Recorded Jan. 15, 2008

Producer Notes: Red Clay River, based in Roanoke, is the brainchild of Dan Bivins, formerly of Black Jack and the Long Haulers. Bivins' music, steeped in ancient styles that recall suck old-time players as Dock Boggs, will haunt you. Bivins writes on the decidedly modern forum of myspace.com: "Red Clay is keeping the sounds of ghosts riding through the holler on their four-board pine coffins. And they're comin for you boy, they're comin for you".

Notes: This is from a North Carolina husband and wife duo called 3feetup, which occasionally plays at High Point Coffee in Roanoke County, including Friday, Feb. 8 at 7:30 p.m.

Notes: We recently started asking for user-submitted music videos. We've got some now.
Alec Baldwin, aka Charlie Hughes, is a Roanoke guy who can play some funky guitar. Check out "Two Chicken Sandwiches."

Recorded Dec. 11, 2007

Producer notes: We hit the Red Room studio a couple of weeks back with Juniors, a moody and melodic pop band from Roanoke. 17-year-old Robbie Day leads the four piece band, which includes members of the Lobsters, the Wading Girl and the Antikythera Device. Very cool music, with subtlety not expected from a guy who hasn't even had a drivers license for long.

Recorded Nov. 13, 2007

Producer Notes: The MusicCast is back, shooting live video at Jake Dempsey's Red Room studio in Roanoke. To kick off, we bring one of the best rap groups in Southwest Virginia, if not the whole state. Stevie D and Big Perm's rhymes will crack you up, but Illbotz flow is no joke. DJ Samson kills the tables. These guys are going to get lucky one day and write something that goes nationwide. Till then, you can see the 'botz perform plenty around Roanoke.

Recorded July 16, 2007

Producer Notes: When I heard Alliens were coming to the studio, I knew very little about them - reggae, three piece, somewhat confusing name. By the time they pulled out of the lot, I had become a gawking fan. The name stems from their common last name, Allen, as the drummer and keyboardist are brothers and the guitarist a close cousin. I recognized the drummer from an old Blacksburg reggae band Carbon Culture, but this project blows the doors of the genre wide open. Check them out if you can, and if you're lucky you'll see them with a special guest or two.

See more of Alliens
Alliens' Myspace Profile

Recorded July 9, 2007

Producer Notes: I knew Mike, the vocalist for Sabotage Manual, from his old band Fire At Will. We used to play shows together in different bands, so when these guys came to the studio I knew it would be fun. I also recognized Adam, the bassist, from his other band The Makeout. These guys have a great attitude, are multi-talented and practice a very mature sense of DIY ethics, so I wouldn't be surprised if their hard work pays off in the near future.

See more of Sabotage Manual
TimesCast premiere
Sabotage Manual's Myspace Profile

Recorded June 18, 2007

Producer Notes: When Nancy and Two Meteors swung by the studio to record, I asked Dickie and Josh which one was Nancy. They said that it depended on the day, and since their guitarist Marshall was MIA that he was Nancy. Marshall eventually showed up and we called him Nancy for the rest of the session. It's little anecdotes like this that makes recording the MusicCast so much fun.

See more of the Nancy and Two Meteors
TimesCast premiere
Nancy & TM's Myspace Profile

Recorded April 9, 2007

Producer Notes: Frank Dieter, Britt Mistele and Steve Langston aren't that old - but they call themselves Three Old Guys With Guitars. Who am I to argue? One of the nice things about their sound is the variety of guitars involved: a 6 string acoustic, a 4 string acoustic bass and a 12 string acoustic, which often get switched around depending on the song. It was definitely cool to have these guys come in and play some folky acoustic rock, and if you catch the ending of "Goin' to Alaska", you can see they incorporate a little bit of choreography into the performance as well (I was told that's the motion of the RV as it rolls over the run-down Canadian roads).

See more of the Guys
TimesCast premiere
Frank Dieter's website

Recorded May 7, 2007

Producer Notes: As far as recording and setup goes, this was one of the simplest MusicCast sessions ever. Jonathan is an exceptionally talented young guitarist, and he's got his gear together too. After making some drum, bass & rhythm guitar tracks, he overdubs the lead guitar in realtime. So all we had to do was hook up the cd player, run the line to the mixer along with his guitar input (post-effects) and run a headphone line out so that he could hear what he was doing. Then I just ran that output into the recorder and that's it! I like to call it the "Silent MusicCast", because there were no actual amps involved.

See more of Jonathan Gibson
TimesCast premiere
Myspace profile

Recorded February 26, 2007

Producer Notes: A few weeks before Kluge came in to record some tracks, the guys stopped by to check out the studio. Mike Glazebrook (center) agreed to let us tape him doing one of his specialties - breathing fire, which we used on the TimesCast later that week. Seems he's got talent in many different fields, but for the MusicCast they left the party tricks at home. Instead, they brought in all of their cool gear and rocked some industrial. I got to have a lot of fun editing these videos, and it was good to see people really enjoying a type of music that doesn't get much attention these days.

See more of Kluge
TimesCast premiere
Myspace profile
Watch a video of Mike breathing fire

Recorded May 22, 2007

Producer Notes: As far as rock bands go, Madrone are quite a force to be reckoned with. They've been playing the Roanoke area for a few years now, and are poised to take on the rest of the world with a bruising sound laced with catchy vocal melodies. A few years ago, I played bass for the guys so it was a treat to have them swing by the studio and play some of their new songs.

See more of Madrone
TimesCast premiere
Myspace profile

Recorded May 14, 2007

Producer Notes: It often takes a good amount of time for bands to unload their gear, set it up, do soundchecks and finally to record the songs, and about midway through the session I realized that I wouldn't be able to catch the bus I needed to get back home to Blacksburg. The guys in August lived in the NRV, and graciously offered to give me a ride after the recording was done, so we finished up the last song and headed out. Before hitting the interstate, we decided it would be fun to stop by the local shopping mall in Roanoke to grab a bite to eat and check out the record store. After knowing these guys a total of 3 hours, I felt like I'd known them for years. It was fun to hang out with the guys and get to know their different personalities, but when it comes to music they're completely professional. All in all, these guys are a band that is on track to explode (and young enough to have the ambition).

See more of August
TimesCast premiere
Myspace profile

Recorded May 21, 2007

Producer Notes: When Sarah, the incredibly talented keyboard/vocalist for The Wading Girl, first got her brand new amp turned on, everyone in the studio immediately started cracking up. What was coming through from her keyboard was a kind of crappy house techno song that was evidently pre-loaded into the board. That gave Shaun the idea to intro and outro one of their tracks with a German accent, which you can see at the beginning (and end) of their song "Ohio". Needless to say, these guys were a lot of fun and are enjoying a well-deserved amount of success not only in the Roanoke valley but all over the U.S. as they tour with Tim Barry from the legendary Richmond band Avail.

See more of The Wading Girl
TimesCast premiere
Myspace profile

Recorded November 27, 2006

Producer Notes: On their myspace page they call themselves "Electric Chameleon", but when they dropped by the studio it was "The Electric Chameleons". Whatever the plurality, these guys are truly a solid band. Heavy grooves, catchy hooks - watch for these guys to blow up soon.

See more of The Electric Chameleons
TimesCast premiere
Myspace profile