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Free Whenever from NYC

Free Whenever Front Page PhotoFree Whenever comprised of bassist Trevor LaVecchia, Neil Gulieria and drummer and percussionist Brendan Steuart plays a style of music more defined by their name than any specific genre as improvisation is the most significant element. For this listener it is as though Moby and the legendary Rock band Cream got together to jam and Enya were her ethereal music dropped by and joined in. Recently, New York City natives, Gulieria and LaVecchia sat down for a Zoom conversation with Riveting Riffs Magazine.   

Referring to our characterization of their music, LaVecchia says, “I think that is a pretty good description. We like to use the words psychedelic groove. It is an umbrella term and what we do is very eclectic. We just love music.

We definitely have the psych Rock influence for sure but sprinkled in with many different textures and moods that we are trying to evoke. We want it to be a journey, so dynamics are very important to us.”

Gulieria picks up the conversation at this point, “I tend to gravitate towards the psychedelic thing too, because it is not a genre and for us it is more of a mission statement. It is evoking those types of experiences for the listener, the people in the audience. It has less to do with genre and more to do with the attitude you have towards making music.”

“We are very much Read More

Poco - Rusty Young

Poco Rusty Young Photo Front Page“I really am pleased (with that album). It was a neat experience. I had never done a solo record. I had always focused on Poco records and in 2013 and 2014 I was thinking about retiring and just doing things that I enjoyed, fun shows with friends and that kind of stuff. Jimmy Messina called me, and he said I have five or six shows on the west coast, and it would be great if you came out and played with me. We did old Poco songs and it was a fun thing to do.

We were doing a show in California and this guy Kirk Pasich came up to me afterwards and he said have you ever thought of doing a solo record? I said not really. The opportunity has never presented itself. He said, I have a label Blue Élan and we would love to have you make a record for us. I thought about how everybody who has ever been in Poco have done solo records, Paul Cotton and Richie Furay, Timothy B Schmit and Randy Meisner. I thought it might be an interesting thing for me to do at the end of my career. It was the best way for me to illustrate my part in the sound of Poco. If you listen to Richie Furay’s records you can hear what he contributed to the band and the same with Paul Cotton (and the others). They all have their style and their songs. It was a chance for me to show what I brought to the scene. I thought it was a really good challenge at that point in my life.”

Continuing to talk about the album he says, “The first song that I wrote was “Waiting for the Sun.” After I wrote it, I called Kirk and I said listen let’s do this record.

We live in a cabin or a log home in Missouri in Read More

Tawny Ellis - Edge Of The World

Tawny Ellis Interview Front Page PhotoTawny Ellis is a lot of things and that is the most understated statement you will ever hear anyone make. She is an accomplished actress, she is an excellent singer, songwriter and musician, she has fashioned jewelry, she is a critically acclaimed sculptor with her art appearing in galleries in numerous countries, she is a painter and that is her art on the front cover of her current album Edge Of The World.  She also works with her husband Gio Loria as the vice-president of his company Black Volt Amplification, which acts both as a luthier and builds amplifiers.  a We will stop there, because if we continue listing her other talents and accomplishments you may be in for an even longer read than you anticipated in this the first part of a two-part interview.   

It has been five years since Tawny Ellis released her last album and there can be many reasons why, especially with someone this busy.

She opens up, “Honestly, I think I got really gun shy. Something shut down on me, because I had worked on that album for quite some time. I released it in 2020 and I had signed up to go on tour in Europe and open for a really great artist over there. They shut down the whole world (due to the COVID pandemic). The day that I was supposed to get on the plane to go to the U.K.  to hook up and go on the tour and to play all of these shows they shut everything down and nobody could go anywhere. I felt like I had just flown a plane into the mountainside. It was horrible. We had packed everything and promoted and all the gigs were laid out. I am a really sensitive person and it was so hard.

You can’t Read More

Maia Sharp - Tomboy

Maia Sharp Interview 2025 Front Page PhotoAfter getting to know our friend, singer, songwriter and musician Maia Sharp for several years, we are not surprised that her new album coming out September 12 (2025) is called Tomboy. It describes her perfectly when she was growing up and nods to whom she is today. We suppose she could have called it “Cheeks,” as one of her friends has aptly nicknamed her for her smile to use an old cliché lights up a room or in this case a Zoom call and conversation.   

This collection of songs is beautiful and the album overall is elegant, both lyrically and musically.  

“As most albums unfold for me, I am not necessarily sure that I am writing for my own album until I am one or two songs in. I am writing all of the time. Sometimes I am writing for other people and sometimes I am writing for me to pitch to other people. About every year I look back at what I have written and if I do that about one year after a record, I can have the next album out about two (more) years after that album. It takes me about a year to do the finishing out, choosing the songs, recording, mixing, mastering, marketing and all of that stuff. On all the odd years when I don’t have a record that is when I start looking at when the next one is going to be.

At that point after my last album Reckless Thoughts, I had Tomboy already  Read More

Paul Rappaport Interview

Paul Rappaport Interview 2026 Front Page PhotoIn the spring of 2025 Riveting Riffs Magazine interviewed Paul Rappaport, about his three decade career, and then some working in the music industry first at Columbia Records where he ascended the corporate ladder to eventually become the Vice-President of Rock Promotion Having said that we do not want you to get the impression he fits the stereotype corporate image because as his career demonstrated he at times lived on the edge in terms of taking what others may have considered to be risks, but he had the vision to knew they would work. That brings us to this conversation about how he parlayed his career at Columbia promoting Rock music into becoming the executive producer of a A & E’s Live By Request show on television for eight years.  

He shares a personal moment with us, “There is something very interesting and I want it to come out correctly. When I was growing up, somehow my mother would say to me, listen Paul you were born under a lucky star. I said ma what are you talking about and she said, I see what you do. Other kids were playing baseball outside and I was at home in a homemade laboratory, because I was enthralled with NASA and the space race, I was learning how to build rockets and rocket fuel (From what we know there were no holes in the roof of the family home!). I do feel at this point in my life and I don’t know how, but I have lived a blessed life. I don’t know if somebody up there (he points up and his voice trails off) Maybe in a past life I did enough good things and now I get to have this life. Maybe I did enough good things in this life and maybe the next life will be better.”

There was another conversation or perhaps two Read More

Katja Rieckermann - Double Release

Katja Rieckermann Front Page PhotoYou know the song “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy,” from when Rod Stewart recorded it on his 1978 album Blondes Have More Fun, but you have never heard it played like this before. Saxophonist, arranger and composer Katja Rieckermann and TMTQ turn in a stunning dance version of the song, with new vocals by Sir Rod Stewart. Rieckermann who toured with Stewart for fourteen years and during that time she began her solo career, which to date has produced three albums, the self-titled Katja (2007), Horn Star (2010) and Never Stand Still (2014). Katja Rieckermann has performed with a diverse group of artists, which include, Carole King, Brooks and Dunn, David Foster, Mary J. Blige, Al Green and Jeff Goldblum.

Katja Rieckerman first started thinking of recording “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy,” “about two and one-half years ago. Originally it was going to be an instrumental version of “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” and it was going to be very close to the original with the tempo and the vibe of it. I wrote a couple of horn sections for it and we recorded it.

I sent it to Rod for approval and said what do you think? I said hey Rod what do you think? I am thinking about releasing this version. Do you like it? He wrote back, yes I love it. How about I sing on it? I was like wow! That is crazy. Of course, that would be fantastic. He ended up singing over the original track that I sent to him.

I thought now I have these newly recorded vocals of Rod and it is too close to sounding like the original, so I should do Read More

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