#rainydawg

Week 2: Sp00ky Shit by goodnight everyone tinkle hoy

Air date: October 27, 2017

Tis the season to be sp00ky. This week I dug deep into the dusty corners of my memory and pulled out some tracks that traumatized me as a child. Hopefully this will give you a nice scare (not as scary as my GPA, though)

Art by Junji Ito from Yami no Koe 

Playlist:

Shinsei Kamattechan - Yuugure No Tori 

Jun Togawa - Tamahime Sama 

Geinoh Yamashirogumi - Doll's Polyphony 

Yayoi Yula - Hoshingoeika 

Chiaki Ishikawa - Uninstall 

Eiko Shimamiya - Naraku No Hana 

Joe Hisaishi - Cell 

Hako Yamasaki - Noroi 

Kazumi Totaka - K.K. Dirge 

Masahiro Ikumi - Virtua Mima 

Asa-Chang & Junray - Hana - a last flower - 

I’ll usually pounce on any chance to grab some tea, regardless of who it’s with. Last week, I got the chance to sit down with Seattle’s own, Avestra, for, well, tea and one iced coffee. For those who aren’t familiar with Avestra, the electronic duo consists of vocalist Savannah Johnston and producer Zach Troupe. The duo reminds me of a combination of electronic/tropical house artist Alina Baraz (especially her EP Urban Flora) and electronic duo Marian Hill. While Johnston, when young, was trained classically in music, and playing all types of instruments, Zach only began experimenting with production and sound more recently. Genuine curiosity has pushed him from downloading music production software just for fun to contributing heavily to Avestra’s sound and vision.

In the past year, Avestra has churned out single after single, most notably songs like “Come My Way,” as well as “Mind’s on You.” When asked whether the pace at which the two have been releasing music at seemed maintainable, the duo replied, “We keep on waiting for the low or creative block to hit, but, surprisingly, we haven’t hit it, and don’t see it being anytime soon.” Full speed ahead, Avestra’s pushing forward into their new EP Niche release. We sat down to talk about their plans for their new music, as well as Avestra’s ambitions moving forward into 2019, with no speed bumps in sight.

It’s easy to assume that the lyrical perspective mostly stems from the vocalist: I mean, they’re the ones singing, right? Being naturally curious about an artist’s perspective (especially in a group), I decided to ask the duo about how they interweave the stories of both members into their music. According to the duo, Niche draws more so from Savannah’s personal experiences, but at the end of the day, feelings of infatuation and relationships across the board, are innately easy to sympathize with.

Niche consists of a crisp four tracks, including “GLOW”, “WHATUWANT”, “HEART”, and, my personal favourite, “WINDOWSEAT.” “GLOW” and “WHATUWANT” are tracks where Avestra’s in cruise control, combining spacey beats with alluring, and at times velvety vocals. Where the EP really starts shining is the track “HEART.” When describing the song that he was most proud of, Zach stated that, “HEART has gone through so many changes, seeing where it started and how it turned out production wise is what makes me so proud of it.” Right off the bat, the guitar sounds luxurious yet enticing, almost harp-like. My only gripe with “HEART” lies within the end of the song, where the group manipulates Savannah’s vocals and pushes more bass into a song that naturally succeeds by being more pared down. “WINDOWSEAT” gives me more of what made HEART so sumptuous. With less bass in production and more natural vocals, “WINDOWSEAT,” with Savannah’s mother on the saxophone, delivers Avestra’s best on the EP.

While Niche establishes a base for their discography and fans, in no way do they want to be put in a box. “The hardest part is waiting to release new work and sounds, we wish we could show [you all] what we’ve been working on”. Catch Avestra this Saturday at ASUW AE’s Band Bash in Maple Hall at 7pm or at their release party next Thursday, 6pm at The Auditorium @ UHeights.  

Spin-off Episode: Meme Machine by goodnight everyone tinkle hoy

Air date: October 26, 2017

“The best place to start would be at the beginning,” said Laura Jane Grace of Against Me! as she walked out on stage right here at The University of Washington this past Saturday night (the 22nd).

Where and when is the beginning of any of our personal journeys? Is it when we start understanding our own identities? Is it the moment that we first realize we are doing what we love? For Laura Jane Grace, the beginning was when she dropped out of high school and began writing songs. Sure, she may have been writing since she was a lot younger; but at age eighteen, Against Me! was started by Grace. Stemming off of many long years full of anger and angst, her music was based on DIY, anarcho-punk, and protest music movements.

I may not be a long time fan of her music, but listening to Laura play guitar and sing her moving lyrics on Saturday has turned me into a fan of hers for eternity. Starting out the show with one of the first songs she ever wrote, “Walking Is Still Honest,” I got a really deep sense of the type of music that Grace writes.

This song has beautiful lyrics, and lets listeners in on how it feels to realize truths in this world. At this point in her life, Laura was experiencing an extreme sense of gender dyspohoria—which motivated her to continue writing songs that were tremendously telling of her emotions, which would later inspire others who felt the same as her.

One of these songs, with completely awesome lyrics, is “Tonight We’re Gonna Give it 35%.” She even paused in the middle of this song to fill the audience in, saying “and this is the dysphoria part.” Along with getting laughs from the audience with her naturally hilarious demeanor, she seemed instantly relatable.

Another song she sang for us, “Pretty Girls,” really allowed listeners to develop insight into Laura’s thoughts and feelings at the time she wrote this. One line stands out, “Sometimes at night, I pray to wake a different person in a different place.” Whether or not we’ve experienced gender dysphoria, we’ve all experienced feeling uncomfortable in our skin—again making Laura a relatable role model to all of us.

As the night continued, I felt myself become absorbed in each song and story that Laura shared. The next songs on her set list were “Dead Friend,” written for Laura’s heartbreak over a friend passing away; “Two Coffins,” originally written for her daughter; “FuckMyLife666,” which is about coming out publicly in Rolling Stone and dealing with a breakup with her second wife; “Paralytic States,” where she shares that at this point in her life she was “never quite the woman that she wanted to be;” and then lastly she sang a cover of a song that she felt very connected to, “Androgynous,” originally by Paul Westerberg.

The latest songs that she’s written deal with the frustration of feeling pressure to change oneself to fit the mold of what society wants—whether that be a gender role or a major record label’s idea of what’s perfect to them. But the greatest part about this fantastic evening with Laura Jane Grace is that she made it clear that there isn’t simply one mold to fit into.

She left the audience with words of wisdom: she says with a laugh that she’s “a high school dropout, transgender, ex junky with a felony record” in the most reassuring way possible. I say “reassuring” because after years of battling all the challenges she’s had to, she’s coming into herself and on top of this, is inspiring and giving hope to people all around the world dealing with similar struggles to the one’s she’s endured.

At the end of the show, there was a question and answer session where fans were able to ask her just about anything. I decided to take the backseat and listen to insight she had to share. She had so many beautiful answers to these questions, but one really stuck out to me. When asked about Laura’s daughter’s knowledge of her being transgender, she said that her daughter is pretty good about understanding; however, what I loved about this was that Laura said she’s been trying to teach her daughter to “be true to yourself and to [not be] ashamed” of who you are. I just loved this—because what’s a better way to teach something than to practice what you preach?

That is exactly what Laura Jane Grace is doing with her life—as a parent, as a musician, as a transgender woman, and as an inspiration and a muse to all of us.

Rad Rebs

Hi. My name is Lauren-Taylor and I guess I am writing a blog now. I figure that having a tangible aspect to the radio station is a good idea, and so I will be putting together a short weekly playlist of whatever bands I am listening to at the time. My music skips around quite a bit, so we will see where things take me. 

For my first playlist, seeing as it is Fall, and the rain and snow are eminent, the music I picked is pretty representative of the changing of the season. The Spotify playlist 360 Degrees is embedded below.  

OX4 - Ride Crank Resolutions - Meursault Weird Honey - Elvis Depressedly Sleeping In - Dead Folk Memory Pools - Foxes in Fiction Riot Grrrls - Advance Base David - The Radio Dept. Montreal Rock Band Somewhere - Happyness