Your Custom Text Here
Photography by Blair Todd
Next week, NJ emo/rock legends Armor For Sleep will be sharing the stage with Dashboard Confessional and Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, playing a series of shows in NJ, PA, and NY as part of the Hello Gone Days tour. Armor For Sleep recently released a new single entitled “How Far Apart”, off of their upcoming album The Rain Museum, which drops September 9th via Equal Vision Records…
Read moreJersey Shore hip hop artist Inf Grizzy has been hard at work building up a loyal following, expanding his radio plays, and even appearing on billboards in Time Square and South Jersey. He’s currently working on a release date for his upcoming album and has already released two singles from it, “Love is Blind” and “Clap Clap.” I spoke with Inf earlier this month to ask him about the inspiration behind “Love is Blind”, what the filmmaking process was like for the “Love is Blind” music video, and to learn what else we can expect musically in 2022.
Read more
By Deaglan Howlett | Posted Friday, April 23, 2021
Christian Sparacio is a singer-songwriter hailing from Marlboro, New Jersey. Since first releasing music on SoundCloud back in 2017, Sparacio has released ten new singles, playing shows to support the tunes. The two latest singles include an original, “About Time”, and a cover of the Modern English hit “I Melt With You”. I got to speak with Christian about his songwriting, producing a music video, and the talented musicians who worked on these tracks with him!
For About Time I worked with Rob Chiarappa at The Barbershop Studios in Hopatcong, NJ! Rob is a mad scientist producer with a crazy ear for pulling the potential out of a stripped down song like “About Time” and making it a production masterpiece.
I wrote “About Time” about 2 years ago between sessions of watching the movie About Time. About halfway through I got super inspired and wrote it, then about a month before recording I wrote the bridge section which was a cool testament to letting songs grow on the back burner.
I approached this song a bit differently because it was the first that I went all out on a music video for, and also had a way more experimental experience producing it. I sort of let my eclectic production taste speak in. this one and I am super happy with it.
I worked with Chantel Erin and Peter Dolshun on the video. I found Chantel via an Instagram ad for her production company, and met Peter through Chantel. We all quickly became friends and our creative processes meshed super well. Then we enlisted Clotilda Demauro as an actor through backstage.com and she, too, quickly became a friend.
For the “Melt with You” cover, I stayed in the family and worked with Rob's brother Mike Chiarappa at DIMM Studios in Freehold, NJ! We wanted a more live sounding track, and I knew the simpler set up at DIMM and Mike's ear for feel would be perfect.
Well, I actually grappled and experimented with covers for a few months before settling on this one after my friend Jimmy suggested it. He put it perfectly when saying that the original song has heartfelt lyrics disguised by an upbeat 80's rock arrangement. This was my opportunity to match the music to the lyrics and deliver an authentic reimagination to pack a punch to the feels. I am super proud of this one.
You can keep up with Christian Sparacio on his website.
By Sonia Schnee | Posted Friday, February 19, 2021
If you’re craving tunes with an indie/folk, singer/songwriter vibe, look no further than No Great Pretender’s debut album "The Piano Project,” which was released today on Spotify and other streaming platforms (via Mint 400 Records). No Great Pretender is the solo project of Eric Sosler (Union City, NJ), who also is a member of the band The Racer. The first music video for the album ("Comfort") also premiered earlier this week on Blood Makes Noise. Check out our interview with Eric, below, to learn more about the inspiration behind his album, what it’s like to solo-crew a music video, and more.
Thank you! I started writing for this album in the beginning of the pandemic. I lost my job as a bartender and had all this extra time and decided this was a great opportunity to start doing something I had been wanting to do for a while. Write and sing my own songs. My own ideas. Being in the band The Racer, it's always been great to be able to write songs in a group setting and all the ideas get molded together, but this was a chance to do something completely on my own. So as bad as the pandemic and quarantining was and is, I am grateful for the opportunity it allowed for me as a songwriter.
I am fortunate enough to have a best friend in The Racer, Michael Esserman, who was able to carve out some time to record these songs for me. It was interesting as I was able to send him all the piano tracks in email that were recorded on GarageBand (I have very limited knowledge on all these programs), and he was able to transfer to his ProTools sessions. I was then able to record vocals in his studio, which we did in only a few takes. I am new to singing as a lead vocalist, and I also did not want to strive for perfection on these vocals. I wanted them to flow naturally and for Mike to capture what came out without singing a hundred takes. Of course, I rehearsed and had a game plan for it, but I was curious to see what would come out in real time.
I think Mike did a really good job of enhancing the intimacy of the project. In his words, his vision when presented with the songs was to make it sound like I walked into an empty room and played on an old dusty piano. I am grateful for his work on this!
So, I love making music videos! We have a bunch of videos for The Racer that I love being involved in. The biggest challenge is always what can be done on basically zero budget. The “Comfort” video is a perfect example of this. The goal was to just try and capture all the emotions, uneasiness, discomfort, comfort, pressure of being in front of a camera when trying to perform or interview, or just attempting to stay sane in your own mind.
I was by myself doing this video, so that was unusual and a little weird but still fun (like looking around for someone to laugh with after I just did one of the angry emotion takes). But I just cleared out a section in my home of all the furniture and set a tripod up with my iPhone11 and let loose with all the ideas and went with the flow.
I'm also very proud of this video since I was able to do everything myself, especially the editing. Technology has really advanced in the sense of being user-friendly for people that aren’t the most tech savvy, and something I've been able to do over the course of the pandemic is learn just enough to edit a simple video such as “Comfort” using the iMovie App and VideoLeap App on my phone.
I’m originally from Monroe, NY and always grew up with that New Yorker sense of pride and New Jersey is gross mentality! I moved to Jersey City almost 7 years ago and boy was I wrong. I now consider myself so lucky to be part of this Jersey music community, and I like to think I have made it to the point where I can say I represent New Jersey now! It feels like home to me.
There’s so much going on here with all the arts and music, which has really influenced me in growing as an artist. It’s allowed for me to develop my own ideas and venture off into this solo adventure. Up until now The Racer, the band that I am in and have been in since 2001, has been my only real creative outlet.
The idea of No Great Pretender and me finally writing my own songs came to fruition in the beginning of the pandemic. The name is from the song off of The Roots’ 1996 album, Illadeph Halflife. I love what that name conjures up for me. The imagination. The possibilities of it all. So I don’t want this to be just about music. I want it to represent a creative practicing lifestyle, and I want to continuously grow with it.
I don’t want to be beholden to any one style. I just want it to be me. For “The Piano Project” there’s a ton of influences in the songs. Most notably Gregory Alan Isakov, Justin Vernon, The National, Frightened Rabbit to name a few. I love the sad, melancholy type vibes and it definitely showed up in the songs. I think “indie folk singer songwriter” is what I put down for this album, but the idea of No Great Pretender is ever evolving. I want to collaborate with artists. Do all different types of music. I have really been getting into Jazz and Blues and trying to learn that as much as I can, but I'm open to anything.
“Hardly Anymore” was the first song I wrote for this solo idea. So in the beginning, I was just so proud of it and kept playing it all the time so I wouldn’t forget it and of course loved it for that purpose alone.
Over time, “Comfort” has stepped into a nice role for me. I think the video enhanced it for me. I really let that vulnerability feeling out on that one so it’s developed into something special personally for me. I'm not used to being the focal point.
I just want to keep growing as an artist. Keep improving and learning from others. I’ve learned a lot during this pandemic time period and mostly that I don’t know a lot! So I just want to keep improving and keep creating as much as possible. I’m looking forward to playing live music in whatever capacity. Although, I am worried about my nerves getting the best of me, so I will have to rehearse a lot for it!
You can find me at:
www.instagram.com/no_great_pretender
www.nogreatpretender.com
“Cause I'm the soul avenger, remember I'm no great pretender” - Lyrics from “No Great Pretender” by The Roots’ Illadelph Halflife. I love that line in the song.
