Written by : Lisa Melograno

Quiet Time’s “Scheherazade“ is an electrifying, dance-punk anthem that reimagines the ancient tale of Scheherazade through a contemporary lens. As the second single off their upcoming EP “Everyone Is Having More Fun Than Me,” the Philadelphia-based emo band skillfully combines their unique sound with thought-provoking commentary on modern society. The song delves into themes of victimhood, power dynamics, and societal double standards, inviting listeners to question their biases and challenge preconceived notions of victimhood. Lead singer MaiAda’s lyrics offer a powerful critique of modern society, reimagining Scheherazade navigating today’s social media landscape, where public scrutiny and misinformation campaigns are all too common. Driven by gritty instrumentation and MaiAda’s incisive lyrics, “Scheherazade” demonstrates Quiet Time’s commitment to addressing important social issues through their music. MaiAda’s exploration of “feminine rage” serves as a poignant reminder of the ongoing struggle for equality and understanding faced by women today, both in the story of Scheherazade and in the present day. As Quiet Time continues to make their mark in the emo and punk scenes, “Scheherazade” stands as a testament to their ability to craft bold, introspective anthems that resonate with audiences. The band’s fearless approach to storytelling and their distinctive sound have garnered them attention and acclaim, positioning them as a compelling act to watch in the alternative music landscape. With their unique blend of engaging narratives and punk-inspired sound, Quiet Time proves that they are not only skilled musicians but also thoughtful storytellers, addressing pressing social issues through their art. As fans eagerly await the release of their upcoming EP, “Scheherazade” offers a tantalizing glimpse of what’s to come, cementing Quiet Time’s status as a rising force in the world of emo and punk music.

Quiet Time :

Instagram  | Spotify | Youtube | Bandcamp

Toby & Zach of Dr. Dog

Written by Brian Cronin  Photos provided by Lisa Schaffer

The first annual We Live On benefit concert was held on March 13 and March 15 at Ardmore Music Hall (AMH) in Ardmore, right outside of Philadelphia, and was hosted by Dan Fein. The benefit was set up to raise money for Derek Dorsey, a longtime music promoter, manager, and talent buyer in the Philadelphia music scene.

Sunday’s show brought out many artists and folks to support both Derek and this new foundation.  

I attended Sunday’s show that featured: Dr. Dog‘s Toby and Zach, Hoots & Hellmouth, Hezekiah Jones, John Faye, Anjuli Josephine, Stargazer Lily, Ben Arnold, Illinois, Andrew Lipke, Don McCloskey, Johnny Showcase & The Mystic Ticket, to name a few. It was a great night of music as each one of the artists had been covered by Origivation/THAT MAG at some point throughout the years.

Personally, for me, it was good to reconnect with the artists both performing or showing their support in the crowd. AMH did a great job, as always, with their house sound and keeping the night on a constant flow. Derek has touched so many lives throughout the years, and to see and feel the energy in the room, was electrifying.

I regrettably did not attend Tuesday’s night’s show, as they had another great lineup featuring Talib Kweli, Karl “Dice Raw” Jenkins, Schooly D., Chris and Herb of Fathead, Mike Voss, Flipside Esq., and Wardell Piper. Tuesday night’s festivities were hosted by Elements of Hip Hop. Not only were the funds raised to help Derek with his immense medical bills, but also for his new foundation, We Live On. The foundation has the goal of creating a space for people with rare diseases to network and to provide information on services and providers available. We Live On strives to create that safe community space as rare diseases are isolating and often end in suicide rather than death by disease. Most importantly, the foundation will serve its community of individuals and families who are facing medical adversity, establishing that people are not alone and that there is hope.

Photos by Ryan Russell & Danny Clinch

Over the past six years, the boys of Death Cab for Cutie have accomplished more than they ever dreamed. Now on tour promoting their seventh studio album, Codes and Keys, drummer Jason McGerr spoke with Origivation about the recording process unlike any other.

During the mixing process of Codes and Keys, the latest album by Death Cab for Cutie, drummer Jason McGerr spent his mornings in his home studio, eagerly awaiting the finished songs to arrive from London. His band mate and producer Chris Walla had gone overseas to mix the unfinished songs with legendary producer Alan Moulder. But despite having played on all the tracks, McGerr wasn’t sure he even remembered how to play the songs.

For McGerr and the other members of the iconic indie quartet, recording Codes and Keys was an experience unlike any they had undertaken together. While the band ordinarily recorded albums all at once, this time around they opted to record in several two-week sessions before packing up, taking three weeks off, and starting the process all over again.

“We did this [in] maybe six different studios between the months of June and late November of 2010,” McGerr said, “and so each time we would load into the studio [and] we’d do four or five songs … and we’d pack everything up and put it away and move to the next place.”

“We never had a moment to stop and listen as a band, [to] sit in the control room and play back the stuff we did that week, or that two weeks. So it wasn’t until that November [of 2010] that I started to hear the things I had recorded in June.”

Walla has long been in charge of production for the band, and while there were moments McGerr said he was nervous about the direction the band was taking, he trusted and had confidence in the other guys. “Walla captains the ship. He’s the production captain. He’s the recording captain; he has a vision and we trust that he has a vision for the songs,” McGerr said.

“Recording Codes and Keys, record number seven, there were clearly moments when I couldn’t see the forest through the trees. At the end of every day, I realized that, ‘well, we’ve made it this far and we’re totally going to work this out.’ So there’s a confidence that comes with all the growth and change, I think, and hopefully I will say the same thing next time around.”

So what did he think after he heard the songs?

“I was super proud. I was pretty overwhelmed, actually.” he said. “When I was sitting at my home studio behind great speakers, listening to these songs fully realized, mixed by one of the greatest engineers in the world, in my opinion, it really felt like we got the gold-star treatment for everything through the entire record.”

And his pride is well justified. While Codes and Keys is less guitar-focused than some of their previous material, Death Cab has created a more upbeat album than ever before and the most sonically interesting album since 2003’s Transatlanticism.

Front man Ben Gibbard has often stated that each album is a snapshot of that moment in his life, and this album is no exception. He recently stopped drinking and married indie queen and She & Him front woman Zooey Deschanel.

But the good news isn’t limited strictly to Gibbard. Several of the band members, McGerr included, have started families, which is largely why the band chose to record Codes the way they did.

McGerr sees similarities between his budding family and his band.

“Being a baby to learning to crawl, to learning to walk to developing language skills to all of a sudden being able to have a conversation with your kid, and to watch that change happen almost overnight, I feel like that’s what happened with the band,” McGerr said.

“It’s still something you don’t realize is happening. It’s maturity, it’s a growth. Maybe [Death Cab’s] language skills I’m talking about is our ability to communicate in terms of production and as songwriters and presentation as a live band.”

Codes and Keys may be the band’s seventh album, but it’s McGerr’s fourth. He joined the band prior to the recording of Transatlanticism, an album which marked a significant shift for the group. Death Cab for Cutie went from a lo-fi face in the crowd to a more legitimate and hard-working band.

“Maybe I can take some credit for being the right kind of glue for the band to be able to handle the amount of work that it takes to be successful,” he said after laughing when I asked if he was the reason the band took off after Transatlanticism. “When I did join the band in October of 2002, there was a different thing. It was a shift in the music and the energy, both in the studio and live, but there was also a ‘wow, this is a brand new band again and we’re thirsty and ready for a full season.’

Death Cab for Cutie would spend the next five years straight either on tour or in the studio. According to McGerr, the band had about two months off between writing and recording Transatlanticism in 2003 and Plans two years later. Then they spent another three years on the road and recording Narrow Stairs.

And with each record came greater success: while Transatlanticism peaked at number 97 on the Billboard charts, Plans debuted at number four and Narrow Stairs was the band’s first album to debut at number one. Throughout that time, the band penned hits like “I Will Follow You Into the Dark,” “I Will Possess Your Heart” and “Soul Meets Body,” which peaked at number five on the U.S. Modern Rock Billboard chart.

This kind of success gave the band the kind of confidence they needed to grow creatively. “If you look back on the Drive Well, Sleep Carefully [documentary, which chronicled the band’s 2005 tour in support of Transatlanticism,] there’s a few comments where we feel like we’ve achieved more than we ever thought we would achieve and more. And I like that,” McGerr explained. “[I]t’s not a super conscious effort to evolve, but it’s been that way since the band began. So it doesn’t seem forced, it doesn’t seem anything but the right path. It gives us a lot more confidence to make a move forward each time we record a record.”

The band has come a long way since 2005, and Codes and Keys may be the clearest confirmation of this yet. As the group gets older, wiser and maybe even more family-oriented, the band’s content changes, but the quintessential feeling of Death Cab for Cutie remains.

Photo by Aaron Wojack

A few months back, the New York Times ran an odd story about a mystery captivating the city of Miami. It seemed someone had placed a massive grand piano fully upright on a sandbar, surrounded on all sides by the salt waters of Biscayne Bay. How it got out onto its sandbar perch was anyone’s guess, and for a while city residents seemed to relish this minor enigma in their midst.

It’s a weird tale, but it springs to mind when listening to Callers. They share something in common with that vignette: there’s the same sense of incongruity at play in their work, of familiar elements rearranged into something wholly mesmerizing and intriguing.

Callers play a rich, fluid mix of blues, jazz, folk, and post-punk, and while that might sound “arty,” the songs themselves are instantly accessible and easy to listen to.

Lead singer Sara Lucas possesses an immensely striking voice. Ryan Seaton uses his guitar to create textures and delicate flourishes while playing an extra bass string. Don Godwin’s drumming is complex and subtle, complementing the other two while leaving them a vast amount of open space to work in.

“[Creating the music is] allowing moments to shine through, not just plowing through a song, jerking out chords.” Seaton said. “It’s just listening to what’s happening [in a song] and maybe there’s a guitar texture that needs to be left alone, or a part where Sara needs to sing it differently every sing time. It’s reminding ourselves to do something when it needs to be done, and leave it alone when it doesn’t need to be done.”

Their songs, like the title track of their latest album, Life of Love, sound seamless and lived-in, like they’ve been playing this music forever. “I think [the band is] three people with similar sensibilities, and I think we’re all very aware of the thing we’re doing.” said Seaton. “Having three people doing it together feels really amazing.”

It’s a chemistry that’s hard-won, and it stems partly from the way that band members have been moving all over the country for several years. “We all met when we were living in New Orleans; I think that reference comes up a lot in our write-ups and things, but it’s kind of hard to get around.” said Seaton. “It’s a hugely influential city.”

The band finally landed in Brooklyn, where they turned the dusty, stark Americana of Fortune into the bigger, bolder sound found on the sophomore album, Life of Love.

“We all come from different places, have lived in different places, and listened to wildly different music,” Seaton said. “I feel like all three of us, music has just been a big part of our lives, maybe the biggest part for our entire lives.”

The band is currently at work on some intriguing new material, using scraps of looped audio from sound checks as the starting point for new songs. No word yet on whether they’ll expand their sound, but in case they’re interested, there’s a piano in Biscayne Bay that would be perfect for them.

Photo by Travis Shuggin

The three women in Mountain Man are Molly Erin Sarle, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig and Amelia Randall Meath. Their names are not simple, but their music is. The music of Mountain Man is vocally driven, accompanied only by sparse acoustic guitar. It is deeply rooted in traditional American folk music.

The band came together in the mountains of Vermont (hence the name,) while all three were attending Bennington College.

“Mountain Man began two years ago in my final term [at Bennington],” Sauser-Monnig said as she traveled through the wilds of Virginia. “Amelia and I used to sneak up to an unused hallway in an old school building that had a great room tone to sing a Mount Eerie song together. Molly and Amelia weren’t terribly close, but each had heard the other sing.”

Everything was informal for Mountain Man until a friend’s housewarming party. The three gals enjoyed performing together so much and enjoyed how natural their voices sounded together that they started playing more frequently. They began by playing shows around Bennington’s campus.

“That choice [to be named Mountain Man] has resulted in a lot of curiosity, but in many ways, it is just a name that reflects a period of time in our lives spent together in the mountains of Vermont.” Sauser-Monnig admits. “If we were just beginning now, I think we would land on a different name.”

No one from Mountain Man is from Vermont and currently, only one member, Sarle, is still in the Green Mountain State. When not touring, they rest their heads in Vermont, Brooklyn and Virginia. They have been on tour, one that brought them through Philadelphia when they played a house party at a friend’s house. “[It is a tour with] many highs and lows. Our show in Philly was somewhere in the middle.”

The band recorded their debut album Made the Harbor in one weekend in sunny Philadelphia in the attic of an old ice cream parlor. Recording was crammed into a small window of time between wrapping up a tour and getting back to Vermont to return to school. The album is a definitive product of the moment Mountain Man was in and because of that, the band is hesitant to really say when they will record another one. “I think a lot of what made our first one an electrifying experience for us was that we had just discovered each other in a fulfilling musical way,” Sauser-Monnig said.

There were also geographical advantages when recording Made the Harbor because all three members were living in the same town. now being spread out in different states, things are slightly more challenging. “We are far away from each other geographically and while we share parts of our histories with each other, we are all doing very different things from one another right now.”

Mountain Man is a new age American band, separated literally, but connected on another level. In those beautiful mountains of Vermont, the three women of Mountain Man formed a strong bond that transcends physical distance. They will not rush their next album, but they will record one. It will be ripe with lush harmonies and soothing vocals. Their name will still confuse you, but their sound sure won’t.

Photo by Paul Phung

Though it may not be noticeable, the beginnings of dream pop quartet Wild Beasts front man Hayden Thorpe’s musical career started in an unlikely place – sitting in the back of his nanny’s car while listening to 90’s dance music.

“[The music] was emotive and energizing to me in a way I couldn’t quite understand.” Thorpe said. “It just felt really, really good and I wanted more.”

Since childhood, Thorpe has had a difficult time buying into conformity. “I was always terrible at getting out of bed.” Thorpe said. “[I was] always terrible at being told what to do and I always had the most fun doing what I like, which after a certain point became playing music. I think it was that rule-less and limitless feeling of music that drew me to it.”

It’s this sense of independence that led Thorpe to create his current band. “My parents made me learn piano, which I hated, because again I was being told what to do.” he said. “But from there I started making up my own pieces.”

Wild Beasts started as a duo between Thorpe and guitarist Ben Little in 2002 and ended up in its present form, rounded out by bassist Tom Fleming and drummer Chris Talbot three years later. The group immediately garnered significant buzz from the English press, released its debut album Limbo, Panto in 2008 and Two Dancers the following year.

For the new album, Smother, the group wanted to create something beautiful and encompassing. “The concept was to create this immersive little world, a whole head space as it were.” said Thorpe. “We wanted to make something of beauty. That was the only mission statement we had. The title Smother relates to that “too much of a good thing” scenario. As if to say, ‘I love you too much.'”

And it worked.

Smother has a dark and dreamy feel. Throughout the album Thorpe’s borderline (and classically trained) falsetto drifts over delicate piano and subtle electronic elements. To achieve this, Thorpe said, the band bared it soul more thoroughly than on previous albums.

“[Smother is] more refined, more considered, more knowing of itself.” he said. “We perhaps reveal a little more of ourselves in the record and tend to invert inward rather than outward for source material.”

Ultimately, though, Thorpe feels the band is best experienced live. “Performing feels like stepping into a sort of ulterior world.” Thorpe said. “What goes on and happens on stage doesn’t quite qualify as relevant everyday life. It’s as if you shed a skin onstage. Which does mean you can feel pretty raw afterward!”

The band is in the middle of a summer tour taking them across Europe and the Americas. Thorpe and his band mates have been keeping busy building a studio in London so their hands don’t get, as Thorpe put it, “dangerously idle.”

But if Smother is any indication, Thorpe and Wild Beasts will be in high demand for quite some time.

Photo by Matthew Welch

When we spoke, Nikka Costa was in the midst of coordinating rehearsals with her band, gearing up for her United States tour in support of her newly released EP, Pro*Whoa! The goal, Costa said, is to release a series of EPs rather than go the typical full-length album route. “For me, right now, this feels more exciting – it keeps the engines running,” Costa said. “Plus, it suits the ADD culture we’re living in.” She also thinks it’s good to give fans little bursts of funk and soul rather than unload her fierceness all in one huge chunk.

Mission accomplished. Pro*Whoa! is a tight collection of six songs that highlight Costa’s signature hybrid sound of rock and funk with a heavy dose of soul and a dash of hip-hop mixed in. She’s feminine, even girly, but when she opens her mouth to sing, her voice explodes from your speakers. It’s easy to see where her influences lie. She’s Janis, Jimi, and Led Zeppelin all folded into a tiny package with a big, sultry voice. And she’s not shy, nor is she afraid to get naked for her art. Costa recently appeared on her YouTube Channel, “Nikka’s Box,” standing topless with a letterbox over her bare chest, the words Pro*Whoa! splashed across, demanding “What’s a girl gotta do to get the word out?”

Perhaps the reason for the shameless promotion is due, in part, to the fact that Costa hasn’t quite exploded in the United States…yet. Her self-titled debut was released when she was just nine years old, and through the years she’s found much of her success overseas in Europe. Though hits like “Like a Feather” and “Everybody’s Got Their Something” penetrated the airwaves stateside, her music has been featured in Grey’s Anatomy and the films Blue Crush and Blow, there was a time Costa questioned whether she wanted to be a musician.

“I had been touring from the time I was eight until I was twelve,” she said. She’s the daughter of famed musician, conductor, arranger and producer Don Costa, best known for his work with Frank Sinatra, arranging and producing Sinatra and Strings, as well as producing hits for the Osmond Brothers, Sammy Davis, Jr. and his own daughter’s single “Out Here on My Own.” The two were planning a follow-up to the single when the elder Costa died of a heart attack.

Around that time, Costa said she didn’t want to perform anymore and lived a “normal” childhood. Once she finished high school and all her friends headed off to college, however, Costa realized being a musician was the path for her. Costa’s “college years” consisted of writing songs, traveling around in a van, auditioning drummers, hanging her own posters and learning guitar. “I was out there doing it,” she said.

And Costa never looked back. She went from “sitting in the laps of the real Brat Pack,” as she sings on the new EP’s title track, to rubbing shoulders with celebrities and collaborating with big name artists like Eric Clapton.

So being around famous people her entire life, it’s hard to imagine Costa getting star struck. “Madonna walked right by me once and I didn’t say hi-I couldn’t,” she laughs. Same with Stevie Wonder – the first time she saw him she was too in awe to say hello.

She’s sung with Prince on several occasions, but Costa said he still has a starry-eyed effect on her. “There have been a few times when I’m sitting across the table from Prince, and I’m thinking, ‘This is so surreal-I’m talking to Prince!'” In fact, Costa’s sound, at times, is very Prince-like, especially on Pro*Whoa!‘s, “Head First.”

Costa recently collaborated with another artist walking the androgynous, glam-rock line, American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert, and contributed a few songs for his sophomore album. “He’s great because you can throw anything at him, and he can sing it.”

Costa said it’s nice to collaborate and write for other artists, “It’s good to go into their headset and see where they are.” Costa said. “It’s fun for me, too, to be outside myself.” The challenge of writing for other artists creates challenges for her own songwriting. She can return to her own music with new perspective and fresh eyes.

Touring can also offer some fresh perspective and downtime gives Costa more time to get her life in order. On the road, Costa’s favorite pastime is organizing her computer, of all things. “I wind up doing things I can’t do at home because I end up cleaning.”

Things like deleting duplicate photos and learning how to use Garage Band help pass the time. Depending on the city, she loves checking out the scene once the sun goes down, but said the local park scene ranks pretty high on the list, too, especially when her daughter hits the road with her.

“It’s not good when I’m away from her for too long,” she said, her voice dropping an octave and losing a bit of its upbeat lightness. Now that her daughter is getting older, she joins Costa on the road. “She loves touring,” Costa said.

“We look at it as an adventure.” she said. “It’s really great for her. It gets her out of her schedule for a minute. Obviously, we’re always thinking of her first.” And the “we” is Costa and husband, Australian music producer Justin Stanley, who she said have been married for “a million years,” so the work/life balance is old hat for them. She said when they can’t get it together for whatever reason that’s when the balance becomes hard.

The Pro*Whoa! tour will find its way Philly on July 13 when Costa performs at World Café Live, and Costa said she loves heading to the City of Brotherly Love. “I love Philly, it’s an awesome city with its funky restaurants and tattoo shops.” Even though the venue tends to be one that is memorably on the chilly side, Costa said. “We’ll try to bring some heat. I love it when it’s a sweaty funk fest.”

Words to live by, Costa said, consist of only one, persevere. “I’m always telling myself to persevere.” After a literal lifetime of singing and eight albums under her belt, Costa is persevering quite well.

By Megan McClure

Photos by Scott Trindle

Ellie Goulding believes in karma. “You should really treat others the way you want to be treated,” the British songbird said. “I use that as a general rule in my life.” Since breaking onto the music scene in 2010, Goulding knows how important it is to maintain a sense of graciousness toward the extraordinary life she’s currently living: “It seems my life is ever-changing.”

The last time she toured the U.S., both Goulding and her bandmates started to feel a little down. “We had been out for awhile, the tour was about six weeks long or so, and my voice had really reached its peak,” she said. “Being away for so long, we started to feel a bit homesick.”

Now she’s gained some perspective and is on the cusp of her second stateside tour in support of her debut, Lights. “I have all good memories, and I’m really excited to return.” she said.

Goulding hails from Hereford, England, and her lilting voice takes on a soft brogue when she sings. Most of her songs center around falling in love, being in love, then losing love. “Gossamer” is an adjective tossed around many a time by critics and fans when describing Goulding’s light and airy voice, and if it could be captured in one word, that would be it.

It is difficult, however, to relegate her sound to just one word. It is something that is very rare in the realm of pop culture–original. She somehow manages to combine pop, electronica and folk into a lovely blend that works well with her, admittedly, gossamer voice.

Goulding is present and aware, both in her songwriting and her daily life. Her writing takes on an old soul quality in the way she talks about loving whole-heartedly first, with the cautious optimism of someone who has had their share of heartbreak and emerged all the wiser as a result. She may be tip-toeing forward but both eyes are wide open, ready to devour the situation.

Her awareness of life is evident when she speaks about her music, and it’s obvious her feet are firmly planted. “I’m not the biggest singer in the world,” she said, “but I’ve been exceptionally lucky and amazing things have happened to me.”

In April, Goulding was asked to play the Royal Wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton, and while she’s unable to go into detail, she did dish that she and her band played a fourteen-song set. “It was awesome,” she said, “truly the biggest honor of my life.”

Another big honor was playing Saturday Night Live in May where she covered Elton John’s “Your Song,” which also appears on Lights. The song is about as stripped down as one can get – featuring only Goulding singing breathily as a piano plays along.

“Starry Eyed” is the first single off the album and conjures Bjork and Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine over a Le Roux backdrop. “Animal” is heavy on the electronica and makes you want to get up and dance, while “Your Biggest Mistake” is more subtle and appeals to her folksy, singer/

songwriter side. This is a woman who is just scratching the surface of what she is able to do.

Her next album will see Goulding getting back into writing. After all, she says, that’s why she’s here. “[To get inspired] I like to be by myself with a couple of drinks, my laptop and my headphones, sitting in a dark corner of a bar,” she said.

Goulding applies that same level of attention to the music she likes, too. “I listen with such intensity right now,” she said. “When I find something [I like,] I have a long-lasting affair.” Goulding said she doesn’t move on easily and chooses to latch on, listening and connecting for long stretches of time rather than flit from one artist to the next. Plus,

listening to others with such intensity allows her creative side to really come out.

Smother by Wild Beasts is an album Goulding is immersing herself in at the moment. “The actual music is stunning,” she gushed. Goulding is enamored with the band’s dreamy falsetto, claiming that it takes her to another time period. “They’re able to capture the future and the past so well, which is important for me. I like that a lot.”

As Wild Beasts have the ability to meld the past and future, Goulding is hoping to take what she’s learned thus far in her career and use it to propel her into whatever the future has in store. She’s in the early stages of writing her next album, but she’s not sure of it’s direction, and she’s okay with that. Her approach to her music has remained constant in that she lets it evolve naturally.

When she started out, her sound came about in a very organic way, strumming away on her guitar in her studio bedroom. “I never planned on it being one thing in particular.” she said. In addition to getting more heavily back into writing on the next album, Goulding also wants it to have a heavier guitar sound to it, since that’s what she sees as the core of her sound. “It’s important that things start with a guitar.” she said. “I really enjoy the sound of it – it gives an album a certain feel,” she laughed, awkwardly trying to change the subject. “I could talk about this forever.”

Bottom line: the next album is going to be on Goulding’s terms. She said she’s trying not to think about it and is instead reveling in the freedom to do what she wants to do. “I want to trust my instincts and see where it goes.”

With all her talk about love, Goulding said her relationship status has little bearing on the vibe and subject matter of her songs. “I have so much stored away in my head.” she said. “I like to tell stories.” And that means drawing from other people, her own story and even fairy tales.

One fairy tale dream come true dream would be to collaborate with Bon Iver front man Justin Vernon. She calls Vernon one of her favorites of all time and gets a bit swoony when she talks about him, “There’s a certain soul to his voice – it’s something very special,” said Goulding. “I’d like to play with that.”

The way her karma’s stacking up, it would come as no surprise that Goulding would make the collaboration happen. “I feel lucky to be alive, healthy and do what I do,” she said. Do good things and good things will happen to you. Ellie Goulding is living proof of that.

In 1996, singer-songwriter Duncan Sheik released his eponymous debut album, featuring a single that became a big hit on the charts. After that, many thought he disappeared from music. Little did they know, however, that he was hard at work branching out into non-pop music, composing music for movie soundtracks and musical theater.

Born in 1969 in New Jersey and raised there and in South Carolina, Duncan developed his musical interest from his grandmother, a graduate of Juilliard. He grew up to be the artist responsible for the 1996 single “Barely Breathing,” which reached number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed on the chart for a record-setting 55 weeks. The song also peaked at number two on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary and Adult Top 40. The album itself went Gold, selling over 50,000 copies.

After his debut, Duncan put out a few more albums, with which he went back and forth between pop and singer-songwriter albums. He then moved away from making albums to writing music for the stage.

“That was a very, I guess you could say, happy accident for me.” Sheik said. “I actually was not a big musical theater aficionado at all, but my friend [playwright] Steven Sater asked me if I might want to work on a more adventurous piece of theater that would involve music.”

The two spent seven years writing their play before staging it. The result was Spring Awakening, a modern adaptation of a controversial German play by the same name. The play used modern songs, composed by Sheik, to tell the story of teenagers in the late 1800’s.

Although Sheik had virtually no experience with theater, the experience was life changing. “I didn’t always love the theater.” Sheik admitted. “But I’m really proud of what we did with that show, and now I have a lot more respect for the medium in general and I know more about it now because I’ve been working in the theater for 11 years. And so, it’s something I’m really happy to be a part of.”

Writing for the theater allowed Sheik to step out of himself and compose from a different viewpoint. “The big difference is that in the case of a theater piece, you’re writing from the perspective of a persona that is not your own.” Sheik said, “There is this kind of great thing about writing for theater because it gives you this much bigger pallet of personality that you can draw from, and it allows you to have a different voice and to say things you wouldn’t normally say.”

In addition to Spring Awakening, Sheik has recetly worked on a number of other plays, including the haunting Whisper House, a show as unconventional as Spring Awakening.

He’s also currently working on some more pieces for the stage. “I am working on a stage adaptation of Alice in Wonderland with Steven Sater.” says Sheik. “we’re getting it ready for a program [with the National Theater in London] called Connections, which… prepare[s] the piece to be performed at two hundred different high schools all over the UK. It’s an interesting way to work on a piece because you’re getting it ready for every different eventuality.”

According to Sheik, the show is similar to Spring Awakening in that, while the setting is the 19th centure, the music is contemporary. “I guess we could be accused of redoing what we did before,” Sheik said, “but it seems to be something that we were able to communicate to an audience in an interesting way.” He is also working on a musical adaptation of American Psycho – that’s right, the novel and movie containing topics like murder, rape, and cannibalism is going to be a musical.

As if all this weren’t enough Sheik has just finished an album called Covers 80’s which will be released June 7. Why an album of 80’s covers?

“There were these many occasions over the course of the past fifteen years, where I’d be at a party or a family gathering and someone would hand me a guitar and be like, ‘oh, you’re a singer-songwriter. Play us some songs we can all sing along to.'” Sheik’s repetoire was limited to one Radiohead and Oasis song, but learning rock standards provded boring.

So he decided to take songs that were important to him as a teenager, which were mostly electronic and synth-filled, and he wanted to turn them into songs he could play on an acoustic guitar.

What about the signature drum sounds, a staple of the 80’s pop genre? “Yeah, there are none.” he said. “I used a harmonium, marimbas, dulcumers and banjo and ukelele and marimba, and obviously piano, guitar and vocals.

“What was fun was that a lot of synthesizer sounds were vaguely replicating marimbas or dulcimers and different kind of string instruments,” Sheik said, “and it was kind of taking the synthesizer sounds and finding the organic sounds from which it came.”

“I think that’s part of why the music gets a bad rap, because it’s seen as all about production and not very [substantive] and that it’s thin in the songwriting department.” Sheik said. “But there were so many great songs written in the 80’s, and when you strip away some of the 80’s clothing, you find there are these really interesting, enigmatic pop songs that are great no matter how you present them.”

And as if this wasn’t already a great concept for an album, Rachael Yamagata, another talented singer-songwriter, is featured on nine of the album’s 12 tracks, adding an even more unique sound.

Duncan has a lot going on, and as if a new album and several stage performances weren’t enough, Sheik plans to write a book. “Hopefully it’ll be a literary memoir about a kid from South Carolina who has dreams of making it in the music business, and as he starts to make it, the music business kind of evaporates before his eyes.”

Okay, Duncan – anything else you’re working on? “I am going to begin writing and recording a real ‘normal’ Duncan Sheik album that will be a set of disparate songs that will not be connecting to a piece of theater or anything else.”

We’ve all got a lot to look forward to from the prolific Mr. Sheik, in all different mediums. From his pop-rock beginning to his Tony-winning musicals, Duncan Sheik has, without a doubt, come back as a force to be reckoned with.

Photo by Lauren Dukoff

Zac Holtzman’s brother went to Cambodia and all he got was a band.

In 1997 Ethan Holtzman was trekking through Cambodia when his traveling companion contracted dengue fever, a tropical disease characterized by blistering rashes, diarrhea, and a fever that can peak at over 104 degrees-all from a mosquito bite.

As Ethan raced with his friend to the hospital, the driver of the car was blasting Cambodian rock and roll from the 1960’s. It was there, watching over his deathly-ill friend in a crowded car, that Ethan discovered and fell in love with classic Cambodian rock. In 2001, he and Zac founded a Cambodian pop/psychedelic rock band in Los Angeles and christened it Dengue Fever.

“[The name] kind of reminded us of ‘dance fever’ or ‘disco fever,'” says Zac, adding that the name functions as both a conversation starter and a point of confusion for audiences.

“When we go to Cambodia they’re like, ‘Why? Why would you name the band after something bad?’ They don’t get the irony.” Zac said. “Also, a lot of people who come to our shows have had dengue fever and come up and tell us.”

Just as the disease means different things to different people, the band has found the same to be true of their music. In Zac’s experience, there’s no single demographic that turns out for a Dengue Fever show.

“Our fans are a really mixed crowd. All the Cambodians come out for each city we play in, but there’s also indie rockers.” Said Holtzman. “We’ve had a few TV shows and people who watch those shows will come out. We also get Vietnam vets who ended up marrying a Cambodian woman.”

Dengue Fever’s music reflects the diversity of their fans: some songs are entirely in Khmer, the official language of Cambodia, while others are written in a pidgin of English and Khmer.

“Our first album [Dengue Fever, 2003] was covers and it was a great way to get the band off the ground,” says Zac, “But none of us came from a cover band background, so we quickly switched gears to doing originals.”

The influx of English and original compositions into Dengue Fever’s repertoire is the work of Chhom Nidol, the band’s lead singer. Nidol was already a popular performer in Cambodia before auditioning and landing a spot with Dengue Fever.

In the band’s beginning, her limited English meant the band had to employ a translator and arduously trim back syllables to fit their lyrics to their music. As Nidol’s vocabulary improved, Dengue Fever wrote more and more songs in English in order to reach a larger audience and break free of the world music genre. But as Zac explains, Dengue Fever is a dish best served without a label.

“I wouldn’t categorize it.” He said. “If I were putting it somewhere in the music store, I would put it somewhere out front so everyone could see it.”