Latest / Entry Points Radio / Episode 2: Hanks and Franks
Transcript
- kate: There's something Richie doesn't like. ⁓ sorry. ⁓ What don't you like? What's wrong with me? Global Music Collective: I don't like yours says Kate, which I like, but mine says Global Music Collective. Not that I don't like that, but it doesn't say Richie. I don't I am not the entirety of of our organization. Can I change it? kate: ⁓ well here we go. Richie, Richie or Richie, Richie or Richard. Global Music Collective: R ⁓ let's go Rich I feel like I'm Richie in this setting. kate: Okay. I fixed it. Yeah. I don't know. Global Music Collective: You fixed it? How you do that? All right. kate: I just I just went to your name on the screen and I changed it. Global Music Collective: ⁓ really? Can I change your name too? It's probably not even gonna show up on the You're just Kate. kate: Does it show up on yours? Are you Richie on yours? Okay. Global Music Collective: I'm Richie Online. Now. I don't know if it's you changed it. I went to the preferences and just changed GMC to Richie. kate: ⁓ yeah, I know. I just did it directly here. If you take your cursor and you just click on the words that say your name, it should turn turn into something that says Kate add your title, Richie add your title. Are you not logged in as Global Music Collective right now? ⁓ that's fucking weird. I don't know. Global Music Collective: Yeah. Yeah. I definitely am. That's right. Yeah. Anyway, we're back. kate: Adventures in podcasting. Let's let's let's do that again. Okay, ⁓ Richie. You say it again, say it again. You start this one. That wasn't at all rehearsed. Global Music Collective: Get ready for twenty five minutes of pointless banter. Yeah, okay. Okay. We're back. We are back. Welcome back to Entry Points Radio for our week two. We just finished our amazing week one, which has come with critical acclaim and zillions of listeners. Actually, we've had we it has there's been some good response, I will say that. And so I'll start by saying thank you for listening to week one. And not just listening to our side of the podcast, but listening to the playlist as well. We've had a lot of people that will listen to the podcast on the way to work and then when they get to work they like play the the music from the playlists in the background and they're like, ⁓ yeah, I remember that from the podcast. So it seems like a really cool way to kind of listen to what we've got. So thank you for tuning in. kate: You know, it's cool that you say that. I actually was just having a voice memo conversation. So so many of my friends don't live where I live. And so we communicate only by voice memos, which is probably what trained me to be on a podcast. But I just yeah, I love a voice, I love a voice memo. I love to ramble. ⁓ but anyway, but I I was just talking with a friend this morning about well, I was talking at a friend this morning over voice memo. Global Music Collective: You are a big voice memo sender. Love the voice memo. kate: About 'cause she was trying to t she was telling me that she thought it might be possible that we could put little clips of the music up on the podcast while we were doing it. And I told her, Well, we kinda looked into it, but frankly, Richie and I are trying to run a company, put on programs, ⁓ distribute music. We still have how many albums that we still need to distribute on or Spotify or not distribute, but drop, whatever. ⁓ and I told her there's just like Global Music Collective: Mm. kate: And I'm going to a conference next week on nonprofit governance for like, you know, the institutional side of the work that we're doing. And it's like, okay, there's only so much space in my brain for all of this. And when it comes to figuring out the legal rights of playing music on podcasts on every different platform we wanna distribute I just can't. I can't. I can't. So anyway, I was telling her as I was thinking about it, I really do like the idea that ⁓ Global Music Collective: Yeah. kate: There is a little bit of annoyance. There's an extra click-through that people have to do to get from the podcast to the playlist. And I know that that might mean that some people feel a barrier of entry. You know, ⁓ it's not as easy. I don't get to just hear the music. I have to actually go and go to the show notes and click through into the podcast, sorry, the playlist. ⁓ but I was thinking about it and I was like, I feel like a lot of what we are circling around here is this idea of intentional listening. Like last week we were talking about rifling through the CDs at Barnes and Noble. Global Music Collective: Mm-hmm. kate: And about that experience of just picking up the album cover and holding the thing. And I think that these days you hear these automated playlists. Sometimes you hear a song you like, but it just kind of goes. And then there's another song or there's an ad. And maybe we take the trouble, if we're as nerdy as you and I are, maybe we take the trouble to actually, you know, find the song and save it to our playlist like you were talking about last week. But ⁓ I don't know, I kinda like challenging people to have to Have to go and actually find the playlist and listen to the playlist themselves. Like maybe everything in life shouldn't be so constantly easy. I don't know. I don't know. Not right. Global Music Collective: Ooh. Yeah. Everything like Amazon delivery. Everything's immediate. You can get whatever you want right now. Sure, I think that's that's part of it. No, go ahead. kate: And speaking of Amazon, ⁓ go ahead. No, I was just saying speaking of Amazon delivery, last night I was ⁓ it was like midnight. I was like, okay, I'm not quite tired. Maybe I'll read a chapter in this book I'm really enjoying. And then I was like, ⁓ I don't have the mental bandwidth to read this chapter in this book. And then I started going down this rabbit hole of, I wonder what a good oil-free moisturizer for dry skin might be. And I'm on Amazon, you know, looking up the oil-free moisturizer and then Googling to see. And it was like I spent twenty five minutes just like completely wasting time on Amazon about an oil free moisturizer before I decided I don't trust this. I'm just gonna go to a store and get a moisturizer and ask the recommendation of the person there. And it's like, Where am I going with this? Global Music Collective: I don't know, but oil full moisturizer sounds just awful. I don't know, I'm sure. Well, I mean, everything is is immediate now and like you can check out immediately, you can get to where you want to be immediately. Even if your Wi Fi speed isn't like a bazillion gigaby something a second, then it's frustrating. Like and I I feel it too. You know, I think the average time to click away from a website is three seconds. If your page doesn't load, they're gone. kate: You were talking about Amazon. What were you saying about Amazon? Yeah. Yeah. Global Music Collective: So it is part of human nature to like want things now. But I do I do see the value in conversation behind the songs and telling stories and making it relatable. And that's kind of s in some ways the point of music, anyways, right? Is you know, if you look back to some of the influential styles and and techniques and parts of music, whether it's like call and response, whether it's you know, rhythmic changes, those have really deep roots in communication. And so music is kind of a a tool in that way and the and the real point of it is is human connection. So whether it's talking or singing or playing along or or whatever, I think there's a value in it. So listen to this first, get the context and then go get your songs. I think it will enrich your life and your experience. ⁓ that's my name. This is great. We can cut all of this. Starting now. kate: Enrich, enrichie. It's gonna enrich your life. Okay, that doesn't need to go in. ⁓ my god. Richie, tell real quick, how was your week? Global Music Collective: After a roll. Anyway. My week was my week was exciting. We bought a car. kate: That's right. Would you like to tell the internet public the name of your car? Yes. Global Music Collective: Yeah. It's a little We called it Max. Yep. It's a it's a black hybrid because gas is insane and so we just don't want to spend as much on gas. And the car buying process is generally pretty awful. But we kinda we walked into a smaller dealership and they were really relaxed and had a car we wanted and we thought, Well let's let's make this work and we did. kate: Yeah. Did you have did you like negotiate and do the whole like back and forth thing? I don't know what that is. I ha I haven't bought a car in a while. Global Music Collective: Yeah, shaking grab the guy by the collar and shake him until you that's a different technique. It may work better than what we did. No, I think as a negotiator, I'm part of me is like I I I don't I especially with a car, I don't know what the value really should be. Not that you know, because ⁓ you go online and you say, ⁓ Kelly Blue Book or JD Power or or kate: I want this car! Yeah. Global Music Collective: car gurus, whatever bazillion sites they have now, and it says like, ⁓ this is a good deal for a car. But in my mind, I'm like, well, it's still expensive and it's four wheels. And if you take it apart and sell it for parts, it's worth more or less. I don't know. The whole thing just feels very subjective. And somebody just says, This is the price. And you can say, like, well, that's can we do it for 10% less? And so I usually just at the end of the process, I'm like, do you can you help us out a little bit? You know, can you just kate: Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Global Music Collective: Can you knock off a thousand bucks or something? Then then the guy said, Well we can knock off five hundred and that's it. So I'm I'm not like a cutthroat negotiator when it comes to that, but I don't know, the whole process is just obtuse. kate: Right, right. Yeah. You know, it's tough, it's like right. When value I think value for all those things are s is is obtuse. It's like even just going to a a marketplace anywhere, like, okay, I understand to a certain degree that ⁓ you know, prices are com value ⁓ like what we don't need to go down here, but like what is money? What is value? You know? I mean it's I although honestly like someday maybe it is something worth talking about, maybe not today, but ⁓ because our Global Music Collective: I know. kate: We're always talking about this. Like, what is the value of the work that we do? Artists do so much of our work for free. You know, there's no Kelly blue book on what goes into the making of a song or Kelly's blue book or whatever is. Like there's no there's no way to dictate what the value is of one thing and why one person, you know, goes viral and their song reaches billions of people. And I mean, sometimes that really happens because the song is amazing and it's this incredible story. And and then sometimes there's all these unknown Global Music Collective: Mm-hmm. Right. kate: people and things you don't hear about and anyway, I don't I didn't mean to just be like, This is a music podcast. Let's take your fun car story and make it about music but Global Music Collective: No, that's I mean, you're aren't you reading an economics book right now and ⁓ okay, so this is kate: I'm reading like three economics books right now, which is probably why I was looking up oil free moisturizers on the internet last night. I was like No, the economics books are interesting. Global Music Collective: You stressed out from I just looked up too is it Kelly blue book or Kelly's blue book? Like Craigslist or kate: Is it? ⁓ my god, Craigslist. What happened to Craigslist? Dude. Global Music Collective: What do you mean? It's still there. People are still posting random sketchy they have cars on there, although those are all almost exclusively refurbished titles, which if you're buying a car. I didn't know what that meant until a month ago, but it means like the car w anyway. Nobody cares about this. I'm just talking. That's true. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I'm sure there's like car music. Everybody's probably in their car listening to all right. I'm tucking myself into it. kate: Cars. ⁓ Yeah. Well you don't know that, Richie. This is the thing that kinda baffles me. Like you don't know. You we never know. And a anything we can cut. Yeah. Well actually, you know, I will say America is such a car country. And it's interesting. Sometimes I really resent that as an American. And sometimes I love that. ⁓ like the road the great US road trip. Like here I am talking about how next week I'm going to this nonprofit governance conference and ⁓ I will be driving there. And it's funny, I'm really looking forward. I'm taking my, you know, ancient car. ⁓ his name is Marvin. He's red. I love him. Mm-hmm. VW Golf 2014. Global Music Collective: Mm. Marvin. Mm-hmm. kate: It's got a C D play ⁓ it's got a C D player that ⁓ the the C D player is broken and there's a C D that's stuck in it and it is ⁓ Queen's greatest hits and s and it's so funny. It's been stuck in that player for years. Richie's had to hear it, and every time I turn on my card, the only CD I can listen to is this Queen C D. So I know like every instrumental and every vocal on of of Queen. Anyway, why am I talking about this? Global Music Collective: Has it do you think that that has influenced your music style? I feel like if you're forced to listen to fourteen songs in order over and over again, that will change the way you think about music? kate: I mean maybe, but I will say I loved Queen before it. My mom got me into Queen. She had a Queen record. So my parents used to listen to records in the living room and we would all actually like sit around and listen to the records. It's kinda wild to think about. And one of them was a it was the ⁓ night at the opera album by Queen. And that was what got me into them. So I mean, I guess I could say it's influenced me, but mostly it's just really it's funny, like there was a period, Richie knows about this, there was a period that my CD player wasn't working and ⁓ I was like Global Music Collective: Okay. There you go. No. kate: Sad. I missed my constant Freddie Mercury. But I digress. I was try I was go ahead, go ahead. Global Music Collective: Yeah. That's okay. I I think that's fine. I am curious though, like about artists that w I mean, albums used to be the way to to put up music and before that it was I think it was D Ps or or smaller smaller releases until we got to CDs and tapes and and things that could hold more songs and and now that's I I feel like we vacillate in the music industry between releasing either one, two, three, four singles or a whole album or releasing a single from an album. And I think we're just in this weird state of we we don't know how to package music anymore. And I think that's why Spotify kate: Singles. Yeah. Yeah. Global Music Collective: and Apple Music have been so successful is because they've just put a box around it and s and kind of shoved it in your face and said, Here's here's music but it takes away the artist, I think, in a lot of ways. I mean, even just listening to an album I thought was so special because you the artist probably had to have arguments in the studio and you know what I mean? Like if you're with the band you think, ⁓ this song should go second because it's the big one and the the kate: ⁓ God. Yeah. Global Music Collective: Crummy one should go number six because it's slow, and then you know, you have a you kind of have to fight with your band and the producer and figure it out, but it's that's how you care about you make something that you care about. Now that yeah, like when's the last time you listen to an album start to finish voluntary except for Queen, besides being forced to listen to Queen by your Volkswagen. kate: Yeah. Mm-hmm. There's an art to it. to say I love that you asked me that because one of my songs this week I wasn't planning on talking too much about it, but I will say really quickly, ⁓ one of my songs this week was an album of an artist that I liked already, who I don't even think of as this like super artsy artist, like I need to listen to her album in order to get like the full, you know, artistic projection of the album. But I did actually end up just listening to the whole album, so I'll I'll tell you about that when we talk through it. I'll bet I actually am curious once you look at my playlist if you can guess who it is. But it was really fun. It's and I I there's one other thing I'll tell you I've been doing lately that's been really fun. I didn't do this performatively. I was just genuinely getting frustrated because I I love finding new music and I was getting frustrated before we started this podcast because it felt like I don't know Global Music Collective: Ooh. A teaser. kate: What we talked about before, just all of the music I was listening to started to sound exactly the same. And then I was reading about all the AI stuff coming out and while I see a lot of positives, potential positives, or I did see a lot of potential positives in in ⁓ what AI technology can do. And I still see them. ⁓ of course it is still really upsetting and depressing seeing ⁓ just how it's so it's so hard now with anything recorded to be able to tell ⁓ just where it came from. It's kinda like buying meat at the grocery store. Global Music Collective: Hmm. Ooh. kate: Like I I'm a you know what I mean? I don't actually buy meat myself. I'm a pescatarian. ⁓ but I which is so cliche, but whatever. I I went there yesterday because I was grilling out for my nephews, and one of my nephews eats hot dogs, and he wanted hot dogs. He's four years old. He don't know any better. He didn't want my fancy salmon burger, you know. So I So I'm like walking through the aisles of meat at this US grocery store, you know, and it's just like Five million different kinds of meat, and it was all just packaged in this cellophane packaging. And and you don't really like have any context of the actual animal that it came from. And this isn't me being all animal activist about it, although I can if you want me to, but ⁓ I feel like that's the thing that's happening right now is that ⁓ you know, when you're listening to these playlists and and it could be AI and it could be human and it could be human plus AI or AI plus human, and how do we know? And it just starts to become this thing where you're like. Well, if I just it not even in an maybe I'm still gonna eat meat, but I wanna at least just see know what a chicken is before I buy the chicken and eat the chicken. this is probably a really weird comparison. I'm all over the place today. It's only our second podcast, but yeah. But the thing I was gonna tell you is that the analog thing, I got so frustrated with these playlists that I started buying records at thrift stores. Like Global Music Collective: Mm. No. No, that's okay. I love a good segue from a segue. kate: I don't know, I just went into some thrift stores and was like, Wow, these records are like two US dollars for some record that someone spent a lot more money and loved for a long time. Global Music Collective: Do you have this I'm guessing I haven't seen your playlist yet, but I have a feeling I know one that's on there. You bought an album you bought an album like a week or two ago and you put it on after we had like applied for a grant after this long day of writing. And it's about a bottle, I think. I don't know. I don't wanna give it away if it's on there or not on there, but Are you up are you live updating your playlist? Don't live update. You can't change it now. Well, Kate's gone. kate: ⁓ I actually don't remember. I'm gonna have to put that in after. Yes! ⁓ my god. Wait, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. We're we can pause this. Just hang on! No no Global Music Collective: So we're gonna wait for her to bring back presumably this album. I think she just bought a random record at the thrift store, which why not? Last time I went, it was like fifty cents for a full vinyl album. Which I guess if you're a DJ, you can just scratch it up, or if you don't care and you like hang it on your wall, that's kind of a good deal. But if you You're actually spending more on that than like the actual than you would make from Spotify. So kate: Sasha Gamba. Well, that's true. That's actually a very good point. I'm glad that sorry that I just left you like that. But I I have another prop. This is the album. So I found this at a thrift store for like, I don't even know, probably two dollars, maybe less. ⁓ it's called On Tap, In the Can or in the Bottle. And it's by ⁓ the great, the great Hank Thompson, country singer. and Global Music Collective: You left me. This whole podcast is ruined. Hon tap. Hank is a great country singer name. I feel like that's just there's not a lot of pop pop hanks. Yeah, or hip hop hang. Is there hip there's cool Herc. kate: Yeah, there's a lot of hanks. There's not a lot of pop hanks. Not many pop hanks. No. Ooh, is there hip hop hank? Well so anyway, what Richie's talking about, I'm gonna put this on the podcast, but this so anyway, I've been going analog, I've been I've been buying these records for cheap just for fun. And the thing is a record, you can put on one side of a record and it's not that long. It it plays for, I don't know, ten, fifteen minutes. I should know. There's probably an actual time that records play for and and these Global Music Collective: You'd talk, I'll look up Hank. kate: Like vinyl nerds out there are like this lady, this broad doesn't know what she's talking about. Yeah. But but so there's let's see, there's one, two, three, four, five, six songs on each side. And it's fun. It's like when I make dinner, I'll just put on one side of the this record. And if the record's terrible, who cares? You know, whatever. It was a fun experience. And every now and then you find something really weird and random and fun. So there's the song ⁓ that Richie and I were listening to the other day at the end of some long Zoom session. Global Music Collective: How dare you? This is the thirties, geez. kate: Anyway, I was just saying I've been in enjoying that kind of analog experience of just listening. Like there used to be an art form of deciding how songs flowed into each other and what the overall kind of story was and narrative behind it. And yeah. Okay, so what did you find about h hip hop Hank? ⁓ great. Classic. On tap. Global Music Collective: Okay. Sorry, I was just playing the song in my head. I tuned out. I was just listening to Alright, check it out. On the can or in the bottle. that's all I know of it. Alright. So Big Bank Hank is the first that came up. He is okay, so he is a pioneer in hip hop. Pioneer. That said like a country singer. kate: We're in the bottle Hank lives on. Still in the bottle over there. Global Music Collective: In the bottle. And a man he was a member of the Sugar Hill Gang. Which, if you know hip hop, you know they're like fundamental. ⁓ Rapper's Delight, you probably know that song. He let's see. Hank, along with his bandmates Wonder Mike and Master G released the 15 minute track, Rapper's Delight. ⁓ his iconic verses were heavily borrowed from rhymes originally written by Bronx rapper Grandma Grand Grandmaster Kaz. kate: ⁓ That's for real. Yeah. Global Music Collective: Who received no royalties, so there's some controversy behind Big Bank Hank. But such is the life of early hip hop. kate: Ooh. Okay. Big bank indeed. Never never an i you know, bank is an interesting choice for anyway. Global Music Collective: Big bang. Anyway, so there is at least one hip hop Hank out there. Please excuse me if I'm missing like number one artist, MC Hank. kate: what? All of the all of the hanks that are listening to our podcast, or all of the people, that's gonna be our poll. That's gonna be our Spotify poll for this week is do you know a Hank? I don't think I actually that yeah, we're looking for Hanks. Global musical entry points radio is looking for Hanks. All right. I was I was telling you about road trips. We were talking about a million different things. You got a car this week. I think we've we've blabbed for twenty minutes. Global Music Collective: Comment in the comment section. Drop it below. Drop your favorite Hank. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. kate: Shall we just jump I mean we we talked about Hank Thompson who's now going on the list, but should we jump into our playlist? Should we just do this? Let's let's do it. You're you're the screen sharer. You know how to do this. Global Music Collective: L let's do it. I'm the screen share. I feel like last week we did yours first. We can keep with tradition or break. What is your preference? You're like, let's wait a minute. kate: Well let's let's ⁓ I don't know. I always well I was gonna say let's break because I always wanna break, but ⁓ I don't know. Is consistency better or is uncertainty better? Which which is the vibe for this week? Global Music Collective: Drop your answer in the comments below. let's ⁓ let's keep it crushing it. There's you know, nobody's really ever done a podcast before, so who would know how to do this? kate: We are nailing this. Who wouldn't want to listen to us? I'd listen to us. Global Music Collective: Thanks, mom. I don't know if my mom's listened yet. I think she's ⁓ wow. We even shouted out our moms in last episode. So let's keep with it. Let's do yours first because we're already on the Hank train who is not on your list. I've already screenshot it, so you cannot add him pre post whatever. So here we go. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, everybody have a look. Kate's list. kate: I don't think my mom has actually. Mhm. I know. ⁓ gosh. Okay. Okay. Good point. Kate's List. I'm pretty into my playlist this week, I have to say. Although I think I'm gonna say that every week 'cause I have I'm very very graced with great music. Global Music Collective: Are you? Wait, can you ⁓ can you give us a primer about your list? Is there any like theme going through this or how did you put together your list and then you tell us that and then I'll share it? kate: Well, there wasn't a conscious theme. It was just I I really so I've been doing these things. Okay. So I'm not a social media influencer. But ⁓ during COVID I started these coffee playlists that I didn't even mean to. It's just we were all so lonely during COVID. And ⁓ so I was I started playing around making like coffee syrup. To be honest, I'm a coffee polybian. Like I'm not really like a coffee snob, but I was bored and so I started learning how to make different syrups and making fun little coffee things. Anyway, I started posting Photos on my Instagram stories of just a coffee mug that I was drinking out of that morning and whatever song I was listening to that day. And then I would kind of talk about the song and I was just doing it because it was just COVID. I wasn't trying to like start a series, you know, who cares? But funnily enough, it turned into this thing where all of these people got like really attached to not only where I was, because I was traveling a lot during COVID. I moved up to Alaska, I lived in the mountains, and then I like ⁓ since after that I was posting I continued doing this because people kept getting mad at me every time I stopped. I kept being like, no one wants to see my coffee shot with some song, you know, every day. But every time I stopped, I would get all these messages from people being like, Are you okay? Or they'd be like, Where are your coffee posts? So so I'm still doing them like four years later. And ⁓ or God, ⁓ six years later. It's been si ⁓ geez. Anyway, ⁓ I really try to actually just put down the music I'm listening to that week. Like what comes up, what what I've been thinking about. So ⁓ yeah. Global Music Collective: Good. Yeah, that's the point. I feel like if you go in and try to like hyper curate this, it's not personal. kate: It's no fun, yeah. So that's that's my I but I feel like this what I when I was thinking about that, my theme of this week I think I was in a pretty good mood this week 'cause a lot of my songs bring me a lot of joy. So Global Music Collective: Okay. Great. Well, without further ado, the playlist from Coffee Plebeian Kate Bass Brrrr kate: Pull it up. Global Music Collective: Yeah. kate: What a pretentious word for me to have used to talk about how not pretentious I am about coffee. Global Music Collective: Yeah, as a self proclaimed copy I'm not pretentious, I swear. kate: ⁓ I love this list. I love this list. Yeah. Global Music Collective: Alright. This well it's your list. I w should hope you love it. It looks good. Alright, let's see. Who's jumping out? Frank Zappa right off the bat is awesome. ⁓ Lizzo Mape. This is ⁓ I'm gonna I'm gonna do a small story about this, but there is a a waterproofing compound made by Mape. And it's good for making showers and tiling, so kate: It's all over the place. Global Music Collective: That's that name jumps off. I don't know the artist. I don't. So anyway, I'm curious to have a different perspective on the name. ⁓ ba ba ba. Cool. All right. You might have to explain a lot of these because I don't recognize most of this list, and yeah, I'm kind of pumped to see some new stuff. Where can you lead us through this? Okay. kate: Do you Mape th ⁓ she's awesome. That's exciting. Okay. start with the ⁓ I'll start with the first song. Do you know Samm Henshaw? Global Music Collective: Mm mm. Wait, do I did you play Samm Henshaw for me one time? He's like standing in his ⁓ room like it's kind of a one shot music video. Anyway. kate: I probably did because if I swear to God. Samm Henshaw. We were talking about PJ Morton last week and just how, like, if you don't know PJ Morton or Leon Bridges, what's wrong with you? ⁓ Samm Henshaw is of my favorite singers of like my adult life. I just love I love his vibe. I love his music. I love his singing. That song broke. If I wasn't broke, ⁓ ooh. ⁓ Do know song? ⁓ my god, it is such it's such a vibe. It's just It's so great. It's so great. It's funny. He's an incredible singer. The song, you were talking last week a lot about pockets. The song, like the whole song is just a pocket. I just love that song. Watermelon and Easter Hay, Frank Zappa. So I had a friend ⁓ who was dating the bass player in the Zappa Plays Zappa band. And when I lived in New York City years ago, they came and did a performance and like it was just one of these really fun nights where like I flirted with Dweisel Zappa. Global Music Collective: Mm. Live for a pocket. kate: And and like my friend was it was just like the whole show was so weird. I didn't really get Frank Zappa at the time. I was younger. I didn't really understand the Frank Zappa. But for the for those of you who don't know Frank Zappa, he was ⁓ what was he like a 60s and 70s rock star? Is that the time? I think that's around the time. ⁓ and he just wrote r really unusual music. ⁓ that's actually as you get to know it better, it's ⁓ very complex, very Global Music Collective: Yeah, you did. Yeah. kate: Very intelligent, very interesting. Some of it's very goofy and quirky, but ⁓ anyway, so esoterical, that's the right word. ⁓ but so I loved Watermelon and Easter Hay. Here's the story about it that I know. And I could be wrong. This I'm not an expert on Frank Zappa, and there are Zappa experts who will hate me as much as all of the hanks out there who feel unheard and unseen. ⁓ Global Music Collective: Satirical. Yeah. Hanks and Frank's. That's our title. kate: That was really good. That was really good. ⁓ anyway, Hanks and Franks, episode two. ⁓ so good. ⁓ what was what was I saying? Okay, so apparently I was flirting with Weasel Zappa, but that's that's of no matter in this story. So apparently this song, Watermelon and Easter Hay, was a song that Zappa had written, I think, for his wife, and she had ⁓ when he died, she told the band you're not allowed to play that song. Global Music Collective: Yeah. So you're flirting with a Zappa? kate: It it's too powerful for me. It just it hits me so hard. There's no words in it. It's at the end of a really odd album. ⁓ w and and the the monologue, Frank Zappa does this monologue in the very beginning that I'm not even gonna tell you too much about. You just got to listen to it. And then he talks about how at the very end, at the end of this guy's ⁓ journey, there's this legendary guitar solo that comes up, and then he just plays this guitar. So I have goosebumps just talking about it. That's just like It's one of these epic rock power ballad kind of solos. And it's it goes on for nine minutes. It's it kind it's not at all like the Sun Ra song of last week, but it's a similar just like nine minutes doesn't ever feel long enough for me. And every time that song comes on, I just feel like something big is h I don't know how to describe it, but ⁓ when he played that song at the Beacon Theater in New York, Dweezel Zappa played that song. I was just like, this is such a cool song. And I turned to my friend and she told me just this kind of backstory to it. And apparently it was one of the first times that song had ever been played in public. And Frank Zappa's wife was in the audience at the time. And like it was this beautiful, powerful moment of just the son, at least in my exper I don't know what the true story is behind it, but in my story of experiencing this, it was such a beautiful moment of like the son acknowledging his father's legacy and their hi the Global Music Collective: Whoa. kate: The love story between the mother and the father. And God knows what the reality was, but I guess that's the thing about art, right? And about stories is we don't always know what the real meaning behind the whole thing is, but we know what it what it meant to us at the time. And so anyway, I love that song. It's a great song. ⁓ and then in terms of other just like English songs in it, I have to say, ⁓ What a World by Casey Musgraves. I have a voice student who was working on that song, and I didn't actually know it. I know of Casey Musgraves, you know, obviously she's a very famous. pop pop country singer here in the States. And she's got a great personality. I I just like the personality she puts out. ⁓ but anyway, that song, my student was singing it. And ⁓ I was just so affected by what a lovely lyrical concept was behind it. And it felt like a very there's still good American pop that's being made. So that was my thought with that one. ⁓ And then the other English ⁓ Skilo, I wish. ⁓ Global Music Collective: Mm-hmm. kate: It just had to go in, you know? It's a great song. And I feel like that's one of these that's one of these songs that we all, you know, I wish I was a little bit taller. Everybody needs Kate Bass rapping. That's definitely a thing the world needs. But I feel like every at least American youth knows the words to that song. You know, I wish I had a girl that looked good. I would call her. I wish I had a rap. But then the other day I was driving and that song came on the radio. And I was like, ⁓ this song's actually really good. It's Global Music Collective: Yeah, okay. In a hip, the bat. kate: It's good. And it's not just the chorus that's good. It's just a really he's the ⁓ I really like the lyricism. ⁓ not just in the words, but in the the melodic tone of his voice as he's doing it. And then the last ⁓ English one, I think, of all of these. ⁓ there's two last English ones. ⁓ well, okay, three. There's ⁓ Jerome by Lizzo, and again, that's like Lizzo is famous pop, but I think maybe a lot of people who haven't listened to her albums might not know Jerome as well as her more famous. Global Music Collective: Okay. kate: Tunes. Do you know Jerome? Global Music Collective: Right, you don't get the singles, you don't or you only get the singles, you don't get the the B sides, the deeper cuts. kate: The album, yeah. Right. And it's not like I'm a I'm ⁓ unfortunately I will say I love Lizzo, I respect the shit out of Lizzo, but I wouldn't say I'm a a B sides level fan. Like I just I I I hear Lizzo how she comes up. And anyway, a friend of ours, actually Jacob Volkmar, years ago was p I asked him like what song he was listening to and he played this song. And it's just I don't know if you've heard it, but it's got this kind of like old school retro vibe. But then she just ⁓ my god, her singing is so good. It is so fun to sing along with and She's totally ragging on this guy who's coming after her, who she's just like, ⁓ my God, grow up. Come back when you're grown up. And so it's really fun for like a breakup or when you're annoyed with someone. So anyway, I I love that song. ⁓ Don't Wait by Mopay is a song that that came up just randomly on a on a Spotify playlist years ago back during COVID. ⁓ and I just loved it. And so I put it on. ⁓ I wish I had more to say about that one. Global Music Collective: No, that's I sometimes I think that's the best one is like I just liked it. kate: Yeah. I just I I feel like she's got a great vibe in it too. I think this week was a lot of vibes. I was just feeling a lot of vibes. ⁓ Dedicated to You is a really great jazz song. ⁓ most jazz musicians would call it a standard, but I think a lot of people who aren't jazz musicians probably don't know Dedicated to You as well. and I knew the version that Ella Fitzgerald had sang for ⁓ you know, most of my life. It's a really great version of Dedicated to You. We were talking about cover songs last week. Global Music Collective: Lot of vibes. kate: But recently I heard the version by Johnny Coltrane. I'm sorry, Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane, who's a famous saxophone player. ⁓ my favorite. But actually, a good saxophone. I love a good saxophone. Like, ⁓ yeah, there's there is who can't love a good saxophone? I just feel like okay, I'm not gonna talk, not gonna talk smack about saxophones today. But anyway, not today, Richie. That song, though, just it's just again, it's such a Global Music Collective: Your favorite? Okay. That's fair that's fair. Just a good text. Not today, all right. kate: Such a vibe, but that's it's so velny Hartman's voice. John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman are had a famous duo. that they s they performed a lot of especially ballads together. And there's just this beautiful the beautiful velvety tone between the two of them. It it's so like you just want a nice glass of deep red wine and ⁓ just sit back and listen to it some kind of rainy summer evening. ⁓ And then the last English one, and then maybe you can ask me some questions because I'm tired of my own voice. But don't let the good times pass you by. I think that's no, don't let the good life pass you by by Mama Cass. ⁓ that actually I just was listening to it the other day. My mom loved Mama Cass, loves Mama Cass. She didn't stop loving her. and that song just came up and I was like, ⁓ man, that's yet yet another song. This is like Kate's B-side, ⁓ Global Music Collective: I'm a cass. kate: moment. But that I feel like that's another song just everybody knows the mamas and the papas. Every pro probably most at least Americans know ⁓ you know, Dream a Little Dream of Me, Star shining bright above you. Dream a little dream of me. What do you think of? Global Music Collective: Mm. That's not the one I think of but. ⁓ California Dreamin'. That's mamas and papas to me. They do. They ha anyway, I won't digress too much. kate: ⁓ they have so many good tunes. There's also if I had a hammer. ⁓ Anyway, this was a this was just a a great song of hers that I think probably not as many people know, so I wanted to share it. ⁓ so anyway, ⁓ ask there Global Music Collective: Nice. Can you set the record straight on Mama Cass? I feel like there's a a incorrect rumor about how she died. And do you know this? Or maybe I'm just too deep in the weeds with it. So there's a terrible rumor that she died because she choked on a sandwich. A ham sandwich. And that is not true. It's like if you search Mama Cass, that will come up as the like first suggestion from Google. She it was heart failure, not to like bring the mood down too much, but It wasn't from a ham sandwich, so I just want to correct the record for Mama Cass. She that's how she passed away. But she was an amazing singer, and not just with mamas and papas, but on in her own right, having her own solo career. ⁓ Yeah. Now you know world. I know. It's probably one person yeah, exactly. Well, even like Elvis, I think has a rumor about how he died and anyway. kate: I'm I people are so disappointing the the rumors that that get spreaded about women. Well about everyone. Not just women, but everyone. ⁓ yeah, that's true. Tupac. Global Music Collective: Why don't you whisper that Tupac? kate: There. ⁓ yeah. Anyway, I think I think I really just feel excited. I don't know exactly who's listening to our podcast now and who's going to listen to it in the future, but Richie and I have the tremendous luck ⁓ and grace to be able to know so many people around the world and know so many artists and people who kind of follow the work we've been doing. ⁓ Global Music Collective: Anyway. Sorry. kate: And so I am also thinking as I'm making these playlists, I want to not just bring new music for the crowd here in the US or in the West, but I want to also be able to show people ⁓ abroad some music that they might not know of from America. So they're not just hearing ⁓ the top 40 greatest hits. Some of the top 40 stuff is really amazing, but there's great music coming out of everywhere. And I do have to say, as an American, sometimes it makes me sad. And I've had my own struggles with where I'm from. I think we all go through these periods where we really ⁓ you know, we're not happy with go what's going on politically, with what's going on socially, ⁓ economically, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And there's so much that ⁓ we all kind of bring into that. But ⁓ it makes me sad when people say that Americans have no culture. ⁓ America and the United States of America is made up of so many different cultures and people, and those cultures do come together. ⁓ you know, not always, but but often and create things and there are things here that I'm proud of, you know, and I'm proud of the music that I put up here. And I I guess sometimes I just want to share some of the good too and not just not just sit there and ⁓ you know talk badly about my home. Let's not put that up, but anyway. Global Music Collective: No, that's fine. I it well it's it's not fair either, I think, to categorize any group or country as this monolith, to say that this is Italian culture, this is Scandinavian food. It I mean it may come from there, but you know, I I reference Italy a lot with this type of conversation because even w a village away or a town away, there's a different language or a different dialect altogether. And that's not necessarily unique kate: Yeah. Right. Global Music Collective: To Italy, it's you know, in the United States, not only do we have fifty states, but within the states, we have, you know, Colorado has the mountains and the plains and Denver and Pueblo and and you're in Austin, Texas, but there are a hundred different parts of Texas, they're all different. And and I think that's the point of it's it's easy as a human being to like to say, ⁓ this is what this is what the Australians think, this is what a Chinese person thinks. kate: Yeah. Global Music Collective: But the reality is, you know, our lives are much more enriched when we like look at the one person, Mama Cass, who is different than the rest of the Mamas and the Papas. Cass Elliot. She she is different even within that like that small microcosm. And she's different as a solo artist and than she is as ⁓ you know, part of a group. So I don't know, that's the part that's I think that's what's cool about music is that we are all changing and every artist puts out new music. So Yeah. There. kate: Yeah. Yeah. It's such a reflection of just who we are as humans. And it's interesting when you're talking about Italy and ⁓ Sweden and or Switzerland or whatever. I I also just think a lot of times it's hard to really comprehend the size of the United States of America until you're here and you're trying to drive across, you know, the panhandle of Florida or like Texas or don't even get me started on my homeland of Alaska. Had to bring that in the conversation. but I just I don't think people fully comprehend that. Global Music Collective: The homeland the largest state in the Union kate: ⁓ every state here is like the size of Italy or the size. I mean, not not exactly, but oftentimes. And there are different cultures and different groups of people and that are all shaped by these complicated histories. Some, you know, that that have lots of bad and lots of good. ⁓ and there's a lot of stories of immigrants, there's a lot of stories of ⁓ you know, indigenous cultures that were practically erased. Global Music Collective: Yeah. kate: ⁓ there's there are a lot of stories also of people coming together and ⁓ innovating and building new things and there's good and bad and it's this crazy experiment, you know, with the United States that has so much tragedy, ⁓ but it also has some really interesting stuff. And yeah, I don't know. When I go to New Orleans, I feel like if everyone could see the culture here and and if everyone could see the culture when they're in ⁓ Detroit or in hearing blues music in St. Louis, Missouri, or ⁓ you know, go into one of these one of these country bars here in Austin and and two step dancing. Like there's there's culture and it's just ⁓ it's not all what you see in the mainstream. There's a lot of interesting stuff. So anyway Global Music Collective: That's ⁓ have you s ⁓ right now we are filming this during the beginnings of the World Cup and all of these fans from other countries that are able to travel here are there's some videos of people that are trying to take ranch dressing home or really excited about these, you know, very American style foods that they're encountering or American things and I don't know, it's it's that's that sort of kate: It's so sweet. Global Music Collective: authentic in a sense of like ⁓ this is different and interesting and ⁓ it's new to me and I like it or I don't like it is I think that's a really kind of fun thing to be watching and something that I I do like about the World Cup, which certainly has its issues, but ⁓ the Yeah, exactly. So I'm but I'm enjoying some of the things that are that are really good about it, including that. I'm digressing on your behalf. I'm sorry, g what kate: Yeah. Yeah. Everything has its issues. Yeah. No, it's okay. I've I'm glad you talked about the World Cup 'cause that's been on my mind this this ⁓ this week. And I I just think that also it's like it's funny 'cause when when people come here and they're so excited about Costco and Waffle House, it's so cute to us 'cause those are places that for us were kind of like ⁓ but at the same time I I I don't know, I hope that as they're here longer too, like they're seeing how how Americans are actually pretty nice people and ⁓ Global Music Collective: Mm-hmm. ⁓ another waffle house. kate: I don't know. I hope they go to local diners and I hope they get to like check out ⁓ more of the local scenes and places too and and and not just go home with the ranch dressing, but also go home with ⁓ pe things like ⁓ the B sides of Mama Cass and stuff, you know. There's there's so much more. Anyway, okay. ⁓ bringing it back. So ⁓ there are some I want you to ask me about some of the non English ones so I can tell you more. but I'm curious what stands out to you. Global Music Collective: There you go. Bringing it back. I'm curious. I'm gonna guess ⁓ Nakamara with hiatus coyote and q tip. ⁓ I would like to know about that one in particular. And ⁓ I am curious about where is it? The Cambodian soul sounds Man of Constant Sorrow. That's a cover I'm imagining. And ⁓ all right. Why am I a man of constant sorrow? Am I bringing you down, Kate? kate: Mm. Hmm. Okay. Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I brought that in for you. Yeah. Well no No, we were talking about Global Music Collective: My melancholy, sorry. Please Yes. kate: We were talking about cover songs last week and you we were talking about people doing good covers and ⁓ I just thought this I don't know how. I don't know in what part of my travels I discovered the song, but it's a cover of I am a man of constant sorrow. Like classic American folk. And it's a camb it's Cambodian group doing the whole song in very it's just so odd and fun. And it's kind of it's like a fun vibe ⁓ when you're when you're driving. Global Music Collective: Male Yeah. That's such a ⁓ such a like piques my interest genre of other English or other languages covering ⁓ like Western particularly American songs. It's like this isn't yours, but I'm okay with it and have it. Take it, make it yours. Yeah. kate: Yeah, yeah. Right, like who would have thought? Yeah, like please, please. It's not that the original isn't amazing. Of course that's a really, really well known ⁓ American tune. ⁓ but it was so fun to hear it in this very traditional, exotic Cambodian way. It was just kinda like, ⁓ so that's that one. And then Nakamara is it's actually I don't know a whole lot about I mean obviously, you know, Q tip, ⁓ But the it's a it's just a hip hop tune that came up years ago. I think I heard it playing in the background in a in a restaurant at an airport and I saved it to my playlist and again it's just another vibe. I listened to it actually the I have a travel playlist, ⁓ that I listen to a lot of times when, you know, Richie and I have had to do, as we've said, a lot of traveling and that's a lot of airports, a lot of running through places and trying to get through ⁓ layovers and and, you know, missing flights and Global Music Collective: Yeah. kate: having your suitcase break and running around and ⁓ I find that having playlists it just kinda keep me going and and so that's that's a song that I always listen to when I'm traveling. So every time that song comes up now, it it brings back fun memories of like usually not fun at the time, but running through some random airport somewhere in the world trying to catch your next flight. Global Music Collective: Well, and that's such a weird combo. I've not to say they shouldn't do anything together, but I am always intrigued when somebody like Q Tip, who has acclaim and fame and a huge history, collaborates with a band that I frankly haven't heard of. And they're an Australian band and they do like future jazz in Neo Soul, apparently. This is my quick Google search of this, but I I'm just so intrigued, like, ⁓ kate: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Global Music Collective: Hey, Q tip showed up at your show and heard your song, would love to collaborate. Is that how that worked? I don't know. It just it that those kind of collabs and connections are always intriguing to me. kate: Yeah. No, that's ⁓ you'll hear it when you hear the song. It's got a very it's just a very you know what I love about it is that it doesn't hit you over the head with, you know, ⁓ this is acid jazz mixed with hip hop. It's just like this is a cool song and it I think that's what Richie and I r that's what we've been going for with Global Music Collective, isn't to it's it's not to ⁓ it's try it's to try to make other sounds accessible, you know, because they sound really cool together. Like since I'm on this America tear right now, which is kinda funny 'cause it's it's almost Independence Day here in America. Global Music Collective: It is kate: But ⁓ since I'm on this whole thing, there's something really fun about just having different things to get like Richie used to talk about even gangnam style, you know, there's just something fun about hearing a piece of music that sounds very relatable. It doesn't it doesn't freak your ears out like, ⁓ this is something I've never heard before. But it's got these fresh new sounds within it. ⁓ you don't think when you listen to Nakamara, at least I never listen to it thinking like, ⁓ how interesting, the different layers, different songs. It just was really memorable and fun. ⁓ so yeah, I love that about that song. ⁓ I know w I'm going on and on and on about my list today, so I wanna just make sure I get to one song in parti there's actually a couple songs in particular, but would you like to ask me about Aykalkun? Global Music Collective: I would love Yes, that's what I was just going to ask you about. It's also ⁓ this was such a trend for a while is adding either punctuation or going all caps. I think Billie Eilish she all caps or no caps. Anyway, it doesn't matter. But some No, this is not a I we were all well, we were all you and I were alive when we were all we were interested in adding a kate: ⁓ I don't know, I don't know. But I love Billie Eilish. Don't even come down on Billie Eilish. Okay. Global Music Collective: period at the end of a n was it fun? Not fun. ⁓ the format. No, it was fun. After the guy left the format and founded fun. I think fun it's like fun period is the name of the band. That was a that was a trend. Anyways, that has nothing to do with the song. Tell me about Aykalkun kate: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Right. It's like a cool trend. Well I love that you said that because that really does have nothing to do with. So Awet ⁓ is someone who I met in Eritrea. You were asking me about Eritrea last week, and I promised you that I would show you a little bit about the music of Eritrea this week. And ⁓ it's such a long story, there's no way that we could fit it into this podcast. But I'll just tell you that when I went to Eritrea, it was my first ⁓ in cultural diplomacy, ⁓ I didn't really know ⁓ it was gonna be like and what I was doing. I had looked up I got a call. I actually got an email ⁓ from ⁓ from this company that was putting on different programs funded through US embassies, American Voices. ⁓ I got an email ⁓ from John, the head of it, just I had never heard of him before. He told me a friend had told him about me, and he asked if I might be interested in doing a program where I brought opera, Broadway, and songwriting ⁓ to a couple different countries. The first two were Eritrea and Lebanon, and I remember just being like, That's so odd. Okay, like tell me more. And I went to Eritrea and Eritrea is it, for those of you who don't know, I'm sorry, because it's a special, beautiful place. It is a complicated place. It's a tiny country ⁓ right next to Ethiopia. They have a very ⁓ very terrible, ⁓ very long war that they've been fighting off and on ⁓ for decades. ⁓ but they're right in the Horn of Africa and they have ⁓ similar, I wouldn't say similar culture to Ethiopia because obviously every culture is so different, but they also have a beautiful history of this ⁓ this incredible coffee culture, like what I'm sure you experienced in Ethiopia. And they have they have music that and and language unlike anything I've ever heard before. So the language that they speak in Asmara is Tigrinya. ⁓ when I looked it up, it looks a lot like Amharic, but it's it's different. Global Music Collective: Mm. kate: And ⁓ the sounds that they that they use when they speak are somewhere in between like Arabic ⁓ the sound that counts comes from further down in the throat. And there's lots of ⁓ different kinds of consonants and it's it's tremendously hard coming, you know, I I love languages and I studied ⁓ French and Italian and German and even a little bit of Japanese growing up and trying to figure out the first couple things. When I went to Eritrea, there was very little access on the internet to be able to learn learn any Tigrinya. ⁓ I would try to find websites, you know, Google Translate didn't have Tigrinya yet in it. And ⁓ anyway, I I showed up in Eritrea with no idea what this was going to be. And ⁓ it it it's it's a country that not many outsiders at the time, ⁓ maybe still, I don't know, but not many outsiders were very often granted access into. And for that reason, It felt like entering a culture that had really been ⁓ preserved for them themselves in a way that I haven't experienced anywhere else before. ⁓ there is also ⁓ trem tremendously complicated history ⁓ politically within the country that I don't need to get into here, but ⁓ it's a very interesting place and the people that I met there absolutely blew my mind. I I walked into this room at a school ⁓ with very little briefing on what What the culture was, what we were supposed to do. All I knew was that I had eight hours a day. We were supposed to do do opera and songwriting and Broadway. And maybe, maybe two people in the group spoke English. And ⁓ and I consider myself good with people, but this was my first time doing anything like this. And I had something I had a couple weeks to work with them. Global Music Collective: That's a lot. kate: And ⁓ we had a performer a culminating performance at the end. This was sponsored by the acting embassy at the time. They're they're not fully operational because we have complicated ⁓ relations between our two countries. but so this was a high-profile thing that we were doing. And again, I had no idea what the heck was gonna happen. And anyway, the way that people responded to me was basically with really, really blank expressions in the beginning. People either didn't understand, but also I found out later. ⁓ they come from a culture where they don't express as openly as we do. ⁓ they're not able to. And there were there were so many layers that we don't need to get into here about why our forms of expression were so different. ⁓ and I didn't know what to do. I no one knew really what Broadway was. Maybe again, maybe two people knew what Broadway was. There was ⁓ one or two people who were amazing opera singers. They have a very complicated history there. They used to be occupied by the Italians. Back when Mussolini was in charge. And ⁓ so they have an opera house there. And there are some people who still keep up that tradition, which is so unusual. But anyway, it's a very interesting place. I had to figure out how to connect with these people, and trying to talk to them about Broadway didn't make a damn bit of difference. They didn't really have a lot of access at the time to the internet to be able to even really like be inundated with American culture like everyone is. And so ⁓ I kind of gave up after the first or second day of trying to f follow the rules of what the program was supposed to be. I gave up and I just said, listen, just sing for me. Sing for me in Tigrinya, sing for me your songs, and let's just talk about what I think you're saying, and then I'll have someone translate it back to me and ⁓ and we'll go from there. I'm sorry, I might go on a little long about this, but we can edit it down. ⁓ It is I have to say it's it's for me, it's one of the most formative Global Music Collective: Well, this is a great story. kate: stories of my ⁓ of my life. ⁓ but so anyway, so I said, ⁓ sing for me in your language, I'll tell you what I think you're saying, and we'll just start a conversation after that. And I had some really wonderful people in the group that spoke enough English that translated for me. And ⁓ and as time went on and people started singing for me, I started learning some words in Tigrinya. Like I remember I learned the word for like strength and I learned the word for trust and I learned the word for shy. And where I couldn't find the right word and where translation didn't work, I just tried to use body language and and different other forms of communicating, whether it was through dynamics in my voice or ⁓ eye contact or actual physical, you know, posture and gestures. ⁓ and they did the same. And as a few days went on, people started to trust me. I think they were like, all right, this lady's really trying. She's curious. She's interested. She's trying. ⁓ and so they started Giving me more. They started singing ⁓ songs that ⁓ they started it to express more. And Awet came up and sang this song for me. And I'll never forget. it was a voice like not I'm about to cry. It was like nothing I've ever heard in my entire life. It was so beautiful and so powerful and so full of soul and emotion and depth. Global Music Collective: Mm-hmm. kate: And I didn't understand the first thing about the words he was singing, but I just felt something so deep inside of me. And ⁓ and we we just connected on that level. And he and I then had some conversations. Like he spoke okay English. It was it was, you know, pretty broken. But ⁓ I we had a a good friend who ⁓ he became a good friend, of course, who ⁓ his name's Ben Hoor, he's an incredible opera singer. He now lives in America and he's thriving. ⁓ Global Music Collective: Mm-hmm. kate: But Ben Hur would translate between Awa and me when we would ⁓ every now and then we would kind of try to sneak out for lunch. They weren't supposed to ⁓ I don't know what's okay for me to say here, but they w the the participants were not supposed to be spending a lot of time with us personally because ⁓ the government felt very distrusting ⁓ of Americans coming in for a cultural program. ⁓ the power of culture is actually pretty strong. That's why governments invest money in it. And most of us as artists were just coming and wanting to connect with people. ⁓ but sometimes the governments feel a little bit resistant, like what are these people trying to what are they trying to do? What are they trying to accomplish, you know? ⁓ so anyway, Awet told me his story. And I'm gonna tell some of it here, and we're probably gonna edit out what what doesn't feel right to share. But ⁓ Awet grew up in a small village, I believe it was on the border of Libya. His mother ⁓ was drafted into the military to fight the war. against Ethiopia. She had been injured in the war. ⁓ he had a sister and a mother. He grew up supporting them. He said in high school, in Eritrea they have a system I a lot of this I can't say, but I'm just gonna tell you, Richie, and and we'll figure it out. ⁓ do you know this story? Global Music Collective: Yeah, we can cut as we need to. ⁓ I don't think I do. kate: Okay. ⁓ they had a a system or have I don't know what it is now in Eritrea where when you're in high school, you're kind of allowed, as far as I know, to to say what you want to be when you graduate, like what you want your job to be. And if you don't decide or if they don't approve it, you get drafted into the military. People in the military make maybe a quarter a month, twenty five cents or so, the equivalent. They live in tents on the borders outside the cities and Most of them die. ⁓ Global Music Collective: So there's a real impetus to try and pick a thing that is gonna get approved. Okay. kate: Awet loved music. He just wanted to be a musician. That's that was his thing. ⁓ when ⁓ when he was about to graduate high school, something happened to him. ⁓ a teacher accused him of stealing something that he didn't steal. ⁓ he had to they have a complicated legal system there. They don't have a jury, they just have a judge who decides and it takes a long time. He ⁓ fought the decision and the ⁓ the judge ended up ⁓ in his favor, but by the time ⁓ That process was over. He missed his chance ⁓ to say what he wanted to do, and he got drafted into the military. And he said, I don't want to be in the military, I want to be a singer. And they threw him in prison. They threw him in prison. And he was in prison at the age of eighteen. ⁓ from what he told me, and again, I don't know if this can go online, but the prisons in Eritrea are underground caves where people are shackled to the wall in their underwear. And they're f fed nothing but dry bread and water. Global Music Collective: Wow. And that's that. Geez. kate: So he that's where he was when he was 18, one of the most amazing singers that I've ever heard. ⁓ all because I know we you know, even though we're gonna edit this out, I don't want to talk forever, but ⁓ I think it was like a year or two later he got out. ⁓ they asked him again, you know, they d they tried to draft him again and again he said, I wanna be a musician. Guess where he went? Right back to prison. This happened for the course of like probably about a decade. ⁓ there were different terrible things, like his sister Tried to flee the country and she got ⁓ enslaved into the sex trade. And the only way he could save her was to raise 10,000 US dollars, which by Eritrean standards is almost impossible. Yeah, I don't I don't want to know what he had to do to save her. But ⁓ he went through these tremendous, there were so many, so many stories that he told me of just tremendous adversity that he had to fight. ⁓ he was imprisoned for, I think it was probably ⁓ Global Music Collective: At a quarter a day it's yeah. That's yeah. kate: I mean it was years, years of his twenties. Finally, by the time I met him, ⁓ he told me that he had just very recently come out of prison again. And again, this man had committed no crime other than wanting to be a musician. No crime, not that I know of. and he was released from prison and he showed me these scars that he had on his arm where he had tried to kill himself in prison. and one day a monk came and brought him food. Actual food. After years of being shackled to a wall, eating nothing but dry bread and water. ⁓ this guy brought him food and he saw God. And he started singing this song, Aykalkun This was his song of joy that he just wrote in prison. It goes He sang this to ⁓ me. A cappella in this room. And I had no idea the backstory behind it. And it felt so powerful and so beautiful to me. It stuck with me so strongly that at the very end of this whole program, we performed on Tigrinian television, national television. I sang in Tigrinya on their national television. ⁓ the audience went absolutely nuts when I sang in their language, and it wasn't because I was so amazing. Like I wa I wasn't. I think it was because for them it was maybe one of very few times that they heard a foreigner get up on stage and and try, and just try. And this performance ended and a few of us were celebrating, and I'm sitting there with a couple people and Awet. We're all having this coffee ceremony at two in the morning in some random person's house in Asmara, Eritrea. And ⁓ I didn't know how to possibly tell them how. much that time meant to me. Like the the friendships that I formed with these people just through trying to communicate through music together and getting to know each other on this incredibly deep, intangible level that transcended any kind of casual conversations we could have about whatever. ⁓ All I could think to do was just sing that. So we were just sitting around having this coffee and we're all just kind of looking at each other, you know, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Friend, friend Global Music Collective: Yeah. Yeah. kate: And so I just sang ⁓ And they started singing back in harmony. And then we all started crying. And anyway, Awet has since ⁓ left the country. He now lives in Sweden. And we've kept in touch every now and then, and I hear what he's up to, and he's had his own struggles and successes since then. And ⁓ he I didn't know that he released this song. Like we've fallen out of touch a bit over the years. Global Music Collective: Ooh. Yeah. Yeah. kate: And ⁓ I not not for any reason, just you know, life happens and we fell out of touch. And ⁓ when I was thinking about Eritrean music, of course, the first thing I looked up was to see what what Awet's released. And when I saw that Aykalkun had been released, this song that this that he wrote in the most tremendously adverse circumstances, that this person who just wanted nothing more than to be a musician, he just wanted to sing. ⁓ And now I know more. I know that it was composed on the Bati major scale, I think is the scale, ⁓ which is a pentatonic scale that they write a lot of their music on in Eritrea. ⁓ just to know, like to have these stories and these memories of eating Eritrean food and sitting around drinking Eritrean coffee and making friends with these incredible people. There's so many stories I could tell you for hours. I've already spent so much time and I haven't even told you the whole story about this, Richie. There's so much more. ⁓ Just to know that that he that he's doing it. He released the song. Like in the most impossible circumstances, this person moved heaven and earth to be able to find a way to make music. And he got that song out there and it's just sitting on Spotify and nobody knows about it. It it like I think it's why I sacrificed everything to try to do this work with you, you know? Like sorry. I feel like we live in this world where Everything's about how to market the next thing and how to, you know, ⁓ are they are they, you know, putting a period at the end? Is this a trend? Or are they playing trending audio, you know, or do we have enough of a hook for our podcast? Are people gonna listen? And we have to do that 'cause we have to live. We but but ⁓ there are there are people like this man who are like the the things that they have accomplished and the the worlds that they have experienced and the stories that they have lived and the ⁓ The color that they bring to this planet is so powerful. And I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful that I got that random email from John and that it sent me to Eritrea. And I got this experience of just like it wasn't the classic, like, ⁓ the world is fucked up and I didn't know. But it was this moment of like, the world is so rich and so diverse and so full of variation and depth and beauty and struggle and strength. And how could I possibly go back to just caring about my opera career? How could I possibly go back to like being upset that that more people didn't come out to my gig at, you know, whatever music bar where I'm singing my song about a breakup? Like there it's not that there's something wrong with the songs about a breakup. It's that I just want people to know Awet. I want people to know what's out there. I'm sorry, I c now I'm really I don't know if I did a good job explaining this, Richie. I hope I did a good job explaining it but Global Music Collective: I think that was I think that was great. And certainly if there's more to tell, we can tell more. if you're listening now, we will probably have to edit out some of it just to you know, it's his story and and where he's coming from. ⁓ you know, we wanna make sure the details we share are are are ⁓ are not not are safe, not too sensitive. ⁓ but it's an amazing story and I think we'll try to keep as much of that as we can 'cause that's yeah. kate: Yeah, find what we can. Global Music Collective: Yeah, it sounds like he wanted to sing because he wanted to sing. He wanted to make music. Not it wasn't well, it wasn't political. Okay. It w and it wasn't to be a top forty artist. Maybe that would be a nice goal at some point, but that wasn't the driving force, I don't think. It sounds like if you're willing to go to prison for a decade just to sing, just to put this out there. And I would imagine, you know, you said this was not the first day of the program. kate: It wasn't political. Global Music Collective: He probably had this song inside of him and just you being there and and listening and trying to learn a couple of words in the language and and trying you know, even if it's unsuccessful, you know, it got to a point where Awet felt comfortable enough to come to you and and sing this in front of you and I don't know, that was probably in his heart for a day or two and until he decided to make it happen. kate: That's a good way to put it. And it's also very interesting to know he was incredibly famous in Eritrea. We would walk around Asmara and everyone knew him. He yeah, he was a celebrity. He won Eritrean Idol right after he got out of prison. Like, no joke. He was a total he's he's a celebrity in Eritrea. Yeah. And who who knew? You it's like Dovran Shammyev who we love and have worked with in Turkmenistan. Global Music Collective: ⁓ really? Wow. kate: Dovran is an actual celebrity. Everyone in Turkmenistan knows Dovron Shammyev. And outside of Turkmenistan, you know, he's he's largely unknown. And there are so many people like this all over the world that are wildly successful in their own region or their own country, their own locale. And yeah. It's Global Music Collective: Well, that seems like a good reason to do this podcast is to is to share them and that and push it through what otherwise is a an environment controlled by the giant record companies, frankly, and the Spotifies of the world. I mean they want their numbers, so I guess, you know, that it makes sense to kind of push some artists. But they're so good. I cannot wait to listen to this track. kate: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know we've got to move on to you, and I just wanna say one more one more person, one more thing. Actually two more and then I'll then I'll let it let it go. Cause I know I I spoke a lot about Awet, but I really want I somehow I wanna find a way to get that story out there. This is just between me and you internally. ⁓ and actually that reminds me so as we're talking about these ⁓ these people who are celebrities in their own right, who then come out into other parts of the world and and are largely unknown. ⁓ Global Music Collective: Yeah. kate: I was really blown away. I have a friend who I made years ago back in California who I taught voice lessons to, and she's from Venezuela. And I had told her I had gone to a performance in LA ⁓ of Nat Natalia La Fourcade, who is actually relatively known well known. She's a Mexican singer. She's I love her. She's incredible. and I heard her just at this kind of random performance with a guy I was dating at the time, and I thought she was amazing. And I got into her music and discovered she's actually very famous in Mexico and she's Done a lot here in America since I think she was on the Coco soundtrack, I think. ⁓ but anyway, ⁓ my friend from Venezuela was like, ⁓ she's a pop star. Everybody knows her. You've got to hear Nella. And I was like, Who's Nella? And and she's also extremely famous in Venezuela. Have you heard of her? Yeah. Me neither. Listen to that song. It is such a vibe. Me y me jama Nella, I think is how you say it. ⁓ and she says Nella, not Neya. ⁓ Global Music Collective: Not heard of Not Nayet, okay. kate: And ⁓ I don't know. I heard her singing and I was like, this is just amazing. And it's so funny because probably people in Venezuela or from Venezuela who are listening to this, they're probably like, yeah, Nella, it's like us. It's like Germans getting excited about Waffle House. No, Nella is not Waffle House. She is way more amazing. But it's it's ⁓ it's just interesting to me how many people are so famous in certain places and we don't them. The other one I want to bring up is ⁓ you looked her up. Global Music Collective: All right, fair enough. Yeah. Okay. I had to just like a quick sec well no I I it reminds me 'cause I think that means like they call me Nella, right? No yeah, I'm on Nelly. ⁓ it I thought maybe it was like a take on that, like they call me Stacey. They call me Jade. That's not my name. I just assumed maybe that's what it was, but probably not. I went Waffle House, you went legitimate music. Anyway. All right. kate: Mm-hmm. No, but you gotta listen to that song. Well, there's a there's one other here, ⁓ that's from Egypt and I wish I could say her name right. ⁓ it's N A I Barakuti or something. I wish I could pronounce her name right. I'm embarrassed that I can't, but I love her music. A friend of mine, I went to Egypt with the same cultural diplomacy ⁓ work that I did in Eritrea. I got to spend an incredible month in Cairo. ⁓ I got to see parts nobody goes to Cairo. Very often when they're visiting from abroad, they usually go or they'll go to Cairo for a day. They'll see the pyramids. They'll ⁓ it's big and crazy and you know, whatever. And then they'll go to the, you know, the other incredible historical sites. But I had this tremendous opportunity to get to know Cairo really well. And ⁓ Cairo's an incredible city. It's massive. The f the food is out of this world. ⁓ the people are amazing. The culture is so rich. And it's not just ancient culture. They've got this incredible history, like ⁓ Umm Kulthum. I don't know if you've heard of her. She's you know, legendary ⁓ Arabic singer. I we got to stay in this area that had ⁓ cobblestone streets called Zamalek. ⁓ and it it all of the great artists and musicians of ⁓ the old the golden age ⁓ lived there at one point and we would be smoking shisha on the street, ⁓ j you know, drinking Egyptian coffee and just listening to this beautiful music. And one of them, a friend of mine, introduced me to This woman ⁓ that's singing Fey Ainaika, I think is how you pronounce it. I don't I'm sorry, everybody who's listening, if they are from Egypt or any Arabic speaking country, I love your language and your music. And I actually tried to learn it for a while, but I'm terrible at pronouncing it. So ⁓ but she is this incredible singer. She sings this kind of fusion of jazz and and Arabic music, ⁓ which they call Oriental music, which is another interesting conversation that in America That word is considered offensive, but for them, it's actually just the the term for that style of music. Anyway, the last one is my friend Mohab Sammy ⁓ and his new track, Zephyr. ⁓ he's a very well-known ⁓ and very, very talented ⁓ producer in in Cairo. And he ⁓ this is a track that has like some great electronic beats, ⁓ but the there's a clarinetist who's playing in it with him, playing this very, very beautiful Middle Eastern. Sounding clarinet. ⁓ and I don't know enough about the backstory. I know that they recently released it. And what I love is that when I first heard the track, I thought that it must be a synthesized clarinet sound ⁓ because it's electronica. And then I looked on his Instagram and I saw that it is an actual human playing the actual clarinet while Mohab sits there and like DJs. It's incredible. ⁓ and I just love it because I love hearing this is the electronica that's coming out of Cairo. You know, how many people. Know that, you know, we know a lot of the lo-fi that's sent to us in our automated playlist. But I think that kind of covers my whole list of this week. I I ⁓ I guess now that I'm speaking over it, why I love this list so much. ⁓ there's also Jaho from Kizz Daniel, because I was talking about Kizz Daniel last week. ⁓ it's just that's a great Afrobeats tune. ⁓ but yeah, I feel like there's just so much out there to see. That's what I would say about my list this week. There's so much out there to see, and it's all such a vibe. Global Music Collective: Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's a he Yeah. kate: Okay. Thank you for your patience, Richie. I know I talked a lot. Global Music Collective: No, that's what the I mean, it's a podcast. I think that's that's the nature of these things and I it's an incredible story about Awet and there's so much on here to dive into. I like that you you have two Egyptian tracks on there. Egypt there's this famous track ⁓ a famous picture rather that they always use for the Jazz Ambassadors, which is the beginnings of the program where we met. Jazz Ambassadors was this program back in the sixties that started where they would send kate: Yeah. Global Music Collective: jazz musicians out and they're you've got Louis Armstrong ⁓ playing the trumpet in front of a pyramid. It's kind of iconic for that. By the way it is Lewis. I was corrected on this, not Louis, years ago. I was like, ⁓ yeah, Louis Armstrong, the trumpeter, because I you know, I I I dabble, but I'm not an expert ⁓ in everything. And so I s I said Louis and and this ⁓ fabulous ⁓ saxophonist who I was touring with kate: Yes. No. Yeah, saxophones. Global Music Collective: Brent Burkhead, he was like, You know what, I just wanna let you know he preferred Louis Armstrong explicitly wanted to be called Louis Armstrong and not Louis, so now now I yeah. kate: Huh, yeah, there you go. I don't know why I said huh. I actually knew that because there's a great yeah. Just completely pretentious of me. Whoa. Kate knew I yeah. Global Music Collective: You knew Well it sounds good on podcasts when you're like, ⁓ what interesting news that you've brought to me that I've never yeah. Alright, well Kate knew it, but I didn't years ago, and now I do, and now you do too. Unless everybody out there knew it already, and I'm just the last person on planet Earth to be like it's not Louis Armstrong, it's Louis Armstrong. Last person rich. kate: ⁓ last person Rich. Yeah. There's a great do you know Mac the Knife, the Ella Fitzgerald tune? She goes, ⁓ Bobby Darren and Louis Armstrong. They made a record. ⁓ but they did. I think that she was doing that as a joke. Yeah, because I'm sure she knew it was Lewis. Like sh she knew him, you know. They recorded all these albums again. Anywho, all right. That's my list. I'm so excited to see Richie's. Global Music Collective: Yeah. Yeah. What about it? ⁓ interesting. Okay. Probably. Yeah. What a list. Make sure that you check out our sub stack and our Patreon where we put this list and mine as well. We've got last week's on there as well. If you want to listen to our podcast and then go check out the playlist, that is a good place to find it. You're also welcome to subscribe or support us and ⁓ help us continue this. But thank you, Kate. That was a tremendous list. I'm unsharing. That's the end. Kate pass the coffee plebs list. Pleb is it pleb or pleb? I don't know. I can't pronounce anything, so ⁓ plebeian. Plebeian plebeian. Anyway. Alright, am I up? I'm the only one left. I'm up. Alright, so are you ready for my list? ⁓ say I go to the kate: coffee club, the coffee club who cries too much. I don't know. I brought you polybian. That's all. That's all you get. Alright, Richie. Yeah. Are you ready? Are you ready? Global Music Collective: Your list is on my list. No, that's great. I think it's that's that's I I would have to imagine that part of the reason we're doing this is to tell the stories that we get to tell in bars to people but never really in public. So kate: Richie, thank you. I know I really went off. I should have rehearsed what was okay to say though. I don't know if we got anything that useful from it, but whatever. Anyway. Global Music Collective: That's okay. If at the end of this you wanna s you wanna re try to tell it in a more thoughtful, I don't know, way, we can like re record right now, but I think it was fine and we could probably edit that down. And it was it was emotional, it was lovely, so kate: Right. Right. Yeah, it's probably okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Global Music Collective: How are you? Are you good? We can continue or take a minute. You better be ready for this list, cause it's coming at ya. Bam! Bam. kate: Yeah, I'm ready for Richie's list. Ooh, you've got little ⁓ sound waves. Why does yours have sound waves? Global Music Collective: Can you see it? You can see it. Yeah, so yeah, it allows you to like export the waveform. Not that this gives you really any information. I guess it does. So waveform if you are a music producer, this is old news, but if you're just looking at this, this is probably giving you like the volume throughout. So if I was looking at this top one, it's pretty consistent. And then they kinda the rest of them have kind of like big moments and anyway. kate: ⁓ that's fun. Yeah, that's really cool. Richie, I'm blown away here because there's another song here that I'm shocked you have on because I know you didn't recommend it to me and we both love it and it's kinda random. ⁓ it's go easy kid. Global Music Collective: Yeah. Okay. Kate. Okay. I'm curious what Go Easy Kid Monica Martin kate: I love that you have that. And of course of course you got Jacob Coller. I'm so glad you're the one who put it up and not me. Global Music Collective: I was gonna say, like, one of us was gonna at some point put Jacob Culley on there. I had to be the first. Well, I didn't have to be the first, but it came up this week. kate: I kinda I wanna hear all I wanna hear all your stuff. I wanna hear tell tell me about tell them about Jacob C I wanna hear where you're at with Jacob Collier today and with that song and you should share our story about Mumbai. Global Music Collective: Okay. I will okay, I'll share the story about Mumbai. Jacob Collier is this incredible virtuosic musician, which is probably not a fair summation of him. He actually seems to really care about what he does and and loves the music and loves sharing it and loves doing these crowd performances where he performs with the audience. My aunt the other day sent me a a text with his name in there and she's like, You should collaborate with this guy and I'm respond and think like that would be incredible, but he yeah he has gone from kind of a YouTube sensation where he would, you know, d get into these like very deep music discussions in a very approachable way. Now he's you know world famous musician, won Grammys and collaborated with anybody that is is anybody. And ⁓ he's he's pretty fabulous. My friend Laz initially shared with me this video where where he basically says kate: Dear Jacob. Global Music Collective: He explains music theory on I think it's like four or five different levels. And then he sits next to I forget who it was. It wasn't Louis Armstrong, but it was this other like great jazz piano player. And then but before that it was a kind of college jazz student. And before that it was sort of an amateur musician, and then before that it was somebody who doesn't know anything about music, if I remember right. And it was it was cool because he seems to care about it and he he loves the chords and the progressions and and from a musician's perspective, it's it's just mind boggling because I for as much music as I've done, I'm not an expert. I don't know mu the depths of music theory. ⁓ I've studied and I've been interested in it, but I I kind of I I I'm not the world's foremost expert on music. And so even, you know, for me a lot of what he talks about is just is over my head and and sometimes intimidating. And sometimes it it when I first started listening to him, it came across as like, ⁓ this is just You're just doing this for the sake of being complicated, or you're making these chord progressions and quarter tone movements and stuff because just to show off. But then you kind of watch his videos or do what Kate and I did, and we actually got to see him in concert in Mumbai, and ⁓ you can see that he actually really, really cares about it, and he just does it because that's what his brain hears and likes, and and so it's it's hard not. to like him the more you watch and the more you you kinda get to know him. So but that was a really cool moment. We he actually like walked behind us and was doing his crowd participation thing right around us. It's a one man show where he's playing the piano and then singing and then playing other instruments. He's he's really the definition of a virtuoso, but in a very approachable and frustratingly good way. Yeah. kate: Yeah. Yeah Yeah, it's sometimes it's kind of intimidating, right? Like I feel like now every I used to like write a song and be like, you know, ⁓ this song's so so bad. It's not a good song, and all my friends would be like, Yeah, but there's all kinds of pop songs that are like way worse than that song. And the thing is I could write my absolute best song and it still wouldn't be, in my opinion, as good and as complex and still like catchy and Meaningful is Jacob Collier. He's just so good, but he also seems like such a nice guy. Global Music Collective: Yes. I know. And he he's gone through this process rec recently over the last maybe five, ten years, maybe, where he's done these collaborations and Mahalian Tai Dollar sign like this he he does songs with people, so it's not just this sit in my room and think of the most impossible jazz chords. It's more it's collaborative and it brings them into it. And I can only imagine walking into the room thinking, ⁓ god, I'm gonna collaborate with Jacob Collier. I have to do something impossible and And the way this song in particular comes across, even though if you can probably see in the waveform, but as you scroll through the song, it's like it just sounds like it's in different keys if you skip ahead twenty seconds, which it frankly is, but it sounds so effortless, it sounds fun, it sounds singable, and it's funky. I would if you are on the outside looking in towards Jacob Collier, this is this is worth a listen. There's a million songs that he's done that are that are really kooky and would be approachable, but I I liked this one this week and so that's why it is in the list. kate: That's amazing. That was a really, really, really good way to describe Jacob Collier. I'm happy to hear that. I love it. Yeah. Global Music Collective: Yeah. Yeah. It was I it was a process, I'll have to be honest, because it was there was a pro a point where I stood kinda behind this wall that I had made where I thought, I don't wanna like him 'cause he's so good. That's I don't know if any if any other professions have that. Like if you're a a football player and you're like, ⁓ I don't like Tom Brady because he's good at throwing the football, but then you respect I don't know him as a person and exactly. That's you speak the tr well, hey, you know, he's on commercials and kate: And he's hot. Sorry. Sorry. I speak the truth. Yeah. Global Music Collective: Anyway, whatever. Tom Brady. I don't know where we were think See, it's already got me. I'm I've lost my train of thought, thinking Tom Brady. But yeah. kate: Jacob Collier, you're just saying that it was a process, and I've been witness to the process. Like I've known Richie from from a point where he was like, Okay, I respect the guy, but I don't know, I don't know. And I you know, I think what's what's really cool is just Jacob Collier himself has kind of made it hard to misunderstand him because he's just been so like, I'm just gonna be me and I'm gonna keep being me, and I'm gonna keep doing it over and over and over again in public, on recording, on everything. So that after a while it's kinda like, okay, this isn't an act. Like he wears all these crazy colors and, you know, the funky crocs. And I think a lot of people do things like that to be, you know, to have their hook and to be ⁓ you know. It's like it's like how Ray da ⁓ sings. You know Ray, right? The incredible ⁓ singer. I would like a ring, I would like a wing, I would like a dumb and ring on my wedding finger, I would like a ring. You know this. You know her. Baby! Where the hell's my husband? Global Music Collective: Mm-hmm. Okay, yeah. I thought you were I thought you were going with Ray Charles and I was just like ⁓ Ray, okay. kate: No, no, no, no, no. Ray the Ray the Singer. She performs barefoot. She doesn't wear shoes. And Global Music Collective: Well, lot people do that, but I feel like Jacob Collier is is more like I I'm comfortable in this whole thing. Like the whole thing is just his little room. Even you go back to his old music videos and it's just that's he just has stuff everywhere and he walks around and plays it. Nothing not to negate the ray coming. kate: Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. You're right, you're right, you're right. No, no, I I agree with you. I guess I'm just saying like I like that I like that everything that he does could be taken before you really get to know it as like an act or a show, but he's just done such a good job of just being himself always no matter what, that it's undeniable. He is just undeniably himself. And I'm glad that you've come around because I I love him. Global Music Collective: I've come around. I've come around. Yeah. kate: I you know you yeah. But it's good. It's been real. Okay, so tell me about Well ⁓ my god. ⁓ my god, Spirit Bird. Maybe you taught me Spirit Bird, because that's on my playlist too. I think you might have sent that. Global Music Collective: Where to next? There's a lot on here, I'm all over the place. Spirit Bird is Xavier Rud Rud, an Australian artist. He is he advocates for a lot of ⁓ sort of ⁓ sustainable rights and sustainable practices, ⁓ Aboriginal and Indigenous rights in Australia. you know, they've got their own issues with that, and he a lot of his music addresses that and and tries to approach that. This we used to take a a yoga class at our local Crunch Gym Which the sound incongruous crunch. It's like the fist holding the title and you go there and you have a the lovely like yoga session. Anyways, the yoga leader, she played this song, and I you can see in the waveform actually. Alright, waveform is useful. You can see that it's like five minutes of very chill, like kind of low instrumentals and kind of wandering vocals, and then it it builds and builds and builds and builds in this last like kate: Crunch Jim. Steam room. Yeah. Global Music Collective: Two minutes here is just full full on. And I love a build. I think that's you can actually probably see this in most of the songs that things that I seem to like have some kind of a build, whether it's you know, moment you know, within the moment of the song or throughout the whole song itself. I love a build, especially a seven minute build. ⁓ man, that's a slow burn. I love a slow burn. kate: Yeah. He likes to build. Dude, we gotta get you into more classical Hindustani music. I'm just telling you, when those tubla the tubla beats drop after like five minutes of this meditative, just like sitar, you know, it's cool. Anyway, ⁓ that's cool. So you've definitely taught me that song because I do have it on my playlist. Will you tell me about ⁓ this one song that I'm seeing on your playlist that just speaks to many things in me, which is called The Book of Boba Fett. What the heck is this? Global Music Collective: ⁓ You love it. Okay. The Book of Boba Fett Do you are you a Star Wars fan? I I don't mean to put you on the spot. I know one of the s sci fi franchises that you like and I don't mean to I don't mean to put you on blast here, but are you a Star Wars fan or Star Trek fan or can you be both? kate: Explain to me how telling the world that I'm a Star Trek fan is putting me on blast. Explain to me. Global Music Collective: Look, I'm not saying that they're incongruous, but ⁓ you know, some I feel like there's a like a Ford and Chevy divide here where some Okay. Set the record, Kate. kate: Okay, so let me just say, let me just say. I resent, I resent that nerds have to fight among nerds. Like, I grew up watching Star Trek. I love Star Trek. I spoke Klingon as a child. Yes, I did. I'm a huge Star Trek nerd. And I also absolutely loved Star Wars. I skipped school in like high school to watch the new Star Wars movie that ended up being terrible, ⁓ that came out. ⁓ I love Star Wars. Global Music Collective: ⁓ tell ⁓ Okay. All right. It's all out now. It's all out there. kate: I love I love things about Star Wars that now I don't love as much because it's become so hyper monetized and like ubiquitous and there's a new Star Wars movie and a new like cute baby Yoda, whatever the heck, like every month. So unfortunately, those of us those of us who used to think Boba Fett was really cool, then they made a TV show about him. And now I just feel a little bit like, ugh, okay, what now? So that's my you got me, you got me going. You're being quiet. That means you got me going. Global Music Collective: Okay. Gotcha going. So the real takeaway is that Kate speaks Klingon, if anybody needs to share a message. kate: And she doesn't I don't know why. If you like dogs, you can also like cats. You don't have to choose. It doesn't need to be binary all the time. Anyway, tell tell me about tell me about the Book of Bova Fett by Ludwig Gorensen. Global Music Collective: Okay. That's okay. Very true. It Gorens i I you hit the umlaut. I d I think I think you did it right. I don't know. The umlaut the two dots over the O. Gorensen. Gorens, I don't know. Ludwig Gorensen is this amazing ⁓ like scoring artist. I think John Williams, but now modern day, he is won so many awards. I think he won a Grammy for doing the Black Panther soundtrack and kate: I don't know if that's how you see. What is it? Global Music Collective: This the Book of Boba Fett is is like the ⁓ the entry song, the title song for the show. And so it plays every time that you know they cut away to the title. Anyways, I I watched the book of Boba I watched the b the Boba Fett series and I liked it. You did. I'm so mad now. ⁓ no I don't care. kate: ⁓ cool. Did I offend you? You're offended. I'm sorry. I'm sure it's great. If you liked it, I actually I'm not just saying that. If you liked it, I probably would too, 'cause so far your recommendations have hit well for me. Global Music Collective: Alright. Well, I'll keep them coming. But I I enjoyed the series, but I every time the title came on, I just really liked it. So I put it in here. And I'm I'm big fan of any like this word is is loaded, but cinematic music. ⁓ I n I think if you if you're looking for samples or plugins, cinematic is such a catch all word for just big. But it I think if it's in a film, I really have this particular connection to it as a person with visual memory and I really ⁓ attracted to like kate: ⁓ that's cool. Global Music Collective: Tying visual things to sound, and so Ludwig did it for me. He really did. ⁓ what else is in here? I so I've tried to pick stuff that has stories behind it, and I I won't dive too far into it them, but yeah, but my stories are like my stories are like I played a video game and I liked it. So, all right. Your story was like this ⁓ you you know, you you're changing the world and met kate: I like that. That's awesome. Why? I went off for like thirty minutes by Eritrea. We can k we can cut things. That's fine. Those are just sort of as important, aren't they? I mean Yeah, but people get so bored with that all the time. I and it bothers me because I get so like serious and philosophical about stuff. And then I think a lot of people who just like, you know, read my content or whatever online, they think that I'm just like a very serious person and I spoke Klingon, you know? So like tell me about your video games. Life is life is colorful and it involves both. Global Music Collective: I know. Okay, fair. I'm telling you about my video game. That's true. Alright, so when I was in college, I got this I got an internship over the summer in Chicago where I went and I was an architect in Chicago and I got to work with a cool architecture firm. And I actually had a friend that lived semi close to said architecture firm. And so I lived at his house and me and his younger brother, we kate: And so Global Music Collective: When I wasn't architecting or interning, I would go down to the basement and play video games with him because it was just like a hot Chicago summer. And side detail, I had had knee surgery right before I went out. So I was just in a cast the whole time and I had to hobble around on crutches. It was not not the most ideal situation. So I would play video games and we got hooked on NBA Street. And another title song they used this song, Troy, the when they they reminisce over you is like. The initials for Troy. Their friend Troy had passed away, Pete Rock and C L Smooth, and so they wrote this song about him, which is was then adopted by NBA Street. I didn't know it either when I played the game. It's just this like iconic. I don't know if that'll get like removed from our podcast for copyright, but it's going in. Yeah, we'll we'll see what Spotify We're covering. All right, we probably owe Pete Rock and C L Smooth seven cents. kate: I didn't know that. Nat did it. ⁓ no, that's going in. ⁓ It's us singing it. We're covering it. Yeah. Global Music Collective: Per listen. Anyway, I just I had it in my head because I thought, ⁓ cool, what a cool part of this video game. And then later on I realized that it's a real song. It wasn't just like something that they made for the video game. And then you learn the depth behind it, and here we are. So Troy, they reminisce over you. I think even Kanye referenced it. Like when they reminisce over you, my God. It's I think anyway, everybody's referenced this song. Even Kanye kate: Huh, that's really cool. Huh. Even Kanye. E even him. ⁓ I wanna know what your best what your like what tell me like which one is the the heaviest, not heaviest, but like the biggest story since you chose so many story songs. I'm trying to guess looking through this, I can't tell. Global Music Collective: Lest his name be mentioned. He's got his issues. Biggest story. You're trying to guess. I mean, there's nothing that's like heavy. I tried to pick stuff that was like, ⁓ this was a fun. Alright, I'll just I'll pick out a few. So Drift Away by Doby Gray. Give me the beat, boys, free muscle. That song. ⁓ we listened to it as we drove up to Steamboat, which is a oddly named town in Colorado. It's I don't know if you could get a Steamboat up in the mountains, like eight hours into the mountains. kate: I didn't mean heavy, I meant like yeah, sorry. Global Music Collective: And it is we listened to it when I was a kid. It was like nine years old, and we went to a car show, as you do in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. And so I was I went over and I looked at one of the cars, and my mom was like, ⁓ go stand there, I'll take a picture of you next to the car. And I did, and the guy flipped. The guy that owned the car lost his mind and was like swearing at me, this nine-year-old kid, and my mom, like, I'm doing blah blah blah, you can take me to my car. I was It's a car show, we're kate: I love a car show. Global Music Collective: Alright man, sorry that you're so it was a stressful moment. ⁓ but then you get into the car and drive home and this song I think was on or I'm imagining that it was on, but we listened to it a few times and I just Yeah. And drift away. And I don't know, maybe that gave me the segue into becoming an a cappella singer, because there's some lovely harmonies in it and every a cappella group ever has covered this one and kate: You got lost in the rock and roll. Really? Global Music Collective: It's a yeah. It's it's it really works well a cappella. So the yeah. Good for harmonies and it's easy to sing and you can do the part where you drop out and then you like the clap chorus. Give it a beef bow is a free mazo like that's such a easy gimmick. ⁓ kate: I guess that makes sense. Good for harmonies. Yeah. ⁓ yeah. I just need to say, I don't think this listening audience knows they don't know that Richie is an incredible beatboxer. Like all of the a cappella that you did, you you did a lot of beatboxing, which I think is like ⁓ a underappreciated skill ⁓ by those who don't appreciate it. Like people who appreciate bot beatboxing like love beatboxing. Global Music Collective: They don't know what. Thank you. kate: But for those who don't really know much about it, it's just kind of like, ⁓ you beatbox to the a cappella group. And it's like, it's incredible what you've what you know about rhythm and layers and actually probably production because of your beatboxing background. Anyway, I'm sorry. Back to you. Back to you. Global Music Collective: No, thanks for that. You can talk me up as much as you like. We'll maybe do a whole beatboxing list. I have a whole theories about beatboxing and it's not just this like competition thing now. It goes back centuries and it's it is the original communication. I say. Anyway, I'll wax on this philosophically too long. It is. Anyway. ⁓ let me okay, so they say by Ohm, Ohm is an a cappella group. kate: That is a very big statement. Okay, anyway. Okay, what's next? Aha Global Music Collective: From France. They are wonderful. And we actually kind of worked with one of their guys, ⁓ Leo. He became our sound guy when we toured and is just a lovely person, and they were all wonderful people. Anyways, we were on tour in Taiwan, which Kate, I know you I have a segue for you on that as soon as I'm done with this story. But we went to Taiwan and they gave us they gave each of the groups that came kate: I've talked enough. Okay. Global Music Collective: a song to learn, like a Taiwanese song to learn. They're like, you will perform this as part of the big opening ceremonies and before you go out on your tour. And they they gave us a song called The The Joy of Country Living, which is not really a song. It's just a poem that is that we like translated or didn't translate. We just put it to music kind of and sang it. And poor Christopher Diaz had to sing in Taiwanese while we all like kate: ⁓ my gosh. He did it? Global Music Collective: Yeah. It the beatboxing part on that was way eas ⁓ yeah, we did it. We learned it. Christopher learned it way better than the rest of us because yeah, Christopher is a is a incredible linguist and was always very well prepared and anyways it was it was save it. ⁓ so we we did the song and it's just like da da da da da da da da da da da da it's it's very rudimentary. And then Ohm comes up kate: Well done, Christopher. I won't make the joke. Global Music Collective: And they crushed like they had learned the version like everybody spoke Taiwani or Mandarin and they sang it in this language and it was like an arrangement with stacked chords. And we were like ⁓ jeez. Like they blew us out of the water with it. Yeah. And you know, we were I mean, we were it was a five person group. We might have been six at the time, five or six. And but we thought we were kate: ⁓ ⁓ America. Global Music Collective: you know, hot stuff coming in. We're like, ⁓ we got this song. We're gonna do this cool, you know, boy band song and then they come in and crush it. And we really had to like check ourselves a little bit. But they were super nice. We loved them and OM became a lot of our friends. And and they wrote their own music too. They wrote original a cappella music, which is rare. A lot of a cappella groups do cover songs only or ninety nine percent. There's even a podcast out there that is like no covers. It he plays only kate: Cool. Global Music Collective: Acpella that is original stuff because it is such a thing. Like there's it's really unique for a cappella groups to do original songs. So Om wrote this. They say again they're a French group and they sang this in English ⁓ because apparently they know every language. Just kidding. They're they're just like the coolest people ever and lovely. And so I wanted to drop them in there. Mostly to tell that story and secondarily, so you hear om kate: Whoa. Yeah. That's awesome. No, that's a great story. I love hearing about you getting shown up by other people. ⁓ Global Music Collective: There's so many more stories. So many more. I'm gonna tell about Boston, which is not Ford at all. In fact, they're an about as American Boston. They are not like Yo Yo Ma. Boston, so I grew up liking sort of I don't I hate to say this word, but classic rock. This was the title kind of given to it by the Fox. kate: Tell tell us about Boston. Are they like Yo Yo Ma? Wait, why do you hate why do you hate to say classic rock? Global Music Collective: Well, I think I hate to say it because people that listened to that music when they called it classic rock were like, This is only like fifteen years old. How is this classic at this point? I suppose it's not a you know, it's a positive title to give to something, but I guess it would be like us hearing somebody say Radiohead is like classic music and kate: Yeah. I got it, I get it. Radiohead needs to go next week. Anyway, cut Global Music Collective: It's a i it'll it'll make an appearance, I'm sure. But anyway, Boston. I loved Boston. I would drive around blasting the C D out of my Saturn with the windows down when I was a yeah, teenager. I love them. So the story is I they were coming to Red Rocks, which is this iconic amphitheater outdoors in Colorado. I'm I I would explain it, but I feel like most people have heard of Red Rocks. And the radio station was giving away tickets if you called in and so I called in, called in, called in, didn't get one. kate: You're Saturn. Global Music Collective: Too bad, missed out. Bought the ticket anyways. And the cool thing about Red Rocks is you can just go early in the morning and watch the band do their sound check and and set up and everything. So I just went and got sunburnt and watched them and they're plugging in their organs and guitars and stuff. And it was cool. And then what they do is like two hours before the show is they kick everybody out and then you stand in line now for general admission. So I was like second in line 'cause I was there so early. And I got a great seat. I was like right as close as I could be, right next to these lovely other people. And the whole concert I'm singing along because I like Boston and I'm so used to it being loud out of my Saturn that I know all the words. And the people were next to me, like, bruh, you're seventeen. Why do you like Boston? They're from the seventies. Why are you singing this? I was like, I just love this song and I love their music. And so they're like, All right, cool. You should come meet them. And so they reached into their bag and they said, like, we were we were their next door neighbors growing up. Come hang out with them. So she reached over and like slapped a backstage pass on my shirt. And after the show, everybody's heading towards the exit that way. And we go this way through Red Rocks and down through like these stairwells and alleyways and halls and doors. And eventually we come to this big room and ⁓ there's Basta. They're just there. The band is there. and Brad Delp. He comes over and just talks for like an hour and I'm just hanging out with the neighbors and we're chatting and I'm like, ⁓ I started playing guitar because of you guys and I like your music. And I'm trying not to I'm trying to seem, you know, not like a gushing fan, but just like, Yeah, I'm I'm cool. And the best part about it was that at one point he's like, I sorry guys, one second. I gotta go take care of something. He walks over there and they had brought in the people that won the passes for the radio. And so he goes over and shakes their hand and signs an autograph and talks for like two or three minutes and then comes back. He's like, sorry, it's just I gotta do that for every show. And ⁓ and he talked to us. And so had I won that pass, I would have only had like a minute to you know to like shake a hand. And ⁓ yeah, so anyway, so he had to go because, you know, they're on tour and he's a person. So he after about an hour of chatting, ⁓ I said thank you to the to the people who gave me the pass. kate: ⁓ wow. Global Music Collective: And then at Red Rocks there's just a door outside to the mountain. And so you go out this door after this loud, noisy concert and chaotic backstage and tucking a brad dope and and then the door closes and you can't get back in, but it's just stars and summer heat and beautiful darkness of midnight and it was it was magic. It was like the best music thing that's ever happened to me. So anytime I hear Boston, I I think of that and still kate: My god. Global Music Collective: Still one of my top music experiences of all time. kate: You know, Richie, you've told me that story before personally. You know, this is funny doing a podcast because like we've been friends for many years and we've traveled to lots of places. Yeah. But actually what's really cool is that in this context, because we're sharing these stories through our playlist, it's like I'm getting to hear a whole nother side of that. Storytelling is so cool. I know that this is not like a great, ⁓ like unusual thing for someone to say, but it's so interesting. I knew that story about you meeting Boston. Global Music Collective: And you have to pretend like you've heard it for the first time. Yeah. kate: I didn't know about the Saturn and I didn't know about that moment of closing the door and seeing the stars over the mountains. And that was so visceral to hear you say that. Like, what a cool moment. You're a seventeen year old, you just met your heroes and you walk out and you're in this unbelievably beautiful mountain range and you just get to like ⁓ what a sorry it sounds cheesy, but like what a joy to be alive. You know what I mean? Like what an incredible thing. That's awesome. Global Music Collective: Yeah. Yeah, you need those moments and that that kind of stuff. Like life gets tough. Like you gotta pay taxes and do insurance claims and you know, pay rent and blah blah blah. All this stuff that we have to do as grown ups and I think it's important to have those those holy shit moments. If I'm allowed to swear in a podcast where y I don't know. Yeah, where you go back to it. 'Cause life can be monotonous and boring and and and then to have those little bits it's kate: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what you can do or not do. We'll find out. Yeah. Yeah. Global Music Collective: Kind keeps you going. kate: I think that's the thing about music too, right? It's not just it's not just about going to the concert and hearing the songs, it's about all the things that come along with it. And sometimes I worry that that's what that's what's been kind of missing for a while for a lot of us with music is that that experience. It's not just about the experiences, it's not just about the music. ⁓ but a lot of it feels very distant when you're just listening to it as background or you know. Anyway. We already talked about that. That's me going on. What is Colombia Tierra Querida? Global Music Collective: Yeah. When it's yeah, totally. It is that is Lucho Bermudez Bermudez is like super famous composer and performer and and band leader in Colombia. We did an amazing program where we we did ⁓ we wrote songs with all these amazing artists in Cali, Colombia, which is ⁓ from what I'm told it is the salsa capital of the world. And and I actually I w I decided I'm gonna go early, so I went to Bogota and ⁓ not Tereshina, that's in a different place. What is the name? We're gonna have to go ⁓ Columbia. kate: I thought it started with a P, the place you were at. Global Music Collective: What is the name of this town? How dare I kate: Like pache something or other. Global Music Collective: We'll have to c we'll have to cut this out. No, it's like kate: It's not even in Colombia. Global Music Collective: we will cut this out. Dear AI, cut out this bit. What is this? kate: Mm-hmm. Global Music Collective: Yeah. Cartagena. That's where it was. I went to Cartagena early and spent some time there. And then Yeah. And then we went to Columbia ⁓ to Cali and I got to have this like immersion in in a salsa culture where it's that's just like what you do. And I grew up in a way where it was like you stand on other sides of the gym. kate: ⁓ yeah. Global Music Collective: if you're in high school or grade school and maybe somebody can dance yeah, exactly. The lame you've seen it on every movie. But in Colombia and in a lot of other places in the world, dancing is just like what you do. And it's not it's not weird. It's not, you know, great. It's just that's just what you do to like spend your time. And it's I think removing kind of the stigma and the the American idleness of things where if you're great at it than you are worth talking to. It's just it's just part of life. It's part of culture. And it it makes it makes everything so much easier and more fun. I wish we had that. So I included this song. I it was kind of hard to pick like what is a good Colombian song. But this was one that ⁓ some of the Colombian artists that were performing with us there, they were like, ⁓ if you if you know Colombian music you should probably know something from Lucho Bermudez and and put it in there. So this is there There's a lot of other salsa music worth listening to and a lot of other great Colombian artists, but kate: Colombia has such incredible ⁓ my god, my best friend Kathleen is from Colombia and I grew up like she shared all of this Colombian, I know, isn't it funny? Like ⁓ she shared she she would show me all of this different Colombian like art and textiles and ⁓ you know, music, of course, and stuff like that. And I've always just been so I just think Colombia in particular has such incredible rich, like very colorful culture. It's really cool. I I also remember chatting with you while you were on your little solo. Global Music Collective: Mm-hmm. kate: ⁓ walkabouts in Colombia and you were just you had such a blast, ⁓ my gosh. Global Music Collective: It great. Although I will say in Cartagena, when it rains, it just floods the whole city and I have ruined a pair of shoes. Like 'cause I was the only idiot who was like, ⁓ it's raining. I'll just walk back to my hotel and everybody's standing under the porches and patios, and they're like, Alright, who's this guy running? Anyway. ⁓ there are there are a bunch of other ones on here. La Nuova Stella Di Broadway is just ⁓ it's a cool Cesare Cremonini. kate: ⁓ Broadway. Global Music Collective: He's Italian guy and ⁓ I put this in there because I one of the first performances that I did was I competed in a in a karaoke competition and I won by singing New York, New York. And this was in ⁓ the ⁓ Kittredge like there's five storm rooms at University of Colorado and in the in this particular area, and then there's like a student area. kate: Where is this? Global Music Collective: And in the bottom of that they had a a cafe and a and a little karaoke place and yeah. kate: ⁓ my god. So you sang New York, New York at a karaoke competition in Boulder, Colorado and and here we are. And you won. It's almost like winning Eritrean Idol. Global Music Collective: Y Yep. And I won. And here we are. That's right. It's on well, I there may I don't know how many other contestants there were because I sang it and then I had to go and come back. So there may have literally just been like me versus nobody. But anyway, I won and years later this I heard this song and he's singing about New York and he says New York, New York. It's not a cover of New York, New York, but it's it's it's this cool Italian kind of rock crooner style thing. ⁓ worth a worth a listen for sure. kate: I like that. The new star of Broadway. That's funny. That's cute. Global Music Collective: There's so much more. ⁓ Foom V Foom Vifer Hit, Indonesian and then New Zealand. Foom Vifer Hit. I think I'm saying this right. Loverboy. Yeah. Just like the most casual chill. Like he's just playing. It's a little like Scoopy and singing these songs. But Christopher Diaz, who we've talked about earlier, introduced me to Foom and would play. kate: Sorry, sorry, c can you say that one more time? Where, where, where? ⁓ lover boy. Global Music Collective: This song among other ones in our like dressing room before we would go on stage and kate: And that's it's from Indonesia? Global Music Collective: He is Indonesian and moved to New Zealand. Let me let me double check that I got that right. I think my gosh. Not Indonesia, Thailand. Fum mix okay. Okay. kate: Okay. So so say it again. So foom who what is this lover boy? What's this song? Global Music Collective: This song is Fum Vikra Hit, who is he's from Bangkok, Thailand, and ⁓ this song Christopher Diaz would always play in our dressing rooms when we were on tour. And ⁓ he played some other tracks by him. And I just it's so chill and he kinda just sings this like very casual, scoopy, ⁓ a little sometimes like whatever ⁓ music and it's it's unique. It's fun. He has a ⁓ cool voice and it makes me think of our times when we would The Antora. kate: That's fun like that would be a fun thing to like talk to a lot of different artists and see what was your backstage vibe-up song. You know what I mean? Like what was the song you listened to to kind of get you in the get you in the zone? That's cool. I like that. Global Music Collective: Yeah. Yeah. Well well, you know, like when you're backstage, like a lot of it is you sound check at three and your show's not till nine or something. So you have this like obnoxious five, six hours to kill, and you can't be up the whole time because then by the time the show shows up, you're out you're out of energy and out and you feel sick because you're just sitting in this like cold, sweaty dressing room backstage. Everybody thinks they want to go backstage because VIP, but it's like backstages are kate: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not that great. Yeah. Global Music Collective: are the worst. No, it's way better just to go take a nap at the hotel. kate: Know, especially when you're like doing something where you're really focusing on singing, you have to like it's not I remember I always hated with performing dinner because performances are always around the time and and the time that you have to start getting ready to perform is around the time that you'd have dinner. And then by the time you're done performing, it's like after midnight and you're s ravenously hungry. And I just remember like always finding that so annoying. Like, I guess I'll have a banana for dinner tonight. Like, I I don't know. Anyway, sorry. Global Music Collective: Yeah. No, well then your dinner becomes either like an old sandwich from six hours ago that's been sitting in the dressing room or three beers. kate: Yeah Old sandwich. Yep. Yep. ⁓ yeah. I I was thinking like opera so I didn't get the cool like three beer lifestyle, but yeah, I get it. I get it. Global Music Collective: Well, it's not as it's yeah, you just become sweaty and yeah. ⁓ should I tell I can digress more, but maybe I shouldn't. We did maybe I'll share a song about this next time, but we did we did some ⁓ wonderful s stints at a place called Europa Park. It's this place in Germany, like South Germany area, right on the border with France and s ⁓ Switzerland. And it was great. Like we kate: That you just have a headache and you're tired by the end of the show. Anyway, okay, cool. That's cool. Yeah, please digress more. Global Music Collective: We had a wonderful time, but we would do like four shows a day. And the last one for one of our stints was in their bar bar Coliseo, which for a long time they allowed smoking there. And we got to know the bartender. And so after this day of performing, we would j then like burn everything we had at this last show and jump around and run around the bar and and be crazy. And the bartender would always bring us this like tray of beers that we were like, All right, there's a beer here, so we'll drink it. And At the end of the night, you realize like I was just in a smoky bar for like three hours drinking beer, and we have to do this every day for the next month and a half. So by the end of a few weeks, we were like husks of men. No more, please, just a glass of water. Anyway, I'll share something about that. Next week, let's see what else have I not touched on. There's some great stuff in here. Labyrinth. Stop trying. kate: No more beer I beg you. You didn't talk about stop trying. Yeah, ⁓ labyrinth, yeah. Global Music Collective: ⁓ okay, so Labyrinth is ⁓ tremendous ⁓ I think he's from ⁓ England ⁓ or British. He's not from British, he is British. ⁓ this song itself is is one of those things that I love where it has these like big vocal hits and he really messes with the vocals and does these stacked harmonies and then does electronic stuff to it. I love it. ⁓ Labyrinth does some really cool other arrangements, and in fact one of the guys in our a cappella group has started doing some arrangements for him. So shout out Jamal. ⁓ who has yeah, made a cool ⁓ jump in his career to arranging for Labyrinth, which is really dope. ⁓ Stop Trying by J-Rock. J-Rock is ⁓ classic hip hop. I love the name of the album and cold some Cole Rock stuff. And ⁓ Stop Trying was just this like it's a cool it's a cool track that I like, but the the best part of it comes at the very end. he does in this track what a lot of other hip hop people do, and they kind of mix in some speaking parts and kate: Yeah, Jamal. It's awesome. Yeah. Global Music Collective: ⁓ right at the end of the song it hits with this like stop trying, stop trying, stop trying, stop trying. And I think it like it hit while I was working on something and it's just like a Yeah, when you're like really trying to make something work and trying to f like force something in your life to happen, whether it's you know saving up for something or building something or finishing your taxes and kate: Literally. Global Music Collective: It like it hit me when he said stop dragging all ⁓ right Jay like let me chill out a little bit. ⁓ kate: Ha ha ha. Then you open the door to the mountains and the stars above. Global Music Collective: Exactly. Yeah, stop trying to win the thing. It just go and be part of it and let ⁓ let the universe. I'm not a big like universe. Take me where you can guy, but I look I love the universe, but you know it's kate: You're a big Richie's a big universe fan. He's a big universe fan. Global Music Collective: We'll get into that. ⁓ two more and then I will I will drop the mic here. one is ⁓ an ⁓ I got another track from Ethiopia, Girma Bayene, N. Nun Bai Manesh. He was a contemporary of one of the artists from last week. And ⁓ yeah, I just I'm really intrigued by kind of the Latin jazz stuff that comes out of Ethiopia, particularly from the 60s and 70s. kate: Yeah. Global Music Collective: ⁓ it's a cool vibe. It actually makes me feel like I'm in some old Sean Connery James Bond spy movie. yeah, it's it's it's just cool. And again, I love hip hop. I love like older jazz samples in hip hop, and I'm certainly not the only one. A lot of people in hip hop have sampled ⁓ his work as well, and so I think from last week's last week's sample, this is ⁓ sort of part two of that. kate: Ooh, that's fun. Yeah. ⁓ cool. Very cool. Global Music Collective: And then finally, Ruth Mahogany is an artist that I know from Nigeria. ⁓ she actually of course she does ⁓ some singing and some rap and production stuff on her own, but a lot of her stuff is also spoken word. And for I I think so sometimes spoken word can get a bad rap because it you conjure up these ideas of like people being like overly dramatic on a microphone. But I think it is a very ⁓ close cousin of of hip hop and ⁓ and I think anybody anytime somebody puts something together that they just want to say on a microphone, I think it is it it's cool. It's it's as close to like I just want to express myself and s and say what I need to say as possible. And I think sometimes when you write music, you take away some of the things you want to say so just so it fits either lyrically or rhythmically into a track. And so anytime somebody wants to put spoken word just over music. I I it makes me feel just like this much closer to that person. And Ruth is a hustler. ⁓ I she just like got her degree. She was always like one of the people in the program that was willing to like organize people. And so I'm I'm I'm always keen to prop up Ruth Mahogany a little bit. And so that's why Transcend is in there. kate: I love it. I met her during our Nigeria program too, 'cause her name sounds familiar to me. Or maybe you've just told me of her before. Global Music Collective: I think you d well, you 'cause you did the virtual program and then me and DJ Invisible got to travel back there and do a a live program and she I think she was in both. When we did the virtual one we were kind of split into different groups. So if she wasn't in your group maybe it was a little tougher to get to know her, but but she I believe she was part of both and she yeah, she's she's cool. kate: Yeah, the S Academy thing. Right. Okay. Right, portioned off. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. It's funny what you're saying about spoken word. I I talk about this a lot when I'm teaching voice to people who are singing, you know, more like Broadway kind of stuff. And it's interesting, ⁓ in studying vocal technique, ⁓ Western vocal technique and how to sing, ⁓ the reason why we're comfortable singing on these kind of notes, we when you hear a lot of pop music, it's all around these notes, it's all kind of there, is because that's where we speak. We speak on pitches and It's been it's kinda interesting. There's maybe we'll talk about it at ⁓ at another 'cause we're already over two hours, but there's a ⁓ contemporary classical composer, Schoenberg, named Schoenberg. And ⁓ he wrote a really famous and very difficult to listen to piece, in my opinion, called Piero Lunaire. And it's about this clown that basically goes murderously insane. And it's performed by a a singer doing a style called Sprechstemme, which was created in ⁓ I think it was the early 1900s that he wrote this. And it's where he would write pitches like on a Western musical notation score. Global Music Collective: ⁓ kate: He would write pitches just with an X, but they would be on the line of a pitch. So the singer's, the singer is talking like this. And it's like super weird. But there's something that's so interesting and compelling about it when you think about it from a like like so much, you know, contemporary art, when you think about it from this more zoomed-out perspective, like spoken word. And I think I was talking this earlier even about the I Wish song, that I wish I was a little bit taught. I think. Global Music Collective: Mm-hmm. kate: I have never appreciated enough because I don't rap, obviously. I've never really or I didn't often in the beginning appreciate how one thing that makes spoken word and rap even so so compelling are the different pitches that they use to speak on. And I've learned this as a voiceover artist too, that when when you're when you're speak and we were talking about this, when you're speaking a sentence, if you If you just speak the sentence this way, it's really boring. No one really pays attention. It's super monotone. But when you speak in all these different pitches, it keeps people interested. You know? Shop today is way cooler than shop today. But it's interesting. It's like there's so much music in just speaking. Just being a human, you know, existing is Existence is music. Let's end on that. Anyway, that's cool. I really th Global Music Collective: Okay. Yeah. There you go. Tell him. Let's know that. Yeah. kate: So what would you say is the theme of your week? Global Music Collective: ⁓ wow. Theme of my week is I don't know if I have a theme. I think a. Yeah, they all have stories. I think that I'm gonna try for stories all the time. giving yourself a break. Whether it's stop trying, go easy kid, being shown up by Ohm, ⁓ going with the flow with Boston, doing yoga with Xavier Rude, ⁓ even Labyrinth, like it's sort of like a kate: To me it's stories. Like Well, of course. Mm. Yeah. Yeah. Global Music Collective: Mount Everest ain't got nothing on me, kind of like it's sort of self reaffirming. ⁓ so maybe maybe that's it. Maybe that's it. Take it easy, chill out. Go with it. Yeah. kate: Right. Yeah. I like that. I like that. Yeah. Just be yourself. I like that. ⁓ well we've we've talked a lot today, but let's just really quickly like what would you say are your top three songs for the week? If we're gonna do it. I don't know if we wanna keep doing that, but it's something to Yeah. Yeah. Global Music Collective: ⁓ right, we still gotta do Okay. No, I love it. I think that's I think that's great. Okay, so ⁓ my like beginning of the week song, I'm gonna go with ⁓ They Reminisce Over You from Pete Rock and CL Smooth. I think that's a good way to start the week. Out in the city, you got the vibe of some older hip hop. So I'm into that. And then towards the end of the week, I wanna hear let's keep it easy. Let's go lover boy from our kate: Yeah. Yeah. Global Music Collective: Thai artist from Viper Hit. Just to like keep your keep your wig chilled out. I know it's hot. We're starting to come up on the you know the fourth of July season here, so everybody's starting to go on vacation. And then ⁓ let's let's bring up the vibe in the weekend with Cesare Cremonini, La Nuova Stella di Broadway. And yeah. I did all right. Well, that's two Italian songs. kate: Right. think last week you chose Italian for the weekend too, I love that. Yeah. Richie loves an Italian weekend. Global Music Collective: All right, the Italians will be happy and well, I hope so. I hope they are listening. I don't know if you can listen in like different languages and localize this to your place, but that'll be our next step. Anyway, those are my three. Kate, what are your three songs for the week? kate: ⁓ for me broke by Samm Henshaw cause like ⁓ my god ⁓ my god anybody who doesn't know Samm Henshaw, go listen to Samm Henshaw. Okay. Ugh yes. and no no, it's okay. Who needs it? ⁓ Me Jaman Nella, if I'm saying that correctly, the Nella song would be my number two song. It's just again, it's just such a vibe, and she's so such a great singer. Global Music Collective: Mm. The first on your list, no less. ⁓ bring yourself again. kate: And ⁓ you know ⁓ it's tough to f to decide on a third one, just in terms of what I'm feeling this week, like the vibe that I'm feeling this week. ⁓ I didn't talk about it, but I think my third one would be Aguas de Marso. I I don't think I'm saying that pronoun per correctly. I don't know how to pronounce Portuguese. But ⁓ that's Ellis Regina and Antonio Carlos Jobim, ⁓ two of the great Bossa Nova musicians. And I just want to say the reason I love that song so much is You can hear it when you listen to it. It's two human beings standing together with microphones, singing and laughing off of each other, and they make all these little jokes. Like, as far as I know, the lyrics are just about like a stick, a stone, a a turn in the road, like just these little random things. And the thing that I love about Bossa Nova music is the way they the way that at least the early Bossa Nova music was sung, although I think all of it. It's just so chill. Like the words just roll off the tongue, and they're not trying too hard. They're not producing. They're just speaking of spoken word, it feels very spoken. And that recording in particular is so heartwarming because you hear them laughing at the end. You hear them playing off of each other. They're not always perfectly on pitch. ⁓ it's just so human and it's just you can't listen to it and not smile. So That's my third, that's my weekend song. Yeah. Vibes. Kate's ⁓ Kate's having a vibes week. But they're good vibes, you know? Sometimes they're really intense. Well, there were some intense vibes, let's be honest. Global Music Collective: Great. Okay. Vibes. Vibes all around. That's all right. Life can be intense. But if you are listening now, go to our substack or Patreon so that you can actually listen to these songs. We have a radio podcast with no music. So we're doing it. That's right. Until we yeah, until we have a system of paying for rights and navigating all the legal stuff, you get to listen to us and then go download the ⁓ the actual playlist which we share with you every week. kate: Haha, we're doing our best, guys. We're trying to find a way here. Ugh. Global Music Collective: And we will be posting on our Instagram, which is Entry Points Radio. So subscribe, share it with your friends, write us reviews. It definitely helps because this podcast is really about the cool artists that we want you to hear. Not so much about us, but more about there's a whole world of music that we think should be shared with the rest of the world. And that's what this is about. kate: Yeah. A labor of love that we're putting ⁓ into this. And the more that we can any any person who's interested in sharing it, ⁓ the more that we can spread the love, the better. And actually, I would also like to say to any musicians who might be listening to this and are interested in us talking about your music, ⁓ we'd love to, you know, exposure matters even if it's just with a couple people. We'd love to hear what's going on in the world. So that's a yeah. Global Music Collective: Send it our way. kate: Yeah. And just so everybody knows, ⁓ we're trying to figure out how to get this ⁓ sent to as many platforms as possible, but we're still new to the podcast game. So forgive us as we work out the kinks. We're we're really just trying to figure this out one step at a time, on top of running ⁓ Global Music Collective and putting on programs and releasing albums and writing. I think Richie's talking about taxes cause our our quarterly nonprofit taxes are due soon. Global Music Collective: Financial year has ended three days ago, so we are on the clock now. kate: Yeah. ⁓ we're good. Okay, well anyway, the life of a musician is not just making music, it's constantly trying to figure out ways to get music to be heard by people. So the more people help, the better. Global Music Collective: Right. Thank you very much. We'll see you. Well, we won't see you. You'll see us next week when you tune in. ⁓ but be in touch, write us a letter, let us know what music you liked, and send us recommendations, thoughts, and we hope you enjoy listening to our amazing playlists. Woo! Bye. kate: Yeah. Sorry. All right, I'll see you on Zoom.