When Awesome Music Artists Remain Undiscovered: Merry Ellen Kirk

When I review an album, I usually give myself at least a week of blasting it so I am familiar enough with it that I can write with at least a little authority.

This morning, I downloaded Merry Ellen Kirk's FREE EP, Feathers & a Leaf. I feel bad, because Alberto Albis recommended her to me a long time ago, and continued to remind me until I finally got round to downloading - now I REALLY understand his persistence.

I've listened to each track once, and already I am desperate to talk about it. I can't call this a real review yet, but what I can tell you is that Merry Ellen Kirk's voice is like liquid gold. I feel like I've been transported into another world, of magic and beauty, and ...argh. I can't even explain. Her music is almost ethereal... I've not heard anything really like it before, and yet it's... familiar.

Merry Ellen reminds me in a strange way of fairly old singers, the song "Maybe Someday" in particular reminded me a bit of Ruby Murray in the sense that it has very pretty, very gentle lyrics and a soft melody. It's a very classic sound BUT that's just one song. There's so much variety,  yet it all fits together. If you listen closely, there are occasional hints of Kate Bush (if you're not a fan of Kate Bush, don't let that put you off. They really are only tiny hints - Kate Bush makes me want to rip my ears off, Merry Ellen makes me want to turn the volume up and drift away on her lyrics.)

If you want something mellow and beautiful to listen to, I'd suggest following the link above, and downloading. I realise this isn't the kind of music I usually talk about on this blog, but I'm willing to go out on a limb and praise the hell out of this EP because it's THAT good. And when I have listened to it a little bit more, I will try to gather my thoughts and write a proper review! 

The Fan vs. The Professional

So... I've been mulling this post over for a while. At least a week, maybe more. The reason I didn't post right away is because it's a little more personal than I tend to allow myself to be, especially on this blog. I want to keep this place fun, and happy and exciting, not drag it down with momentary insecurity. However, most of the thoughts have to do with what this blog is all about, or what I wanted it to be about when I started it. So... here we go!

The idea behind Word On The Street was to talk about entertainment news, shows, music and movies I like to think I'm fairly interesting. Quirky. Enthusiastic. BUT when I happen to be meeting people who are cooler than me, everything starts to go wrong.

It is HARD to balance being myself and my professional side. Because, yes, I do have a professional side! It's just that sometimes I feel like Su Pollard in Hi-De-Hi, chasing the dream of becoming a Yellowcoat but remaining the maid forever! (Very British Reference - have a Wikipedia link)

I once interviewed John Cho (the interview was another casualty of Yahoo's great article purge - I should republish it here sometime!) That actually happened. And the interview in reality was way longer but I had to trim it down to what was most important. The conversation we had was kind of epic, and I still have the recording, mostly to remind myself that I really did talk to John Cho! :p

And then there's the topic of tweeting celebrities. I try not to do that on my writing account because I don't want it to come off as too fangirly. But then, isn't the point of Twitter that you CAN tweet the people you like? Isn't that how connections are made? In "professional" mode - I tell myself not to do it. How can you be professional if you're geeking out over people? And how do other people view it? If you tweet the same person more than once, does it come off as desperate? In the past, it's happened. If I've tweeted someone more than once, I start to panic that it's too much. Too over-enthusiastic. In my head, tweeting someone twice feels like the equivalent of a non-anxious person tweeting someone 800 times.The truth is, though, when I look back at my entire feed - I tweet with my friends around 90% more than I tweet any celebrity. The balance is good.

I guess the main point of all this is to say... I'm not that cool. Not nearly as cool as all the other people who interview kickass people. I like cheesy pop, still listen to the occasional boyband,  and I remember all the moves to Macarena. But that's not all of who I am. Gimme full on headbanging, bouncing off the walls metal, and I'm there too. And serious stuff? Sure, I like to inject some humour into my work, but don't think I can't get out there and stand up for the things that matter. Occasional rambling aside - I'm pretty good at what I do. So, if I sometimes have a crazy, "OH MY GOD, THIS IS SO AWESOME" moment, or I over-tweet, or I stumble over my words, or giggle, or talk too much... that's because I have a lot of enthusiasm for the people I believe in. I want everyone to know. I want to spread the word with as many people as possible.

But when it comes to conducting interviews... I got it covered.

Introducing Slow Motion Riot!

Around three years ago (boy, I can't believe it's been that long!) I discovered the musical talents of Alberto Albis. I found him almost by accident, and he was kind enough to help out a new freelance writer (i.e me!) by letting me interview him. Three years later, we're still in touch and have had many, many conversations about many, many things - but mostly, it's been about music. Music is who he is. His passion to create is clear in everything he does, and most recently, he has embarked on a new project with the fantastic Erin Alden. Slow Motion Riot was born when two friends put their creative minds together to make something unique. Alberto very kindly agreed to answer some questions about how Slow Motion Riot came into existence - be sure to click the link at the end to hear their awesomeness! 

 Photo courtesy of Alberto Albis

Could you tell us a little bit more about yourself, and what you do?
My name is Alberto Albis and I am bass player/producer/composer/songwriter in LA. I’ve had the chance to work with a lot of great artists from all over the world. I started playing bass when I was very young, and just loved the sound and its job on a song. But it did not end there. I never wanted to be "just" a bass player. I love to be creative and little by little I started getting in to producing and writing and found out how much I loved it.

How long have you and Erin Alden known each other?
Erin and I met a long time ago during a gig maybe 2003. I was playing bass for Roy Ashen and she was also singing that night, I think she went on right before we played. But we reconnected again by pure coincidence. She was the one that remembered me.

How long ago did you decide to collaborate on this new project, and what made you decide to do it?
Well after I heard her material, I really liked what she was able to do, her voice and her writing skills. She had a lot of different types of tunes and I could see that she could be a good fit to try and do something different and creative with. So I approached her and she was open to try and do something.

You and Erin have quite different sounds individually. Was it easy to fuse your individual sounds together?
It happened very natural actually. The process was very interesting and we never bumped heads about what we wanted. It was very easy and I think that since we were having so much fun during the entire process of writing, it went very smoothly. But we did challenge ourselves a lot. When we found that something was not working we worked it hard until we got it and it happened a lot, which is normal. Going over lyrics and the music, we just followed our instincts and didn't leave anything mediocre. I guess I was also very confident about it too, I knew what I wanted to hear. And Erin is a hard worker and she can go for a long time to make things right. I am kinda crazy with ideas, she just enjoys me being crazy and she goes with it with the ideas. She follows direction really really well and she tries everything I suggest. She trusted me and I trusted her as well on what she could do...and we have great songs.

Did you both have separate roles within Slow Motion Riot? For example, did one of you write the lyrics while the other worked on the music? Or did you do everything together?
When I approached Erin, I was already working on a few ideas. I had a lot of musical ideas and some demos. So I sent her all of them to see what she liked and what grabbed her attention. I was not sure what we were going to come up with, but those demos were the first step. She liked them and she started to come up with melodies and some lyrics. We would get together a few times a week and polish all the ideas. As we worked, we started having more and more ideas and a better direction of what the sound was going to be. I was so happy when she told me that she has always wanted to work on a rock album that can totally kick butt and be edgy. I just smiled and I knew what to do. That is my thing! So for me I was in creative heaven, and she was open to any crazy ideas I had. All the songs except one, started with a demo that I already started. Then Erin would start writing lyrics. We both would review each other’s work and make changes if we needed to.
The song "Living on a Video" started with one of Erin's ideas, and we developed it. We tracked it and then as we defined more what we wanted, I had to change the verses completely and Erin re-did some of the lyrics so it would match the rest of the songs of the EP.

How many tracks have you recorded as Slow Motion Riot? And will there be more in the future?
We did five tracks. So far you can hear three of them on SoundCloud. Two more will be released soon and we really want to turn it in to an album. We have more songs.

Are you planning to release your tracks on iTunes?
Yes we will.

What is your favourite Slow Motion Riot track and why?
Tough question. But I think my favorite is "Losing My Mind". It is not released yet. It’s probably the darkest one, but also the deepest one. Everything about it I just love. The grooves, and the sounds. It has this deep groove with the bass, and synths, and this very James Bond mysterious guitar riff. It’s a very intense song. I remember when I came up with the idea of it, it all happened in less than an hour. While sipping some wine at home! I will never forget that day. I showed it to Erin and we started working on melody and lyrics at my place. It was one of the hardest ones emotionally, because we could relate so much to the lyrics and what we were going through in our lives at the moment. That song somehow defined us during the process of production. Erin's approach and how we were going to work on the rest of the songs.

Is there anything else you want to share about Slow Motion Riot?
HMMMMMM We just rock!!

Invention - Slow Motion Riot

I can confirm that Slow Motion Riot do, indeed, rock! If you want to know more about them, and be up to date with their latest releases, please check out their Facebook page for all the news!