Community Matters + For the Record

For the Record is a conversation series where we speak with all manner of music heads — DJs, music journos, indie label captains, record shop owners, listening bar kingpins, et al — about their stories + the music that makes them.

Lauren is the Marketing Manager and a resident DJ at the Brooklyn club, Good Room.

MUSIC MENTIONS

‍First Record

Happy House by The Juan MacClean

Dance Music

Music Community Shoutouts

Three important artists in the past year?

Most under-appreciated artist from your favorite musical era?

Desert island discs?

Who should be on For the Record?

"I think, I really think and hope—I hope that there is a vaccine for the coronavirus within the next six months to a year. And I also hope there's a vaccine to the music industry."

Haley Fohr is a composer and singer-songwriter based in Chicago. You may know her as Circuit des Yeux or as the enigmatic Jackie Lynn, and if you don’t, once you’ve heard her sing you won’t forget her. Her voice has a lovely, haunting timbre that glides between four octaves, and she’s exceptional at relating her personal experience to the human condition at large—an ability that’s earned her a cover appearance on Wire Magazine and much critical acclaim for her records.

She and I discussed how her early music communities in Bloomington and Chicago helped form her identity as an artist, and how that identity continues to evolve amidst her two projects. We also examined the disparity between art and capitalism, and how this COVID moment is further elucidating the incongruity between the two, highlighting inadequate payout models that don't get money to the people actually creating the art. But the silver lining is that it’s inspired innovation for alternative support structures, and those have allowed Haley and others to discover the crucial kindness of benevolent strangers. Press that play button for the full story.

Support Haley:

Music in this episode, used with permission from Haley:

Want to be part of the music industry's vaccine? We can help with that. Learn more and join the community.

“The goal of the pianist is to bring life to the piano. And the piano has been waiting all its life long for someone to come and bring it life, bring it light. Let it sing, even for a few moments."

Lubomyr Melnyk is a composer and pianist of Ukrainian origin. He plays what he calls continuous music, a style whose rigorous technique shares commonality with martial arts. He's regarded as the world’s fastest piano player, capable of playing 19 and a half notes per second. It’s a skill that’s enabled him to create singular musical landscapes, where sound appears to come in swathes rather than individual notes. He’s been at it for more than sixty years and despite his superlative skill and beautiful compositions, he hasn't gotten much attention until very recently. He and I chatted about the three communities that have most informed his approach to music -- the classical music world, the dance world, and the hippie movement — and the happiness that stems from people finally starting to appreciate his astonishing art.

Support Lubomyr:

Music in this episode, used with permission from Lubomyr:

Special thanks to Alexander Frieden and Grace Rubin for the editing support!

Want to discover more of the world's best piano music? We can help with that. Learn more and join the community.

"I try and not get too affected on what's happening around in the industry, or what kind of sound people are expecting, or what kind of music is working right now... I try and remember the 16-year-old self just sitting on the bed with an acoustic guitar, trying to say something."

Support Dagny:

Music in this episode, used with permission from Dagny:

Special thanks to Alexander Frieden and Grace Rubin for the editing support!

Want to sample the Norwegian pop scene? We can help with that. Learn more and join the community.

“They don’t really know that much about me…they have no idea about my Prince history or nothing, you know. I just try to keep it low-key and not say too much.”

Pierre Lewis is a keyboardist who came up in the Twin Cities in the ’70s. It was one of the most important and under-appreciated scenes for funk music, and that spirit was aptly captured in the compilation record, Purple Snow, named for Prince, the Purple One, who hailed from the Twin Cities himself. The album chronicles the history of the scene and features many Prince collaborators, one of whom being Pierre and his band The Lewis Connection. Pierre appears on that compilation more times than any other person — a testament to his skill as a collaborator. He’d later play with KC and the Sunshine Band and Joss Stone, and today he’s still a member of the Commodores. We chatted about his many collaborations, as well as his relationship with Prince, and the rare record he made that includes Prince’s earliest recorded playing.

Support Pierre:

Music in this episode, used with permission from Pierre:

Special thanks to Grace Rubin and Alexander Frieden for the editing support!

Want to sample the Twin Cities funk scene? We can help with that. Grey Matter is a community platform with new ways to discover music, express yourself, and support creators. Learn more and join the community: bit.ly/31iyULI

"There's been a washing away of that cultural element in music discovery online…there's no sense of authorship as a fan, and there's no interaction with the artist."

Music in this episode, used with permission from Andrew:

“You get a sense of who’s important, what’s important, and hopefully people will realize what you had by just being able to go out and see other people, be in a room, and actually be present.”

Scott Lucas is the lead singer and guitarist of Local H, an alt rock band out of Zion, Illinois — a small town about an hour north of Chicago. He and three high school friends founded the group together in 1990, but by 1993, two of them had left and Local H carried on as a duo, with Joe Daniels on drums and Scott playing a modified guitar with an added bass pickup to round out the sound. Brian St. Clair and Ryan Harding would spend stints as Local H’s drummer but Scott, through thick and thin, has persisted through the whole three decades, which has seen nine studio LPs, countless shows — a few of them opening for Metallica — and the commercial breakthrough record, As Good As Dead, which is headlined by single, “Bound for the Floor,” a track that reached number five on the Billboard Modern Rock charts.

We chatted about the influence of a small town identity, the power of persistence, the secret to the exact ratio of toilet paper needed per neighborhood, and Local H’s new record, Lifers, which features an all-star cast, from Juliana Hatfield to John McCauley (Deer Tick) to legendary engineer, Steve Albini (Nirvana, Pixies, Joanna Newsom, Iggy Pop). It’s the band’s first LP since 2015 and it’s excellent.

“The people that I connect with online come from all over the musical world, from contemporary composition, from blues, from free jazz, from rock music, from noise… To me it’s just all music. I’ve never felt those barriers were hard and fast — they were imposed by someone else.”

“Eventually I got on the microphone, I sang and it was sort of this epiphany, hearing my voice. And that night literally changed my life.”

Support Madison: http://noiseofmadison.com/#/

Music in this episode, used with permission by Madison:

Julian Tepper was the bass player in an overlooked band called The Natural History. The band toured around the country in the early oughts and almost made it big. But the band broke up right before the release of their second LP, The People that I Meet, the record that was supposed to (and eventually did) include the original, widely acclaimed song, "Don't You Ever" (made famous by Spoon).

Music in this episode, used with permission from Julian Tepper and The Natural History: