Colby Bright Interview

Today I’m talking to Colby Bright a hip hop artist from the south coast and the great state of Texas, home of my favorite rappers (not Beyonce).

Tony Coke: Where in Texas are you from and how long have you been making music?

Colby Bright: I’m from 936, Montgomery, Tx & I’ve been writing poetry since about 12 years old. But didnt actually start Writing/Recording music until around 17-18 years old. So right around 10 years I would say, I’ve actually been “Creating” music. I love the whole process.

Tony Coke: Cool, you’re just a few hours down 45 from me. What projects do you have going on? From what it sounds like, you’ve got your hands full.

Colby Bright: Right now I’m currently promoting this “Victory Lap 2.0” Mixtape & Tour. It’s actually the 2nd volume of this “Victory Lap” Trilogy we’re doing. 3 Tapes, 3 Tours & A Full Length Documentary. Everything has been amazing so far, from the shows to the growth of the music… I’ve been in love with this whole process and loving it more and It’s definitely taking me places that we’ve never been.

COLBY_BRIGHT
Tony Coke: I love how you planned 3 connected releases and tours, plus a documentary.

Colby Bright: The interesting part to me about the whole thing is, as I mentioned before, is that it’s a trilogy series. Showing the growth, all the behind the scenes footage and everything that goes into making mixtapes, tours, music, singles and everything involved in the process of making music a full time career. Each Tape is another level.

Tony Coke: What is your ambition and driving force behind your musical career?

“Worldwide Hustla” Ft Layzie Bone (Of Bone Thugs N Harmony) Produced by Jus Bonafide
“WORLDWIDE HUSTLA” – COLBY BRIGHT FT LAYZIE BONE:

Colby Bright: To be the voice of the underdogs and prove that dreams are possible, no matter how high you set your goals, everything is attainable through hard work and dedication.

Tony Coke: I love it, that’s what I’m all about. ANYONE can be successful in the music industry today! What’s coming up next for Colby Bright?

Colby Bright: EVERYTHING!! Lol. But seriously, with the final part of the trilogy series coming up, we are going to be releasing a lot of stuff we’ve been working on behind the scenes and a lot of unannounced material…STAY TUNED!!

www.colbybrightmusic.com
www.twitter.com/colbybright – @colbybright
www.youtube.com/colbybrightmusic

One Girl Symphony

With today’s technology, it doesn’t matter where you are from, or what your passion, you can find an audience and achieve success. Today I’m talking with Whitney Vandell, aka One Girl Symphony, from Ethiopia. She is making an musical impact, globally.

Tony Coke: I’m quite excited. I don’t think I’ve ever talked to anyone from Ethiopia before! Where in Ethiopia exactly? And, have you always been involved with music?

One Girl Symphony:
I live in Addis Ababa but I was adopted at the age of two by an Austrian-American woman serving as a missionary who was a classically trained musician and teacher. Growing up I spent much of my childhood following my mother living among tribal people in remote areas across Africa.

There was always music around the house and we had one of the few private grand pianos in Addis. Seeing how little there is here in terms of entertainment and my mother being a rather private person living on the outskirts of town, most of the time we would just spend playing and listening to music together. It’s just the way it always was and I don’t remember a time when music wasn’t a part of my life.

Whitney300x2002

Tony Coke: You obviously have a big project going on, and it sounds pretty ambitions. Tell us about it.

One Girl Symphony:
I recently released my album ‘One Girl Symphony’ that is available on CD, DVD film and an Android app. I spent the last ten years writing and recording it. The album is acoustically recorded with only real instrumental performances featuring nearly twenty different musicians from around the world contributing in an online music collective.

Tony Coke: Remote collaboration is becoming more and more normal these days. How did that process work for you? Was it a challenge being in Ethiopia? I would think the internet connections may not be as fast in other parts of the world.

One Girl Symphony:
I collaborated with musicians from around the world over the Internet where I sent MP3 files of backing tracks and got their instrumental recordings as high quality music files on Dropbox. With the internet here in Ethiopia I could sometimes take a almost a day to sync so it was a challenge in itself. The biggest part of the Internet collaboration was with the violinist of William Stewart who was living in a remote cottage in southern France during this period.

The One Girl Symphony has been so well received, they even performed at TEDx.

Live @ TEDx – Addis Ababa from One Girl Symphony on Vimeo.

Tony Coke: Congratulations on getting the project completed. It must have taken forever! What was your motivation to keep going?

One Girl Symphony:
Though I like to think I don’t feel a need to prove myself or impress on anyone, spending thousands of hours working on a handful of tracks, I would be lying if I didn’t want the music to reach more people than myself. When I got into rock music in high school Slash from Guns n Roses became the father figure I never had when growing up. In the back of my mind when working on all these song I secretly planned to one day play them for Slash and afterwards drive over to Axl’s house to jam and hang out. I’m still planning for that to happen.

Tony Coke: OMG that’s awesome!! I think we all have scenarios we imagine like that to keep us going. By the way, Slash came to the radio station I was working at several years ago. He had that “I’ve been wearing the same leather clothes on a tour bus for five days with no shower” vibe (smell) going on. He was very nice, but I didn’t get to jam with him 🙁
What’s coming up next for you? Any plans to tour globally?

One Girl Symphony:
I have no idea! I just try to do the most of what is right in front of me, trying every day to absorb new inspiration and ways to express my feelings. I am ready for my next project to have a very long time horizon and I expect it to take many years just like with One Girl Symphony.

Tony Coke: You can hear the album on all streaming services and www.OneGirlSymphony.com, as well as iTunes
You can also get the One Girl Symphony app for android at
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.carlkuhl.onegirlsymphony

Nicole Russin-McFarland

Interview with Nicole Russin-McFarland

am·bi·tion

amˈbiSH(ə)n/
noun
a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work.

I love associating with talented people. But talent alone won’t make you successful. You need ambition. I seek out ambitious people to work with because ambition is infectious.

Nicole Russin-McFarland definitely has the “‘biSH”.

Tony Coke: Nicole, catch us up on your background. You’re from Illinois, yes? Have you always been into music?

Nicole Russin-McFarland
Illinois in the USA! Not much happens there – and that is exactly why I feel I developed any skills I had better than had I grown up in London or another exciting, thriving place. The most you can do in Illinois is go to some museums, go to the state fair downstate in Springfield, or visit the lake. Or go shopping. We have some seriously world class shopping similar to Manhattan or Paris there in downtown Chicago. I have studied music since I was five years old. I am so glad my parents made me study it as well! Possibly the greatest gift you can give your child is knowledge.

Tony Coke: I know you have several projects going on, tell us about your latest musical endeavor.

Nicole Russin-McFarland
My film score for our movie, The Eyes of Old Texas, currently on iTunes. I co-composed it with the very talented rocker and celebrity chef, Brian Tsao. Brian did an amazing job on the metal rock aspects. I worked all the classical music. Some songs are purely my work with orchestral sounds. Some are his. And the really, really unique work that’s so unusual and oh so good? The songs blending orchestral music with rock!

Tony Coke: So, not only are you working on a movie, you wrote the soundtrack and released that entirely on it’s own, before the movie was released?

Nicole Russin-McFarland
We crafted a very unique and interesting soundtrack for a cartoon movie we are currently in the slow process of finishing. With animated films, most people overlook the sound. You’ll have the generic elements of someone being sad, so “Oh Mr. Director, hello! Why don’t we have the clarinet dip down two notes? And when we have them happy, we can do the violins in no real pattern making a bunch of noise that really sounds like the warmup for a live orchestra? The audience is too dumb to care about music!” I highly disagree with this method. A cartoon movie is a real movie and needs to be treated like one. Any movie, period, needs a precise theme. We have a theme throughout the movie which inspired the title of the movie. Our movie is based on “The Eyes of Texas” theme song from where I graduated, The University of Texas at Austin. This theme is so classic and awe inspiring to millions of people who know how famous my school is. The sports events all play it too – check out our many Olympic athletes who are, like me, UT Austin alumni. The song is so meaningful. So not using it in a story that I actually got the idea for years ago when I went to school there would be terrible. I had to work on that theme.

Tony Coke: It sounds like you identify very closely with the visual side of music and the emotions it helps create. Is that a path you’d like to continue on in the future?

Nicole Russin-McFarland
I always work on writing down my themes so when the time comes, I can pull one out and have ideas ready, whether it’s for my future work or if someone wants to hire me. I definitely want to set myself up in the future to be animating movies regularly and composing the film scores for them. Animation is truly meaningful in my heart. I love it so much. Between any romantic comedy and animation, I’d rather go watch the latest Pixar or DreamWorks Animation film! And I really want to begin treating kids like smart people via my work, both as a film director and composer. Kids are little adults. I used to hate when I was so small how people would talk to me in a dumb voice and treat me like I didn’t know anything. I knew, as did other kids. We on the playground mocked their fake voice changes when they spoke to us. We knew everything. Children are worthy of good stories, funny jokes, silliness, and more from a grown-up’s movie. However, it’s not often done. And nor are strong film scores.

Tony Coke: I agree, I remember feeling that way as a kid also. So what is up next for you, what can we look forward to?

Nicole Russin-McFarland
Wrapping up directing and animating this movie this year so it can be ready to hit the film festivals! In The Eyes of Old Texas, we have a whole plotline on the “disaster takes place in 2017!” We have to be ready for film festival audiences to have the movie in a timely manner. So we’re gonna hustle until this thing gets done and done beautifully!

Tony Coke: Great! Best of luck to you, let us know when it’s finished, I’m anxious to see it!

Website: OfficialNicole.com
Twitter: @nrmcfarland
Instagram: @nicolermcfarland
Facebook: @russinmcfarland

Inspired by an Annoyed David Bowie: My Solemn Oath as a Host, and an Interviewer

 

OR:

‘I, Pallas, Do Solemnly Swear . . . Never to Ask Stupid Questions.’

 

I had hoped to one day interview David Bowie . A girl can dream. Now that day will never come, but the wish was not entirely pie in the sky.
I began producing my own radio show ‘Pallas’ Dutch Invasion’ in the Spring of 2015. My initial intention was to feature successful, and also up and coming, and even underground Dutch bands. I’ve had the honor of featuring the internationally successful Dutch bands Taymir, and Birth of Joy, among others.
However, my show took a rapid and unexpected twist, and before I knew it, I was interviewing inconic musicians such as:
Jazz great- Lee Ritenour, Fee Waybill-front man of The Tubes, Tony Levin – King Crimson/ Stick Men (Official) bass and Chapman Stick player, Pat Mastelotto-King Crimson/Stick Men drummer and session player, Markus Reuter -touch guitar player of Stick Men and his solo works, and legendary Progressive Rock guitarist , Steve Hackett of Genesis, and solo works, to name a few.

Interviewing these legendary musicians is an honor as well as being a daunting undertaking. It is also a great pleasure, but not without pressure.
Preparing for an interview requires much research if it is to be done well.

I promised myself, to never ask dumb questions. I’d be damned if I were to bore my subjects, or make myself look stupid.

Viewing this compilation of interviews of ‘David Bowie Gets Annoyed’ (see Youtube link below), solidifies my commitment to research my subjects deeply, and to always go in well prepared. It’s the least I can do. It’s a sign of respect, it sets the subjects at ease, and, it hopefully makes for great journalism.

As a die-hard David Bowie fan since the age of 13, I was thrilled, when as a professional dancer, I came very close to having had the opportunity to work with him in 1987 on his Glass Spider Tour – choreographed by Toni Basil. I was one of the last two in the running for the ballerina role, but, sadly, I didn’t book the gig.

Now, with my new endeavor as a host, interviewer, and producer, I’d dared to dream, and hoped to create an opportunity to interview David Bowie perhaps for Pallas’ Dutch Invasion and elsewhere on radio and film. But sadly, that too shall never come to pass . . .

If I ever feel myself getting lazy or distracted while preparing for an interview, I’ll whip out this film of ‘David Bowie Gets Annoyed’ to remind myself to keep the bar high.

Until now, I seem to have done well, having received the following encouraging feedback:

Vicky Jenson, Director at Dreamworks Animation:
‘You project a knowlegable professional persona, worthy of interviewing these giants of music’….
‘ ….. In the interview (with Steve Hackett) Pallas’ understanding, preparation, and experience, allowed her a nimble poise and facility with her subject, putting the legendary musician at ease.

Tony Levin:
‘Thank you for not asking any trite questions!’

Lee Ritenour:
‘That’s a great question….These are hard questions!’

Steve Hackett:
‘I hope you don’t mind that we’re going off the page of your prepared questions.’
Pallas: ‘No! It’s great! Let’s keep going with the flow’

So, by virtue of writing this short piece, I wanted to make a commitment, in writing, to YOU, my dear listeners, readers, and followers, as well as to my future interview subjects.

I, Pallas, do solemnly swear, to never ask stupid or trite questions. Amen.

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This is the second of three pieces I am writing inspired David Bowie. The first from a dancer’s perspective, this one from the point of view as an interviewer, and next, will come a piece about how David Bowie, the man and artist has touched and inspired so many of us so deeply, and with such longetivity.

After writing the third piece, I think I will be able to join so many friends and colleagues, and finally allow myself to mourn his passing fully.

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This article was originally published on

January 13th, 2016 on PALLASDOTCOM