RECENT ARTICLES

Artist Thao Nguyen doesn’t mean to repeat herself, but she can’t help it. She’s happy. Or, more precisely, she’s relieved. Nguyen, who until quite recently fronted the project Thao & The Get Down Stay Down has since shed the extra words and is prepared to forge ahead as a musician under her own name. The change, which she posted about recently on social media, is both an essential subtraction and a symbol of larger shifts in Nguyen’s creative and personal life.

As much as any artist since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Nguyen has undergone new pages and chapters in her life, which have required deep self-investigation and public acknowledgment of her identity as a queer person. Nguyen married her wife in 2019. These aspects of identity are important to identify inwardly and outwardly. They are the threads of our personal tapestry. And this is what was on Nguyen’s mind as she reimagined the extra tracks on her new release, the deluxe edition of her acclaimed 2020 album, Temple, which is out today (October 29).

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Like many, Caneyville, Kentucky-born Elvie Shane grew up singing in church. But now, unlike many, Shane is singing around the world in front of thousands. The way Shane tells the story is that he was born on a Sunday and by the following week, his mother had him wrapped in a hymnal in a tiny church in his small hometown. But even before then, Shane was likely first introduced to music from the ‘90s country radio station in the car ride home from the hospital after he’d first arrived on earth.

Ever since, Shane has been singing hymns with his mother and listening to country music on the radio, especially on those occasions he’d join his dad, a professional mechanic, on jobs around the state. He remembers Steve Earle, Otis Redding, Dwight Yoakam. And it’s all this and more that binds the stories and songs on Shane’s newest LP, Backslider, which is out today (October 29).

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Drag has changed the world, especially recently. The centuries-old tradition has, of late, earned a significant number of eyeballs thanks to the surging popularity of the Emmy Award-winning television show RuPaul’s Drag Race. The program has made stars of dozens of drag queens since its inception in 2009. As such, the show has not only changed the world but it’s changed the lives of its annual crop of protagonists, many of whom have become globally known with millions of social media followers.

One of those famous drag queens is Alaska Thunderfuck (born Justin Andrew Honard), who distinguished herself on the show with elegant makeup, a regal persona, and wry humor. Now, though, Alaska is making a name for herself in new formats. She has a memoir out on November 9 and a new single, “Red,” out last month. The track portends both a new LP and music tour in 2022. Indeed, Alaska is involved in much, but it’s all sewn together by her love for the art of drag.

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Rahill Jamalifard, lead singer and co-founder of the New York-based band Habibi, finds it difficult to call herself a musician. While she most certainly is one, of course, the feeling is understandable.

At first, Jamalifard was brought into music by others. Initially by her parents (and father, especially) and then later by guitarist Lenaya “Lenny” Lynch. The two former Michiganders met in New York City and bonded over a shared love of music, exchanged numbers, and later co-founded Habibi together in the Big Apple. Jamalifard’s entry into participating in music began with a love of lyricism and storytelling. These days, her popular band is writing its own story, touring the country, and earning attention from prestigious media outlets. Now, Habibi is set to release a two-song, pandemic-inspired, hip-shaking EP this Friday (October 29).

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For some strange reason, it’s difficult for most people to appreciate the best things in life at the moment. It’s somehow easier for us to reminisce about them well after the fact, like, Oh, wasn’t it grand 10 years ago when we were traveling Europe together? Yet, it’s likely that a decade ago, that same speaker might have been worried about their sweaty clothes, a dwindling bank account, or the difficult job waiting back in the U.S. after the excursion abroad.

This phenomenon of appreciation is something that Dave Knudson, guitarist, and co-founder of the Seattle-born rock band, Minus the Bear, knows well. Knudson has lived it, and in a way, can now live it over and over again by listening to his band’s newest album, a forthcoming live compilation comprised of songs recorded in 2018 during Minus the Bear’s final tour together. The LP, Farewell, is set for release on Friday (October 29).

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Grammy-nominated songwriter and performer, Tori Amos, has learned much from fame over the years. Perhaps, first and foremost, she’s learned that it’s dangerous. But learning, itself has been integral to Amos’ life. In fact, it marks her life in each of its stages, from infancy when she heard her first songs to today as she readies herself for the release of her latest album, Ocean To Ocean, which is out Friday (October 29). For Amos, observation and practice have always been fundamental. Even when it feels difficult to do so, to undertake an examination of herself or the world at large. But that is exactly what Amos had to do to create her latest standout LP. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, she felt trapped, personally and spatially, so, Amos says, she wrote her way out of it.

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Seattle-based producer, Jake One (born Jake Dutton, aka “Snare Jordan“), is humble, the kind of guy to throw a hoodie on, stuff his hands in his pockets, and walk to the corner store for a bag of chips like any other fellow on the city boulevard. Yet, some of his closest friends and collaborators are Grammy Award-winners, platinum-selling musicians, and world-famous names. But Jake One doesn’t sweat all that. Flash isn’t his mission, it doesn’t stick to his attention. He cares about the next project and finding new, devastating inspiration.

In a way, he can trace it back to his school days. Back around 1991, he had a coveted Georgetown University Starter jacket. This was when the school’s basketball team was especially renowned with the likes of Alonzo Mourning. On the playground, he could feel his peers’ eyes on him, the heat of attention. So, the next day, he took it back to the store and exchanged it. Today, Jake One brings that same almost-anonymous comportment to his career, which has, nevertheless, garnered him millions of record sales and spins.

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Growing up, John Flansburgh, co-founder of the Grammy-winning alternative rock band They Might Be Giants, loved to tinker. He loved sound and he also loved new technology—rudimentary as it might have been, even at the time. For example, he loved listening to the radio in his parents’ car. He was “hypnotized” by Top 40 songs. As a kid, he also got into tape recorders and bought a three-inch reel-to-reel to play with sound. Later, his popular band became known for its “Dial-A-Song’ gimmick where They Might Be Giants recorded new songs and put them on an answering machine for people to call in to hear. Today, the band is continuously innovating, staying fresh. It’s part of their mission, evident by the group’s newest album and accompanying tome of the same name, BOOK, out October 29.

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When Richard Young, co-founder of the Kentucky Headhunters, was a boy, not even a teenager, he moved into his very own home. Along with his brother Fred and two cousins, Young lived in an old farmhouse that, at the time, felt like something of a clubhouse. But the boys didn’t waste the opportunity (and their parents weren’t far, living in a house nearby on the same plot). There, the boys played music, laughed, and farmed together. They were planting seeds, both literally and metaphorically, early on that would impact them the rest of their lives, which would later include a Grammy win and touring the globe. But one story in particular sticks out that sums up the origin of Young and his group, which has been going in some shape or another for 53 years, through today, with the release of the band’s newest LP, That’s a Fact Jack!. That story has to do with hard fieldwork.

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When artist and RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 11 winner Yvie Oddly has down time, she makes sure she doesn’t. Downtime isn’t really downtime, in this way. Instead, it’s just time to do or make something else.

When Oddly won the 2019 season (a truly coveted feat), she didn’t rest on her laurels, either. Instead, she went out and recorded a new album, Drag Trap, which she released a year ago (October 23, 2020). One might think that after achieving such a major milestone, there might be only parade floats and flower bouquets. But for Oddly, there was recording booths and turning lyric notes into full songs that would go on to earn millions of streams. Even today, as Oddly performs in a RuPaul’s Drag Race Las Vegas residency, she is working on creating and completing other projects when off-stage.

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For famed Spanish-born musician and entertainer Charo, music is much more akin to oxygen and water than it is to some petty piece of entertainment. Music is her lifeblood. The energetic performer says she meets new friends through it, she rejuvenates her energy by practicing and playing it, and she experiences beauty through it.

For Charo, the guitar, especially, is what thrills her. The instrument is of the people and she can make it truly sing. Charo, who boasts a shapely silhouette and who entertains with as much verve and enthusiasm as any, is also a truly world-class six-string master. She cares about technique as much as she does about her looks. It’s all part of the package, she’ll say. And all part of what she loves most to do: engage an audience and shine when doing so.

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With each decision we make, a new future unfolds. If you go left or right at the proverbial fork, a certain, particular road will unfurl before you. We are in charge of our futures, whether or not we’re clear-headed and cognizant of that in the moment. As such, it can require great effort to remain focused in each move, as you try and take your future by the reigns. This is true whether you’re navigating personal introspection or racing through a new video game level, trying to grab golden rings, or meet and get to know a new character.

Today, no one gets this better than the musician, mxmtoon (aka Maia), who recently finished writing music for a new choose-your-own-adventure-style video game, and is now set to dive back into her own brand of creative world-building.

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For Kristin Chenoweth, star of stage, screen, and recording studio, everything changed at seven years old when she asked herself one very important question: What would a bunny do? The query came when the young Chenoweth had a small role in the Tulsa, Oklahoma Ballet’s rendition of The Nutcracker. As a kid, she’d aspired to be a ballerina. In fact, it was in one of her early dance classes that she saw a piano, and mid-grand plié, decided music was to be her life’s work.

Around that time, Chenoweth auditioned for a role in The Nutcracker, and at first, thought she might win the role as a mouse in an important scene. But she was too small for the costume (even today, she stands at just 4’11”). So, the director gave her the role of the rabbit, a character who normally just sits in the background. Even at a young age, though, Chenoweth wanted more. She was inspired to act. So, sitting there during the show one day, she asked herself the question and just decided to get up and do exactly what a bunny would.

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