Open Mic Spotlight

The Mailboxes is an art-pop band from Cleveland, Tennessee. Members Jillian and Logan Ivey are creative partners who also happen to be married to one another. Jillian plays piano, sings really loud, and writes catchy indie pop melodies. Logan plays the drums, looks cool, and is trying not to break his arms again. They like touring across the country in their van and thru hiking in the mountains. They have a new project and album coming in 2019!

Thirstain Daniels is a Chattanooga native with the most beautiful voice. Listen to his stories about his up bringing in music and where he is headed! You will really enjoy his covers and originals played on this episode. 

On this week’s Open Mic Spotlight podcast, Heather talks with Boston-based bluegrass-pop band Twisted Pine about how they first met, their experiences within the bluegrass scene in Boston and why they’ve adopted a response of “four separate beds here” where it comes to questions about their personal relationships. The band started out hewing closer to their bluegrass roots, but over time, they broadened their approach, incorporating more indie pop hooks and rhythms into their string band sound. Built around some truly remarkable harmonies and luminous acoustic arrangements, their music is light on its feet but never lightweight, a rustic exploration of tone and texture that forgoes the usual genre limitations to become something utterly compelling and distinct.

The band first came together while they were attending different colleges in the Boston area and finding themselves playing alongside like-minded musicians at The Cantab Lounge in Cambridge. They released their self-titled debut record last year and have spent the intervening months touring in support. They perform two covers, including The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and The Cranberries’ “Dreams, finding nuance and fresh sounds buried in these familiar hits. They discuss how their songwriter process begins with a 50/50 split between Kathleen Parks and Rachel Sumner, and then they bring the skeleton of each song to the rest of the band to complete its creation. And they reveal that it’s in this final collaborative undertaking that the song expresses the resolve of the entire band.

Due to some recording complications, this specific podcast is built from two different sound sources: a live recording taken from their concert at the Tomorrow Building in Chattanooga, TN and audio from the original Open Mic Spotlight interview that the band was streaming on their Facebook page.

On this week’s Open Mic Spotlight podcast, Chattanooga duo DJ and Marv talk with Heather about how their religious upbringing influenced the direction of their music, how they came to meet through a shared musical friend and when we can possibly expect their debut EP to be released. This episode is recorded at Andrew Meadow’s house, another local musician who also happens to be the producer of DJ and Marv’s forthcoming EP and who also works at Dynamo Studios at the downtown Chattanooga Public Library. Drawing upon the twin inspirations of the hip-hop and singer-songwriter genres, they create a sound that sits at the crossroads of these two disparate aesthetics, and they do so without the music losing any of its vivid movements or rhythmic ingenuity.

DJ and Marv first met through their shared friendship with Drakeford Lanier, another Chattanooga musician who introduced them due to their natural gifts for music. For his part, DJ has gone to college for audio production but found that he really wanted to sing and began following that passion shortly thereafter. Marv traces his musical history back to high school when he first started rapping. It also doesn’t hurt that DJ and Marv are cousins; so their communal interest in music feels more familial than forced. They are looking forward to the release of their debut EP sometime soon as they’ve already got about 72% of the record done according to Meadow. And with a sound as wonderfully involving and unique as theirs, it’s a project that should be on everyone’s radar.

On this week’s Open Mic Spotlight podcast, Heather invites Chattanooga songwriter Josh Driver into the studio to talk with her and guest co-host Adam Stone of Over Easy about some of his influences and why “Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4” led him to pursue a musician’s life. Known for his work with The Dixieland Playboys and as a recent addition to Chattanooga hard rock group Subkonscious, Driver has always possessed a restless creativity, a stubborn and uncompromising need to widen his musical perspective. Throughout the past few years, he’s worked his way through the sounds of country, southern rock and hard rock, as well as adopting a more singer-songwriter-oriented viewpoint in an effort to develop himself fully as an artist.

In their discussion, Driver talks about his loathing of apartments (too many people, too much noise) and why he sees his job at Volkswagon as similar to working in a busy kitchen. He relates his brief history with Mo Pitney’s song “Behind This Guitar” and why it speaks to him in such a tremendous way. He briefly touches on his newfound respect and admiration for Jason Isbell and talks about listening to him while riding to a concert that featured Isbell and his wide Amanda Shires at the CMA Theater in Nashville. And through just a few songs, Driver reveals his country-soaked songwriter’s heart and discusses the evolution of his aesthetic from his earliest days to his more recent solo work.

On this week’s Open Mic Spotlight podcast, Heather welcomes Chattanooga singer-songwriter Alex Volz to the studio. Over the last few years, Volz has been making the rounds in town and gaining a following for the acoustic expansiveness of both his children’s songs and for the more adult-oriented work of his alter ego Burly Temple. Relying on clever wordplay and a knack for surprising and complicated melodies, he spins stories that address weighty topics that children might come across in their young lives. With topics ranging from reproduction to materialism and time travel, his songs are filled with humorous narratives and striking insight into what makes all of us human, and how we can deal with those often elusive revelations.

Volz grew up in Chattanooga but moved to New York to get a degree in film and TV from NYU. He subsequently moved to Los Angeles (where he lived for 15 years) to write but found the work to be mostly devoid of any sense of individualism and creativity. After a time, his spouse and he began to talk about having a baby, and so they moved back to Chattanooga to raise a family. Since then, Volz has been sharing his love of guitar-driven rhythms and an astute lyrical wit with anyone within earshot. He also records as Burly Temple, although those songs aren’t ones you’re going to want to share with your children. But if you’re looking for songs that possess an equal influence from the daily events of a stay-at-home dad and the latest movie in the Terminator franchise, then Volz is your guy.

Thank you to Joshua Pickard for the summary of this episode. 

Open Mic Spotlight – Cannon Hunt

On this week’s Open Mic Spotlight podcast, singer-songwriter Cannon Hunt joins Heather in the studio to discuss the details of his upcoming EP, the effect that his faith has had on his music and how music became such an important part of his life at an early age. And at 15 years old, Hunt has the distinction of being the youngest guest on Open Mic Spotlight, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t miles of experience buried within his work. Whether he’s aiming for an electric revelry with his band Astrophe or simply conjuring acoustic landscapes with his guitar, he imbues these rhythmic stories with a maturity and an earnest perspective that seems to be drawn from a deeper insight.

Hunt began taking guitar lessons when he was 8 and found himself playing in the band at St Peter’s Episcopal Church when he was only 9. And though his parents are not musicians, he’s had their support in his development as a musician – and in fact, it’s his conversations about his faith with his mother that has given rise to some of the stories within his songs. He brings out a few covers including “Just Breathe” by Pearl Jam and “D.B. Cooper” by Todd Snider, revealing a wide range of influences. And it’s this collection of musical inspirations (Bob Dylan, Grateful Dead and Sturgill Simpson) that has given him the range to explore his own storytelling instincts without mimicking any specific musician.

Thank you to Joshua Pickard for the episode summary. Thank you to Jesse Jungkurth for mixing this episode.

On this week’s Open Mic Spotlight, Chattanooga musician Danny Alvarez stops by to talk with Heather about growing up listening to religious music in a conservative household, his musical epiphany on a Navajo reservation and his love of ‘90s hip-hop and R&B production. Armed with his keyboard, Alvarez doles out liquid grooves and mercurial rhythms that bounce around within a host of different genres. From Sam Smith to Stevie Wonder to Louis Armstrong, his choice of cover songs reveals the depths of his various influences. With a voice that could reach up into the rafters of the tallest cathedral, he paints a mesmerizing picture of accumulated creativity, resulting in a wellspring of sounds which highlights the inherent melodic commonality of his collected inspirations.

Born in New Jersey, Alvarez moved to Chattanooga with his family when he was in the 6th grade. Out of high school, he attended nursing school before graduating and becoming a fulltime nurse. But that hasn’t stopped him from following his instincts toward a path in music. After a time doing missionary work in the African nation of Chad, he eventually found himself helping out on a Navajo reservation, and it was here that he came to the realization that he could be doing something that could reach far more people than his missionary labors allowed him. He discusses his unique perspective of growing up in a conservative family where he was only allowed to listen to religious music (or Linkin Park when he could sneak it past his parents). And he attributes his current ambitions and understanding to the experiences that helped mold his younger years.

Thank you to Billy Campbell for mixing this episode. Thank you to Joshua Pickard for the epiosde summary.

On this week’s Open Mic Spotlight podcast, singer-songwriter Sophie Lockhart joins Heather in the studio to talk about her studies at Lee University, how the guitar is not her main instrument and how she’s made the change to a full band for the release of her new single. Armed with just an acoustic guitar, her fiercely confident voice and a microphone, Lockhart invokes a timeless sound, one that doesn’t rely on cheap theatrics or studio manipulation to develop an intense emotional attachment. She talks about some of the artists that she listens to, including Jason Mraz, Needtobreathe and Chance the Rapper, and how they’ve all influenced her as an artist. She further explores those influences by covering songs by Mraz and The Script.

She discusses the details of her senior year studies at Lee University and reveals that her chosen instrument is actually the saxophone, with the guitar coming later to her. She started playing the guitar seriously about 4 years ago and began attending the Songwriter’s Night at The Heritage House Arts & Civic Center, which is where she first met Heather. She also talks about a new single called “Heart On Display” that she released at the beginning of last month with a recently collected backing band. She reveals that she’s constantly writing and playing to herself, amassing quit a catalog of unreleased songs that might find themselves sequenced into an upcoming record. She leaves Heather with parting advice to “be inspired by everything,” to watch the world with your heart as much as you do your eyes.

Thank you to Jesse Jungkurth from mixing this episode. Thank you to Joshua Pickard for the episode summary. 

On this week’s Open Mic Spotlight podcast, Navid Eliot and Jenny Borst from Planes on Paper and Josiah Johnson from The Head and The Heart drop by the studio to talk with Heather. They’d all been visiting Chattanooga to play at Treetop Hideaways for Chattanooga House Shows, but due to unforeseen weather complications, they wound up performing at The Daily Ration.

Known for their gorgeous folk harmonies and acoustic melodies, Planes on Paper upend the expectations placed on singer-songwriter duos to create a sound which is refreshingly devoid of bland sentiment and obligatory affection. They’re romantics at heart and reveal their love for both each other (they’re a couple) and for the connections offered through their music. For his work with The Head and The Heart, and for his solo work, Johnson mines a parallel folk-centric aesthetic, filled with earnest acoustic arrangements and gospel-style harmonies.

As this was the last concert date on their current east coast schedule, they discuss their desire to be home, tending to pets and spending time with friends. For Eliot and Borst, they talk a bit about their collaborative processes and how each song finds it individual beginnings. They also briefly speak to the circumstances of their own friendship, involving friends of friends from elementary school and early performances with each other. While in town, they spent some time at Songbirds Guitar museum, with Johnson reveling in the stories behind the instruments and Eliot developing a fascination with the technical aspects of each piece. They trade off on songs between their two bands, going back and forth in a beautiful acoustic echo that speaks to the strengths of their respective creativities.

Thank you to Billy Campbell for mixing this epiosde. Thank you to Joshua Pickard for the episode summary.