A little bit late but finally here, new music from Chris Trapper, The Doobie Brothers, Lot's Wife, Envy of None, Kings & Pills, Ainsley Costello, The Antinomy Insurgency, Swervedriver, Florence + the Machine, Beach Youth, a reissue from Vazz and much more! Enjoy!
Sorry I forgot to publish this - it's been one hell of a few weeks. I moved, for the first time in 20 years. How did I wind up with so much shit?
I filled two industrial sized dumpsters with just trash and things I was getting rid of, and I'm still up to my eyeballs in boxes in the new house.
I used to live 8 blocks from the ocean. I now live ONE. Next time I move it's going to be to a Quonset hut sitting off a dock extending into the ocean. Like in The Maldives or something.
I will do my best to make the next Radio Free California a real doozy, but this delay brings me up to something that happened that jump-started my music career.
Four years ago this week I released a single called "He Takes a Knee". It was my third single of the year 2021 - while we were all in lockdown. The first got some play because it was part of a fundraiser/charity album, but the second one dropped like a stone in a river.
As you might recall, a lot of terrible happened aside from the pandemic. There was the murder of George Floyd. The murder of Brianna Taylor. Black Lives Matter. Say their names. The anniversary of the Murder of Emmit Till. And a football player in my adopted home town benched for properly protesting while respecting veterans.
A dear friend of mine and former writing partner back in the day sent me a few lines of lyrics about it all, inspired by all of this. I already had a piece of music that demanded some rage to go behind it, so I put the two of them together and put it out in the world. I commissioned a truly bizarre video, rapped for the first (and hopefully last) time. I'm not a very good rapper, but the lyrics were smart and I think that saves it.
I again unleashed it to an indifferent world. Then something remarkable happened.
A football (i.e. soccer for the Americans) player for Manchester United took a knee before a game. Boy, you've never seen football fans like British Football fans, especially for their beloved Man U. There was both outrage and support, and it got the press to talk about anything aside from COVID. A local radio station decided to do a theme show about the protest, and my song "He Takes A Knee" probably got found through a google search. However it happened, it wound up on the show.
All of a sudden I'm doing radio shows - interviews. The video gets thousands and thousands of views (the one for my previous single only had 70 at that point). Manchester radio plays it again, and again. It winds up on a mix-tape show. The replays on British radio dies down, but the match was lit.
I get nominated for best alternative artist by the Radio Music Awards. I won. I got nominated by the Indie Music Channel as best artist. I won. For the first time in over a decade I get a royalty check. It wasn't a big check, but I still got one!
Everything changed for the better for me, all while locked into my apartment. I met other musicians, a couple of which I've collaborated with. I released better songs, got more radio play, won a few more awards, but it was "He Takes a Knee" that really got me going. I don't think it's even the best song I did during that whole stretch - it was just in the right place at the right time.
I did my first "producer for hire" work in over 2 decades. This year two of those bands also won trophies at the Radio Music Awards. I've won another SEVEN.
All kinds of crazy, all because I put together a song about events so far outside of my control that even with my meager conribution the needle didn't move at all. But my own life got better.
I've always followed the advice of Porky Pine, from the comic strip Pogo all those years and years ago: Don't take life so serious: it ain't nohow permanent.
But when life is good enjoy it. Far too much out there is trying to actively take joy away from you. Preserve the joy you have, if you have it. It's kind of amazing how important that is.
Here's that crazy video and song that got the ball rolling. See ya Monday.
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