beat

Neel, Bruce, Erik (Scrape), Phil, and Vanessa

Industrial music according to Scrape

The Song Talk Radio team of Bruce, Neel, and Phil received an education in Industrial music with Eric Scrape. Here’s some of what you can learn by listening to the show:

Have a listen right here!

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Bruce, Neel, Vanessa, Phil, and Etain

Love Songs we Love to Love (Valentine’s Day Special)

For our Valentine’s Day special, each member of the Song Talk Radio team brought a favourite love song too woo our listeners. All the songs were very different, and we each had a different take on what makes a good love song:

  • Bruce appreciates authentic, honest expressions of love
  • Neel likes it when there’s a nuanced message
  • Vanessa looks for a specific emotional response in the listener
  • Etain likes sincere and from the heart love songs that you can dance to
  • Phil likes honesty and originality in his “happy” love songs, and
  • favourite twitter follower of the show, Sharon (@SharonRose2012), said “Love songs should make you remember what it’s like to be in love.”

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Neel, Bruce, Piper, Phil, and Vanessa

Piper Hayes, from Broadway to Hamilton

Piper Hayes is a New York born singer/songwriter currently living on the outskirts of Hamilton, Ontario – home to a burgeoning arts scene. Piper started writing her own songs because she couldn’t play other people’s songs on her guitar. On this fast-paced and informative show, she sang “You’re Gone” and “Honey” and we talked about:

  • musical theatre training and the singer/songwriter
  • the influence of Stephen Sondheim
  • specific versus ambiguous lyrics
  • using the rhythm guitar to drive a song
  • the right mood for writing

Connect with Piper

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Exploring the art-rock strangeness that could only be Frank Horvat

Frank dropped by Song Talk Radio again, this time with songs from his recent release, Strange Machine.  We talked about:

  • using wikiloops for free backing tracks
  • unconventional time signatures, and unusual uses of 4/4
  • the differences between art songs and pop songs
  • a modern twist on the protest song
  • Frank’s experimental writing process using Logic

Listen to the show:

About Frank Horvat

With a Broken Social Scene-like attitude, Toronto’s ambient-edged art rock band, The Frank Horvat Band, uses a colourful canvas to create songs for a dynamic and intoxicating aural experience.… Read the rest

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Taylor & Bryn with the team

Two guitars, 20 harmonicas, harmonies and beat boxing with Taylor & Bryn

The uber-talented duo of Talyor & Bryn impress the team with their fusion of styles and great sense of humour with 3 live performances, including an improvised lyric and melody by Taylor for their final song.

We discussed:

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