At just twenty years old, Cameron Rooks already has gained 4-5 years of composing and producing experience on top of mastering the saxophone and teaching himself piano and acoustic guitar. Recently, I sat down with the producer and composer to talk about his new music.   

Sech: What inspired you to start composing music?

Cameron: I was first inspired to start composing music back in highschool. I felt like music was a great outlet and a positive way to express my creativity.

Sech: Who would you say influenced your musical perspective? Any artist or bands in particular that lead you into a specific genre or style/direction?

Cameron: My musical perspective has been influenced by people such as Michael Jackson, OUTKAST, Swizz beats, Dr. Dre, paramore, Aerosmith, and many more. I can’t find myself focusing on just one specific genre because I want my music to reach the ears of many and I want everyone to be able to relate.

Sech: How many years have you been composing?

Cameron: I have been composing music for about 4 to 5 years. One of my fathers co-workers installed a music production software called, “Fruity Loops” on my laptop and I have been hooked on music composing and production ever since.

Sech: What would you say is the difference between composing and producing?

Cameron: Composing is the way one creates an art or foundation which usually consists of drums, bass, and instruments. Producing usually consist of finalizing steps such as mixing, vocals, and reverb to become closer to distribution of your work.

Sech: Who, if anyone, would you like to collaborate with?

Cameron: I would collab with a number of people whether they are artists, DJs, or producers. Just as long as they are serious about their product and their work.

Sech: Are you currently producing any other artists besides yourself?

Cameron: Yes I am always willing to work with artist and DJs who have the same passion for music as I do and want to distribute music that the world would love.

Sech: What genre do you want to focus on? Out of producing or composing,which would you prefer to do as a career?

Cameron: I can’t really say that I have a certain genre I am interested in for a career because in some sessions I may feel like creating a r&b hit while other sessions I might feel like composing a club, rock, techno, drum and bass hit, or sometimes even a game soundtrack or movie score. It all depends on how I feel.

Sech: You said your music varies on the way you feel,would you say life experiences also affect what you compose?Have any pieces directly inspired another piece?
 
Cameron: Yes life experiences can most definitely alter your work performance; for example if you go through a hardship in your life such as a break up with a significant other or experience the loss of a love one then you will be more likely to create Moody music. That’s why it is best to leave all of your problems at the door when creating music, because you want music people can dance to and be joyful whenever they hear your music no matter what state they may be in.

Sech: How do you go about approaching the hindering, daunting writer’s block that many musicians face?
 
Cameron: Whenever writers block does occur I just take a break because you can always come back later and work. During the break I make sure I relax, listen to some other music, grab a bite to eat, or drink.

Sech: Where do you see yourself as an artist/producer in five years? Ten years? 
 
Cameron: Probably on stage performing, having tour dates, or even on stage receiving an award in front of millions for my hard work.

Sech: You started recording and composing at what some would say is a young age–around the age of 14 or 15–when many teens were just trying to keep up in school or adjust to new responsibilities while struggling with their own identities. You must have a huge variety of songs under your belt! Over the past 4-5 years or so, have you been able to tell a difference in your growth as a musician? Have you broadened your scope in what you write or have you narrowed down what direction you’d like your music to go into? 
 
Cameron: I never try to narrow or limit myself , some say the sky is the limit but I want to go beyond the sky and broaden my musical skills. No matter how many mix downs I do of a song I always feel like it could be bigger, better, and use something else.  Although at the same time I can tell there has been a drastic change in my music since I first started out as a novice. For instance, I tweak all of my instruments using Pro Tools so I can receive a unique sound that no one has heard before. And because of this, I have basically a vault full of beats that I am just waiting to mix and match with the right artists.

Sech: What do you feel sets you apart from other artists and producers?
 
Cameron: What sets me apart is that I am always evolving and inventing new sounds so that I won’t just fall in place with other competing artists and producers. Even if I do use a sample for a song I try to tweak it and put my own twist on it; for instance you will probably never hear me make a beat like Kanye’s and Jay Z’s, “Uncle Ottis” and “Paris”. I couldn’t picture myself just dragging out a couple of plain voice samples as a complete beat. The listeners deserve more than that.

Sech: What song of yours was the most challenging to compose thus far? Any favorites or stand out songs that had/have a huge significance on your life?
 
Cameron: There have been a couple; for example, I am working on a song called “Here We Go” that would fit the classic Justin Timberlake and Lil Wayne [feel] but I am still tweaking the sounds for perfection.

Sech: Are you currently writing anything? 
 
Cameron: Yes I always have several projects I work on at one time so if I get stuck on one song I can always come back to it later.

Sech: Any words (or advice) for your fans?
 
Cameron: If you find something you are good at–that is legal–continue doing it and don’t let anybody stop you. Don’t let a hater ever keep you down like the lead in bullets, just do it.

Check out more on Cameron Rooks and his music: http://www.reverbnation.com/cameronrooks , http://www.beats4tracks.com/CameronRooks// , follow him @cameronrooks

The Pale started life in Dublin's Northside in the early 90's but drew their influences from far beyond. For some they are best remembered for their hits 'Butterfly' and 'Dogs with no tails'. But that is only the tip of the iceberg for a band that has steered clear off the beaten track.
 
Flirtations with chart success, forays into alternative circuses, tours way off the beaten path in Russia, Japan, Eastern Europe and beyond are all par for the course for a band that have refused to be categorised or trade off past glories. 
 
The Pale's  live reputation is hard earned, with sets jumping between indie-pop, reggae, Eastern European folk, all presented with a wry lyrical twist and frenetic energy. Never to be pigeonholed, a Pale gig will see them play dozens of songs drawing from a range of genres. Mandolins and bouzoukis duel with synths and drums, all propelled by their inimitable stage presence and striking musical prowess.

I write music. 
I write TV shows.
I surf.

MARY GAUTHIER 
 In a Nashville bookstore, to the tune of steam hissing from a latte machine and laptop taps of nearby browsers, she speaks in a low voice, yet communicates urgently. Her voice never rises. Her music never rattles rafters or crashes like cymbals toward the high notes in a power chorus. Her tempos shuffle and trudge more than they dash.  And her songs? They're about as idiosyncratic as anything in the wide world of "popular music." They're painfully personal, especially on Trouble and Love. Yet they somehow infiltrate the souls of her listeners, no matter how different the paths they've followed through their lives. 
 Those songs weren't so much written as harvested by Gauthier. Though she lives not far from the hit-making mills of Music Row, she admits to knowing nothing about how to write on command.  She says, "I have to be called to write. The call comes from somewhere I don't understand, but I know it when I hear it."  That call first came to her a long time ago. Her life to that point had led her to extremes, plenty of negatives and a few brilliant bright spots. An adopted child, who became a teenage runaway, she found her first shelter among addicts and Drag Queens. Eventually she achieved renown as a chef even while balancing the running of her restaurant with the demands of addiction to heroin.  Two more successful restaurants, an escalating addiction, and a subsequent arrest, led her into sobriety. All that was rehearsal for what to follow, when she wrote her first song in her mid-thirties.  From that point, Gauthier channeled a long line of works, almost all of them eloquent in their insight, burnished by her writing technique. A core of devotees came to await each next release. Their wait ends, for now, with Trouble and Love. 

This time, Gauthier's songs rise from what she describes as an especially dark period. "I started the process in a lot of grief," she explains. "I'd lost a lot. So the first batch of songs was just too sad. It was like walking too close to the fire. I had to back off from it. The truth is that when you're in the amount of grief I was in, it's an altered state. Life is not that. You go through that. We human beings have this built-in healing mechanism that's always pushing us toward life. I didn't want to write just darkness, because that's not the truth. I had to write through the darkness to get to the truth. Writing helped me back onto my feet again. This record is about getting to a new normal. It's a transformation record."  The heart of that transformation, beating within Trouble and Love, is love. But it’s not the kind of love that's celebrated on pop charts. In those tunes, love is its own end; the story stops as the giddiness sets in, with no hint of what may follow. Gauthier knows better; she has the scars to prove it.  "For me, love has been a real challenge," she admits. "Attachment has been a challenge. This record is about losing an attachment I actually made. The loss of it was devastating because I hadn't fully attached before to anyone. The good news is that I can. The even better news is that I can, and I can lose, and live. Not only do I live, but I've got a strength that I never had before."  Trouble and Love would fall or rise on the question of whether it crystalizes Gauthier's experience and conveys it to those who want to feel it, as if the poetry of her lyric can mirror and illuminate what they too have gone through. To help make this happen, she invited a small group of singers and musicians into Nashville's Skaggs Place Studio, each one chosen because of his or her ability to find the heart of the song. No one was given a lead sheet or an advance demo or even headphones. The backup vocals were invented on the spot. The microphones were vintage, and the songs were cut live, to tape. Everyone stood together in the room, playing to what they heard in the lyric as well as from what was going on in the moment.  "I took away everything that musicians lean on to feel invulnerable," she explains.  All they had to work with was a brief rundown of each song from Gauthier in the control room, right before the tape rolled. "I wanted them to feel it in real time," she continues. "You don't want to sound real with songs like this. You want to be real. That’s what I strive for as a writer, and that's what we got in the playing."  Feeling their way through the process, these extraordinary participants -- guitarist Guthrie Trapp, keyboardist Jimmy Wallace, bassist Viktor Krauss, drummer Lynn Williams and singers Beth Nielsen Chapman, Ashley Cleveland and Darrell Scott, Siobhan Kennedy and The McCrary Sisters -- probed and then brought life to Gauthier's compositions. In their hands, and in her fearless vocals, the songs resonate like tolling bells.  We hear "a body's but a prison when the soul's a refugee" in Oh Soul. The last embers of affection flicker and die on When a Woman Goes Cold, (“Scorched earth cannot burn.”) "A million miles from our first kiss, how does love turn into this?" is just one of the bitter riddles posed in False From True. Irony colors the chorus of Worthy: "Worthy, worthy what a thing to claim. Worthy, worthy, ashes into flame."  This is deep and dangerous poetry, and Gauthier leads us through it with relentless candor. Yet tenderness is always near, enough to keep us engaged through the final track, "Another Train."  "I wrote that one in England during a long, long tour," she remembers. There was a sign at a station: There'll be another train at 14:02.' So I started working with 'another train.' The song evolved. It doesn't start the way it ends. It zigged and it zagged. I let it talk to me. It's so interesting, because when I saw 'another train,' boom, that whole story was in there -- but I had to go find it. I had to dig, like an archaeologist."  In the very last line of the song is the benedictory thought of the entire album. "Another Train" bathes all of what preceded it in a glimmer of hope. It a fantastically concise and powerful ending -- and entirely intentional--  “There’ll be another train.”
 "This album reflects a total human experience. Love, loss, and a life transformed." Gauthier sums up. "It's not a random collection of songs. This record is a story. It's about trust and faith and believing that there's a plan and a flow. And the flow is where the good stuff is because there's wisdom in the flow. At the core, we're all cut from the same cloth-- the same dreams, the same brokenness, the same desire for companionship and family and home. Yeah, we all have that. And if I don't go deep enough into that, it's a problem.  "There's no such thing as going too deep." Amen to that. 


Yadda, Yadda, Yadda.
Kenyatta "Yadda Man" Thomas (1992) is an American rap artist, songwriter, producer and entrepreneur. Yadda is the man behind the plan, and logo. Born in Columbus, Georgia and raised throughout the Midwest; his musical following far exceeds the normal small town hip hop artist. 
I'm sure if you mention "The Off Brand" or "Yadda Man" in places such as Rapid City, South Dakota you'll find that his support is unmatched. In 2013, he went on to release Channel 32 followed by Until the EP and Until the EP II. Each project was laced with dope music. In 2018, Yadda Man was offered a chance of a lifetime and went on a US tour with Afro Man. Later that year.
Yadda has opened up for several very noteworthy artists to include: Waka Flocka, Dizzy Wright, Hopsin, Jarren Benton, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony & Montana 300. His musical abilities have received co-signs by Slim Jimmy and Kato the Producer. When you listen to his music you'll find that his message is a lot deeper than his rhymes. His metaphors and lyrical abilities will leave you mesmerized. 
In 2019 Yadda Man caught the attention of rapper STALLEY who took Yadda under his wing and dropped his album, “Outta The Basement” under the Blue Collar Gang umbrella which dropped in 2020. Soon after that project would gain some traction leading up to his most recently 2021 released project, “JiMMy”.

Josh Christopher started making electronic music in 1995. As a freshman in high school, he was introduced to drum machines, synthesizers and MIDI. He soon began writing dance music. Influenced early on by his older brother’s love of dance music, he wrote house, trance and even a little bit of happy hardcore. Josh plays guitar, bass, drums, piano and sings.

It wasn’t until his last band, where he was the lead singer and rhythm guitar player, broke up that he started to assemble his collection of electronic instruments for the purpose of producing electronic music on a serious level. “I always wrote techno as a hobby. I loved the music and loved writing it, but I never took it seriously until the band folded.” Josh Christopher started immersing himself in the music scene and paying close attention to what people were listening to. “I did lighting for raves since the late 90′s through 2010, as well as running lighting at a club that had a weekly Friday night techno night. I was always involved in the scene in some capacity. I only took a few years away to pursue the band I was in, but I always knew I’d reconnect before too long.”

He reconnected in 2012 with his first label release on Blake Records with the single “Never Let You Go” featuring vocalist Nina Sainato. At this point Josh was using the artist name "Thumpty Jumpty". With follow up releases from Lyon Echo records in the fall of 2013, Thumpty Jumpty was here to stay. Josh’s approach to making music is almost exclusively hardware based. Using an awesome collection of hardware and drum synthesizers, he prides himself on creating his own sounds, “I’m obviously trying to create sounds similar to what everyone is using right now, but it feels good to know that I’m not just calling up presets and following the herd. Most of the time, I’ll start with a preset that sounds close to what I’m thinking, but I’ll always make changes — de-tune an oscillator here, sync a filter to an LFO there — there are just too many creative options on most modern synths to limit yourself to presets. Sound design can be tedious, but it’s fun.”

Currently, Josh Christopher is working on his live show. He plans to break the mold set by other artists, “I don’t want to just be another DJ. I can DJ, but I want my live show to be about performing music, not queueing up finished mixes on CD and MP3.” His live show is a myriad of synthesizers and drum machines all synced together to the lighting, video and laser show. “It’s a live show I’m very proud of. I know that once people see it, they’ll see the love I have for the music and the performance. I just want people to see something they haven’t seen a thousand times before — I just want them to love my music as much as I do.”

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