Music

Q. HOW DID THE LOVELY NOUGHTS START?

A. Aidan and Jake met through mutual friends that were jamming at the time. They started messing around, jamming randomly a few times. Then they started to talk about starting a three-piece band. Eventually Aidan got in touch with his drummer friend Ruben. “We didn’t start off wanting a band initially, we just wanted to jam and have fun. We started playing some songs Aidan had been working on and I brought a couple songs to the table too,” says Jake. “It was just really fun. Not too long after that, we got asked to play a show. So we put together a set and made it happen. That really set things in motion. Fast forward a year and we asked our long time friend Dalyn to play bass so we added another man to the band. We did some recordings that we consider to be more like demos that we put out. We re-recorded “Walking” from those demos at a real studio.”

Q. HOW HAS THE BAND DEALT WITH COVID?

A. “The whole Covid thing hit us as a band pretty hard. We were playing monthly shows at the Garage On Beck to pay for our practice space. The Garage kind of became our home venue over the past year, but when the shows stopped the band’s money slowly ran dry and we unfortunately had to leave our space a couple months ago. In a way, we are kind of back at square one, trying to figure out what our next move is.”

Q. WHAT’S NEXT?

A. “The band has been kept afloat since the beginning by friends, family and fans. We would not be where we are without their support. Hard times happen and we find ourselves trying to think optimistically. We miss playing shows for everyone and can’t wait to be back doing it. We plan on taking this time to write and work on some new things, fingers crossed we’ll have something out soon.”

You can check out more about the Lovely Noughts at lovelynoughts.bandcamp.com

“We were all fans of “Song Exploder,” a podcast where an artist deconstructs the creation of a song,” recalls Shane Osguthorpe. For example, in one episode, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco breaks down the song “Magnetized” from the group’s Star Wars Album. He explains how each bandmate contributed, making the song a true ensemble creation instead of an ego-driven auteur work. “We thought it would be cool to do that the opposite way, document the creation of a song from the beginning. Only we wanted to do it with video.”

When Shane says “we,” he is referring to his bandmate in the group, The Proper Way, Scott Rogers (check them out below from our Small Lake Concert series). With a grant from Ogden Arts Council and videographer Natalie Simpson, they have finished season one—five video podcasts documenting how different groups of musicians interpret a cover song and an original piece. The series, called Ogden City Limits, is a unique way to experience art while it’s being created.

Small Lake Concerts – “Helpless” – The Proper Way from Salt Lake Magazine on Vimeo.

Find Ogden City Limits on Facebook or YouTube.

To learn more about The Proper Way band, click here.

For Salt Lake-based musician Josaleigh Pollett, music has always been a family affair. Her father grew up teaching music lessons in Ogden, and if his student didn’t show up, Josaleigh would receive an impromptu training session. She started with the drums, then moved to the stand-up bass and finally settled on the guitar. “It doesn’t even feel like I have a choice,” Pollet said. “It’s just part of my personality now.”

Of course, Pollett was listening to all kinds of music from an early age. She got Frank Zappa from her dad, Joni Mitchell from her mom and The Beatles and Led Zeppelin from both. Soon, she developed her own taste. “Because I’m a ‘90s baby, I also grew up on Alanis Morissette and Nirvana.”

All of these influences show up in Pollett’s Americana-inflected folk music, which pairs her warm, raspy voice with simple, gorgeous melodies, and her acoustic guitar with occasional flourishes of strings and banjo. Pollett usually writes her lyrics first, and it shows — her songwriting, which tends to tell melancholy stories of love and heartbreak, is the star of the show.

Sceneless in Seattle?

After growing up in Ogden, Pollett moved to Washington to jump-start her music career. Now she’s back in her home state, and she draws inspiration from Salt Lake’s tight-knit music scene. Pollett said it could be hard to find a place in Seattle’s enormous music community, but here, everyone supports everyone.

Now, Pollett is working on her next album No Woman Is the Sea, set to be released in early 2020. The new music is a departure from her previous projects, as this is her first album written with a full band in mind. Working with local musician Jordan Walko, Pollett is opening her intimate music to new genre influences —like indie rock —and instrumentation—like string quartets and synthesizers. Though she cautions her new material will be “really different than a lot of stuff I have out on the internet right now,” she hopes to satisfy old fans and win new converts. “It’s the most ambitious I’ve ever been about my music,” she said.

The most acclaimed American opera is making its way to the Utah Opera in January 2020. Silent Night is a Pulitzer Prize-winning production based on Christian Carion’s 2005 screenplay Joyeux Noël, and composed by Kevin Putz, librettist Mark Campbell and directed by Tomer Zvulun.

The story behind the Opera:

“No one would do such things.” —W.C.

The horrific carnage and conditions of World War I, called “the war to end all wars,” was established in a series of hellish trenches occupied by troops along The Western Front, an area including parts of Belgium, north-eastern France and Luxembourg. The warring armies were separated by “no man’s land,” an area of scorched earth only 250 yards wide criss-crossed by barbed wire and water-filled shell holes where men were dying by the 1,000s among piles of decaying corpses.

This story is of the 1914 Christmas truce between the Allied or Entente Powers (Britain, France and Russia) and Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey). Four years later in April of 1917, the US joined Allied forces.

To gain further insights into the Utah Opera’s current production, we were invited to interview a few of the cast members in their full costume as they recreated scenes and sang for us. I was also able to spend time with them individually. And, with their musical training and ability to project, we were “hushed” throughout due to the abundant volume from those who spend their lives to do just that. Opera being quite literally “musical theatre on steroids,” there were no problems with poor enunciation or audibility here.

“While some operas get you in the heart, this one gets into your head too,” explains operatic cast member Craig Irvin, who plays German Lt. Horstmayer. “Because of how the stage is set, you are able to witness what multiple characters are going through all at once.” As a German Lieutenant, Americans generally match the role of a “bad guy” but admits Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell brilliantly created his character to be complex and challenge that knee-jerk evil assumption. “At first his character may seem cold and you could easily tag him as a bad person,” Irvin explains, “However, later you realize his intention is to do his job as a German to the best of his abilities, which was ultimately to save the lives of his troops.”

Gabriel Preisser, who plays Lt. Gordon from Scotland mentioned, “As soldiers left their homes, they reassured their wives and families that they would be home soon and return as heroes.” Rather than a few months, the battles continued for over four years, with casualties in the millions. While we can’t re-play history like an opera production, Preisser asks, “What if, at the time of this Christmas truce, the war had ended?” And shared, “Friendships which occurred during this time were followed by reports of missed sniper fire,” suggesting soldiers were attempting to warn of their opposing advances.

The Utah Opera presents “Silent Night” 

January 18 – 26

JQ Lawson Capitol Theatre, 801-533-6683, utahopera.org

Craig Irvin (German Lt. Horstmayer) picks up a few cold weather survival tips from our latest issue.

Efraín Solís, who plays the French Lt. Audebert, shared his preparation as an operatic professional. Solis trained and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area for years revealed that most cast members are not Utah residents. While both Irvin and Preisser are returning cast members from the debut of Silent Night from Minnesota back in 2011, Solis is new to the scene.

Many hold beliefs that opera singers are rotund and don’t move around on stage. “Modern opera demands are much more rigorous,” Solis relayed. To keep up, he takes his physical fitness very seriously. These three cast members take time to work out, noticing the significant altitude difference while spending time here, they join gyms, run and practice yoga. As a side comment, Utah Opera Costume Director, Verona Green shared, “The comradery of the cast for this particular production has been extraordinary to witness, while all teams have a certain level, this one has exceeded all others in my experience.”

For more information visit utahopera.org.

For more A&E, click here.

Everett Ruess, a young artist/wanderer who disappeared into the southern Utah desert wilderness 85 years ago still haunts the imagination of writers, filmmakers, artists and wanderers young and old.

Last August, Ken Sanders, owner of Ken Sanders Rare Books, helped French journalist/musician/filmmaker Emmanuel Tellier premiere Tellier’s film, “Le Disparition d’Everett Ruess” in Escalante, Utah. The opening was followed by screenings in Moab and Salt Lake City. Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Kate MacLeod and Tellier traveled down the Green River this summer (read about it here) with a group of Ruess fans, telling stories, writing and playing music.

You can catch Kate MacLeod  in an intimate concert with Tellier  this week, December 8 at 5 pm at Ken Sanders’ Rare Books. Proceeds ($15 suggested) go towards completion of MacLeod’s recording project, an album of Utah-inspired music including a song about Ruess. The price of admission includes a copy of the completed CD.

For tickets, go to kensandersbooks.com

Everett Ruess, a young artist/wanderer who disappeared into the southern Utah desert wilderness 85 years ago still haunts the imagination of writers, filmmakers, artists and wanderers young and old.

Last August, Ken Sanders, owner of Ken Sanders Rare Books, helped French journalist/musician/filmmaker Emmanuel Tellier premiere Tellier’s film, “Le Disparition d’Everett Ruess” in Escalante, Utah. The opening was followed by screenings in Moab and Salt Lake City.

Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Kate MacLeod and Tellier traveled down the Green River this summer (read about it here) with a group of Ruess fans, telling stories, writing and playing music.

Tellier is returning to Utah this weekend and December 8 at 5 pm, he and Kat Eggleston will join Kate MacLeod  in an intimate concert at Ken Sanders’ Rare Books.

Proceeds ($15 suggested) go towards completion of MacLeod’s recording project, an album of Utah-inspired music including a song about Ruess. The price of admission includes a copy of the completed CD.

For tickets, go to kensandersbooks.com

Listening to the Utah Symphony Orchestra from a seat in Abravanel Hall is one thing. Listening to the Utah Symphony Orchestra from the stage is another. Salt Lake magazine sent writer Jen Hill to sit on stage while the orchestra rehearsed Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture.” Yes, that’s the one where the score calls for live cannons. But no writers were harmed in the research for this article: Hill wore earplugs and a kind horn player suggested she also use a plastic acoustic shield like many orchestra members use.

Meet the new guy

Conner Gray Covington begins his second season with the Utah Symphony as Associate Conductor backing up Conductor and Music Director Thierry Fischer.

Seated next to Second Bassoon, Jennifer Rhodes, Hill had the chance, not only to hear, but to observe: “I watched as musicians would stop to meticulously adjust their chairs or obsessively clear out the spit in their instruments. I kept watching all the non-verbal signals that would travel around the stage, a grimace from Conductor Conner Gray Covington after a misstep, a smile for the strings hitting their cue, rolled eyes above a clarinet at missed notes, nods and head shakes, winks and foot taps. It  all added up to a complicated camaraderie among the musicians and between them all and the conductor.”

Hill was also able to appreciate Covington’s main role. From the back of Abravanel it may just look like he’s waving his arms around; to the orchestra, he’s sending out all the cues, keeping precise tempo, thinking forward to the next line and who needs to be prompted at exactly the right moment and to what degree, and mostly, listening to the collected instruments as one giant, super instrument.

Covington explains, “Downplaying themselves, our musicians see themselves as one unit, which is one of the goals or intentions of a symphony orchestra.” All the while, he’s making mental notes on what needs to be addressed or adjusted and will bring to the to the musicians’ attention later.

“The material we perform now is the best we have ever created,” says Covington. “The Utah Symphony has a tremendous opportunity to create authentic human connections in an age inundated with electronics and social media.”

Whatever is going on up on stage, musicians at this level are having fun, in a very serious way.

80 Years The Utah Symphony Orchestra celebrates its 80th anniversary this spring. And members never forget that a concert is a conversation with an audience. Utah Symphony’s Associate Conductor Conner Covington (left) says, “It takes a long time to build trust with an audience, so you can venture off and offer more than just the standard bread and butter performances.” For its 80th Anniversary Gala on Saturday, May 16, 2020, at Abravanel Hall. The concert will include two original selections from the Utah Symphony’s inaugural 1940 concert: Johann Strauss, Jr.’s majestic “Emperor Waltzes” and “Moldau” from Smetana’s Má Vlast, as well as Beethoven’s Violin Concerto performed by Joshua Bell, one of the most celebrated violinists of this generation.

See all of our music coverage here.

Last summer, I went on a river trip with a friend of mine, Travis, who should have a court-ordered tattoo that says: “Warning: I May Talk About Todd Snider.” Or at least the judge should have made him sign up for a registry that requires him inform anyone who gets on a raft for a four-day trip on the Yampa that he will, in fact, talk about Todd Snider. A lot.

Photo by Cathy Mills/Courtesy Todd Snider

Who: Todd Snider withRambling Jack Elliot
Where: The Commonwealth Room
When: Monday, Oct. 19, 2019
How: Tickets and info here.

It’s because of Travis that I’m on an early morning phone call with Todd Snider. Travis’s oversharing chatter was infectious and so I was curious to talk to the man who inspires such gushing devotion. Snider is friendly and laid back when he answers his landline from his home outside of Nashville, and I start out of the gate with the tattoo bit.

“Oh yeah I get that but don’t know what that’s about. I just get up and say what I mean,” Snider says chuckling. “I’m not out to change anyone’s mind at my show. What I do feels more like a dare. A folk singer gets up and says whatever he wants and that’s a dangerous thing. You don’t know who is in the audience, the brother of the girl you’re singing about could be out there or the boss man is there and you’re singing about unions. But that’s the deal.”

Todd Snider is a Troubadour, one of the last, a roaming drifter with a pocketful of songs, stories and a guitar. It is a tradition that goes way back, Guthrie, both Arlo and Woody, Utah Phillips, Dylan, etc. And it’s a hell of a thing to roam the Earth, like Cain, stand up in front of whoever and try and say exactly what you mean and not care if people get it (or don’t). It’s a compulsion, a calling, a lifestyle, a grind and the adoration and esteem his fans hold for him, points to the increasing rarity of Snider’s breed in the world.

“It’s a way of life,” he says. “It’s not a golden ticket, you don’t get to be Bruce Springsteen but it beats work. I don’t have a lot of responsibility; I just travel along.”

Snider once said that a folk singer needs to be able to set up in 15 minutes and get off the stage in 5, it’s a practical production thing but it’s also a philosophy for life. Snider doesn’t even carry keys or a wallet, much less a cell phone.

“A lean dog runs a long race,” he says. “The less you need the better.”

No phone, no pool, no pets. King of the Road.

He has no plans to slack off his nearly constant touring. He says his father died at 54 and now at age 53, every day he gets is fine by him.

“If I dropped tomorrow, I’d be at peace with it,” he says. “I never thought I’d get this far. I did a ton of drinking and drugs; I was in a dangerous band for a long time.”

That band was The Hard Working Americans, a “supergroup” with the bassist Dave Schools from Widespread Panic, Chad Staehly of Great American Taxi on keyboards and Duane Trucks, also from Widespread Panic, younger brother to Derek, on drums. In 2019, founding guitarist Neal Casal died.

“We lived that shit, we stomped on it,” he says. “Playing rock ’n’ roll is not as easy as it sounds. We did it the old-fashioned way. No one stopped ever. It was the band the whole time. I’d take acid for huge stretches at a time. You’d get off the bus to get a fucking snow cone and some hippie would be there and hand you drugs. I think that was the last opportunity I’ll have to live like that.”

Snider put most of that down a few years back. He quit drinking and everything else but the weed he smokes daily.

“I don’t regret it or feel ashamed of it, I just knew I didn’t like it anymore.”

These days Snider is nostalgic and ruminative, his latest album, Cash Cabin Sessions, Vol. 3 delves into mortality, unfinished songs and the like. It looks back at the way things were and things that have just disappeared. Pay phones, cigarettes on airplanes the newspaper. And, he says, wistfully, rock ’n’ roll.

“Rock ’n’ roll kind of really seems be kind of gone,” he says. “Sure, there are folks making good rock ’n’ roll, Jack White, guys like that but it’s the lifestyle I don’t see as much. It was a tribal thing and there was an intensity and seriousness to all of it. There used to be this genuine drive to make a difference, not just entertain. When the Beatles sang ‘All You Need is Love’ they had everything in the world to lose but they said it.”

“These new bands don’t seem to hardly be saying anything in their songs,” Snider continues. “They’re good songs, clever but it just feels like a word salad sometimes. I know less about that songwriter than I did when I started. The only guy that I see out there just baring it all is Kanye West. He just took his pants down and left them down, I sometimes feel sad for him and I wish the best for him, but I say don’t change it.”

See all of our music coverage here.