Fanatic is a music marketing company established by Josh Bloom in 1997 to build fan-to-fan connections between artists and the media. For nearly 30 years, Fanatic has continued to help launch careers through the strategic advocacy of creative talent.
The Bird and
The Bee vocalist Inara George has teamed with Dave
Grohl of Foo Fighters for a new
single “Sex In Cars: Road Angel
Project,” a duet version of the track “Sex
In Cars” from George’s latest
release “The Youth of Angst”. The
song is available now on all streaming platforms and can also be heard via
Rolling Stone here.
“I wrote ‘Sex
In Cars’ after the artist Terry
Allen asked if I’d be a part of an art installation entitled “Road Angel” that he was creating for The Contemporary Austin,” George explains.
“Sex In
Cars: Road Angel Project” is the first
in a series of planned “Road Angel
Project” singles, which will see all proceeds donated via a partnership
with Sweet Relief Musicians Fund. The COVID-19
Relief Fund at Sweet Relief
provides financial assistance to all types of career musicians and music
industry workers who have lost income due to the global pandemic.
“Having been such a massive fan of Inara for years, it’s always such an
incredible honor to work with her, whether on Foo Fighters music or for The
Bird and The Bee,” Grohl says.
“Her voice is timeless, so pure and real. So I jumped at the chance to duet
with her on this song. It was a dream come true! And for a great cause:
Musicians coming together to support each other in difficult times, working to
keep the music alive.”
The name “Road
Angel Project” is an Allen-authorized
nod back to the piece that inspired “Sex
In Cars,” and the cover image for the series by Alice Lin is based on a Brian
Fitzsimmons photograph of Allen’s
actual installation.
With “Road
Angel Project,”George is
continuing to follow a line of thought that began with her current release “The Youth of Angst”. George saw so many musicians and music
industry friends out of work during the pandemic and saw an opportunity to keep
them working. With the previously unreleased duet version of “Sex In Cars” featuring Grohl, she hopes to continue
helping.
“I always knew I wanted this version of ‘Sex In Cars’ with Dave to benefit some amazing non-profit,” George says. “As the pandemic hit and it became very clear that
live music would not resume for many, many months, I immediately thought of Sweet Relief, not only because they
help so many musicians, but also because they help everyone in the music
industry.”
George has many friends in the music industry and has seen
their jobs evaporate.
“All of those people who work at venues booking shows,
stage managing, bartending, lighting, mixing sound, and on and on... Sweet Relief is set up to help all of
these workers during this crisis and also any other crisis that might come.”
Sweet Relief’s Aric
Steinberg says, “Sweet Relief is so grateful to be a part of the Road Angel
Project. It’s been incredible to see the music community come together
during this pandemic, and this is another example of good people doing good things.
The funds raised will allow us to help even more music industry professionals
in desperate need and we are truly thankful for Inara and Dave’s
support.”
The
second volume of the “Road Angel Project” is already being prepped for a
Sept. 4th release. The three-song bundle “Road Angel Project:
Volume 2” will include songs by Alex Lilly, Danielle De Andrea
(featuring Larry Goldings), and Mike Viola.
Inara George has been getting together with producer Wendy Wang for a couple of hours, here and
there, off and on over the past few years, working on a handful of songs that has
now been released as the three-song bundle “The
Youth of Angst” via Release Me
Records.
“Wendy started playing with The
Bird and The Bee when we released our second album,” George says. “I remember being impressed with her right away. That
was about 12 years ago, and since then she’s become an in-demand producer and
songwriter, as well as a dear friend and collaborator. I’m equally proud of her
and in awe of her.”
George continues, “There was no rush on my side, and Wendy’s been super busy with her own
career, so it took a few years to finish by getting together for a few hours
every so often. Maybe I had it in mind to make a full album? Or maybe a
traditional EP?”
As it turns out, George
got the word “bundle” stuck in her head after a conversation with a friend.
“Maybe I just thought she said ‘bundle?’”
No matter, it stuck, and in fact “The Youth of Angst” feels like a bundle. Fresh, even considering
its long development, and innocent, even with a song called “Sex In Cars”.
“I wrote ‘Sex
In Cars’ after the artist Terry
Allen asked if I’d be a part of an
art installation he was creating for The
Contemporary Austin. When he asked me to write the song, I immediately
thought of a photograph by RJ
Shaughnessy that I had bought as a gift for my husband.” The cover of “The Youth of Angst” features that Shaughnessy shot and the song itself is
as bare as the subject matter.
“Wendy and
I recorded several different versions of this song,” George explains. “But there was something about more production
that seemed to make it slip away from its initial intention.” The version that
made it to the final recording is actually the original voice memo that George sent to Allen. “I still haven’t had a chance to see that installation, I
hope I can someday... soon,” George
says.
Innocence isn’t just for “Sex In Cars” here. Youth… memories of... loss of… is at the core
of this group of songs that, although just a bundle, plays with a moving,
dramatic arc.
“‘1973’ is a song I
wrote for a friend,” George
explains. “She lost a child almost ten years ago and to mark his birthday every
year, I write a song. The songs end up being about him, but also but her and ‘1973’ is really a love song about our
friendship. As for “Brother,” it’s
pretty simple: “I wrote this song for my brother, haha. No one will ever know
you better than your brother can.”
“The Youth
of Angst” is the first in a planned
series of collaborative releases “with a little theme and not the huge pressure
of a full album,” George says about
how she plans to make this long experiment into something more frequent. For
this release “I wanted to write from the perspective of my younger self, but
also with the idea that I could never actually have that perspective again. I
suppose this bundle is nostalgic for a time and feeling that isn’t really
possible to recreate, or only possible to recreate in my imagination.”
Understanding what once was and what will be is
especially important now, in the new reality of 2020.
“I think we are all kind of grappling with this
reality right now. We can only move forward from here. Life won’t be the same
for a while, or maybe ever. But it’s nice to dream about the past while
reimagining the future, and I like the idea of doing these little
collaborations, especially in these times of isolation.”
Inara George’s three-song bundle “The Youth of Angst” is out now via Release Me Records. Contact Josh Bloom at Fanatic for more information.
Lilly also becoming in-demand songwriter for other
artists; 2019 co-write “I Like Girls” for Samantha Sidley helped land “Best Album
of The Year” honors from Los Angeles Times.
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Alex Lilly as photographed by Melissa Lilly
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Alex Lilly – In The Press
“Alex Lilly’s
songs keep their cool.” — The New York
Times
“Alex Lilly
is the genuine article.” — FLOOD
“Pretty freaking awesome.” — FADER
“Alex Lilly
is spellbinding. Album of The Week” —
LA Weekly
“‘Aquamarine’
is about unadulterated joy... boldly imaginative... would likely be right at
home in parts of Cyndi Lauper’s
dance-pop repertoire. Given the balance of a more youthful approach to the
writing of ‘Aquamarine’ and Lilly’s appreciation for deeper
emotional connection, this song delightfully and effortlessly walks the line to
cleverly touch upon each of these things.”
“My mom says every time I return to good spirits that
the bitch is back,’” says Alex Lilly
of her mother, who recently captured a photo of her daughter’s bitchy backness
out in the yard, sniffing a rose, and cradling her Casio digital guitar. The
photo accompanies the release of “Love
In Three Colors,” a new three-song bundle by Alex Lilly, out nowfrom
Release Me Records.
Lilly describes the new songs as “a trilogy chronicling a
relationship’s disintegration, aftermath, and the sunny side of being free of
it,” but don’t be fooled into thinking you’re about to hear a “woe is me”
breakup meditation.In fact, it can
get a bit chilly in here.
Witty make me giddy / Sarcasm make me orgasm / For
that pearl to occur / You gotta put some salt in the oyster
The spoken word bit at the conclusion of the “Love In Three Colors” single “Amuse Me” contains this little piece
of advice to a lover, or as the case may be, former lover. “‘Amuse Me’ might be amusing and light, but in reality it’s about
being with someone who did not amuse me at all,” Lilly reveals.
Moving on from the un-amusing man of “Amuse Me,”Lilly contemplates the guilty party in the failed relationship on “Terrible Person,” channeling Bjork in the process.
“I came home one night drunk and angry, thinking about
how my ex had screwed me over,” Lilly
says about the song’s inspiration. “I was looking back and tossing the blame
around until I got exhausted. But then I realized that I sucked too, and I
couldn’t decide who sucked more, so I wrote this song to help me decide.”
“Love In
Three Colors” closes with “Aquamarine,” which is actually the
first song Lilly wrote for this
release and also helped her get out of a dark period of time in her life.
Professionally, things were great. Lilly’s debut album 2%
Milk had received critical praise throughout 2019, and a song
co-written by Lilly – “I Like Girls” – helped jazz singer Samantha Sidley’s debut album get
recognized as one of the year’s best albums by the Los Angeles Times.
Even with the pandemic, Lilly was sharing her humor, notably by writing
hilarious jingles for pets and humans along with a new tune “Goodbye Reckless Things,”in
which she humorously lamented no longer being able to borrow “her dance
studio’s filthy yoga mat.”
But, personally, Lilly
realized that she’d been depressed for months and decided to take a break from
drinking because it was just making things worse. “After writing ‘Aquamarine,’ colors were more vivid,” Lilly says. “It might be the only song
I’ve ever written that comes from a place of unadulterated joy.”
“Love In
Three Colors,” the new three-song
bundle from Alex Lilly is out now on
Release Me Records. Contact Josh Bloom at Fanatic for more information.
+++
PLAY, POST
& SHARE
See the music video for “2% Milk” by Alex Lilly
at Billboard
or at the link below.
“Watching the synchronized swimmers was fascinating,” Alex Lilly says of being on the “2% Milk” set. “The dancers are able to
keep time while under water, and they have a massive vocabulary of moves that
have been passed down through the long history of synchronized swimming.”
From L.A.’s punk scene, guitar hangs with Radiohead,
250 dates a year as member of both Idaho, Pete Yorn’s band, Terry Borden does his
own thing on dreamy debut EP.
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Terry Borden of Blesson Roy
as photographed by Ankhurr Chawaak
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Blesson Roy | In The Press
“Will expand your mind.” — BTRtoday
“AM pop radio has served him well... may be setting
the pace for a new sound in a new decade.” — PopMatters
“Dreamy and earthy... always with heartfelt emotion.” —
The Big Takeover
“Beach Boys-esque
poppy vocals. An entirely new musical sound.” — Glide Magazine
“Allows the listener to feel a deep connection to
Borden’s wistful vocals.” — Ghettoblaster
Magazine
“Beautifully realized... Mixing the beach-y vibes of
the Beach Boys with Big Star’s vibrant melodies.” — Beats Per Minute
“If the Beach
Boys did a new wave album.” — Higher
Plain Music
+++
PLAY, POST
& SHARE
“This combination of visuals and audio will expand
your mind to a level of self-comfort that’s hard to obtain alone,” says BTRtoday about visual artist Tom Gorai’s music video for “Let It Go” by Blesson Roy. See the video at
BTRtoday here or at the link
below. [VIDEO]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mO4pMGDlkIw
+++
“Gorai has
been nominated for both an EMMY® and GRAMMY®, and he won MTV’s Video of The Year
award for his production of Pearl Jam’s
“Jeremy.” He’s also known for his
music video production with artists like Nine
Inch Nails and A Tribe Called Quest.
So when Gorai first became isolated
during the COVID-19 lockdown, he knew he had to use his talent for visual art
to contribute to the song that expanded his mind so much during that time.”
Gorai explains, “When I first heard Blesson Roy’s ‘Let It Go,’
it screamed at me loudly and I was deeply affected,” he says in an artist’s
statement. “The next thing I knew is that, in this weird state of nothingness
and stasis, I thought I could hear the song more clearly than ever before, so I
took a deep breath and just focused on listening to the music. I put it on
repeat and just listened over and over as I let whatever influences I was
feeling direct me to put together light and color and patterns.”
The song itself is also very personal to Blesson Roy’s Terry Borden. He explains that the tune, “started with a hypnotic
guitar line that triggered a meditation. The creative process and sound
conjured up painful memories and its simplicity allowed for a layered catharsis
which worked these toxic feelings to the surface and out of the subconscious,
in a sweeping and graceful gesture, culminating in the survival action of
letting go of stored traumas. It is a step in that direction, small or more
depending on how the frequencies shimmer in your lake.”
Life-long “music lover and music doer,” Terry Borden is a child of 1970’s
California whose early love of AM radio and his brother’s record collection has
led him to numerous career highlights that are still accumulating.
These include: Kind words from Lou Reed, two appearances on David
Letterman, guitar hangs with Radiohead,
and 250-plus tour dates a year throughout early 2000s as a member of slowcore
pioneers Idaho and singer-songwriter
Pete Yorn’s backing band Dirty Bird.
Coming of age in Los Angeles during the early 1990’s
rise of punk and new wave, Borden’s
long and varied career as a studio and touring musician will culminate with the
release of his own dreamy pop project in 2020. Blesson Roy’s five-song “Time
Is A Crime” EP is out now.
Owing to Borden’s
stint living and working in the UK where he was influenced by the burgeoning
sounds of sub-cultural labels such as 4AD,
Creation, Factory and Rough Trade,
the music of Blesson Roy will
undoubtedly please fans of all these sounds.
Borden brings real roots song craft to his work, as well,
showing that his recent years away from the music industry, but not away from
songwriting, have only served to develop his abilities and technique, as Borden masterfully performs all of the
instruments on the new tracks himself.
After Borden’s
run with Idaho came to an end, he
signed with Dave Allen of Gang of Four’s World Domination label as Flotilla,
releasing one critically praised album, and while the label eventually folded,
the record found some important ears, including those of Yorn.
When Yorn
was looking for a touring guitarist, Borden
got the gig, eventually switched to his beloved bass and spent another four
years out on the road. Then, during a break in touring, Borden decided to make the down time indefinite.
“After a decade-long ride, I took a long time off and
away from music and the music business,” he says. “I needed to take a hard look
at my life, to clean up some existential messes, and change some unhealthy
habits.” Now, revitalized and energized, Borden
is continuing to create, write and record music for himself again.
Blesson Roy’s five-song “Time
Is A Crime” EP is out now via Slow Start
Records. Terry Borden is
available for interviews. Contact Josh Bloom at Fanatic for more information.
