Eva Walker, host of KEXP’s AudioasisJanuary 5th one of my dreams comes true. Eva Walker is interviewing me that evening on KEXP’s Audio Oasis.
The label, which I have yet to announce and will soon, is reintroducing ‘Free Your Mind’ in digital stores in conjunction with Eva’s interview.
To my knowledge, I have never been played on KEXP. Given that I released my first Staxx Brothers EP fifteen years ago, illustrates how long that I have sure been waiting for this moment.
I wouldn’t say I waited patiently, but I did always kind of do my own thing. Which doesn’t always work out. But when it does, it’s often enduring. I wanted to write and record songs that were built to last.
Those sort of songs don’t ride every wave. But they rarely capsize. Goods songs are long distance swimmers.
…I have also been waiting for someone like Eva to emerge from the Seattle scene and I know others have as well. She is a wicked cool combination a real talent, with a musicologist’s understanding of why Punk, Vaudeville, burlesque, Funk, rebellion, vice, Gospel, and Blues, is so interconnected in the fabric of American song.
Other radio hosts and writers can Express this, but can they sing it? Can they recognize it in others and shine such a light?
I hoped our city would produce more and more talents like him, that had this potential and hunger to not just succeed, but to genuinely get better and better. Because there is no ceiling if we all help punch through that ceiling and let true talents rise.
There is only one Ayron I have met. And only one Eva.
Thus far.
When I learned her roots were in New Orleans, her singular but familiar, chameleonest talent to inhabit so many roles made much more sense.
It’s like a young Louie Prima handing you a card that says “music for any occasion”.
Eva’s tenure as host of KEXP’s Audio Oasis is one of those occassions I am quite thankful for.
Fifteen years later. My first single as a solo artist. First release on a famous label. The gift from the Taino isle of Jamaica, from Anthony Cameron, Sly Dunbar, and Lenky Marsden. Mi Padrinos. The Godfathers.
– Musician and writer Davin Michael Stedman has many ventures, such as the AMAZING blog, 100milesofmusic.com. In the spring of 2018 he spent weeks networking in and reporting from Kingston, Jamaica. He will return there soon for more recording. His single with British band Sherlock Soul is available here.
