Rachael Sage Music
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Rachael Sage Music website |
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Paula Parducz - Actress
She is cerebral, talented, at home in comedy or
dramatic productions, but leans more to drama as a preference, which we
will explain in a bit and she shared some insight to that side of her
acting while discussing the role she played in the theater production
Beauty, directed by Carna Krsul. “My favorite role is Annabel in Beauty.
I liked it because it allowed me to (get into) a vulnerability that I
really had not explored before, because in a way it touched a part that
I really had not dug into (previously). She (Annabel) stepped out of her own shell. She
is afraid of going out (Annabel is agoraphobic), but she is masking that
by looking young and
pretty. It was very powerful on stage and it was always interesting to
feel the reaction of the people when they could see the mask dropping,”
she says. We wondered about
the dynamic of an actor performing in front of an audience and in the
role of a character who had difficulty with mixing with others and
certainly Annabel would never have performed before an audience. Paula Parducz
explores that dynamic with us, “You are the actor, you know the story,
you know what is happening and you know what is coming, but the
character doesn’t. A Mexican director
Luis De
Tavira
said actors have the ability to be and
not be at the same time. I am the actor, but I am not the actor I am the
character, but I am not the character. You are and you are not at the
same time. There are moments when
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Lisa Hilton Lucky All Along
Lisa Hilton set
aside an hour of her time and spoke to us from her Malibu home, from
which she can watch the dolphins play and where she composed this, her
30 th album. It has both a missive about finding our way, even through
dark times, through struggles and emerging on the other side intact and
still pursuing our dreams. It also pays homage to women in music, to
those who perform, to those who compose and in some instances to those
who do both. Not just with this album, but with previous
ones, Lisa Hilton has nodded in the direction of Joni Mitchell, Janis
Joplin, Ann Ronell and Lana Del Rey. For Lucky All Along, she
arranged “Snow On the Beach,” written by Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey and
Jack Antonoff. “It is a gross imbalance (lack of
representation of women in music) and I only recognized this about five
years ago. That has got to change. At amazing Opera houses around the
world, they are only presenting one creative point of view and that
really has to change. It really does. It also has to change, not just
for Opera or Classical composers, but at Jazz clubs and on the radio.
Women are not getting paid for their writing. It is not a lot of
writing, so it is not a lot of money, but they are not receiving
royalties that men would, for instance the estate of a Miles Davis
compared to a female composer from that time. It is something that we
need to think about. If we want to watch films or read books by a guy
that doesn’t matter, but why would we only play music and study
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Electronic Firefly
Electronic Firefly
website
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Noah Vonne - Heart Of It
Most of her
childhood and teenage years were spent growing up in New Braunfels
nestled between Austin Texas and San Antonio, in a family with five
older sisters. All of them were softball players, almost enough to form
their own team. When asked if she
was spoiled, being the baby of the family, she says while laughing, “ It
is true. All of my sisters would say one thousand percent. In comparison
to some of my friends, maybe not so, because my parents were pretty
strict for the most part. Compared to my sisters I was very spoiled.” She was the
trailblazer in her family as far as someone having artistic leanings and
says, “What I was going after was very different.”
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Macartney Reinhardt Says "Hey
Girl"
She continues, “We
moved so I could be in the midst of the music scene here. “It was hard,
because I was still in school Then I went to virtual (school) the last
two years of high school. That was the main adjustment. It wasn’t bad
getting adjusted to living in a different state, because we had been
here so much, and we had stayed in hotels for a week every month. That
wasn’t very hard for me. It was harder for me not going to public school
and just sitting at home and doing school. That is when I started
playing out multiple times per week.” Now Nashville
feels like home and as a nod to the city, Macartney Reinhardt co-wrote
the song “Coming Home,” with
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Kat Violin On the Prowl
Well, she can
describe her new persona much better than we can, “I am producing my own
music, and it is a combination of Classical music and electronic beats.
For instance, music from Classical composers. It is 2.0 and it is
transported to the electronic music. The (goal) is to perform it live at
festivals or bigger events. It is not so easy
doing my own music versus covers. I thought it would be much faster to
get reach, but when you make your own music, it is like you have to
convince everybody first. Even the followers you gained over the years,
don’t follow you (when you branch out), because it is yours. I think it
will be a lot of work to make this successful, but I will try my best. I
love the idea, the concept and the character. It is all about the cat
identity, but not like the animal cat, but it is about the character of
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Jesse and Noah Leave Love Alone
We jokingly asked
them about the song “Leave Love Alone,” and if it was a reference to a
relationship that went sideways. Jesse replied,
“That is an older song, so I don’t even remember. I started that song
with Simon Bruce, an Australian singer and songwriter who lived here in
Nashville for a while. We halfway finished it and he and Daniel Tashian
finished it and then it came back to me. Daniel was going to put it out
and then I didn’t hear anything for a while and so I thought I would
just throw it into this mix of songs that we were doing for our next
session. We thought we could do a pretty good job on it. We recorded it,
got it ready to go and he ended up putting his out around the same time
or maybe a couple of weeks before or something like that. He released it
mostly in Australia. I guess it is worldwide, because of streaming. The songs ended up
being so different and with different audiences, so they didn’t really
clash.” Produced by
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Actress Corinna Seiter
Ms. Seiter who we
will simply refer to by her first name for the rest of this interview,
because for such an affable woman, this seems more appropriate, provides
us with some insight concerning the new short film she is working on. “It has been quite
a while since I wrote my last project. I have always enjoyed writing and
I wanted to do something that is close to my heart. I think it is
something that all of us go for at certain stages in our lives. It (the
film) is about isolation, and it has a bit to do with the whole pandemic
situation. That is not going to show in the project really. It takes
place in a dystopian world that we really do not know that much about.
It is about a character who lives in that world and who is trying to
find their way between what is real and what isn’t. This (individual) is
trying to figure life out in a way, and they are trying to be mentally
well. It also has a big part about mental health as well. I wanted to do
something simpler than the technical side of it and not very
complicated. Something easy to do visually. I want something more visual
without a lot of dialogue in it. It will be more like sensations and
images. There will be a short dialogue at the end. It has more to do
about the inner dialogue that goes on in our heads when we are alone and
everything that comes with it. It has a connection as well to the
digital world; I want to say that we are trapped in
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Raised On TV
The album opens
with “Just Wanted To Tell You,” from whose lines the album takes its
title, a song that will have you dancing from the first few beats. The
brothers Rogers and Greenwood are joined on electric bass by Blaine
Billingsley. “(The song) is
about my wife. The lyrics, particularly the chorus is a love letter to
my wife. It is a sentiment that is good to get across and to say. It is
not strictly on one narrow path the whole time. I wrote the verses,
while we were on the road. I think we were pulled over at a coffee shop
or something and we were taking a minute. I had the chorus about my
wife, and I liked that. I wanted to say that, and it was truthful. The
verses I was still trying to figure out and the words just came. The
verses have a story behind them, but the chorus is about my wife,” says
Keaton Rogers, providing us with some insight about the song. Historically bands
from California, going back to the 1950s, has had a distinct flavor and
we talked about that, before digging deeper into the sound of Raised On
TV, “I would say it still does (have a distinct California sound), maybe
not as much as it once did, if you go back to the Beach Boys and Surf
Rock and The Ventures or the Laurel Canyon scene in the seventies. I
think those times were more distinctly Californian, but
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Diane Marino - New Album
“Four tracks were recorded when I recorded,
I Hear Music. I just had too many songs to go on it, so we put those
tracks aside. I had not yet done the vocals and I did them sometime
after that. When it came time to release something else, we went to
those songs. The rest of the tracks are all remastered from several CDs
that I have (previously) recorded and fit the mood of this album. That
is why you see so many musicians (in the credits),” Diane Marino
explains. The songs, as one
might suspect, since they span several years, were recorded at three
different studios. The ColeMine, owned by Brad Cole (Phil Collins), The
Piano Den and Mastermind Studios, and released on M&M Records / Barking
Dog Productions. All arrangements are by Diane Marino, with string
orchestrations by Brad Cole (tracks 1, 2 and 6)
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Electronic Firefly From Spain
Silvia explains
what happened next, “That was not when I met Charlie (Perez-Íñigo now
her husband). I needed an electric cello for the project and another
person recommended that I call him. It was a difficult
time in my life and Charlie became my friend and he helped me in many
aspects of my life. At the time I was living in a small village called
Villarejo (located in La Rioja, Spain) and he started to visit me often. He also
recommended me for a show called “Music Has No Limits,” and that is when
we started to work together. We toured with them, and we started our
relationship. We have been together ever since. It was after we left
“Music Has No Limits,” that we started Electronic Firefly.” In 2023 their
daughter was born and for two performing musicians that has brought its
own challenges, but more on that later.
The two world
class musicians have also expanded their music careers and in addition
to performing sometimes as a duo and other times for solo gigs, they now
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Actor Ruben Yuste
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Ciara Grace - Earthy and Edgy
Ciara Grace’s music is earthy, edgy with some of the vocals and music
being staccato in nature. The themes we want to say mostly dealt with
relationships, but that would not be true, because the songs were all
about relationships! Even though they were written between her high
school years and the summer immediately prior to entering college,
whether you are sixteen years old, twenty years old or forty-two years
old, there is something here for everybody to sink their teeth into,
both musically and lyrically. Yes, we are hearing the expression of
feelings from what was then a teenage songwriter, and from a female
perspective, but we think we are correct in saying that many women out
there are going to listen and say, ‘I knew a guy just like that!” or ‘I
remember that guy who treated me poorly,” and “I can’t believe I fell
for that guy.’ Now, just so we do not give you the wrong impression,
while some of these lyrics do bear the signs of feeling jaded or angry
at the time, it is important to note that these are not angry songs, at
least in our view. There are enough images and metaphors that keep this
from becoming a dark brooding album and you can sink your teeth into the
uneven beats and vocals.
We requested an interview and Ciara Grace was gracious enough to accept
our invitation. Sitting on opposite ends of a phone, thousands of miles
apart Ciara Grace proved to be a woman wise beyond her years, very
poised and very affable. Although the musical styles are different her
sense of knowing who she is, being comfortable with who she is and being
professional reminds us a lot of actor, singer, songwriter Maya Hawke at
the same age. We wondered if that comes from both young women growing up
with parents in the entertainment scene. Maya is the daughter of Ethan
Hawke and Uma Thurman and Ciara is the daughter of singer and songwriter
Lizanne Knott and well-respected producer and sound engineer Glenn
Barratt. Alas, we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves, so we will
revisit Ciara Grace’s musical connections in a minute or two.
The
first single released from the album is “Lost Cause,” and well we will
let Ciara tell us about this song, “Oh god he was awful. He was a boy I
met in detention. You can tell right away, especially in high school,
when a boy has a particular aura about him and that he is not going to
care about you very much.
This is kind of a weird story, but somebody deserves to hear this. I
went to his house for the first time, and he lived in this really rich
neighborhood. He had some kind of bet going on with his neighbor about
who could steal more things from each other’s properties without getting
caught. He had stolen an inguana. This big ass lizard and it was running
around his living room. His brother was with him, and they were acting
like idiots and I am going what did I get myself into? He eventually proved that his romantic intentions
were just as I thought,
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Grace Pettis - Being Personal
Talking about the song, “I Take Care Of Me Now,” she says,
“It is completely autobiographical. It is one of those first
songs that I wrote after I left my marriage of eleven years and a
relationship of fourteen years. It was something I really didn’t believe
yet, because I had been in that relationship since I was a teenager and
I couldn’t really conceive of what it would be like to take care of
myself and be alone in the world, because I had been part of a couple
for so long. I remembered thinking that I was going to be okay, and I
could put myself first and take care of myself. I wrote it as a mantra
that I could grow into.
It was like when you are a kid, and your parents buy shoes that are a
little too big for you and you grow into them. It is a song that I wrote
for myself. It is my anti-codependency (song).
The words are emotive and at times poignant, “I take care of me now /
Since I made up my mind / I’m gonna be just fine / Every day gets better
and / I got bruises, but the good news is / I take care of me now…” They
are words that describe the scars that may still remain from a
relationship that has ended, but learning to love yourself, which is of
more importance.
Grace Pettis elaborates, “You don’t come out of something like that
unscathed. Where there has been love and betrayal there are going to be
scars. I don’t need to make them go away for me to love myself. In fact,
they are a part of what helped me to become the person who I am. I think
it is acceptance of your own story and learning to fully embrace the
person that you are.”
The
song “Rain,” chronicles a heart breaking, both through the words and
tone of the vocals. There is the packing up of suitcases to fly across
the Atlantic Ocean, to Limerick a city in Ireland. It is the raw
beginning of a new journey in life, but first there needs to be healing.
“I wrote “Rain,” in November of 2021 and it was maybe a week into having
packed up a couple of suitcases and going to Ireland to move in with my
mom, because I was ending my marriage. I went with a really good friend
of mine Natalie, who is also a singer and songwriter. We were in
Nashville, a night or two before the flight. We had dinner with a really
nice guy, a friend of hers and he is kind of a big deal in the
publishing industry. He was really helpful and sweet. He bought us
dinner and gave us a lot of great tips and advice on how to write
commercially successful music.
One of the pieces of advice was there are a lot of commercially
successful songs with the word sunshine in them, so maybe try to write a
song with the word sunshine |
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Eva Gamallo - Exciting Times
Eva, tell us about your short film África S.A. “It is fiction based
about a mistake I made in Gambia, Africa. In 2012, I was working with an
NGO in Gambia, and when I returned to Spain, I realized that I had
fallen into the “white savior complex.” Through humor, I reflect
on how this complex contributes to a distorted view of the African
continent and our own identity as white people, who often perceive
ourselves as “saviors.” It’s a form of self-criticism because I made
this mistake, and when I realized it, I was so angry and ashamed of
myself that I needed to do something about it. That’s where this
project, África S.A., comes from.” One of the common mistakes people
make about Africa is referring to the entire continent as a single
country, without acknowledging its cultural diversity.
Eva reflects on this, “Africa is not just one country, but a continent
with fifty-four countries and more than 1,500 different languages. The
cultural and traditional diversity of Africa is enormous. From Morocco
to South Africa, customs and languages vary deeply. To reduce the
continent to a single vision and a single country is a mistake that only
serves to diminish it.” Eva started producing the short film on her own, “but now I have two producers who are also part of the project. The short film is about seven minutes long and features three generations of African actresses.” It’s a topic with international reach, so Eva hopes the short film will travel the world, be shown at festivals, in schools, and other spaces. “With this project, Read More
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Audray
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Maia Sharp and Reckless Thoughts
From her home in Nashville (yes, she did indeed move from California a
few years ago), she talks about when the seeds for Reckless Thoughts
were first planted.
“The first song that I knew was going to be the beginning of a new album
project was “Kind.” I wrote that with Mindy Smith and Dean Fields in
2019. When we were finished with that one, I knew I needed to start
thinking about another project, even though Mercy Rising (the
previous album) wasn’t even out yet. I knew that one was already
finished. I knew that “Kind,” wasn’t going to be on Mercy Rising.
It already set the wheels in motion and I thought I guess I am going to
be making another record.
“Too Far Now,” was the next one. Those two songs are so different from
each other that they really presented a challenge. How am I going to
write or look through my catalogue for a body of work that makes sense,
so all of these songs can play together and sound like one animal. They
are the most different genre wise. I think my production, the vocals and
the lyric tone will be the thread through the songs. That is how it got
started, at least writing wise.
“Kind,” and “Too Far Now,” were done first, knowing that I had to get
them out, I had to get them recorded, so I could start to find a tone
for the next album.
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