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Music + Poetry

Lapel Drives Social Movement Through Songwriting

Lapel Drives Social Movement Through Songwriting

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Debbie Neigher always had trouble expressing her feelings. Despite her parents’ careers in psychology, both she and her brother struggled with communication throughout their childhoods. Then, when she turned 13, Neigher started to write her own music. “My family wasn’t very open or communicative with our emotions,” says Neigher. “Songwriting has always been [...]
Day for Night Is What Every Festival Aspires to Be

Day for Night Is What Every Festival Aspires to Be

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Day for Night is everything you want out of a music, arts, cultural event—a culmination of the greatest minds in the creative realm. It's that magical space that happens when authentic gallery culture and intentional, considered curation challenge the financial requirements of conformity from a mainstream festival. Located in downtown Houston, the fes[...]
You'll fall in Love Love Love with this gloriously awkward music video

You'll fall in Love Love Love with this gloriously awkward music video

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Portuguese DJ Moullinex, aka Luis Clara Gomes, says he's never been a good dancer. "But I like to participate," he tells us. "That’s probably how I became a DJ." What does his latest music video, titled "Love Love Love", have to do with bad dancing? Plenty, actually. Part film clip and part social experiment, the concept was simple: a bunch of people r[...]
Collaboration Begs A Relationship With The Self

Collaboration Begs A Relationship With The Self

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It's no trade secret that collaboration bears the sweetest fruit. The obvious example of such perfectly ripened yield is the work of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, two brilliant musicians in their own rights, but magnitudes better when together. Compare just the second side of Magical Mystery Tour (host to classics like “Penny Lane,” “Strawberry Fields Fore[...]
The Fusion of Hip Hop and Jazz Inspires a New Sound: TrapJazz

The Fusion of Hip Hop and Jazz Inspires a New Sound: TrapJazz

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Jazz is an innovation of the African American community that originated in New Orleans, and emerged in the 20th century. It has continued to evolve with different sounds from Ragtime to Bebop to Smooth Jazz, and now new genres like TrapJazz and JazzHop. Both genres fuse together the sounds of hip hop and Jazz. TrapJazz specifically blends Jazz with the so[...]
The Fusion of Hip Hop and Jazz Inspires New Sound: JazzHop

The Fusion of Hip Hop and Jazz Inspires New Sound: JazzHop

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A trumpeter since the age of 7, La'Trice Murray has always been a musician.  “I started out on the piano taking lessons from my uncle. Then moved to percussion and the trumpet,” shared Murray. “Music has been my passion since a very early age.” Her love of music and life’s journey has helped her evolve into more than just a musician. La'Trice is an entrep[...]
7 Reasons To Go To Hardly Strictly Music Festival

7 Reasons To Go To Hardly Strictly Music Festival

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Fall has finally arrived in San Francisco and to ring in this cozy season is one of our favorite events, Hardly Strictly! If this is your first fall in the city, you cannot miss out on this weekend-long bluegrass festival. And if you're not in the Bay Area, this is definitely worth the drive. Almost five years since F. Warren Hellman’s passing, his philanth[...]
Open Mike Eagle: rap in satire

Open Mike Eagle: rap in satire

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Bringing Chicago flair to LA’s underground hip-hop scene, Open Mike Eagle oozes old school cool, with skater-street grunge. His latest release Dark Comedy, consists of 13 tracks of meticulously crafted comedic sketches, presenting rap that is refreshingly inspired from films and books rather than ego. With varied concepts, he leans towards introspection and [...]
Album Review: Yesway's Self-Tited LP

Album Review: Yesway's Self-Tited LP

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The spectres of folk music's past haunt Yesway's self-titled début album. While such a description might serve to paint these newly emergent songwriters as gothic miserablists, these spirits are very much benevolent ones, content to waft with a gleeful fervour out in the open air, before dissolving into dewy embers with the morning's first light. Sounds floa[...]
The Good, The Bad, The Inauthentic: Music of The Midwest-Folk Broken Down

The Good, The Bad, The Inauthentic: Music of The Midwest-Folk Broken Down

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I'm British, and as such I'm interested in how, with the aid of the net, traditions from overseas have spread and converged with this small island I call home. Halloween is a good example – instead of dressing up as bed-sheet ghouls or plastic vampires, such as we were formerly accustomed to, we now dress up as Kim Kardashian, or Highway 61-era Dylan; such h[...]