Tag: Moby

INTERVIEW + PREMIERE: Maria Taylor of Flower Moon Records

Sometimes a new record has a familiarity to it that feels like curling up under a warm blanket. Flower Moon Records Compilation Friends and Family Vol 1 puts a listener at ease; its laid-back cadence urges you to close your eyes and relax. These are old friends reintroducing themselves.

Dead Fingers’ “Whistling Song” stands out as the kind of nouveau standard that requires a google search to make sure it isn’t a cover, though with graceful lines like “Life is a series of ups and downs / overs and unders and round and round / I think I’m gonna make it to the down down down / Eventually I’ll find a way out” it’s certainly a YouTube ukulele video in the making. It makes sense that the album features artists who have worked together and identify as friends in the music world; the collaboration is effortless, straightforward, well tuned.

We sat down with Flower Moon Records co-founder and musician Maria Taylor (of Azure Ray) to talk about the album’s genesis, what it’s like to run a record label, and how she balances music & parenthood:

AF: You were 15 years old when you and Orenda Fink founded Little Red Rocket. What were your earliest songs written about?

MT: Our very first song was called “Follow You For Now” but we named it that because we had huge crushes on these guys in this band Follow For Now. The lyrics to our song was “Wherever you go, I’ll follow you, follow you for now. I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing it for me… I’ll follow you…for now” They were mostly about love but we also had some of our friends who were poets write poems and we would put them to music.

AF: Your career is full of collaborations, whether it’s with Orenda, Moby, or Bright Eyes. Do you find yourself looking for artists you’d like to work with or is is it more organic than that?

MT: It’s more organic. Mostly it’s that my friendships play such a huge role in my life and through our friendships we collaborate on music.

AF: Flower Moon Records was founded by you and your husband Ryan Dwyer, who is with us for this interview. What was the catalyst for creating your own record label?

MT: I had been thinking of doing this for some time now, but I knew that I couldn’t do it alone. Ryan is (among many things) a businessman, and I knew that with my understanding of the industry and my connection and his business skills… we could do it.

RD: For me it was a few reasons. One is that I’ve always been a fan of music (especially the bands that are featured on the Friends and Family Vol 1 compilation) and I’ve always loved the idea of working at or running a record label. I was in bands when I was in high school, but my career took me into politics and public relations – which leads into the second reason. From an outsider looking in at the music industry – especially now, how it’s changed so much and the uncertainty around where it’s going – I wanted to bring what I learned in those fields and apply it to a label.

AF: How do you both find artists for Flower Moon? Is it through submissions?

MT: At this point it’s just literally our good friends and family. We’ll see how the label grows. Ryan is already the busiest guy I know, so he pretty much can only focus on one release at a time. We started out only planning on releasing my music, but then we heard my friend Louis Schefano’s record and decided we just had to release that too. And now Azure Ray is planning on releasing something in the future.  And my sister and brother-in-law have a band called Dead Fingers which we will be releasing too! With these releases, plus the compilation, makes our hands super full of love and music.

AF: You have two children together. I know this is a tired question, but as an impending mother myself, how do you balance running a label, being an artist, parenthood, and finding time for yourselves as a couple?

MT: It’s hard balancing it, I’m not going to lie. Ryan is better at multitasking than I am. I try to find a little time in the day to sit and write, but I find that it takes an hour just to clear my head of the chaos and then my time is up and I’ve gotten nothing accomplished. I’m also exhausted at night and I fall asleep when I used to stay up writing. So – it’s possible to balance, but it’s hard and I’m still trying to get the hang of it. I have taken my kids on a few tours and I’m lucky to have a husband who can work from wherever and a mom who is retired and loves to travel. Ryan is a machine. He’ll read to the kids and then watch a movie with me while making band posters and Instagram posts. He’s always doing five things at once and doing them well. And as for us as a couple, we try to do a date night at least every couple of weeks. And I try to stay awake for our “Homeland date” every Sunday night.

AF: When did the idea of creating a compilation record start?

MT: Ryan and I both love our playlists. We love having parties and we spend so much time getting all of our favorite songs together to create the mood. This compilation is just that: a bunch of our favorite artists together on an awesome double colored vinyl. These artists also happen to be our greatest friends and family! Now that we did it, I can’t wait for Volume 2! I honestly have listened to the comp so many times and I love all the songs. It’s such a great way for us to all get exposure and build something together.

AF: What was the compilation process like? Are most of the songs previously released or were some written especially for this project?

MT: Lots of the artists had these songs previously recorded. Some friends gave us a few options and we picked the song we liked the best. As for me, I wrote something specifically for the compilation. I liked the idea that I could have a little more freedom to do things differently since it was for a compilation and not a full length album. I didn’t edit the song… I just let all six minutes roll on by and the F bomb roll right off of my tongue. None of the songs have been previously released, that was the only thing we asked for.

AF: This album covers a lot of topics, including rebirth and living in the era of Trump. Was there an overarching theme or feel you were looking for?

MT: No, we weren’t looking for a theme, but I think we are all living through these crazy times together so it would make sense that there is a common thread or theme.

Flower Moon Friends & Family Volume 1 is officially out TOMORROW on Flower Moon Records. It features 16 new and unreleased tracks from Louis Schefano, Whispertown, Dead Fingers, Doctor Samurai and the Firekeepers, ghosts, Nik Freitas, High Up, Orenda Fink, Maria Taylor, Umm, Taylor Hollingsworth, Jake Bellows, Viva Violet, Ryan Dwyer, Brad Armstrong, and Mike Bloom. Order it here.

NEWS ROUNDUP: LGBTQ Love Songs, Cardi B & More

NEWS ROUNDUP: Gender Bending Love Songs, Cardi B & More

By Jasmine Williams

Wedding Dances For All!

What do Bob Dylan, Kesha, St. Vincent, Kele Okereke, Ben Gibbard, and Valerie June have in common? All six musicians contributed gender-reversed cover songs to a new EP called Universal Love. In the goal of providing wedding ditties for the LGBTQ community, the compilation reimagines love songs so that they feature same-sex objects of desires. Dylan substitutes she for he in “He’s Funny that Way” while Kesha, an ordained minister who has married two gay couples, transforms a song by her idol, Janis Joplin. Listen to “I Need A Woman To Love” below.

Cardi B’s New Album Drops

Cardi B was the undisputed break-out star of last year Her meteoric rise to the top was the result of a perfect storm of millenial money moves – a reality tv show, a massive Instagram following, a lack of filters (during a red carpet interview she told Guiliana Rancic that she had butterflies in her stomach and vagina), the ability to make everything seem candidly cute (even gang spelling substitutions), and of course, sick verses. Most importantly, she’s become the figurehead of a new feminist archetype: the bad bitch.

Today, the reigning queen of hip-hop is back with a new album. Invasion of Privacy is out now and despite many months of rumors and fake-outs, the LP’s release early this morning still managed to surprise fans – songs featuring her fellow slighted Grammy nominee, SZA, and Chance the Rapper are welcome, if unexpected, additions to massive hits like “Cartier Bardi” and “Bodak Yellow.”

Cardi will make cable history on Monday when she hosts The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. It will be the first time that the television staple features two MCs.

New This Week

The ladies own this week’s new releases! Audiofemme favorites, Zola Jesus, Tart, and Kim Anderson all delivered today. Earlier this week Zola debuted a new video in anticipation of today’s release of bonus and remix album, Okovi: Additions. Listen to Tart’s new track, “Like Lovers Do,” and check out Ashley Prillaman’s interview with Anderson on her debut album, Yarrow.

Azealia Banks debuted “Anna Wintour,” the first complete song off of her long-awaited album Fantasia II. We also heard new tracks from Washed Out, Rae Sremmurd, and A$AP Rocky this week. A$AP’s offering is a new “collaboration” with Moby. The techno pioneer doesn’t contribute anything new for the song “A$AP Forever,” but his late nineties hit “Porcelain” is sampled. Perhaps the credit marks a shift in the song-writing industry – “Blurred Lines,” anyone?

Coming Soon

With exciting announcements coming from various ends of the music spectrum, this week proves to be an exercise in delayed gratification. Live From Here, the variety show formerly know as A Prairie Home Companion, comes to NYC for three Town Hall Shows later this month, featuring Sufjan Stevens, Janeane Garofalo, Courtney Barnett, Neko Case, Father John Misty and more.

Sonic Youth legend Kim Gordon revealed the July 13th release date for Body/Head’s upcoming album.

The Coathangers, The Get Up Kids, and Arctic Monkeys also joined the promo parade this week: The Coathangers’ upcoming album LIVE condenses two nights of refreshingly raucous rock into one electric LP and is out June 1st; after a 7-year hiatus, The Get Up Kids debuted the first single, “Maybe,” from new EP The Kicker, out June 8th; coming off of a slightly shorter break, Arctic Monkeys spilled the details on their new album Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, which is out May 11th and is the band’s first album in five years.

Last but not least, the indomitable Grace Jones gets the documentary treatment next week. For Bloodlight and Bami, director Sophie Fiennes was granted intimate access to Jones’ life and even trailed the boundary-pushing performer on a trip to her native Jamaica. You can watch the doc on April 13th.

A couple of days later, score tickets to see more music legends on the big screen. The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine will be back in theaters in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the film.

But for those who can’t wait for their next music film fix, Flatbush Zombies and The Shins both premiered long music videos this week. For even more clips, check out Desdemona Dallas’ column for Audiofemme, Video of the Week.

ONLY NOISE: With A Bullet


Last week, after publishing “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town,” I took the train across the East River to see a movie. A bit of distraction seemed necessary in that moment, even if it was in the form of a demonic clown named Pennywise. Sitting on the Manhattan-bound C train, I noticed a man in a grey flannel suit to my left. He, like most modern passengers, was fixated on his smart phone. The glow of its screen did not reflect Candy Crush, Snapchat, or Instagram, however, but a P.O.V. shooter game. The tap of his thumb did not cause hearts of affirmation to burst with confetti, but rather, launched bullets from a high-power rifle, bumping off “bad guys” one by one. I watched as my well-dressed neighbor selected guns, tightened his scope, and fired and rooftop gunmen.

At that moment, it had only been four days since the mass murder of festival goers in Las Vegas, and seeing any gun, whether real, toy, or two-dimensional gave me a swift kick of nausea. It goes without saying that the events that plagued Las Vegas on October 1st still plague us today, and will continue to do so – and it is because of that lasting sickness I write on this topic again.

There were a lot of things that didn’t make the final draft of last week’s Only Noise, in part because I felt there was a hierarchy of importance with certain details – namely pointing out the arcane excuses for assault rifle-ownership in America. What I did not have the word count to include, were profiles on the scores of musicians who have had the guts to protest groups like the N.R.A., and ideologies which uphold the mass armament of US citizens with little to no discernment.

Artists like Harry Nilsson, who, after his best friend John Lennon was murdered by a crazed fan with a .38 revolver, became the official spokesperson for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV). In 1981, a year following Lennon’s death, Nilsson told the L.A. Times, “I’ve never been an activist before, but when I was one of the people who had to hold Ringo’s hand after John Lennon was shot, I became involved. I said to Ringo one night just after the shooting, ‘If I could take this from you, I would. But I can’t.’ I was helpless, and that was the worst time in the world for me.” Nilsson’s life work became twofold: music, and gun control. Eventually he became National Chairman of a campaign called End Handgun Violence Week, which ran between October 25th and October 31st in the early 1980s.

247 people have been fatally shot in this country in the 10 days since the Route 91 Harvest Festival. Perhaps the CSGV could bring back End Handgun Violence Week, although the public faces far more frightening weaponry than just handguns these days.

Despite her recent op-ed in The New York Times, Roseanne Cash is no rookie to the gun control debate. Her activism traces back twenty years. She spoke out in 2015, when a gunman at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon killed nine people. This tragedy coincidentally occurred on the first of October as well – two years to the day before Stephen Paddock wreaked death on Las Vegas. The day after the 2015 attack, Cash urged citizens to sign a petition to reinstate the 1994 federal ban on assault weapons. “If you are as sick of gun violence in this country as I am,” the country artist wrote on her Facebook page, “then let’s stop talking about it and just do ONE simple thing.”

Unfortunately, this ONE simple thing has not appeared so simple to lawmakers. The 1994 assault weapon ban was never reinstated. Assault weapon opposition does continue to grow, however, especially after so many lives were lost at the Route 91 Harvest Festival. Guitarist Caleb Keeter of Josh Abbott Band was one of the first country musicians to completely alter his stance on gun ownership in this country, after the massacre in Las Vegas (he was at the festival when the shooting occurred). “I’ve been a proponent of the 2nd amendment my entire life,” Keeter wrote on Twitter the day following the shooting. “Until the events of last night. I cannot express how wrong I was.” He added, “We need gun control RIGHT. NOW.”

Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a long list of country musicians who have done a 180 on their firearms position since the massacre – but a few do seem to be distancing themselves from the NRA. On October 2nd, the artist roster on the website for NRA Country (an organization linking upcoming country artists with the NRA brand and lifestyle) shrunk from 39 names to 37 – the slots for Florida Georgia Line and Rhett Miller had suddenly vanished.

Of course, more opposition has come from musicians outside of the country bubble. Artists like Lady Gaga, John Mayer, The Chainsmokers, and Vic Mensa have all spoken out on social media, demanding gun control. Ariana Grande, who has seen her fair share of concert-targeted violence, tweeted, “My heart is breaking for Las Vegas. We need love, unity, peace, gun control & for people to look at this & call this what it is = terrorism.”

Moby posted a meme on his Instagram reading, “MAKE IT STOP” above an assault rifle graphic. Below it, the artist wrote, “How many more mass shootings will it take? How many more lives ended? How many more families destroyed? We need sane, rational, sensible #guncontrolnow. The @nationalrifleassociation and every Republican who opposes gun control has so much blood on their hands. Mass shootings are evil, passing legislation that enables them to happen even more so.”

One can only hope that players in the country music scene – the scene most affiliated with the NRA and gun ownership – will eventually put aside the political demographics of their fan base and speak out. Perhaps country artist Will Hoge put it best when he spoke to Marissa Moss for Politico Magazine:

“Will this be the thing where all of a sudden every conservative artist comes out and supports gun control? That’s an unrealistic idea,” he said. “I do think this is the point where country artists are going to have to take long hard looks in the mirror and ask, ‘What’s more important to me: maintaining success at commercial radio, or doing what’s right?’”

I hope there are plenty of mirrors in Nashville.

NEWS ROUNDUP: Prince, The Grammys & More

  • Prince’s Music Is Now Streaming

    It’s something that was impossible just a week ago: As I write this, I’m listening to Around The World In A Day on Spotify. Prince’s music was formerly streaming only on Tidal, but his estate sued to release it on other streaming services starting last Sunday. On one hand, it’s nice to have easy access to such an iconic artist. But on the other, Prince was notorious for maintaining complete control over how his music was released and distributed as well as made, so it’s hard not to wonder what he’d think of all this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p1HFGT9SNw&feature=youtu.be