I like going to garage sales and digging through thrift stores. I take pride in the way I cook a steak and the fact that there is nothing I can't fix. I'd rather play chess and listen to records than go out to a nightclub. Thin crust over deep dish. Pizza over everything.

Scuba diver. Skateboarder. Musician. Friend. Father.

”. BEIN A PRODUCER IS  A THIN LINE  BETWEEN MAKIN MUSIC U FEEL AND WHAT THE WORLD WANTS TO HEAR....WITH  ME,  I THINK ITS JUST A COMFORT LEVEL . IM FROM LOS ANGELES, SO IM MORE LAID BACK WITH MY BEATS. I LIVE IN TEXAS NOW AND THE SOUTHERN MUSIC IS MORE UPTEMPO... I PLAY BEATS FOR ARTISTS AND THEYRE LIKE "WHERES THE CRUNK” ? and im like i dont make crunk beats cause thats not what inspires me......but if u want to appeal to those type of artists u must be willing adapt to the genre.

The first song Angelina Moysov wrote is about a little girl standing at a window watching the moon cry tears of blood. The moon is saddened by the way humans treat one another. Moysov was 13 when she penned the song, living in her hometown of Pyatigorsk, Russia, under a perpetually pale sky.

The porcelain-skinned Russky’s prose continued to blossom from there. When accomplished guitarist Tom Ayres got a taste – shortly after Moysov moved to the States – Persephone’s Bees took flight.


Trying to confine the Oakland-based quartet to a specific genre is a lost cause. Persephone’s is more like an elephant-sized beehive stuffed with Russ Meyers’ Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy, the poetry of Osip Mandelstam (“Persephone’s Bees” is a phrase from one of his works) and most importantly, life experience.

Moysov finds muses in everything she experiences and at some point, it overflows into her songwriting.

“I can never force myself to write a song,” Moysov says. “I need inspiration; I have to read, watch my favorite movies, look at art and the people around me. When someone asks me what kind of music we play I always say, ‘It’s everything,’ or ‘It’s music.’”

One book that inspired a new song was The Master and Margarita (also the title of the song and Mick Jagger’s inspiration for “Sympathy for the Devil”) by Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov.

Persephone’s released their first album City of Love in 2002, but the world took notice in 2005 after they signed to Columbia Records and released their second album, Notes from the Underworld. Some of the songs from the album have been featured in commercials, video games and even on The Sopranos.

“Home,” the tune featured on the Jersey mobster series, is the last song on the L.P. and a perfect match for a series about misunderstood criminals. Ayres’ guitar begins with a placid wah, like soft footsteps in a forest, before it builds into the bat-out-of-hell chorus: “When I left you, when I left him, when I left her, I left myself.”

Moysov’s explanation of the song’s lyrics: “It’s hard leaving the people you love, but it’s very liberating – like a little leaf that fell from a tree. You’re all alone.”

The first song on the album, “Way to your Heart,” is a mesh of gypsy-prog-psychedelia that’s like a conversation between Ayres and Moysov. Ayres brings crunchily distorted Thin Lizzy riffs, and Moysov answers with playful jabs on the keys and taunting vocals. “In the morning when I wake up, I think about how I can get you tonight.”

“Way to Your Heart” is proof that Moysov and Ayres are both strong forces – and without one, the group just wouldn’t work.

Persephone’s Bees continues to prevail even after leaving Columbia Records: Its third album "New In Berlin". Without the lavish, big studio production, Ayres and Moysov were tasked with the intricate process, but Moysov says she cannot be happier with the outcome.

“New In Berlin is a lot more philosophical,” she says. “It’s more of the way I see Persephone’s Bees in my mind.”


When an American student vanishes into thin air, no one seems to notice, or even care. Is she on the run? Has she been kidnapped? Or is something more sinister, even paranormal, at play? Ignored by the police, shrugged off by neighbours, it falls to one man, a friend she knew online, to track her down.

"There's lots to really love in these!" - Editor, British Comedy Guide 

Simeon Courtie and Hal Stewart won a New York Festival Radio Award for their comedy, much of which is at soundcloud.com/serialbox


Matt Woosey’s time is now. His eighth studio album, Desiderata, captures the most daring and progressive music of his career. His acclaimed solo shows dart between folk, roots, ambient and electronica. He’s an artist who slips the creative straightjacket of the modern industry, a trailblazer with no reverse gear, a performer who drags the acoustic guitar kicking and screaming into fresh relevance. “You’ve got to keep progressing,” says the Malvern-based singer-songwriter. “Like John Martyn. Like Robert Plant. Like Radiohead…”
Tipped by tastemakers from BBC Radio to Classic Rock, and braced for a headline tour across Britain and beyond, 2016 finds Matt looking to the future. Yet all the best artists come with a backstory, and it’s fair to say that Desiderata could never have been made were it not for a formative early career that took in passion, hardship and redemption. “If I’d become an overnight success,” notes Matt, “I’d probably be addicted to some horrible drugs by now. It’s like anything. You have to do an apprenticeship. You have to grow.”  
Rewind to the late-’90s, then, and as the son of forces parents stationed in Germany, Matt found himself packed off to a Bristol boarding school with a rudimentary cassette player and a stack of dubious tapes. He had little use for ABBA and Simply Red, but was spellbound by the souped-up, shape-shifting power-blues of Led Zeppelin’s debut album and II. “That’s when I fell in love with music,” he says. “When I knew it would be part of my life.”
That early taste for Led Zeppelin quickly spilled over into blues-rock heavyweights like Rory Gallagher, Paul Kossoff and Peter Green, with Tim Buckley and John Martyn also mixed into the palette (“I always loved the way they used their voices as an instrument”). Soon, passive enjoyment alone no longer enough scratched the itch, and Matt duly pinballed through a string of local bands that included a Thin Lizzy covers outfit. “I had guitar lessons at school on nylon-string acoustic,” he recalls. “I played electric guitar in other people’s bands, and did a few backing vocals. Then I started writing my own material and singing, going out on my own to open-mics and folk clubs.”
Out of the blocks, Matt created alchemy with the bare minimum of equipment, needing little more than his neck-tingling voicebox and fluid acoustic guitar chops to tame a drunk mob or command a transient crowd. “When I listen to Stevie Ray Vaughan, Rory Gallagher or Roy Buchanan play electric,” he reasons, “I just can’t add anything to that, y’know? For me, playing acoustic guitar in an inventive way that’s different to anyone else is the most powerful thing I can do. I like to do things that turn heads, but at the end of the day, it’s all about the songs.” 
Indeed, by the time he came to record his solo debut in 2008 – an album released independently and flogged at gigs – Matt had established his ethos of all-original songs, whatever the cost. “I’ve never performed many covers live,” he says, “and my studio albums have all been my own material. As a gigging musician, that’s made my life ten times harder. I don’t earn anywhere near as much as if I was just going out doing covers.”
With integrity came uphill struggle. In past interviews, Matt has spoken openly of the solitude of the travelling musician, and the panic attacks sparked by the apathy and grind of a British pub circuit more receptive to Sky Sports and karaoke. Through it all, he endured. “I’ve played in golf clubs. I’ve played on boats. I’ve played with an Ann Summers party in the corner. I’ve played to the barman. I’ve done the toilet tour of the UK a hundred times. If there’s a five-square-mile radius I haven’t played in Britain, I’d be shocked. I’ve had the worst possible gigs, and I’ve had the most amazing ones.”  
Personally and professionally, however, there’s no mistaking Matt’s upward trajectory in recent times. 



 






Dirt. That's everywhere. And dust. Especially when you're not vacuum cleaning enough. Everything seems broken, chaotic and ready to collapse, yet there's some kind of thin feeling, that keeps growing and growing until overflowing like a bath tub with too much water in it. 

It's the everyday things that I put into my music. How hard they are to handle, the harder the music is to understand when listened afterwards. When there's no-one around to talk to all that dirt must go somewhere, and in to the songs it goes. My life is not polished, it's not nearly always even fun, it is now also not. But what it is always, it is genuine. At best I don't have a clue what happened to the song, or where did it come from.

I believe in accidents, I believe in sounds coming from outside, from an open window. I trust my bedroom's reverb, and I trust my broken guitar. All the best sounds come from my own recordings, from moments when I decide to insert kitchen utensils between the strings of an instrument and play notes that just do not exist. 

Most of my music is written to the people I know or have known. We all change, usually for the worse.

Blue Nation are a 3 piece band from Birmingham. They use Riff based Melodic Blues Rock from a reservoir of influences, including Beatles, Cream, Zeppelin, Brit Pop 90’s, more recently Rival Sons and Vintage Trouble, to create their memorable sound. Their songs are delivered by three accomplished musicians, fronted with stunning vocals. All backed up with impressive gig experience, stage presence and great songs.

They play top venues in the major cities of the UK and further afield including two tours of NYC’s Greenwich Village and Manhattan. They are equally happy doing stripped down acoustic or full-blown electric gigs

Their most prestigious performances have been on the Main Music Stage @ F1 British Grand Prix Silverstone, twice, and tours / gigs with Dirty Thrills, Steve Conte (NY Dolls), Skid Row, Brian Downey (Thin Lizzy), Von Hertzen Brothers, Virginmarys, Cats in Space, King King, Daxx & Roxane, Kris Barras, The Record Company, Sari Schorr, Chantel McGregor Laurence Jones. Main support to Toploader @ Rhuddfest and main stage slot @ Evoke Festival Brentwood. The quirkiest was The Tramlines Festival Sheffield, acoustic on a moving Tram.

Review of Sari Schorr main support

“…. The most dapper band in Birmingham, the one that was too blues to rock, too rock for blues, and too indie for all of them, Blue Nation are ready to make their mark. After all, when you fit in nowhere, you can go anywhere you like.” Andy Thorley – Maximum Volume Music

Review of Skid Row main support set

“ …. style akin to Free, Cream, Lynyrd Skynyrd. Really enjoyed the set from 3 clearly very gifted musicians that have a strong set of songs. A number of 70’s retro bands doing the rounds at the moment, but Blue Nation really stand out from the pack….”

Featured by Planet Rock as “Ones to Watch”

Winners of The Introducing Stage at the Great British Rock & Blues Festival

Their most recent studio album “The Kaftan Society” is released on all media sites including iTunes, Amazon etc. & all streaming sites. TKS is available on vinyl.

An acoustic “Live From The Front Room – Live” album is released on all download and streaming sites.

ECHOES Their latest four track EP, is released Sept 2022 in conjunction with a launch gig at the O2 Institute Birmingham.

Three singles “I Feel Low,” “Come Back Home” and “Echoes,” from the EP, were released digitally released between April & July 2022, with supporting videos. The final track The Reason plus video, will be released end of October.

Having toured extensively, including across US twice, the band are well positioned to bring a stomping live show to any venue or festival. A question at a festival. “Where did that skinny kid (Neil) get that great voice” Big Mick FOH Sound Metallica

On her 2018 full-length debut Abandon All Hope of Fruition, singer/songwriter Julie Mintz introduced a luminous take on Gothic Americana, each track rooted in her beautifully detailed storytelling and quietly captivating voice. In a major creative leap, the Los Angeles-based artist now shares her most urgent and immediately catchy output to date: a bright and breezy anti-love song titled “Done With Boys.” But while the track marks a significant departure from the ethereal textures of her past work, Mintz ultimately imbues “Done With Boys” with the emotional complexity and pensive sensitivity that’s always permeated her music.

“‘Done With Boys’ doesn’t have to be about dating or men or relationships—it can be an analogy for anything in your life that you desperately wanted but ended breaking your heart, to the point where you just have to let it go,” says Mintz, who created with the track with producers Daniel Presant and Sean O’Brien (a Grammy Award-winner known for his work on The National’s Sleep Well Beast). “Even though the song came from a place of disappointment, it made me realize that failure and devastation can either be a powerful depressant, or a painfully powerful catalyst to rise again—and that’s exactly what I’m choosing for this moment in my life.”  

Born and raised in the South Texas city of Corpus Christi, Mintz first began exploring her musical side as a little girl, and felt a deep affinity for the bittersweet balladry of the classic country artists her father often played home. After learning to play piano as a child (and later picking up guitar as well), she held true to country’s emotional tradition and gravitated toward “sad songs about love and heartache” as she started crafting her own material. Through the years, she’s also found the mood of her songwriting informed by her first experience in the workforce: an after-school job working in a funeral home on the Gulf of Mexico, which included driving a hearse with a body in the back. “I was a cheerleader in high school, so I used to show up at the funeral home in my cheerleading uniform,” says Mintz. “At the time it was all really scary to me, but I think it ties into me eventually writing this very Gothic music, and this thread throughout my songs about the idea of dying alone.”

While attending Emory University, Mintz studied neuroscience and behavioral biology, but decided to forgo medical school in favor of pursuing her music career. Released in 2015, her debut EP The Thin Veil merged her finely layered songwriting with minimalist production from her longtime collaborator Moby, whose live band she’d joined as a background vocalist and keyboardist in 2011. Over the years, she’s spent much of her time on the road with the pioneering artist/musician/producer, including joining him onstage for a Hollywood Bowl show presented by legendary English DJ Pete Tong as well as for Moby’s debut performance with Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Philharmonic, in addition to appearing on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

With its title lifted from American Tibetan Buddhist Pema Chödrön’s classic book When Things Fall Apart, Abandon All Hope of Fruition arrived as a mesmerizing meditation on what Mintz refers to as “letting go of the hope that things are going to be different in the future, and moving toward an appreciation of where you are right now.” Also a gifted song interpreter, Mintz has since joined forces with Moby for such offerings as a spellbinding mashup of Prince’s “Purple Rain” and Lady Gaga’s “Million Reasons”—a 2019 release that’s now amassed over 1.2 million streams on Spotify.

Garey Dawn is following