt, Andre and Terence from Locrian. What you’re listening to is our third attempt at this episode. The first was scrapped due to a computer malfunction. The second had an iphone issue. So take three was the final attempt! And it was worth it. Locrian has a new album set to release so the timing couldn’t ha...

Today’s guest makes me want more names. It’s Jeremy Wilms and we’ll go through all his different names throughout this episode. But each one has a reason. Jeremy is his family’s musical version of “3rd time’s a charm”. He’s managed to study and play guitar with some amazing people. After college, he moved from Duluth, GA to NYC and kept studying in the form of open jam sessions with his neighbors...

Today’s guest makes this episode kind of literal. Meet Elisa Di Napoli, AKA Elyssa Vulpes. She does so many things, it’s really tough to pin it down. However, one of the areas she specializes in is hypnotherapy. She has an entire program to help artists over come…wait for it…PERFORMANCE ANXIETY! But you don’t just start out in life as a hypnotherapist. Actually, Elisa’s first career choice was a c...

Today’s guest brings me back to a simpler time. Welcome Natalie Ribbons of Tele Novella. I learned about her family connection to radio and her parents’ decision that she should be a concert pianist after they inherited a piano. While Natalie may have disagreed, it IS what got her singing and steered her to a performing arts high school (after getting kicked out of her previous school). That’s whe...

Today’s guest makes me feel free. I can’t help that one and you’ll see why in a second. My guest is Malcolm Bruce. In addition to being the son of legendary bassist Jack Bruce, he is, himself, quite a gifted and accomplished musician. In this episode we figure out where we’re going wrong, discuss growing up as Jack Bruce’s kid, and when he began writing, music and other things. This was so much fu...

Today’s guest makes me feel velvety. And that works on a lot of levels here. Welcome Stan Demeski, drummer for The Feelies. They’ve released their first ever live album. But there isn’t a Feelies song to be found on it. It’s all Velvet Underground, all the time. But before we get there, Stan talks about his early days; being a product of New Jersey school bands, his early recording history, and ho...

Today’s guests make me feel informed. I’m joined by electronic artists Moe Espinosa (AKA Drumcell) and Surachai. But we didn’t get together to talk about electronic music, DJ’ing, or producing. We are discussing their business venture, Onyx Record Press. Of course we start off talking about their earliest musical experiences and how they started their careers. Moe and Surachai tell how they met th...

In this episode, we discuss something I have no idea about. How is that different from any other episode, you ask? Well in this one, I’m joined by Benjamin Wright of Benjamin Jayne and Jeremy Toback of Renee and Jeremy and Brad. We all got together to talk about music and psychology. That’s a pretty broad brush but since Benjamin is a psychologist during the day, I felt we were in good hands. We b...

Today’s guest makes me feel honored. It’s Jad Fair and he doesn’t do many interviews. So when we were able to make this happen, I was thrilled. Jad is one half of Half Japanese (¼ Japanese?). And he’s not even actually Japanese! I learned that and a lot more in this episode. OK, I knew he wasn't any Japanese before doing this podcast. But what I DID learn was how Jad creates his unique music. It b...

Today’s guest makes me feel artificially intelligent. Welcome back Fredrik Sareoa of Datarock. And with his band’s new release and their use of AI in different aspects of the album, I thought he’d be the perfect person to have on for a discussion about artificial intelligence in music. But that’s not all we talk about. Fredrik gives new bands some wardrobe advice, how he’s always worried about bei...

Today’s guest makes me want to be more international. I’m joined by Paul Chastain. You may know him from his band The Small Square. Or you may remember him from Velvet Crush. Either way, he drops in while traveling to Wisconsin to talk about his early fascination with harmony, when and why he started singing, and meeting Ric Menck to form Velvet Crush. He reveals why the band moved from the midwes...

This episode makes me want to relive the glory days. This episode of Side Projects focuses on the connection between music and sports. And I’m joined by four friends who are athletes, musicians, or both. Welcome my friends Chris Stringfellow, Chris Heim, Tony Cuchetti, and fashionably late, Robert Henson. They’ve played sports at different levels and have different connections to music. Whether it...

This guest makes me want to go back and revisit some old favorites. Welcome drummer Stephen Hodges to the podcast. And man, we hit on a whole lot in this episode, like the importance of hanging out, how once upon a time, musicians could make a living playing a club 5 to 6 nights a week, the importance of playing with more than just sticks, and the difficulties of playing without cymbals. THAT star...

Today’s guests make me thankful. I welcome Klaire and Chachy from Guji. And what a wild story this is. Guji is based in Shanghai, but Chachy is from the US. He tells me about growing up in Chicago and Florida and how he got into music stateside. And Klaire talks about growing up in China and learning to play the traditional Chinese violin. But at points, each of them stopped playing music to pursu...