Chris has been hosting the podcast for Songwriters in Seattle since mid-2010. Also featured on www.songwritersinseattle.com October, 2010 Chris Klimecky interviews melodic folk musician Todd Christoffel. They discuss his history and band Don’t Ask, among other topics, and he plays a beautiful live version of his song “The World Don’t […]
Chris has been hosting the podcast for Songwriters in Seattle since mid-2010. Also featured on www.songwritersinseattle.com September, 2010 In the first Songwriters in Seattle podcast, Chris interviews solo Americana musician David Rix. They discuss David’s long and colorful musical history as well as current recording work. David plays a live […]
It’s the end of July already and time to get to know another member of Songwriters in Seattle! This month my guest is Andy “Roo” Forrest – a creative entreprenuer outside of music, who brings both a clever lyrical and harmonic sense to his songs. He has a great blend of pop, folk, jazz, and country that feels familiar yet is wholly original at the same time. To me, it is really indicative of how creativity crosses boundaries, and influences from other parts of our lives can gel in a songwriter’s music to produce something unique to the individual songwriter.
For the podcast, we dive into Roo’s new, self-titled CD out now (“Roo”) and we play a couple cuts from the disc as well as discuss the many great guest musicians he has on the recording. As an independent businessman, we tackle a little bit of music business discussion as well for a different perspective than one might usually get from a musician. As a grand finale, Roo plays a new song live in the studio – a sweet solo acoustic and vocal piece perfect for the summer(!) called “I Like the Snow.” A little Christmas in July for ya!
I haven’t been performing that much recently due to my current focus on finishing recording of the new album and producing multiple side projects, so it’s a rare coincidence of timing that I would be playing back to back shows on weekend evenings. Both this Saturday and Sunday (July 18th & 19th) I’ll be doing unplugged shows at Soulfood Books in Redmond. I love this place and I love the people there, not to mention these will be two very different shows. First, on Saturday the monthly Songwriters in Seattle showcase will kickoff at 8pm. There will be four performers for the evening and while I host the evening from the beginning and make sure everything is running smoothly, I will be the closer for the night actually performing around 9:30. My setlist for this one is looking like this:
I Can’t Say
Bankrupt Generation
*What Brings People Together
Certainly
*Colored Life
Angels Don’t Hide
*Cider & Roses
The monthly Songwriters in Seattle podcast continues to fascinate and inspire me with the variety of talent and level of musicianship we have in the group. This month symphonic rock pianist Thom Schroeder gives us insight into his classical approach to composition which combines epic forms, extreme dynamics, and modern textures to create a unique sound. Emotional performance and technical virtuosity make for an intense listening experience – you’ve got to hear this!
During our discussion, Thom talks about how he came to this genre, his search for a vocalist, and thinking big! It was a pleasure to have Thom in the studio and thank him for coming by for our 10th podcast to share his music and personal story.
The incredible talent in Songwriters in Seattle continues to inspire! This month we get to know Grammy nominated artist Henta Ellis in the monthly podcast. What a fascinating story she has of being drawn to Seattle from Engliand due to music collaboration and then flourishing with the music community here. The details of her Grammy experience are also not to be missed!
We are very fortunate to have her be our first keyboard player to do a live performance for the podcast – and what an emotional performance it was. Her song “Rain” from her upcoming album takes on a very different character live than on the studio recording. I always love that we get a unique version of a song for the podcast when someone plays live!
Yes, I realize it’s not Grammy season – that passed us a few months ago. However, I’ve recently taken in a couple of great Recording Academy events with the Pacific NW chapter that have gotten Grammy on my mind! The Recording Academy is the group that runs the Grammies if you weren’t aware. Last weekend was a fantastic day long Producer/Engineer Studio Summit which had great panels with insight into the ever changing music business. It’s definitely a rough road, but passion (and in some cases obsession) seems to still lead to success.
Then on Monday at the beautiful Gibson Guitar showroom in the Belltown area of downtown Seattle was the informational Grammy Awards 101 with VP of the Recording Academy Awards group, Bill Freimuth. Long story short, I now understand the whole process that goes into giving out those little statues, though my chances for getting one is only slight better now that I may submit rather than not at all. I’m really driving to finish up my new album, This Journey, in time to get it into consideration for this year – that’s a deadline of August 31st…I’ve got a lot of work to do!
It’s been a busy month for Jean Mann: preparing the release of a new album (Dream of Goats), a new tour, promotions and an interview schedule, she is gathering momentum on this 4th release that will surely propel her to new heights and popularity both locally and far beyond. I feel extremely lucky and honored to have gotten a slice of her time to discuss her background, her songwriting, and this bit of a whirlwind she’s creating! Not only did we have a great conversation, she brought her ukelele as well as her regular 6-string and played a few songs for us live. Awesome!
So you’ll hear “Memory’s Dusty Road” from the new disc, a solo uke and vocal live version of “Sweet Peas on the Vine” (also fully arranged on the new disc), and a live version of the beautiful “Blue Sky” from her 3rd album Daisies and Fire. Jean has a warmth and sweetness that I know you’ll enjoy, as well as an honest, artistic, and organic songwriting style that has a lot of heart. As she puts it, “…part poetry set to music…storytelling, and a little bit of journal…”
It was a beautiful sunny Spring Saturday in the Pacific Northwest (one of the few)…with McChord AF Base on my right and a windshield full of Mt. Rainier in front of me, I soon entered an unassuming Tacoma studio to start my swim in The Aquarium!!! As part of NWCZ Radio (Independent Northwest Music), The Aquarium is a talk show hosted by Ray “King Fish” Hayden and “Big Mike” Renville that highlights singers and songwriters from the Pacific Northwest. “We will focus on getting to know the artists and what drives them to pursue the life of being a songwriter.” In a nutshell, these guys are huge music lovers and supporters of the NW music scene – and they and their crew were not only total professionals, but a great group to hang out with! I had a fantastic time!
Airing Tuesday, April 26th from 7-8pm (then posted later on iTunes), you’ll hear some details of my songwriting and recording history, my current works and promotional endeavors, and my own efforts to support the Northwest music scene through Songwriters in Seattle. Musically, I did a solo acoustic live performance of “Come Back To You” which will be fun to hear back. We also got to goof around a little bit with some Bohemian Rhapsody shenanigans so we’ll see what Ryan the sound engineer comes up with putting that together! So please tune in and check it out.
