Jean Pierre Massiera- Psychoses Freakoid

Itunes http://itunes.apple.com/ie/album/jean-pierre-massiera-psychoses/id285480656

See AM and Shawn Lee live March 7th @ Hotel Cafe and in Austin for SXSW March 18

Limited Edition 12″ of “Dark Into Light” available on record store day April 16th.

Lyrics- Dark Into Light

what’s your name
do you feel the same
up all night
think about our lives

when we’re gone
our ghosts live on
so have we tried
have we done our best
to turn the wrong into right

turn the wrong into right
turn the dark into light

we divide
sacrifice our lives
over what we’re told
over what they hide

we don’t want
to go unsung
so give us your faith
cuz it’s not too late
to turn the wrong into right

turn the wrong into right
turn the dark into light

and we’ll be alright

Music is the melody whose text is the world.

-Arthur Schopenhauer

Sneak peak of a new song I am recording with my new ukulele. Check it out at www.youtube.com/amsounds and on the Mya Moe website here: http://www.myamoeukuleles.com/artistDetails.php?id=54

As some of you know after reading my blog back in November of 2010 my Ohana ukulele was stolen from my car while I was loading up gear to go to a recording session. This happened right outside of my home in Los Angeles, California. After hearing about the incident the amazing people at both Ohana and Mya Moe ukuleles both so graciously gave me a ukulele. I was stunned. Companies like this know how important an instrument is to a musician and that we are already going against the grain, already pursuing a career that is unstable, risky and very often results in little pay. To have your sole means of income swiped away from you is pretty disheartening. It’s like a truck driver getting his truck stolen or something.

So, just when I had let the thieves go in in my head I got a call from Roland, the owner of The Fretted Frog, a music store just down the street from me here in Echo Park. They mentioned they had read my blog and another neighborhood blog that picked up the story on the stolen ukulele and someone had come in to try and sell a uke to them that looked a lot like mine. I went down there and sure enough there it was. I even came face to face with the potential thief (although I suspected this 25 year old mother of one was not the actual thief, someone put her up to it – most likely her accomplice that fled the scene when he realized they were on camera). In any case no charges were pressed. I got my uke back and that was all that mattered.

I’m not naive enough to think that the universe always works this way. Plenty of musicians (and other people) have things stolen from them never to be returned. I was lucky. Lucky the thieves were stupid enough to try and sell a stolen item one block from the scene of the crime. Lucky the owner of the The Fretted Frog HAPPENED to read my blog and cared enough to study the picture of the ukulele. Lucky enough to have received such amazing, heartfelt treatment from both Ohana and Mya-Moe. I’m lucky to have good people around me. I’m lucky the universe was on my side…this time. Because that’s how it works. Focus on the times when things work out so when something crazy wrong happens to you, and the laws of the universe say it will, you can remember a moment like this to help get you through it.

Come out Monday, March 7th at the Hotel Cafe 10pm to see AM, Brett Bixby, Shawn Lee, and Pete McNeal preview the new tunes.

Thanks everyone.

AM

MUSIC MADE IN CYBERSPACE

Be the first to hear AM and Shawn Lee’s yet untitled album as they unveil their new music at a SXSW Pre-show on March 7th at the Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles, and at SXSW in Austin, Texas on March 18th.

Free! Listen and download  mp3 of “Dark Into Light” now at www.amsounds.com/2011/02/new-music-am-shawn-lee/

The collaboration between AM and Shawn Lee started after AM heard Lee’s Music and Rhythm album on the radio in Los Angeles (KJazz’s Miles Perlich and also KCRW). After reaching out to Lee via a now defunct social networking site that is best left unnamed, the two became quick friends sharing a similar love for vintage grooves and ‘60s and ‘70s soundtrack music.

The two decided to record together after AM played guitar on a few of Lee’s Ping Pong Orchestra shows (including KCRW’s “Morning Becomes Eclectic”) in the summer of 2010.  Lee, armed with a four-track and other vintage tape machines in his London studio, started sending AM drum and percussion beats in December 2010. In Los Angeles, AM responded by writing and recording songs over the grooves, adding guitars, Casio synths, vocals and occasional bass and emailing the tracks back to Lee in London.

Lee then added more instrumentation such as bass, keys, guitars, glockenspiel and other assorted instruments and mixed the tunes. The LA to London cyber collaboration results in a completely unique brand of “electro-soul”.  Over the past few months fans could see their back and forth notes often written on Facebook.  This new project sees the duo propel each other into their best work yet. AM’s honeyed vocals ride a driving percussion section straight into walls of shimmering guitars and glassy keyboards pulling elements as disparate as Gary Numan, Jorge Ben, and Ariel Pink into 3:54 of perfect future pop. Tweet it. Like it. #coolnewshite

Limited Edition, gold colored, 12″ of “Dark Into Light” available on record store day April 16th.

Dark Into Light

Bridget St. John- Thank You For…

Itunes http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/thank-you-for/id161610466

Not going to Austin for South By Southwest? No biggie. Come to the Los Angeles SXSW pre-show.

AM & Shawn Lee LIVE in Los Angeles, CA
SXSW Pre-Show
Monday, March 7, 2011 @10pm
Hotel Cafe
1623 1/2 Cahuenga Blvd
Hollywood CA 90028

AM and Shawn Lee performing at SXSW 2011.

FRIDAY, March 18  SXSW 2011

AM & Shawn Lee Playing the D’Addario/ Swinghouse Studios Party
405 E. 7th Street @ corner of Trinity
Austin, TX
Friday, March 18, 2011
Time: TBA day party

AM & Shawn Lee showcasing at SXSW 2011
The Ale House
310 East 6th Street
Austin, TX
Friday, March 18, 2011
Time: 10pm

I don’t feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning.

-Michel Foucault

http://amsounds.com/2011/02/clash-magazine-uk-feature

Andy Votel- Brazilika

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

-Kierkegaard

AM’s guide to New Orleans in the UK’s Clash Magazine.

“Melodic popster and current king of what’s being touted as ‘indie-lounge’”- Clash Magazine

Check it out here:

http://www.clashmusic.com/feature/am-guide-to-new-orleans

“Listening to AM’s exquisite record Future Sons & Daughters, I kept envisioning a spectacular Southern California sunset, sky glowing blue and peach, the air golden and soft. There’s an air of slight desolation to this album, perhaps a little akin to a mid-century California motel, lonely and worn by the side of some sunbaked road in the middle of lord knows where, ghosts of reveling guests of years past lingering. It’s a little sad, but a whole lot beautiful. The cover, too, is pretty bang on, because there’s a lot of retro lushness on this record, conjuring up faded glamor all over the place. Oh, and it also looks like a Sergio Mendes record cover. Which, thinking about it, really might have been the goal all along.” – Les Enfants Terribles

http://lesenfantsterriblesmusic.blogspot.com/2011/02/megans-top-70-of-2010-41-am.html

Antonio Carlos Jobim- The Composer of Desafinado, Plays

What is a rebel? A man who says no.

-Albert Camus