Great Songwriters from Long Island By Alan Semerdjian
There are more for sure, but I thought ten would be a good starting point. I’m leaving out the harder stuff and the hip-hop. Also missing are the songwriters who perform mostly under a band name as are classical, jazz, and electronic composers. Long Island has some fine ones of all of the above. Instead, the artists listed in this piece are songwriters in the traditional sense though they are far from conventional. These are songwriters whose paths I’ve crossed in one way or another over the years and whose work I thought of as worthy, urgent, and as necessary for public consumption as anything else on the radio or Grey’s Anatomy. This piece is about them, yes, but don’t expect reviews of their performances or extensive biographies. I hope to provide you with little snapshots of who they are, tiny essays that get you closer to what they make and why it may be relevant to you. Perhaps they can serve as the impetus for further exploration. Enjoy.
BRIAN SENDROWITZ
www.beatradio.org
www.myspace.com/briansendrowitz
The poet and memoirist Michael Klein once told me that there’s a field between “love wins” and “love fails.” It’s not quite happy and not quite sad either. It’s right smack in the middle. Some of our favorite poems and songs are born in this field. Jack Kerouac is there, and so are Nick Drake, some punk rock, and maybe even Conor Oberst on sunny days. Brian Sendrowitz doesn’t know this, but he lives in this field. Well, he actually lives in Bellmore with his wife Elizabeth, their two young boys Jackson and Elijah, but his catalogue of gorgeous indie pop folks songs is imagined here. These days, Brian spends his time shaping the future of Beat Radio, his four-piece lo-fi rock outfit garnering the adoration of music fans, industry, and bloggers in both real and digital life. What makes Beat Radio and Brian’s solo work so memorable is its inherent earnestness. His music postures a little but is never pretentious and, like all great music through the ages, it risks sentimentality but is never sentimental. And because it walks the tightrope set between the ground and the sky, hope and despair, and the aforementioned success and failure with grace, you may find yourself transfixed and unable to look away waiting to see (and hear) what happens next. |
RORIE KELLY
www.roriekelly.com
www.myspace.com/roriekelly
Rorie Kelly’s song “Sincere” is such an incredibly powerful study of gender, sexuality, counterculture, and interpersonal relationships that it’s likely to make you feel a little self-conscious because of its verisimilitude. You may empathize with the antagonist of the song and hate your short-sightedness, self-absorption, and general lack-of-with-it-ness. Or it may be the speaker, our heroine, and her keen observations about how people work that resonates for you. Either way, you’re hooked, and there’s not much you can do about it. The song, like most of what I know of Rorie’s catalogue of work, refuses categorization, especially with regard to what our collective shortsightedness expects from girls in indie rock. Rorie can hush-hush with the best of them for sure, but what sets her apart from her peers is the capacity to also let go purely guttural wails of sincerity with her voice as well as with her words. And what is indie rock anyway? Surely not the moniker of success and fashion it has become. There’s that indie rock, I guess, but I’d like to think there’s also the indie rock that remembers it once was independent, free, and full of complexity. Difficult to cage. Rorie Kelly is that type of indie rock.
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MIKE BLOOM
www.myspace.com/mikebloom
I’d like to say that comparing Mike Bloom’s work with indie rock’s Rilo Kiley and The Elected to his solo work is like comparing lightning to a lightning bug, but Mark Twain already said that. He was referring, of course, to the difference between the right word and the almost right word when he made the comparison (you have to figure out which one is which). I’m more interested in making a point about the splendor of the lightning bug: Small but full of brilliant, poetic punch. And, unlike its deity-like predecessor, our backyard firefly occasionally gets close enough for us to see the miracle of life in all its luminescent glory. But here’s where it gets tricky. Get close enough to Mike Bloom’s intricately-woven songs and you may wonder why Zeus himself doesn’t store them in his personal iPod. Surely the King of the Gods must know good music when he hears it? Well, the problem is…has he heard it? Has anyone heard it yet? A lucky few can testify that they have. Maybe you’re one of them. I know I am. And for those of you that haven’t, be prepared because it’s about to strike like a sudden realization of truth cutting across time and space. That’s not Twain. That’s the Old Testament. This is one old beauty of a lightning bug.
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ADAM MUGAVERO
www.myspace.com/adammugavero
Adam Mugavero sells dreamy real estate—not overblown, gaudy palaces—but rather the kind that millionaires and rock stars retire to when they give up the life of the material and the insignificant, the kind with gorgeous waterfront views like those of his hometown Sound Beach and the desperately private serenity of our island’s east end. He sells the good life of sublime introspection—a small, intimate Thoreau-ian place to think with do-it-yourself innovation. These homes are tiny pictures that we leave when we wake to our less contemplative lives of work, purposeless responsibilities, and relationships lacking the delicate and urgent questioning essential to being real and honest in this world. Step into any of these dream properties and you may find yourself already seated there, perhaps, in love again or in doubt, in reverie or in pain. You may find yourself transported to an indefinable but incredibly familiar place, one lodged forever in the sweetness of your mind. Or, if you’re not there, you may find a friend. Yes, you may find a best friend and you’ll have lots to talk about without saying a word.
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BESS ROGERS
www.bessrogers.com
www.myspace.com/bessrogers
Collage art has always intrigued me, mostly because of how many different and sometimes conflicting agendas come together to form a beautiful whole. When I lived in Brooklyn, I once put together a Park Slope neighborhood landscape with construction paper, Hershey’s Chocolate wrappers and glass. There was an element of danger involved, yes, but the product was worth the risk I think. Bess Rogers’ brand of collage combines strange organs and keyboard sounds with more traditional sounding strings and pipes. What comes out is a quirky but remarkably heartfelt deliverance of musical community—another kind of neighborhood, if you will, and one that is gaining lots of attention. Bess, along with friends Jenny Owen Youngs, Ingrid Michaelson, and Gregory and the Hawk (They also make a collage!) is part of a burgeoning NYC music scene of diverse and talented female singer/songwriters refusing categorization and making lots and lots of new friends. But as far as I know, Bess is the only one of these artists born and raised in Levittown, America’s first suburb, which may or may not partially explain the materials for one final relevant collage: genuine neighborhood charm, indubitable universal quality, and a sense of appreciativeness that’s never too cool for a conversation, a “how’s your day?” or “thank you very, very, very much.”
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