Yesterday was the first official day of Spring, or so I’m told. It rained last night, but today is nice and sunny, if a bit crisp. Still, the garden really seem to love the weather. I mentioned on the podcast how green the patch surrounding old Babik Nurn is. Here’s a photo for you!
The white heliotrope is looking great, and all the bulbs are starting to flower, plus forget-me-nots are really sprouting up everywhere! Guess that shovel is coming in handy for our little gnome friend.
Anji expresses regret at not making this a St. Patrick’s day episode, alas! Ryan and Anji discuss next weekend’s Lovespirals show in Mexico including their new setlist, how new songs always seem like the most fun to perform, working with Noize Kontrol for distribution in Mexico, share some fan mail, make that announcement Anji has been promising, and more!
Ryan and I been working on our new live set the past week or two. It’s quite a bit different from our last tour! We did one show last year with The Flir, so we had worked up a few songs from Free and Easy and our cover of Floyd’s “Cymbaline.” Now we’ve added 2 of our brand new, unreleased, songs to the set. We’ve also been testing out an old LSD tune to play acoustic, rather than the version of “Ring” we did in 2002. It’s cool to have so many more tracks to choose from when we play! Now we can actually have a few extra tunes tucked away for encores, if we need them. The first time we went to Mexico, we only had one album out and no extra tunes for encores. I ended up doing an acapella Billie Holiday song at one gig, and an acapella LSD song at another. This time we’ll actually be prepared. Should be cool.
March 13, 2006: Music Tap by Matt Rowe
“Honey and Cool Jazz ‘n’ Rock: An interview with Ryan Lum and Anji Bee of Lovespirals”
Matt: Ryan – Anji’s voice is hauntingly memorable; her voice sticks in my mind long after I heard the songs. Are you as hypnotized by her ability to mesh with your vision of how Lovespirals songs should be communicated as we are hearing it?
Ryan: Yeah, it’s surprising how her voice just fits perfectly. I’m very lucky. Her voice has been as important as anything in the evolution of our music together.
Matt: Anji, obviously you are an excellent fit with Lovespirals. The forward progression of the band incorporates you better than many bands undergoing a shift in style. How do you feel your involvement with Lovespirals changes the band? Have you brought your own influences into the structure of the band’s musical vision?
Anji: It would be impossible for me not to bring my own influences into the band, since we are a collaborative team. I think I bring an earthier element to the music. My vocals are very lyrically based, as opposed to Suzanne’s more non-verbal stylings, and my sound is more soulful compared to her purely ethereal sound.
Continue reading Music Tap interview with Ryan & Anji of LovespiralsHow odd! I just finished reading a book about George Antheil yesterday, only to see on Yahoo! News that his “Ballet Mecanique” is about to be performed – with the 16 baby grand pianos and various percussion mechanically controlled, as he originally wished. But the nutty composer called for a 152bpm performance, whereas — apparently — pianos can only be played at 138bpm by machine, and 120 by humans. Interesting…
Sheldon T. Nunn reviews Free & Easy
Lovespirals’ latest CD entitled, Free & Easy, continues a formula that has made the duo a recognizable force in smooth jazz arenas; however, much of their music cannot be classified under one umbrella or style. Collectively, Ryan and Anji can be surprisingly creative and inventive, especially on this latest release. One of the more promising components of Free & Easy is that is commercially viable. On previous efforts, Lovespirals have taken an eclectic approach to jazz, which has often left them lacking widespread appeal. Historically, they have drawn upon world, house, light and airy music to make their presence known, which has created a highly evolved level of crossover appeal.
With Ryan serving up a heaping helping of guitar, keyboards, bass, percussion and programming, Anji takes on the tasks of vocals and vocal arrangements. As independent artists and without the support of a major record label, the two have recorded Free & Easy on their own Chillcuts Label, which has given them the freedom and flexibility to be more adventuresome and creative.
Free & Easy is an album that pushes the envelope of enthused imaginative thought processes. Tracks such as “Trouble” and “Deep In My Soul” provide a dance feel, while a more laid back appeal occurs on tracks that include “Walk Away” and “Love Survives.” In the end, what comes together are nine tracks of nicely-crafted music. Anji and Ryan cover the gamut of pop melodies, R&B infused grooves as well as pop-oriented licks to make Free & Easy a good bet to chart on Internet radio stations, which is where much of Lovespirals’ popularity resides. Given a broader range of discovery commercially, Anji Bee and Ryan Lum are sure to not only surprise listeners, they will generate a cadre of new fans.
We’ve been getting slammed by spammers in our blog comments lately. It’s been going on for awhile actually, but recently it has increased so much that it isn’t worth fighting anymore. Once more time is being spent trying to squelch blog comment spam than actually blogging, there is a problem. So we have disabled commenting for the time being. Sorry.
Last night we saw the movie Rashomon, director Kurosawa’s 1950 masterpiece. Damn that was good. Another one of those gems that has sneaked past me up until now. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who’s into movies that are a little different from the Hollywood mold, from then or now.
Lovespirals will play on Saturday, March 25th, 2006 at Club Dada X in Mexico City, at 9 pm. The first show in support of their new album, Free & Easy – distributed in Mexico by Noise Kontrol – will also commemorate the club’s 7th anniversary. Anji and Ryan will perform a 1 hour set of songs from both albums, highlighting their soft, soulful, jazz and blues influenced material. The band will be available to autograph CDs after their set. CDs will be on sale at the event.
After finishing up the podcast yesterday, we started recording another new song. We had starting writing this one a few weeks (months?) ago, before the mixer blew… Anyway, it’s always so fun to be working on new music. We’re constantly evolving and finding new ways to express ourselves. Got to be one of the best feelings in the world!
Ryan and Anji start off the show with a whole new vibe! Lovespirals mixer is back in action, thanks to Digitron, so the band could finish up their pink Floyd cover. The duo talk about booking some shows and preparing a new live set incorporating songs from both Lovespirals albums. They also talk about seeing Robert Cray perform, the delay in Anji’s new podcast launching, and more. They close out the show with “Welcome to the Machine,” from the upcoming Neptune Pink Floyd compilation.
Man, Robert Cray was SMOKIN’ HOT last night. He is like 100 times better in person than on record. Ryan and I were standing right in front of him, getting his monitor feed really loud in the mix so we could hear his guitar and vocals much louder than the keys and rhythm. Holy crap is that man talented. Not a stinker note in the whole set. Not only was his guitar totally fucking amazing, but his vocals were perfect, as well. He has such control, I was in awe. And such presence. I almost burst into tears after the first or second song, it was so beautiful. Wow.
Now the crowd was a whole other story… I really wanted to pop this one guy in the face, he was so fucking rude and annoying the entire set. He was some dufus named “Dave” who apparently is on vacation from Jersey and has spent the last few days at Disneyland. He told these women he was trying to pick up on next to me that he “was all Mickey’d out” hence, he mosied over to the House of Blues for a change of scenery. I know a lot more about his trip, since he kept talking the whole time, only stopping to yell “Woo!” during solos and “Thank YOU!” between songs. Finally, during the encore performance of “Time Takes Two” – which I’d been looking forward to all night – I said “Shut up!” and flipped Dave off to his face, but he was so stupid and drunk, he didn’t seem to notice. The chick he was talking to left, though, so that helped. But then some gross guy in a sparkly red Ruby’s Costume type shirt and a super gross lady in a cheap flame patterned polyester dress lurched over and started dry humping up against me. I pushed the guy’s back away from me, but he didn’t move, so I started elbowing him and kicking his foot, but that just seemed to excite him or something. I had to retreat backwards a foot and move to the other side of Ryan, but by then, my song was over…
Anyway, all the dufi in the world can’t take away the magical feeling songs like “Who’s Been Talking,” “Poor Johnny,” “That Ain’t Love,” “Twenty,” and (the unexpected) “12 Year Old Boy” gave me.
