-
Interview on YCN “Your Local View” with Linz
Thank you Greg Uhrin and Abby Peel for the featured piece on YCN!!
-
Country Way
Country Way album is finished! Available on disc or streaming starting Feb 14th! COUNTRY WAY ALBUM IS FINISHED I have put out my second full album since 2004! Unlike my first album Dónde Está mi Corazón all in Spanish, Country Way has a country feel and songs are in English. The album will be available on all streaming platforms starting on Valentine’s Day (Feb 14th). I also have a limited supply of physical CD’s available (contact me if interested). Thank you all the folks who helped make this project happen and all those who have supported my music and projects throughout the years. Especially thank you to my family!
Click here for the streaming link.
This album is in loving memory of “Smokey Joe” Bossie
and his friends Alan Brownell, Dale Cook and Alex “Freak”.THANK YOU TO MUSICIANS: Special thanks to Jimmy Sferes for his amazing guitar playing, ukulele, bass, Hawaiian lap steel, and for his patient and artful mixing of the album. Much of the album was mixed over Zoom during covid-lockdown!
Big thanks to Sikiru Adepoju for playing talking drum (recorded by Deegan Adams) on tracks Country Way and God’s Hotel and also for percussion consulting. Thanks to Tim Gilmore, for volunteering to record drums on Country Way at Concord Community Music School back in 2013 (recorded by David Tonkin), between teaching his full roster of students. Thanks to Luke Dobrowski for adding drum set to Hippie Hill, Parallel Lines and Sugar Shock from his own studio. Thank you Jordan Tirrell-Wysocki for recording soulful fiddle lines for Parallel Lines and Probabaly Shouldn’t-a in his own home studio during covid-lockdown. Thank you to family and friends aka Ragged Mountain Band: Grace Schust (percussion and vocals), Jim Schust (rhythm guitar), Paul Currier (mandolin and vocals), Robert Grasmere (harmonica) & Jim Connell (bass guitar and vocals). Thank you Gerry Putnam of CedarHouse Sound and Mastering for mastering the album so beautifully. Also, thank you Jennifer White for adding some magic to the shouts on Hippie Hill and Sugar Shock and for supplying coffee and food to the engineer during the long mixing sessions. It takes a village to finish an album. Also, we couldn’t have done it without the oversight of Buddy the cat.
-
SUGAR SHOCK is LIVE!
You can now stream the single “Sugar Shock” on all music platforms. Visit my HearNow page for the direct links. Also, we have a new MUSIC VIDEO for Sugar Shock on my Lindsey Schust Music You Tube Channel
Here’s the music video link: https://youtu.be/7zjrqYlBi74
-
“Parallel Lines” song hits the virtual shelves!
I wrote Parallel Lines, one month before the pandemic began, and I had a sixth sense I needed to record it right away while it was fresh. Jimmy Sferes had me come to the studio and lay down the vocals and the piano and bass parts. I had one rehearsal with Luke Dobrowski on drums at his studio. Then one week later, everything exploded and we reaccessed our recording plans. We decided to not meet in person, but to try the “remote recording” thing.
The Pandemic really sped up my learning process, because I had to learn to use Logic Pro recording software fast, in order to record individual tracks to sent to the studio. Jordan Tirrell-Wysocki & Luke Dobrowski recorded their parts remotely too and emailed them to us. Jimmy Sferes recorded his guitar part and played it for me on Zoom. Jimmy & I mixed the whole thing on Zoom, with some supervision of my two cats and elderly dog, and his studio cat.
Many cups of coffee later, I sent it to be mastered by Gerry Putnam. The tracks were magically sent back to me by “We Transfer” via email. I downloaded it, and then uploaded the song to CD Baby the distributor… along with the fabulous cover art drawn by my super talented mom, Grace Schust.
I took my time to research how to promote my own music without a budget, and I started to do it. I came to realize that if you promote yourself in a fun way, there are many people who are happy to join the journey.
So, I hope you will enjoy listening to the song, and will share it with friends and make your own youtube videos with it. It’s important that the song has a life of its own! Art and music are about communication. If the song speaks to you, please share it so it can speak to others too!
And now… I give you: “Parallel Lines”… you can stream it on any music streaming platforms, but to make it easier, here is a link to find it directly:
https://lindseyschust.hearnow.com/parallel-lines
-
Drumming together & apart
It’s really exciting to me how the explosion of creativity in the digital age, keeps going- even during a pandemic!
Our friend and teacher Sikiru Adepoju, master talking drummer from Nigeria, recently released his newest album “OPE” with the Riddim Doctors. The album features so many musicians and master drummers including Zakir Hussein and Giovanni Hidalgo and Val Serrant.
In 2018, Sikiru invited me to join the project, by recording some tracks remotely from rural New Hampshire. Sikiru taught me the song “Dide Afrika (wake up Africa)” over the phone and helped correct my Yoruba pronunciation. Then I did some arranging and practicing, and went to “Hummingbird Studios” in Andover, NH where Jimmy Sferes recorded the backing tracks. I was so nervous at the recording session! I sang in between sips of green tea with agave. After a bunch of takes in English and Yoruba, we were done, and ready to send the files to Sikiru’s engineer in Oakland, California. I would have enjoyed a trip to California, but the simplicity of being able to record tracks remotely and send them over the internet, made things very easy.
I’ve known Sikiru since I was 9 years old, when my mom Grace Schust met him at a drumming residency with Babatunde Olatunji. Our family, became family of the heart with Sikiru and Baba. I’m so happy that I was able to sing on his album. If you are interested in the project, you can read about it here… or stream it here! “Ope” means gratitude in Yoruba. Baba was always saying “there is no much to give thanks for.” I am grateful for our connection with African drumming and our drumming family of the heart.
Lindsey, Grace and Jesse Schust with Sikiru -
The Music Never Stops
So much has changed in the past 6 months in our world, but one thing stays the same: the music never stops. Whether people are playing outside, performing online, or recording remotely, the music continues to play. With the help of technology, I’ve been able to keep working on my EP “Country Way” and keep mixing remotely with an amazing engineer. In terms of Lindsey Schust and the Ragged Mt. Band, we continue to work remotely and the family part of the band, in our own bubble, continue to play and perform online. We performed virtually for the Andover Historical Society’s Old Time Fair in August, see video here.
Grace and I have been teaching drum ensembles on Zoom.us and private lessons through the Concord Community Music School (now virtual for the time being). I know I’m lucky to have the technology available and the internet bandwidth.
It’s funny how my last post was questioning all this technology, and here we are today September 1, 2020 in the midst of the worst pandemic any of us have ever experienced, and the internet is helping to keep the world running while the essential workers and healthcare providers are on the front lines.
Keep playing music and keep listening, as we navigate this stormy sea during this strange time. Stay safe and be kind to one another. Peace and love, Lindsey.
-
Rhythm of our Global Village
INSTANT COMMUNICATION! Today, our world is supercharged by satellites which drive instant communication, and we are barraged with data, ideas, un-edited “gut responses” to images or happenings. Truth and reality are intertwined with “branding”, not the kind we used on cattle, to mark them as ours, but a self-branding that forces us to create a dual life. One electronically motivated and influenced by dings and bings from devices in our hands, laps, on our wrists. The other is the native life we live in our environment, in real time, face to face with friends, family, co-workers, pets, wildlife, and the ever changing weather.
Now, the web is our ocean and we navigate it simultaneously while navigating our non-digital lives.
Everyone is communicating these days, and discussing all sorts of detailed topics. It’s a wonder, and it’s evolving as we speak. People are speaking through screens, talking through digital text messages, sending photographs and videos that instantly appear and then disappear. Our new reality is here and we are the first generation of humans to understand it.
Everything has come before in some sort or another. We send digital messages with images and symbols, not unlike the Hieroglyphics of the ancient Egyptians. Our communication is new and old, and ever evolving, at a rapid pace.
Sometimes it is confusing, sometimes it is elevating, and sometimes is brings sad or joyful news. Even in areas without “reception”, electronic communication is all around. It’s almost as instant as the sound of a drum playing a pattern to get the villagers’ attention.
It’s almost as instant as someone giving you a hug or calling out your name. What are your preferred modes of communicating these days? How do you find the balance between “screen time” and off screen time in our modern culture?
