Category: Interviews

New classes teach lyrical approach to penning songs

Taylor

By Joanna Horowitz

Seattle Times staff reporter

There is a giant board on the north side of the Songcraft room, one of Experience Music Project’s newest exhibits. Words haphazardly cover the surface like a blown-up version of the magnetic poetry seen on dorm-room fridges all over the country.

The mission here: Make lyrics from the jumble. Visitors have left snapshots of songs, “I got a light in a deep well/it’s about to deny me of longer soul” or “Rock away the tears.”

If these are the start of a great new song, who knows, but what’s good or bad is subjective, said Jon Auer, former frontman of The Posies. Auer, along with Seattle musicians Sean Nelson of Harvey Danger and Christy McWilson from country-rock band The Picketts, will teach part of a six-month EMP/University of Washington songwriting-certificate program, which starts in October.

Anyone who can play an instrument well enough to record a song, UW student or not, can apply for the program.

“There’s really no one correct way to do anything,” Auer said. “All I can really hope is they’ll find something in there that is of use to them.”

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‘Get ready for music galore at the shore’

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New KS interview in the Delaware Beachcomber.

REHOBOTH BEACH — Multi-instrumentalist Ken Stringfellow has a busy, busy schedule these days.

The co-leader of Seattle powerpop band the Posies, who will play songs from his third solo album at a free concert at Dogfish Head on Wednesday, is also a member of the reconstituted Big Star. Oh, and he’s also been the regular touring keyboardist for alt-icons R.E.M. for nearly a decade.

So which of these four projects is his priority?

“I don’t know what it says about me, but everything’s a priority,” said Stringfellow, calling from a cellphone while trying to navigate the Massachussetts Turnpike on Wednesday. He was en route to Boston after having played two shows in one day in New York City Tuesday.

“That’s kind of the vibe,” Stringfellow said. “There’s never just a show at night. In the daytime I’m either doing press or a radio show or an in-store (record store appearance).”

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‘Working out’

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By Jim Sullivan

Boston Globe Staff

Ken Stringfellow is a very busy man. He just released a gorgeous solo disc, “Soft Command.” He’s been recording with three bands he plays in — R.E.M., Big Star, and the Posies — and tonight he brings a solo tour to the Middle East Upstairs. “I was having some anxiety about having too much of a good thing,” Stringfellow says from his Seattle home. “I’ve never had so much stuff working out so well.” Stringfellow’s music often has a lush, layered, Brian Wilson-like quality. The singer-guitarist-pianist admits to some sentimentality in song, but adds that “it’s sincerity that I like in art forms. . . .What I can’t relate to is mainstream pop music where the emotional content is so fake. That, to me, seems really sinister. . . . The importance of music is clear: It’s communication that makes the world a little closer. At the same time, a musician’s self-importance is something you can debate. My mission is to make people feel better rather than worse. My music isn’t angst-y — that is just not me. I’m here to give something comforting and humanistic.” Opening the 18-plus show: Jesse Sykes and Phil Wandscher and Jabe. Starts at 9, tickets $9.472 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, 617-864-3278.

Big Star feature in this month’s Mix Magazie

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Down in the Delta

The Heart and Soul of Memphis Recording

By Rick Clark

Memphis is a town of contradictions, a seemingly illogical place where nothing seems to happen and a lot of things are happening at once. More than a million people live in the area, yet it feels like no one’s in a hurry and they’ll arrive in their own time.

The music that has come out of the River City has in many ways changed the world, thanks to iconoclasts, renegades and dreamers such as Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, Estelle Axton and Jim Stewart, who started Stax Records (Isaac Hayes, Sam and Dave, Otis Redding), Willie Mitchell and his Hi Records label (Al Green), Quinton Claunch of Goldwax (O.V. Wright, The Ovations) and John Fry of Ardent (Big Star, Cargoe). So much important music has come out of Memphis that it is easy to overlook fresh, new homegrown talent such as the North Mississippi Allstars, hard-rockers Saliva and hip hop act Three 6 Mafia…

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Ken on the SXSW performance

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“This is the show where I debuted much of the Soft Commands material. It was an emotional night. This year at SXSW, I was doing it all hours, full speed,” Ken says.

“The Posies played electric and acoustic sets, Big Star performed and I played several solo sets plus accompanied Robyn Hitchcock (twice) and John Roderick from the Long Winters.

“I was influenced by my fatigue and by wherever I was in my life at that point. Anyway, somehow, when I played these songs, I had a lot to release, and many mysterious and deep sentiments were attached to the erformances, hopping on as stowaways, making it sometimes difficult to proceed without being overwhelmed, but all in all it was an intense set.”

from murmurs.com