Clever songwriting, vintage vibes, and a bit of whimsy: The Laundromat Swing (Rachael and Vilray)
Listen to the song
- YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDgAKf6pE6I&list=RDKDgAKf6pE6
- Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/track/4sluRx2AOutiE6pVszQfZ0
- Apple Music - https://open.spotify.com/track/4sluRx2AOutiE6pVszQfZ0
- Amazon - https://music.amazon.com/albums/B07VGP8RCW?marketplaceId=ATVPDKIKX0DER&musicTerritory=US&ref=dm_sh_OnOs1Dd5AHZ7VTB6bC1Si32Zb&trackAsin=B07VCH4ZX8
Other links
- There's Nothing Like This: The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift, by Kevin Evers
- “Here It Goes Again” music video, OK Go
- Pomplamoose Patreon
Key Takeaways
- The featured song, “The Laundromat Swing,” is a clever and compact duet by Racahel and Vilray, released in 2019 but styled to emulate 1940s music
- The recording style mirrors the 1940s, using a single high-quality microphone and live balancing, which adds warmth and authenticity to the sound.
- The song's lyrics are clever and nostalgic, using 1940s slang and focusing on a lighthearted, relatable topic about making a good impression
- In the mailbag segment, Elaine and Trist discuss the importance of marketing and branding for creatives, emphasizing that quality alone is often not enough for success
About us
Trist Curless is a Los Angeles-based vocalist, educator, and sound engineer. As a performer, Trist has toured worldwide as a co-founder of the pop-jazz vocal group m-pact and a 10 year member of the Grammy-award winning The Manhattan Transfer. In addition to these two vocal powerhouse groups, he’s also performed with Take 6, Bobby McFerrin, New York Voices, Vox Audio, Naturally 7, and The Swingle Singers. His latest venture, The LHR Project, is a new vocal group collective celebrating legendary jazz vocal group Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross.
As an audio engineer, Trist has toured nationally with several vocal groups and bands in a large variety of venues, working for Grammy award winners Pentatonix and Take 6, as well as prominent a cappella vocal groups Straight No Chaser, VoicePlay, and Accent.
Elaine Chao, M.Ed is a San Francisco Bay Area-based vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, vocal percussionist, and songwriter whose career spans a cappella, contemporary worship, and classical music. She has leveraged her training in classical and choral music over the course of her contemporary performance, including in orchestras for musical theatre and in sacred spaces. In addition to music, she also is a martial artist and published author. She currently leads a product management team at a major software company dedicated to creative expression. All statements in this podcast are her own and do not reflect the opinions of her employer.
Contact us
- Email us at: themusiciansloupe@gmail.com
- Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themusiciansloupe/
- Talk with us on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@themusiciansloupe
Transcript
Elaine: Hey, Trist.
Speaker:Elaine: What do we have this week?
Speaker:Trist: Oh, what if I told you this
Speaker:Trist: week's song is really classic
Speaker:Trist: songwriting and performance from
Speaker:Trist: the 1940s?
Speaker:Elaine: Okay. I'm- sure.
Speaker:Trist: But then what if I told you it's
Speaker:Trist: actually a song that was written
Speaker:Trist: in 2019?
Speaker:Elaine: Hmm. Intriguing. Yeah. I could
Speaker:Elaine: see you dropping the mic right
Speaker:Elaine: there.
Speaker:Elaine: Okay.
Speaker:Elaine: So. So tell me more about this.
Speaker:Trist: Well, this is the duet Rachael and Vilray.
Speaker:Trist: Two singers, uh, Vilray sings and plays guitar.
Speaker:Trist: They occasionally will have other band members, but really I
Speaker:Trist: think of them as a duo.
Speaker:Trist: Rachael being Rachael Price from
Speaker:Trist: the outstanding band Lake Street
Speaker:Trist: Dive.
Speaker:Trist: They met at university and were
Speaker:Trist: friends, but I don't think they
Speaker:Trist: really did music until, uh, a
Speaker:Trist: little later.
Speaker:Trist: The this song that we have is
Speaker:Trist: from their first album,
Speaker:Trist: self-titled.
Speaker:Elaine: Ooh. And I know that you recommended one of their later
Speaker:Elaine: albums to me, and I absolutely loved it, so I can't wait to
Speaker:Elaine: hear this track.
Speaker:Elaine: Um, what's the name of this track?
Speaker:Elaine: Tell us a little bit about this,
Speaker:Elaine: and then we'll prompt people to
Speaker:Elaine: pause.
Speaker:Trist: Well, the name of the song is "The Laundromat Swing."
Speaker:Elaine: Oh. That's hilarious.
Speaker:Elaine: It's so cute.
Speaker:Trist: Basically, basically, instructions for you young men
Speaker:Trist: out there if you want to make a good impression on.
Speaker:Trist: Well, I would say on your partner, but being from the
Speaker:Trist: 1940s, it's definitely a song about making an impression on
Speaker:Trist: the lady that you want to make an impression upon.
Speaker:Trist: And, uh, if you want to do that,
Speaker:Trist: you have to have your, uh,
Speaker:Trist: wardrobe together.
Speaker:Trist: You need to be clean.
Speaker:Trist: You need to do the laundromat swing, as it were.
Speaker:Elaine: All right, well, I can't wait to hear it.
Speaker:Elaine: Uh, before we get into this, I know that you have, like, a
Speaker:Elaine: regular kind of prompt for how people should be listening to
Speaker:Elaine: these songs as we go about it.
Speaker:Trist: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker:Trist: As I mentioned, every week,
Speaker:Trist: please take a moment, if you
Speaker:Trist: can, to listen in the best
Speaker:Trist: listening environment that you
Speaker:Trist: can, whether it's putting on
Speaker:Trist: those headphones that sit over
Speaker:Trist: there and gather dust because
Speaker:Trist: they're the nice ones and you
Speaker:Trist: don't use them very often, use
Speaker:Trist: those now, or you put it on the
Speaker:Trist: big hi-fi in your house or in
Speaker:Trist: your car.
Speaker:Trist: You've got the good settings when you're not going to be
Speaker:Trist: yelling at your kids or whatever, uh, and you're by
Speaker:Trist: yourself and your car, whatever.
Speaker:Trist: Whatever the listening
Speaker:Trist: environment, if you have the
Speaker:Trist: ability to make it a little
Speaker:Trist: better, make it as good as you
Speaker:Trist: possibly can.
Speaker:Elaine: Awesome. All right.
Speaker:Elaine: So we are going to put the links into the show notes.
Speaker:Elaine: Please take a pause.
Speaker:Elaine: Pause us.
Speaker:Elaine: Go and listen to it, and come on back.
Speaker:Trist: Take a listen.
Speaker:Elaine: And we're back.
Speaker:Elaine: Oh, wow.
Speaker:Elaine: What?
Speaker:Elaine: What a cute little tune there.
Speaker:Elaine: I mean, so tight.
Speaker:Elaine: Just a couple of minutes there.
Speaker:Elaine: I'm always really surprised by
Speaker:Elaine: how much you can accomplish in
Speaker:Elaine: just– what is it, like, 2 minutes
Speaker:Elaine: 30 seconds, something like
Speaker:Elaine: that?
Speaker:Trist: Yeah. I mean, it's reminiscent
Speaker:Trist: again of that style of just the
Speaker:Trist: really clever songwriting, you
Speaker:Trist: know, and back in the day, the
Speaker:Trist: kind of the style and era that
Speaker:Trist: they're emulating didn't have a
Speaker:Trist: lot of really long songs like
Speaker:Trist: this.
Speaker:Trist: There were this little quick tune.
Speaker:Trist: Depression- era people didn't have time to sit around and
Speaker:Trist: listen to music.
Speaker:Elaine: I mean, it is kind of fascinating because thinking
Speaker:Elaine: about, what, your modern pop song is, what, 4 minutes?
Speaker:Elaine: Like 3 minutes 30 seconds, four minutes is pretty standard to
Speaker:Elaine: have exactly that long of a song, to have something that
Speaker:Elaine: feels so short but yet musically does so much?
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah, I'm still like, you know, mulling over the song.
Speaker:Trist: Hm. Yeah. They're just there's some of my favorites.
Speaker:Trist: I've seen them in concert.
Speaker:Trist: They really just are amazing.
Speaker:Trist: I love the recordings and really, you know, I love the
Speaker:Trist: concept that they decided they wanted to do music that sounded
Speaker:Trist: like this particular era, and it would be easy to just pick from
Speaker:Trist: the immense numbers of songs that there are from that period.
Speaker:Trist: And it would be really cool to have a project like that.
Speaker:Trist: But if you have a really clever
Speaker:Trist: songwriter, and you can write
Speaker:Trist: songs that sound like that era,
Speaker:Trist: and still make your own residual
Speaker:Trist: money off of it, uh, that's even
Speaker:Trist: smarter.
Speaker:Elaine: So yeah, that is pretty smart.
Speaker:Trist: Commend them for that.
Speaker:Trist: It's really
Speaker:Elaine: cool.
Speaker:Elaine: So out of all of the songs that they've done together, why did
Speaker:Elaine: you choose this one?
Speaker:Trist: Ah, I just it's the most clever.
Speaker:Trist: It's the most compact, as you said.
Speaker:Trist: It's- it's not super long.
Speaker:Trist: I just think it embodies all that they do.
Speaker:Trist: Like, if you hear this, you kind of know what you would get if
Speaker:Trist: you went to a concert of theirs, just hearing this one song.
Speaker:Trist: You get the vibe that they are very musical.
Speaker:Trist: They sing really well together.
Speaker:Trist: They have little places for their own stuff.
Speaker:Trist: He's a very capable guitarist, soloistically as well as just,
Speaker:Trist: um, just his rhythm guitar playing, accompanying them.
Speaker:Trist: Yeah!
Speaker:Trist: I just- Again, it's all there.
Speaker:Trist: It just tells you everything you need to know about what kind of
Speaker:Trist: thing they're doing.
Speaker:Trist: Um, and, you know, and again, the clever lyric.
Speaker:Trist: It's just- Yeah, it's just really well done.
Speaker:Trist: It's really fun.
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah. I mean, let's pick each
Speaker:Elaine: one of those apart because I
Speaker:Elaine: felt like you had a lot of
Speaker:Elaine: things that I also heard in
Speaker:Elaine: there.
Speaker:Elaine: So the first thing is the strum pattern of the guitar.
Speaker:Elaine: Like, it's so familiar.
Speaker:Elaine: And you were saying 30s and 40s.
Speaker:Elaine: And I went back almost all the way back to ragtime.
Speaker:Elaine: I was just hearing that kind of stride piano, like, the type of
Speaker:Elaine: strumming that he was doing.
Speaker:Elaine: It's just so reminiscent of that time.
Speaker:Elaine: So I- Yeah.
Speaker:Elaine: And I was trying to, like, figure out exactly what about
Speaker:Elaine: that strum pattern was so reminiscent of that time.
Speaker:Elaine: It evokes something so strong within me.
Speaker:Elaine: Um, do you happen to, you know, have any like, can
Speaker:Elaine: you help me- In this-
Speaker:Trist: In this era that they're from, in this, um, kind of what I
Speaker:Trist: would consider Depression-era music and bands.
Speaker:Trist: So it's an era where you had a lot of, like, vocal groups like
Speaker:Trist: the Mills Brothers, you know, the original Mills Brothers,
Speaker:Trist: like, they had, uh, you know, uh "Paper Doll" was their biggest
Speaker:Trist: hit and that had a rhythm section came a little bit later.
Speaker:Trist: But in the early years, kind of
Speaker:Trist: in the Depression area, you
Speaker:Trist: didn't have the money for
Speaker:Trist: insurance.
Speaker:Trist: You didn't have the money to hire a band.
Speaker:Trist: So like they did a lot of vocalizing.
Speaker:Trist: Usually the one instrument would be the guitar.
Speaker:Trist: So it had to keep the rhythm.
Speaker:Trist: So it's, it's doing some chords,
Speaker:Trist: but it's also kind of keeping
Speaker:Trist: time.
Speaker:Trist: So instead of like more melodies it's chink chink chink chink.
Speaker:Trist: It's like really just keeping the, the subdivisions of music.
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah. And I hear that in that, like, especially since I'm a
Speaker:Elaine: guitarist as well.
Speaker:Elaine: Right.
Speaker:Elaine: There's down- there's downstrokes, there's upstrokes,
Speaker:Elaine: and I'm here like, this is one where it is down on almost every
Speaker:Elaine: single stroke where it's like, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
Speaker:Trist: He's keeping the time.
Speaker:Elaine: Exactly.
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah, it's fascinating for me to think about this from a
Speaker:Elaine: musicality perspective and from really a rhythmic perspective.
Speaker:Elaine: And also just thinking about
Speaker:Elaine: what I could hear almost implied
Speaker:Elaine: in that, you know, it is a
Speaker:Elaine: guitar.
Speaker:Elaine: But you could also see, like, a ukulele.
Speaker:Elaine: Even even like a banjo.
Speaker:Elaine: Like there's a certain type of Americana that I associate with
Speaker:Elaine: that particular time.
Speaker:Elaine: It's not exactly bluegrass, you know.
Speaker:Elaine: What what kind of evolved from that same era of music.
Speaker:Elaine: But I think rhythmically, it's very similar.
Speaker:Elaine: Yep.
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah. The other thing that I noted about the guitar was, just
Speaker:Elaine: how warm it sounded, which to me says something like nylon
Speaker:Elaine: strings, maybe even warmth in the way that it was recorded.
Speaker:Elaine: I know that before the show, you
Speaker:Elaine: were telling me a little bit
Speaker:Elaine: about how they probably have
Speaker:Elaine: recorded.
Speaker:Elaine: Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
Speaker:Trist: Yeah, it is very likely, I think, on that first album,
Speaker:Trist: especially that this comes from, pretty much the whole album
Speaker:Trist: sounds like it was recorded like music in that era was, you know,
Speaker:Trist: one really great mic.
Speaker:Trist: And then all of the balancing is done live rather than everybody
Speaker:Trist: does their tracks and then it gets mixed and balanced.
Speaker:Trist: You're mixing everything and balancing everything live, so if
Speaker:Trist: you have a little bit of a solo or your parts a little more
Speaker:Trist: important, or your voice is a little quieter there, you need
Speaker:Trist: to literally step closer to the mic to do the mixing yourself.
Speaker:Trist: There's really no way to blend
Speaker:Trist: it if you have a take and
Speaker:Trist: somebody part was too loud or
Speaker:Trist: quiet, everyone has to do it all
Speaker:Trist: over again.
Speaker:Trist: So even the sound of this, you
Speaker:Trist: can kind of hear the room that
Speaker:Trist: there's a really one really
Speaker:Trist: great mic, and often you would
Speaker:Trist: put little tape marks on the
Speaker:Trist: floor.
Speaker:Trist: Oh, on my solo I step to this when I'm singing this, I do this
Speaker:Trist: part or if they if on some of the other songs, if they have
Speaker:Trist: some horn players or some other percussion or piano or anything
Speaker:Trist: they very strategically placed in the room.
Speaker:Trist: So it's all balanced.
Speaker:Trist: So yeah, that's you hear a little bit of that, you hear a
Speaker:Trist: little bit of the room in that kind of a recording, which is
Speaker:Trist: also cool, because they could have done whatever.
Speaker:Trist: But in keeping to the spirit of like, music from that era, it's
Speaker:Trist: like, let's record it more similar to to that era.
Speaker:Trist: So I think that's really cool.
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah.
Speaker:Elaine: And I think, you know, the, the
Speaker:Elaine: warmth and the tone of the
Speaker:Elaine: guitar is really matched with
Speaker:Elaine: the warmth of the tone of the
Speaker:Elaine: voices.
Speaker:Elaine: And one thing I really noticed
Speaker:Elaine: was how well they blend
Speaker:Elaine: together.
Speaker:Elaine: And just like their voices have
Speaker:Elaine: such a warm tone like both of
Speaker:Elaine: them have a very warm tone to
Speaker:Elaine: their voices.
Speaker:Elaine: And it sounds very it sounds very homey, I guess, is what
Speaker:Elaine: I'm, I'm thinking about.
Speaker:Elaine: Can you talk a little bit more about, like, how you see their
Speaker:Elaine: blend really fitting together?
Speaker:Trist: Uh, yeah.
Speaker:Trist: I mean, just just being really
Speaker:Trist: consummate musicians, always
Speaker:Trist: listening.
Speaker:Trist: her sound isn't terribly
Speaker:Trist: different from other things that
Speaker:Trist: I've heard her sing, but it- it
Speaker:Trist: changes just slightly due to the
Speaker:Trist: style of the music and singing
Speaker:Trist: with this other particular
Speaker:Trist: musical partner.
Speaker:Trist: So I hear her adapt a bit.
Speaker:Trist: Also, you know, within the arrangement, they might, each
Speaker:Trist: have a little solo bits where they sing the thing, but then
Speaker:Trist: boom, you're right.
Speaker:Trist: When when they're together, they're just like one.
Speaker:Trist: They're one unit.
Speaker:Trist: They're just good at it.
Speaker:Trist: I think they've done it enough that they really, they really
Speaker:Trist: blend together well.
Speaker:Elaine: And I think there's also, though, like one that you and I
Speaker:Elaine: both come from a cappella, There's a band that both of us
Speaker:Elaine: know who- You know, I went to one of the reunion concerts a
Speaker:Elaine: few years ago, and I heard them over, various eras and like the
Speaker:Elaine: voices and the blends.
Speaker:Elaine: And I realized that for some of the eras of this band, it just
Speaker:Elaine: worked really, really well.
Speaker:Elaine: And they really locked in
Speaker:Elaine: together because of specific
Speaker:Elaine: voices.
Speaker:Elaine: And there are other areas where, you know, it kind of split where
Speaker:Elaine: some of them were a little bit more fluty in some ways, you
Speaker:Elaine: know, like, um, I don't know how I'd better describe those
Speaker:Elaine: voices, whereas others were more brassy or more, uh, piercing
Speaker:Elaine: voices that kind of, like, fit together in a blend.
Speaker:Elaine: And it wasn't until, like, I
Speaker:Elaine: heard someone else in there that
Speaker:Elaine: had, um, a different tone in
Speaker:Elaine: there that kind of mixed the
Speaker:Elaine: both of them that they all
Speaker:Elaine: locked in together again from,
Speaker:Elaine: like a voice quality
Speaker:Elaine: perspective.
Speaker:Elaine: Especially in the smaller group singing perspective, um, it just
Speaker:Elaine: seems like the quality of the voice, like the natural timbre
Speaker:Elaine: of the voice is something that you're listening to to make sure
Speaker:Elaine: that that blend really happens from that natural position.
Speaker:Elaine: Because I guess I get a sense that when you're looking at a
Speaker:Elaine: quality of a voice, it seems to me that it matters less when
Speaker:Elaine: it's a choir, because all the voices in one particular part
Speaker:Elaine: blend together, and that average gives you a sense of, you know
Speaker:Elaine: what the entire choir sounds like, which is why a gospel
Speaker:Elaine: choir might sound slightly differently than like a
Speaker:Elaine: traditional choral choir.
Speaker:Elaine: And, uh, I'm kind of curious about how you see things, you
Speaker:Elaine: know, having sung in so many small groups like you've
Speaker:Elaine: contracted, you've worked in a lot of different small groups.
Speaker:Elaine: How do you see those voices fitting together as kind of like
Speaker:Elaine: a natural thing versus something that is, learned?
Speaker:Elaine: Right?
Speaker:Elaine: Is it like, trained and learned
Speaker:Elaine: versus something that you
Speaker:Elaine: audition for?
Speaker:Trist: Well, it's both kind of you really hit on it.
Speaker:Trist: There are voices that just
Speaker:Trist: naturally sound great together,
Speaker:Trist: which is why frequently, you
Speaker:Trist: know, any of the, like, relative
Speaker:Trist: groups, like when there are
Speaker:Trist: groups of brothers or sisters or
Speaker:Trist: just a family of singers,
Speaker:Trist: sometimes that blend is just
Speaker:Trist: like, oh man, that's just not
Speaker:Trist: fair.
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah, like you could
Speaker:Trist: work your whole life
Speaker:Elaine: singing with amazing
Speaker:Trist: singers and you just never going to sound like that because
Speaker:Trist: they're just, oh, you're all cousins, brothers, uncles, etc..
Speaker:Trist: Um, you hear that in those kinds of groups, especially live, uh,
Speaker:Trist: just when they're right in front of you in person, it's just
Speaker:Trist: like, oh my goodness.
Speaker:Trist: Uh, whenever you hear those, those relative groups.
Speaker:Trist: So there's that.
Speaker:Trist: But then there's just voices
Speaker:Trist: that naturally sound good
Speaker:Trist: together.
Speaker:Trist: And so when you're putting together a group, you'll look
Speaker:Trist: for those things.
Speaker:Trist: And sometimes though, it's like, oh no, there's these other
Speaker:Trist: things that I need musically from this particular singer.
Speaker:Trist: And then the thing that's like the- the thing that doesn't fit
Speaker:Trist: as much maybe, is their sound, but they provide so many other
Speaker:Trist: musical things that you have them in your group anyway, then
Speaker:Trist: you just then rely on, since you now didn't rely on the natural
Speaker:Trist: blend, then you really rely on the learned skills, the learned
Speaker:Trist: sound, the learned ability for singers to make themselves fit.
Speaker:Trist: So unfortunately, you then have to just work a lot harder.
Speaker:Trist: And frankly, it's not quite as fun because it's more fun when
Speaker:Trist: you can just kind of sing naturally and everybody sounds
Speaker:Trist: like you and you all blend together really well.
Speaker:Trist: Or you get used to what you have
Speaker:Trist: to do to blend with certain
Speaker:Trist: people.
Speaker:Trist: And then, oh, I've added these other two voices that do this.
Speaker:Trist: Okay.
Speaker:Trist: Now everybody needs to work their antennas up.
Speaker:Trist: You have to work a little harder to match each other.
Speaker:Trist: Um, so you're thinking about
Speaker:Trist: that, and any energy you're
Speaker:Trist: spending on that is taking away
Speaker:Trist: from your time or your
Speaker:Trist: intonation or your whatever
Speaker:Trist: else.
Speaker:Trist: It's this is all little micro-work that your voice and
Speaker:Trist: your brain are doing when you're when you're singing.
Speaker:Trist: So neither of them are necessarily better than another.
Speaker:Trist: I mean, they can all they can all function.
Speaker:Trist: It just takes different kinds of work and different planning.
Speaker:Trist: And different, uh, I guess focus
Speaker:Trist: then the key to all of it is
Speaker:Trist: understanding.
Speaker:Trist: All of that understanding.
Speaker:Trist: Oh, this really bright voice in our warm group.
Speaker:Trist: Okay.
Speaker:Trist: They bring this to the group because they did that and that
Speaker:Trist: and that and that.
Speaker:Trist: But wow, when we sing, when we
Speaker:Trist: talk about our tone and our
Speaker:Trist: timbre, we really all have to
Speaker:Trist: adjust.
Speaker:Trist: That singer needs to adjust to
Speaker:Trist: us and we need to adjust to them
Speaker:Trist: more.
Speaker:Trist: So now we have a group sound that's a little bit more, even
Speaker:Trist: more work to do.
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah. And going back to the
Speaker:Elaine: song, that's what impressed me
Speaker:Elaine: the most about Rachael and
Speaker:Elaine: Vilray is that the intonation is
Speaker:Elaine: so matched, and it's also very
Speaker:Elaine: 40s in the way that they're
Speaker:Elaine: pronouncing words.
Speaker:Elaine: It's a very, um, Midwestern.
Speaker:Elaine: And going back to what you were
Speaker:Elaine: saying about families, that
Speaker:Elaine: might be part of the reason why
Speaker:Elaine: families match together, because
Speaker:Elaine: your pronunciation of words just
Speaker:Elaine: kind of all merged together as
Speaker:Elaine: you spend more and more time
Speaker:Elaine: together.
Speaker:Elaine: Right?
Speaker:Elaine: And think about people from
Speaker:Elaine: different parts of the United
Speaker:Elaine: States, they pronounce words
Speaker:Elaine: differently.
Speaker:Elaine: And if you're not trained in
Speaker:Elaine: that way, like the way that
Speaker:Elaine: those of us have choir
Speaker:Elaine: backgrounds, you know, you're
Speaker:Elaine: trained in the, Italian
Speaker:Elaine: pronunciation of this Latin
Speaker:Elaine: thing or like the German
Speaker:Elaine: pronunciation.
Speaker:Elaine: And, if you don't necessarily have all of that, um, you have
Speaker:Elaine: to think much harder about that intonation and matching the
Speaker:Elaine: vowels, because otherwise you sound like you're out of tune.
Speaker:Elaine: Right?
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah. So I love that.
Speaker:Elaine: That's fascinating.
Speaker:Trist: I love that about music from that era.
Speaker:Trist: They have a lot of tunes that kind of in groups that do that.
Speaker:Trist: And in that era, a lot of there
Speaker:Trist: are a lot of different songs,
Speaker:Trist: but there's a little
Speaker:Trist: classification of songs that are
Speaker:Trist: they're "mouthfuls."
Speaker:Trist: So that's a "mouthful."
Speaker:Trist: That one is like lots of those clever, uh, songs, especially as
Speaker:Trist: the aforementioned like Mills Brothers, etc. groups like that
Speaker:Trist: would do those songs.
Speaker:Trist: Lots of little tricky wordplay where there's just a bunch of
Speaker:Trist: words going on.
Speaker:Trist: Um, you know, and sometimes you can hardly tell what they are.
Speaker:Trist: And it's like, it sounds like they're singing different words
Speaker:Trist: than they really are, etc. They'll just- Oh, yeah.
Speaker:Trist: This one is a "mouthful."
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah.
Speaker:Elaine: Well, this song is very, very clever.
Speaker:Elaine: And, you know, just taking a look at the lyrics, um, you were
Speaker:Elaine: talking about how they, how Vilray wrote this song And how
Speaker:Elaine: it was just so clever.
Speaker:Elaine: I'm just thinking about all of
Speaker:Elaine: these words and how they sound
Speaker:Elaine: like.
Speaker:Elaine: They sound like they come right
Speaker:Elaine: from the 1940s, the type of
Speaker:Elaine: slang.
Speaker:Elaine: It's a very, very tight song, but it's also very lighthearted.
Speaker:Elaine: I love listening to the topic because it isn't, you know, like
Speaker:Elaine: your typical love song.
Speaker:Elaine: It is something about just something.
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah.
Speaker:Elaine: It is one of those things.
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah, and it is.
Speaker:Elaine: It's not only trivial, it is something that is so relatable.
Speaker:Elaine: Right?
Speaker:Elaine: Because all of us have been in
Speaker:Elaine: these first situations before,
Speaker:Elaine: right?
Speaker:Elaine: Where someone's giving you advice and this advice is just,
Speaker:Elaine: you know, similar to what you would tell a thirteen year old.
Speaker:Elaine: It's light hearted.
Speaker:Elaine: And in some ways it it's a little bit nostalgic.
Speaker:Elaine: But I think that, you know, part of the nostalgia is just the
Speaker:Elaine: innocence of the topic because it is thinking about this very
Speaker:Elaine: relatable, older to younger kind of, um, conversation.
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah.
Speaker:Trist: Well, even the words that are chosen take your baby to the
Speaker:Trist: dance and spot, and we, you know, go buy some flowers.
Speaker:Trist: But no, you buy it from the flower boy.
Speaker:Trist: You buy the flower boy out of his whole crop.
Speaker:Trist: So even just the, the vernacular, the, the kind of,
Speaker:Trist: uh, the, the timeliness of, of the lyric choices are perfect.
Speaker:Elaine: Right?
Speaker:Elaine: And the starch around the collar.
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah.
Speaker:Elaine: Like how many people actually use starch nowadays?
Speaker:Trist: Oh yeah.
Speaker:Trist: Right.
Speaker:Elaine: Yep. Who irons?
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah.
Speaker:Trist: Exactly, exactly.
Speaker:Trist: It's wonderful.
Speaker:Elaine: Well, any last thoughts about this?
Speaker:Trist: Um, no, it's just great.
Speaker:Trist: I just love it.
Speaker:Trist: It's just a fun.
Speaker:Trist: Listen, um, as many of our songs
Speaker:Trist: here on The Musician's Loupe,
Speaker:Trist: sometimes it's just not that
Speaker:Trist: deep.
Speaker:Trist: It's just clever.
Speaker:Trist: It's really fun.
Speaker:Trist: I chose this one because I just
Speaker:Trist: want people to know it exists
Speaker:Trist: and that they are amazing
Speaker:Trist: musicians doing music from
Speaker:Trist: another time.
Speaker:Trist: But doing it today.
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah. And I mean there from the musicianship perspective.
Speaker:Elaine: Excellent.
Speaker:Elaine: Absolutely excellent.
Speaker:Elaine: We didn't actually talk about the last little part where it
Speaker:Elaine: speeds up and it just goes, you know, from this already.
Speaker:Elaine: It is challenging to sing.
Speaker:Elaine: It's pretty
Speaker:Trist: brisk already.
Speaker:Elaine: Right.
Speaker:Elaine: It's a brisk song, but the notes are very close together.
Speaker:Elaine: It is musically a very challenging thing and then they
Speaker:Elaine: just speed it on up and it's just like, okay, wow.
Speaker:Trist: Also very also very also very
Speaker:Trist: reminiscent of that of that
Speaker:Trist: time.
Speaker:Trist: It's like a little showpiece.
Speaker:Trist: It's kind of like, okay, um, you know, I would imagine that kind
Speaker:Trist: of thing might be, you know, it's going to be the closer it's
Speaker:Trist: going to be the encore of the song come out.
Speaker:Trist: And it's kind of it's already
Speaker:Trist: kind of faster than most of the
Speaker:Trist: tunes.
Speaker:Trist: And then it's like, okay, you like that?
Speaker:Trist: Well, here we go, doing a little couple clicks faster, you know?
Speaker:Trist: So it's pretty great.
Speaker:Elaine: Wow. Love it.
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah. I mean it's kind for me
Speaker:Elaine: it's- it's kind of like a tongue
Speaker:Elaine: twister already.
Speaker:Elaine: And then it just gets faster and I'm like, I can already not do
Speaker:Elaine: the tongue twister.
Speaker:Elaine: Right?
Speaker:Elaine: And it just gets, you know, all of the notes get faster.
Speaker:Elaine: The jumps are harder.
Speaker:Elaine: Like the vocal- It just becomes more and more impressive the
Speaker:Elaine: longer you listen to it.
Speaker:Trist: It has a great effect again as a showpiece because you're already
Speaker:Trist: going, oh, okay.
Speaker:Trist: You know.
Speaker:Trist: And if most of the songs are just a couple clicks slower than
Speaker:Trist: that from where it even started and you're listening to like,
Speaker:Trist: you already think, oh, this is the fast one.
Speaker:Trist: And then it's like, okay, you thought that was cool.
Speaker:Trist: Here's one little tag at the end where you're going to spit it
Speaker:Trist: out even faster, you know, very, very reminiscent of of music
Speaker:Trist: performances from that period.
Speaker:Elaine: Ugh,
Speaker:Elaine: so much fun.
Speaker:Elaine: Well, thanks for suggesting this.
Speaker:Elaine: And, uh, so before we end, we're
Speaker:Elaine: going to move on to our next
Speaker:Elaine: section, which is mailbag, the
Speaker:Elaine: mailbag.
Speaker:Elaine: Mailbag.
Speaker:Elaine: All right, so for our mailbag
Speaker:Elaine: this time I did not source from
Speaker:Elaine: threads I instead sourced from a
Speaker:Elaine: book.
Speaker:Elaine: So yeah okay.
Speaker:Elaine: So this book is written by someone who writes for the
Speaker:Elaine: Harvard Business Review.
Speaker:Elaine: It's written from a very
Speaker:Elaine: business oriented perspective,
Speaker:Elaine: and the title of this book is
Speaker:Elaine: "There's Nothing Like This: The
Speaker:Elaine: Strategic Genius of Taylor
Speaker:Elaine: Swift."
Speaker:Elaine: Oh.
Speaker:Trist: Okay.
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah. it's a pretty recent book, and it was a part of a business
Speaker:Elaine: list that I was reading about.
Speaker:Elaine: So I added it to my library book list and checked it out.
Speaker:Elaine: I'm midway through the book right now, but I've been
Speaker:Elaine: highlighting pieces of it.
Speaker:Elaine: I wanted to bring it in.
Speaker:Elaine: So are you ready for this quote?
Speaker:Elaine: I'm ready.
Speaker:Elaine: Okay. "Many creatives, whether they're singers or writers or
Speaker:Elaine: computer engineers, mistakenly think their product can stand on
Speaker:Elaine: its own merits.
Speaker:Elaine: If you build it and it's good, they will come.
Speaker:Elaine: But that's not how it works.
Speaker:Elaine: The most successful startups, the artists who truly break
Speaker:Elaine: through, sell their product, build their brand."
Speaker:Elaine: So I'm just throwing this out here.
Speaker:Elaine: I'm wondering how much you agree or disagree with this statement.
Speaker:Elaine: Oh.
Speaker:Trist: Well, I mean, like everything, it always it depends.
Speaker:Trist: I don't think there's a I mean,
Speaker:Trist: there isn't a real answer for
Speaker:Trist: that because then everyone would
Speaker:Trist: do it.
Speaker:Trist: my initial thought was like
Speaker:Trist: against that was was negative
Speaker:Trist: was like uh, as you were talking
Speaker:Trist: about that, um, you know, if
Speaker:Trist: it's good.
Speaker:Trist: Yeah.
Speaker:Trist: I that's, that's part of my just
Speaker:Trist: thought through all of the music
Speaker:Trist: industry changes and, uh,
Speaker:Trist: introduction of AI and all the
Speaker:Trist: places we are in terms of trying
Speaker:Trist: to find an audience, uh, etc.
Speaker:Trist: it's like, if it's good, it will
Speaker:Trist: eventually break through,
Speaker:Trist: however.
Speaker:Trist: So I do believe that, but it's
Speaker:Trist: there's a whole bunch of really
Speaker:Trist: good music that never gets to
Speaker:Trist: people.
Speaker:Trist: There's a whole lot of really great musicians that you just
Speaker:Trist: have that story about that band or that artist that you love,
Speaker:Trist: that made an album that really didn't get promoted well, didn't
Speaker:Trist: get enough backing the artist, didn't really tour it enough.
Speaker:Trist: Man, it's a great album and it's, you know, gets through my
Speaker:Trist: circle, but just for whatever reason didn't get.
Speaker:Trist: So I guess both I don't know,
Speaker:Trist: I'm it's I'm wishy-washy that
Speaker:Trist: way.
Speaker:Trist: But I think both of those are- are true factors.
Speaker:Trist: I think unfortunately you can have one without the other.
Speaker:Trist: I think you can have either independently, but boy, together
Speaker:Trist: they're a much better force.
Speaker:Trist: You can have this amazing thing
Speaker:Trist: and not have the best plan
Speaker:Trist: behind you.
Speaker:Trist: And sometimes it's just so good that it just finds its way
Speaker:Trist: anyway and has the one little break that helps it happen.
Speaker:Trist: Um, but a whole force, a whole team, a whole, you know, a whole
Speaker:Trist: bunch more working for it, definitely helps a lot.
Speaker:Trist: The artist that tours it more,
Speaker:Trist: that just goes out and works it
Speaker:Trist: more.
Speaker:Trist: Yeah.
Speaker:Trist: Not just I'm going to record
Speaker:Trist: this one song, put it on a place
Speaker:Trist: and then just hope that people
Speaker:Trist: find it.
Speaker:Trist: It's like, well, yeah, of course that's not going to work as well
Speaker:Trist: as someone who puts the stuff together and then goes and tours
Speaker:Trist: it and fights for themselves and fights against their own
Speaker:Trist: management and their own labels and their own whatever, and
Speaker:Trist: tries to get out to clubs and, you know, works their thing as
Speaker:Trist: much as they can.
Speaker:Trist: Of course that's better.
Speaker:Trist: and also there's some music
Speaker:Trist: that's just not, I don't know,
Speaker:Trist: to me, just isn't really all
Speaker:Trist: that great.
Speaker:Trist: But because they've done so much
Speaker:Trist: work and they've done so it's-
Speaker:Trist: it's good enough and with enough
Speaker:Trist: work, with enough, with enough
Speaker:Trist: of the right breaks, enough out
Speaker:Trist: there, working it, peddling it,
Speaker:Trist: selling something else, like
Speaker:Trist: selling your live performance of
Speaker:Trist: it that might be better than the
Speaker:Trist: music itself helps the whole
Speaker:Trist: package.
Speaker:Trist: That's a rambling answer.
Speaker:Trist: But yeah, a little bit of both of those things, I think.
Speaker:Trist: I don't think it's as hard and fast as that, as the as the
Speaker:Trist: opening statement puts it.
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah, I mean, this is something that I had to think about and
Speaker:Elaine: very similar to you because, you know, you and I started out in
Speaker:Elaine: very similar circles where there are a lot of talented musicians
Speaker:Elaine: that we both know who didn't make it to the level of like,
Speaker:Elaine: you know, breakthrough because they just they either didn't
Speaker:Elaine: have the time or they didn't have the marketing, or it was
Speaker:Elaine: such a niche type of, um, music that a cappella is.
Speaker:Elaine: And I think that's something
Speaker:Elaine: that is, I don't know if I call
Speaker:Elaine: it disappointing as much as it
Speaker:Elaine: is.
Speaker:Elaine: You know, I'm still grappling through the relationship between
Speaker:Elaine: music and any kind of marketing or any, any creative industry in
Speaker:Elaine: the marketing that goes behind it, you know, as, as an author,
Speaker:Elaine: that's something that you know, the author or the Book Threads
Speaker:Elaine: community or the BookTok community is grappling with.
Speaker:Elaine: Right?
Speaker:Elaine: Like how do you sell something
Speaker:Elaine: or go mainstream if you don't
Speaker:Elaine: have that level of marketing
Speaker:Elaine: your own personal
Speaker:Elaine: self-promotional marketing?
Speaker:Elaine: And it's to the point where some
Speaker:Elaine: of these bigger labels or book
Speaker:Elaine: houses won't even consider you
Speaker:Elaine: if you don't have an existing
Speaker:Elaine: following.
Speaker:Elaine: So I think that there is
Speaker:Elaine: something about that where we
Speaker:Elaine: have to think about just the
Speaker:Elaine: quality of the content is not
Speaker:Elaine: sufficient.
Speaker:Elaine: You do need some kind of
Speaker:Elaine: marketing behind it, whether
Speaker:Elaine: it's word of mouth or it's, you
Speaker:Elaine: know, you're performing and like
Speaker:Elaine: gaining a certain type of
Speaker:Elaine: momentum with that, or you're
Speaker:Elaine: publishing things on social
Speaker:Elaine: media.
Speaker:Elaine: And I think, you know, you and I
Speaker:Elaine: had this conversation recently
Speaker:Elaine: where social media has really
Speaker:Elaine: changed what that looks like,
Speaker:Elaine: right?
Speaker:Elaine: Changed what penetration and
Speaker:Elaine: what kind of audiences you have
Speaker:Elaine: access to.
Speaker:Elaine: When we first got started, we didn't have social media.
Speaker:Elaine: You basically had word of mouth.
Speaker:Elaine: You had, you know, people telling people telling people
Speaker:Elaine: that this band was awesome and you needed to check them out.
Speaker:Elaine: But then I think about, um, there's like bands like, OK Go
Speaker:Elaine: who really, I think made their break because of a really cool
Speaker:Elaine: concept for a music video that they had, I don't know, like ten
Speaker:Elaine: years ago or something.
Speaker:Elaine: And every single thing that
Speaker:Elaine: they've done has just been
Speaker:Elaine: visually stunning.
Speaker:Elaine: And people go onto YouTube and look for them and it goes viral
Speaker:Elaine: and they, you know, people hear their song and they hear their
Speaker:Elaine: music and they're like, oh, I really like this group.
Speaker:Elaine: Or you have a group like I think is a group called Pomplamoose,
Speaker:Elaine: Is that right?
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah.
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Elaine: Where, um, they just have, you know, this, this huge out
Speaker:Elaine: swelling their fan base is really what makes them able to
Speaker:Elaine: be indie artists.
Speaker:Elaine: Right?
Speaker:Elaine: And whether it's Patreon or going, you know, going to their,
Speaker:Elaine: their shows, it's just one of those things where you have to
Speaker:Elaine: really think about how much you're investing into your
Speaker:Elaine: community in order to be able to reap the rewards and be able to
Speaker:Elaine: work, um, you know, as, as a band for your music.
Speaker:Elaine: Now, of course, there's other
Speaker:Elaine: stuff where it's just like,
Speaker:Elaine: yeah, you know, it's whoever,
Speaker:Elaine: you know.
Speaker:Elaine: And if you're an indie, like if you're just a musician playing
Speaker:Elaine: sessions or whatnot, it seems to me is less about the audience
Speaker:Elaine: and more about the other players and the people who are booking
Speaker:Elaine: who, um, bring you into some kind of a gig, right?
Speaker:Elaine: So, I don't know, I just wanted to throw that out there to see
Speaker:Elaine: if things are really that dire.
Speaker:Trist: Yeah, I guess the more, the more
Speaker:Trist: we're talking about, I guess
Speaker:Trist: that's that's closer to the
Speaker:Trist: truth.
Speaker:Trist: It's closer to a true statement than at first hit me.
Speaker:Trist: Because, yeah.
Speaker:Trist: there has to be some kind of- You don't just- I don't record a
Speaker:Trist: song on my computer.
Speaker:Trist: And if I don't even put it,
Speaker:Trist: like, online or play it for
Speaker:Trist: anyone, well, then, yeah, of
Speaker:Trist: course it's not going to go
Speaker:Trist: anywhere if I don't at least do
Speaker:Trist: that.
Speaker:Trist: I was kind of talking about doing the bare minimum of
Speaker:Trist: distribution of, of placement of at least, at least posting
Speaker:Trist: somewhere, uh, that someone could hear it and having it take
Speaker:Trist: off while that's rare.
Speaker:Trist: yeah.
Speaker:Trist: You almost always need a team.
Speaker:Trist: So when the original statement says that's not how it works,
Speaker:Trist: uh, that that it is pretty true.
Speaker:Trist: There are a lot of truth to that.
Speaker:Trist: It's not just like, well, I made this great song.
Speaker:Trist: What else do I need to do?
Speaker:Trist: Well, yeah, that's very true, that at least something has to
Speaker:Trist: be done there.
Speaker:Trist: It just then the amount, the amount that needs to be done or
Speaker:Trist: is chosen to be done or the luck that you get or don't, then that
Speaker:Trist: that all varies.
Speaker:Trist: But as long as there's some kind
Speaker:Trist: of a team helping you put it out
Speaker:Trist: there.
Speaker:Trist: If it's really good, it's going to take off.
Speaker:Trist: If you have the team that can that can put put it out there.
Speaker:Elaine: Well, if nothing else, it reminds us that as musicians, we
Speaker:Elaine: constantly need to be working on marketing and working on, you
Speaker:Elaine: know, our relationship building.
Speaker:Elaine: And I think that's part of the beauty of music, really is like
Speaker:Elaine: how many relationships you do get to build as a part of, you
Speaker:Elaine: know, working or participating in the music industry?
Speaker:Trist: Indeed.
Speaker:Elaine: Awesome.
Speaker:Elaine: Well, if you have additional questions or if you have
Speaker:Elaine: feedback, please do email us or catch us on our Instagram.
Speaker:Elaine: Feel free to send us a DM.
Speaker:Elaine: It's the musicians loupe L O U P E
Speaker:Elaine: at gmail.com or on Instagram at
Speaker:Elaine: @themusiciansloupe. So
Speaker:Elaine: with that, we will see you next week. Thanks
Speaker:Elaine: for joining us today. Don't
Speaker:Elaine: forget to let your friends know that we exist. please
Speaker:Elaine: be a part of our marketing team. We
Speaker:Elaine: would love to have other people listening along and participating
Speaker:Elaine: in our community.
Speaker:Trist: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Trist: Like, review, and subscribe.
Speaker:Trist: Thank you.
Speaker:Elaine: All right.
Speaker:Elaine: See you next time.
Speaker:Trist: Ready.
Speaker:Elaine: No.
Speaker:Trist: And I'll give you two guesses who didn't press record.
Speaker:Trist: That'd be me.
Speaker:Trist: Hold on.
Speaker:Trist: Sorry.
Speaker:Trist: Hold, please.
Speaker:Elaine: It's okay.
Speaker:Elaine: I wasted twenty minutes of your time to begin with, so.
Speaker:Trist: Like, I can't think there are three sirens now.
Speaker:Trist: Like, literally something is happening.
Speaker:Trist: Except
Speaker:Elaine: It's a good thing we're editing.
Speaker:Trist: Except for the thing that Elaine still has to say.
Speaker:Elaine: What do I still need to say?
Speaker:Trist: I don't.
Speaker:Elaine: Know.
