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Leah Belle Faser - Rising Star
When you first listen to songs such as “Better
Than Mine,” “Back Home,” “The Lift,” and “Second-Hand Store,” from Leah
Belle Faser’s new album Crossing Hermi’s Bridge, songs about
relationships and longing for home, the first thing you want to do is go
to the album credits to find out who co-wrote these songs with her.
Surely, you think, a sixteen-year-old could not write so insightfully
about such mature themes and compose such well constructed songs. Then
you think there must be information missing from the album credits,
because all of these songs are attributed to this affable teenage girl
who answers your questions thoughtfully and you realize not only are her
songs mature, but so is she. Yes, she has all the exuberance of a
sixteen-year-old, but she also is wise beyond her years. Leah Belle Faser
says, “There is only so much that has happened in my life at sixteen, so
there are only so many things that I can write about. There are ideas
and concepts, but I like to observe things and people around me. They
are not happening to me, but it is what is happening to other people in
my life and even to strangers. It is like listening to the booth behind
you in a restaurant (you can hear the smile in her voice), not in a
creepy way, but as you observe what people are going through. They may
not be my age and they may be older than me with problems that I might
not experience at this age. I think that is a really cool way to
approach writing.
We share a joke about your writer imagining her slinking around
restaurants with a wig and dark glasses looking for new stories. She
replies with a laugh and says, “Everybody better watch out! I am on the
hunt for hot new stories!”
“I worked with my mentor Phil Barnhart, a veteran songwriter up in
Nashville and he gave me that piece of advice, to observe the things
around me. I think it holds true with my writing today and it is a great
piece of advice. He also told me that not every song is worth writing.
When you write songs, a lot of songs have the same core idea, heartbreak
or love or happiness and it is important to write (the songs) in a fresh
way that nobody has heard before. It is why I like to weave stories into
my songs, because you can follow along with the melody and the lyrics
and it (becomes)
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October 1993 A Magic Evening
Jamie James who had a band called the Kingbees and who also had played
with Dennis Quaid and the Sharks, explains how this album, which was
never intended to become an album, was born.
“My sister called me and said, Jaime I saw a picture of you online that
I have never seen before. Where and when is it from? She sent me the
link and I looked at it. I told her that is a band that Harry and I had
for about six months back in 1993. It was called Harry Stanton with the
Cheap Dates.
I
remembered that Slim Jim Phantom had been digitizing music from
cassettes. We had recorded four songs in Paramount Studios on Santa
Monica Boulevard, back in ’93. He sent me a track, but I couldn’t find
it. I called him and I said, could you resend that to me? I listened to
it again and it was the Bob Dylan song “Baby Tonight.” I liked it.
I
thought I like this, and I wonder if other people would enjoy it. I
called “Slim” back and he had four songs, but it wasn’t enough to do (an
album).
I
called up Greg Allen at Omnivore Recordings and they had put out a
soundtrack for a Harry Dean documentary called partly fiction. They are
really nice guys who do really great work, so I asked them if they would
be interested in doing another Harry Dean Stanton thing. They said
absolutely. I told them I would send them one song and I asked them to
tell me what they thought.
He called me back and he said I love it, but the quality is not good
enough to release. You have to get better quality. I called Slim back
and that is all he had. I remembered I had some tapes out in the garage
and I called up the representative for the Harry Dean Stanton trust in
Kentucky. They said if I was able to get it together it would be great
to honor Harry.
I
looked through a bunch of boxes and I found an old DAT (digital audio
tape) tape and it said Harry Dean Stanton with the Cheap Dates. It had
the four songs. Then I looked further, and I found one that said Cheap
Dates Live at the Troubadour.
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Cozy Rebel
Cozy Rebel, A New Collection from DREZZ2IMPREZZ and Beatrix Reuschel |
Montse Muñoz - Actress, Model
“My first name
Montse comes from Montserrat, which is a really high mountain mountain
range, and they are difficult to climb. My name comes from these
mountains. I always asked my mom why she chose this name and she said,
because you asked for this name when you were born. She said all of your
life you wanted to climb, and you always looked for the difficult way to
arrive at the top. You are doing it step by step and that is why you
have this name,” says Montse Muñoz. She was born in
the small city of Manresa, sixty-seven kilometers from Barcelona,
located in Spain’s autonomous region of Catalunya. Legend has it that St
Ignatius of Loyola, while on his way back from Montserrat stopped in
Maresa to pray and that for one year he lived in a cave not far from
Maresa. She was one of
only two children in her family and her extended family on her maternal
and paternal side was even smaller. When asked if her
creativity is something naturally flows from her family, she laughs
lightly and says, “My mother is the only one in
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French Actress Sandra Leclercq
We asked her how
it felt to have a puppet flirt with her, “It felt really good!” she says
laughing. We were of course
talking about her voiceover work for a French advertisement for Spotify
and Sandra Leclercq was the voice for the female puppet. I really love it
(voiceover). It is really interesting. Even when I audition for animated
movies or things like that, I like to have the picture of the character
and to see what the animated version looks like. If it is an animal what
kind of animal is it? Even when you are just using your voice, you are
still acting. I think if it is TV, theater or voiceover in my opinion it
is still the same, it is acting. I did an audition
before, but this was the first time that I recorded something that I
booked. I looked at the
puppet and I loved it. It was very technical to have my mouth in rhythm
and moving at the same time as the |
Actor German Torres
At the time we
spoke, 24 horas en la vida de una mujer, produced by highly acclaimed
actress Silvia Marsó, who also starred in the musical with Felipe Ansola
had just returned to the stage at Teatro Galileo in Madrid, after an
absence of nine months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We asked German
Torres what that experience was like. He said, “It was
fantastic, after the world stopped, returning to the stage is a miracle.
The theater has maximum security and culture is safe now in Madrid. We
are allowed to have fifty-five percent (of capacity) for the audience
now. In other communities only thirty people are allowed. We had forgotten,
just a little about the energy of the stage, because it had been so long
since we had performed.”
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Jemima - Things I Never Said
The first song on
the EP, is “As You Are,” and it clocks in at three minutes and twenty
seconds and has the perfect blend of retro Pop and modern Pop, with an
easy flowing melody. Jemima tracked her own background vocals creating
the feel of some of the early sixties all-girl groups. One should not
however think of this song as an attempt to merely giving rebirth to an
era of music that has long since vanished, by the time she was born, but
instead it is an artist who knows what she likes and has taken the best
from what she heard as a child, while listening to her parents’ records
and bringing to both her songwriting and to the studio a keen sense for
what resonates with audiences today. She says, “I am
twenty-four and I discovered this music by sitting in my garage, as a
kid and going through my parents’ records and cassette tapes. I really
liked that music. I wasn’t into Justin Bieber or whatever other music
kids my age were listening to. It (the music on the records) sounded so
intriguing to me and there is such a focus on storytelling, which I
loved. It sounded more genuine to me. I went to school as Elvis when I
was ten years old. I had the black wig on, and I wore a gold cape. I had
this skintight white jumpsuit. I don’t know why my parents let me do
that.”
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Cina Samuelson Has a New Album
Cina Samuelson
says it was special to have her entire family participate on the
creation of this album. “I love it when I
can have them with me. Johnny doesn’t work so much with music these
days. It is very nice to do this with my family. Malin has been touring
with me for nine years now. She is great with harmony singing and
playing guitar on stage, so it is very nice to have her voice on the
record with mine. I think my voice fits very good together with Malin
and Johnny. I love to sing together with them. My other daughter Emelie
sings wonderfully, but she can’t sing harmony, but she said she could do
other things. She said she could take the photos and I love that she can
also be a part of it,” she says. Cina Samuelson
wrote all of the songs for this album.
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Actor John De Luca
We caught up with John De Luca, after he filmed
the four-part miniseries Palomares, was awaiting the release of
the feature film NATO 0 (Born 0), in which he has a leading role and
after the debut of his short film Entre Nosotros (Between Us) on
Amazon Prime. Entre Nosotros was produced by his own film
production company First Round Films, in which he partners with David
Smith. DeLuca’s co-star in Entre Nosotros is Spanish actress and
renowned cellist Irene Rouco. Take us back to
when and where it all began John. “I was born in
Buenos Aires, Argentina, and I discovered acting at a very early age in
school. I am an only child. My mother worked at a few stores and then
when my mother had me, she became a housewife. My dad had auto repair
(parts) stores. He used to sell clutches and brakes and other things for
cars. I had a normal childhood, nothing big, middle class and in a big
city. I learned English from an early age. I think I was three.” He describes
himself as an
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Rebecca Howell
“I have quite a large family.
My immediate family (consists) of my parents, my older brother
and me. With my extended
family both my mother and father have huge families and we are very
close. Even with my third cousins I know who all of them are.
We get together every year and I
have a huge support system. It is really great.
When my father was in college, he was the lead singer in a Rock band. He
also plays the guitar. That is where I got my love for music. His whole
family (she pauses momentarily) his mother, a lot of his siblings and
many of his cousins, they all sing or play an instrument. Growing up I
was always around other musicians or people who sing and at gatherings I
would sit on the porch and sing at family gatherings. I have been around
music since the beginning.
They are happy memories, especially now since there are so many people
in my family who have passed. It is special to reflect upon those days
when I got to sing with my grandmother, my aunts and uncles at family
gatherings. It was really a great experience to sit there and
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Alice Berry - French Fashion Designer
Recently, Riveting
Riffs Magazine sat down with fashion designer Alice Berry of Alice Berry
Atelier from Paris, France to talk about her timeless clothing designs
for women and the importance she places on her collections being
sustainable. “I think timeless
dresses are a better choice, because for example in ten years my
customers can always wear them. On the contrary if the dresses are on
the cutting edge of fashion in one year or two, they will no longer be
able to wear them. The fashion changes very quickly and I think too
quickly. I would rather (create) slow fashion rather than fast fashion.
I choose
sustainable fabrics and
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Cozy Rebel
A New Collection from DREZZ2IMPREZZ and Beatrix Reuschel |
Cecilia Krull - My Life is Going On
Cecilia Krull was
gracious enough to take a few minutes and visit with us at Riveting
Riffs Magazine earlier this month.
As for the success of her song
“My Life is Going On,” from La casa de papel
Cecilia Krull says, “It is a dream come true! I never expected that
success and worldwide. It’s crazy. All of my life I have been a singer
and I grew up in a musicians’ family, so this is a very huge thing. It
is like the difference before and after La casa de papel. I am
not famous, but the song is famous. I am traveling all around the world.
Many people in many countries know about me, because of the song.
Personally, I am the same. I am a mother, I am a sister, I am a
daughter, I am a friend, and I am a lover. I am the same person as I was
when I wrote the lyrics and when I (recorded) the song.”
She uses the same words as the actors from the series often use in
describing the effect that
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Marta Bascuñana - Actress Interview
She sat down with
Riveting Riffs Magazine recently on the eve of recording a commercial
for an NGO and discussed her theater and film career. “There were not any actors and actresses in my
family. I am the first. Since the time I was a little girl I loved
watching classical films on TV, theater that were shown on television
and films like Gone with the Wind that I would watch whenever I
had the chance.
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Enola Holmes - Film Review
The
storyline of the film goes like this Sherlock is disinterested in his
family, as he is heavily focused on solving crimes in London, which is
not where Enola and her mother Eudoria Holmes live. The widow, Eudoria
is portrayed by British actress Helena Bonham Carter looks as beautiful
as ever. Her performance is both sublime and powerful. Carter plays a feminist, a
suffragette using the language of the day, who is raising her daughter
to be independent, strong of character, equipping her with knowledge and
even with martial arts. Really it is Millie Bobby Brown and Helena
Bonham Carter who are the stars of the movie. It is a strong film that
presents in a lighthearted way the importance of women’s rights whether
in the 1800s when none existed or today when women often still find
themselves struggling to be considered as equals in every facet of
society. Henry Cavill is
cast as Sherlock Holmes, Sam Claflin as the evil Mycroft and Louis
Partridge as Tewkesbury, a young member of the nobility who becomes
Enola’s friend, with hints of a budding teenage romance. In a nice plot
twist for a change, it is the young woman who is always rescuing the
young man, instead of the other way around. There are the usual
adversaries that one would expect, Miss Harrison, played by Fiona Shaw
who conspires with Mycroft Holmes to confine Enola
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French Designer: Alice Berry Atelier
Alice Berry Atelier Website
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Heidi Newfield -- New Album!
She explains why, “The light is still on and
those of us who are still here, are still looking for great music.
Regardless of if I get to tour it or not, I feel it is my duty to put (The
Barfly Sessions) out. Putting a record
out like this has been such a labor of love, with so much time and
effort by a multitude of people, not just myself. To make a record like
this and without having put music out for a while and then boom you go
okay I am going to jump. I am going to put this thing out and then this
happens. I had to search my
heart and ask am I prepared for what may or may not happen when you put
a record out and you cannot tour around it? That is a whole new world
for all of us when we are putting music out. It is like stepping off a
cliff and you don’t know if you are going to fly or not. I pray that is
the case. I hope that is the case. I hope it catches on and if it is a
slow burn that is fantastic. If it catches on fire that is great too.
The world of uncertainty that we live in right now is very difficult. We
are calling it the year that never happened.”
We pointed out to Heidi Newfield there have been many Country music
artists who embarked on their careers without ever having set foot on a
ranch or a farm, but how her story really reflects the music she writes
and the stories she tells.
“It is true. Country Music from
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