[Music]
Hello everybody.
Thank you for coming back to the Phantom Power Music Review.
This is a value cast. Do you know what a value cast is?
It's like a podcast, but cooler because
you, the listener, can send little tiny pieces of Bitcoin
directly to either the host who always needs a new microphone or
the band whose music that you like. It's a value cast because of that
a direct exchange of value. It's a value cast because
amazing apps like Podverse, Fountain, CurioCaster,
Podcast Guru and progressive web apps like TrueFans
have that lighting technology of Bitcoin built into the app.
That is what a value cast is. It's like a podcast,
but much cooler. Are we clear on this?
Okay, good. So this is the Phantom Power Music Review.
I'm going to review three songs. By the way, at the end of the show,
we're going to do all of the boosts and zaps and thank yous
that have racked up through the week with our multiple shows that we do.
But on this show, we take a couple of songs and we break down the theory
and the production and the composition. Behind them, we geek out on songs
the way some people geek out on cars, the way some people geek out on
the routes that tightens run, the way some people geek out on software.
I mean, we're in Nashville. You got to kind of do it, right?
I mean, hell, you throw a rock in this town. It hits two songwriters
before it hits the ground. So let's jump right in.
We're going to listen to songs today from Arrayas, from Jack
Fienmeister and from For Arm Shiver. We're going to start with Arrayas
who's a great singer, songwriter here in the Nashville area.
I have seen her perform a couple of times and really thrilled
that she is in the value verse.
So let's check out five more minutes and then we'll talk about it.
Everybody ready? Here we go. Take it away Arrayas. The song is called
Five More Minutes. Here we go.
This is your team. I don't want the truth.
I want a shot of whiskey and a bottle of oil.
I can't fake the facts. I can't swallow the beer.
That you know but for me, what I want you to steal.
You make me feel young like a kiss in the rain. You make me feel blunt.
I'm like I'm going insane. You're going for the blood but you miss the vein.
Just five more minutes. Five more minutes.
Baby, get out of that. You're all the one who you got to move on.
Or lay it in your hand. You won't be there anyone. You get it out.
You don't start up and you got to go.
I choose a common and set out of a wrong home.
I want to wear the crown and I want to steal the throne.
Independent is a pretty way of saying it alone.
I want to take my shot but you won't move again.
And dancing with the devil is too much for you.
I want to feel your touch with my luck and dreams.
I want to feel the rush when you look at me.
I hope it's not too much for a baby please.
Just five more minutes. Five more minutes.
Baby, get out of that. You're all the one who you got to move on.
Or lay it in your hand. You won't be there anyone.
You're all the one who you got to move on.
Or lay it in your hand. You won't be there anyone.
Cool track, man. Heavy track. Heavy track.
The very first thing that I noticed was the key.
And I'm like, okay, what did she do that in? I do not have perfect pitch.
I have relative pitch. So, you know, like most piano players
had to sit there and go like, "Ah, there it is. Be flat."
Right. Be flat minor. This is a great tool
that female artists can really take advantage of.
And that is right in keys that aren't
used by a lot of other artists. It's very easy to strap a
capo on your guitar and play it in F or A or whatever.
And it's also interesting too as a piano player, like how some people's hands,
some people's physical ability to play is reflected in better keys.
For like, I'll tell you as a piano player, like I love writing in E flat
and I love writing in F. And when I tell that to guitar players and bass players,
they want to punch me in the throat.
But as a female vocalist, this is a great tool and a great tricky.
Here's Sarah Burrellis writing these keys a lot.
I think she does it intentionally. One, it's perfect for her voice and two.
It's comfortable for her hands to play in.
So, absolutely love the key choice, love how dark it is,
and the fact that you don't hear it that often.
Second thing I picked up on right away was the difference in the kick pattern,
that percussion pattern that you hear that starts the song off.
And here is a clip of it so you can hear what I mean.
Dun dun, got dun dun, that extra dun dun, got dun dun.
The very last beat of that is a nice little twist on what is generally considered to be a popular rhythmic theme.
And I appreciate little changes, subtle little changes like that.
So, those are just the first two things that popped into my head.
Next, the overall length of the intro, I thought was perfect.
In fact, every section of this song I thought was right on point.
Nothing felt too long for me.
Her vocals are marvelous for this track, for the depth of the mix, for the tamper of the mix,
and for the subject matter.
Obviously she's got a, for lack of a better term, husky or voice of deeper voice.
She's kind of like Lady Gaga, she's kind of like the lower end of the Dell.
And I thought that her voice is perfect for this.
Now, again, as I mentioned earlier, I've seen her do this live, I've seen her do it solo,
and I've seen her do it with the band, and it works both ways, which is really hard to do.
That's the compliment to a good songwriter, or Rea's Nice Job.
But I love her vocal tone for this, I think it's just perfect for the vibe.
Then as we get into the pre-course, I love the change up in the rhythmic feels.
See if I can find the chord here.
[music]
Whatever, you know, whatever chord she's playing there.
But those quarter note pushes on there to raise the intensity level,
to get the listener to know, "Oh, what's coming, something's coming here?"
And then I also really love how the chord choice that she uses to set up the first chorus.
She ends that pre-course on the A flat major.
Great choice, it's like a, "Ha, you know, with the tension and release
when you're operating in a minor key, choosing the seventh chord, which is a major chord,
you know that that is a great catapult for launching you into a solid next section."
And then I love the changes in the chorus, too.
There's three things about the chorus changes that I dig.
There's two progressions in there that both climb.
And I love how she makes that work.
Did you also notice that there is a, and I think I'm right on this,
she'll have to tell me if I'm wrong.
There is a chord that she uses.
At the end of the first chorus that never shows up again,
it doesn't show up in the second chorus when she sets up the bridge
and it doesn't show up in the third chorus when she extends that chorus out a little bit.
But there's a chord that she uses right before the second verse that doesn't show up again.
And I love little tricks like that, little attention to detail, things like that.
Two more points that I know I want to bring up.
Number one, did you pick up on it and I just kind of gave it away?
But I hope you picked up on the fact that she changed the length and the lyrics in the third chorus.
Again, attention to detail, stretching it out a little bit,
not giving the listen or something new to celebrate whenever you can.
I loved that.
And I also really admired the ending, how she brought it all down to like a nice landing on the aircraft carrier.
It was five moments, da da da da da da da.
Nice way to end it. You could have very easily chosen to fade this thing out, you know.
But I prefer a hard ending as well, so I dig that.
Mix was great, huge matches, the lyrics matches the depth and her voice,
love all those fat synth sounds, love the tight harmonies in there.
With the vocal bridge, with that, you call it the, I guess you'd call it a C section of bridge section.
I wonder if she was thinking that that would be like a good sing along opportunity for crowds,
because that's the way I interpreted it.
And I liked it. I liked it.
And also, if I'm understanding the lyrics correctly, this is about the difficulty of loves and tanglements with respect to one's goals and one's desires.
And I think that her voice is great at selling that.
This definitely feels from a listener perspective as if this is a lived perspective.
So those are all the weird wacky little things that were going through my head with respect to five more minutes from Arrais.
And if you dig that song, send us some sats, right?
All right, thank you, Arrais. That's fun. I love doing that.
Let's end it with a nice chord.
The next up is a song by four arm shiver. This band is out of Kansas. And the name of the song is, that's always been the difference between us, Dan.
That's a cool name of a song, right?
This is a departure from the last song we just heard.
And this one brought a huge smile to my face. So boys, take it away. Here we go.
[Music]
I love that melody.
[Music]
I love that melody. That's a great, it's a really strong melody. I was going to talk about that later on, but I just started playing along with it as the band was finishing up the song.
These little stinkers, man.
Okay, so right off the bat, the chord changes are what killed me. And I'm like, oh, those little smart asses, right?
So we're in D, and then they, so the first four chords as we say in Nashville, it's a 1465, which means they're going 1, 4, 6,
and then you would think that they're going to pull you down, right?
But what they do, they very smartly, cleverly do these little smart asses, and a good way, gentlemen, and a good way.
Is they use the inversion?
They're still playing the five, but they're playing, I think it's what's called the first inversion. I'd have to pull out my theory book from piano composition school years ago.
But what they do is they use that flap, that note right there, that C#, which is not a flat, I'm sorry.
But it's a minor second. If you're running up the scale, it's that last note before you get to the root of the scale again.
And it creates a really nice dissonance in there by pulling, by using that as a pole note in there.
And the bass player uses it too. In his riff, you'll hear him go,
It's such a cool trick. They could have easily gotten lazy and just played a straights, um, 1465,
but they played the first inversion of that five chord, and they based everything off of that nasty,
you know, the third note of the fifth chord, which is the seventh note of the tonic scale.
And I just loved it. It caught me off guard. And I absolutely loved it. Little stinkers.
Then they do a complete tempo change and field change. It's like they take you from the coffee shop to the metal shop.
And it works. And it works. And I love the bass player's tone. I love the picking tone that he's got going on there.
It was fantastic. Next thing I loved about this song is the vocals.
Is this guy Poverotti or is he sting? No, but it doesn't have to be.
You don't have to be when you're in a punk, right? But here's what he has.
He's got great control of his pitch. But more importantly, he's got the edge to his timbre and he knows how to sell it.
His voice is really great for this genre. And on the background vocals, I love the full on, shout everything in unison approach in the chorus.
I'm serious. It's like go back and listen to AC/DC, Dundercheep or the other.
Even, I was going to say rushed it, but no, that's not the right example. But when you get everybody shouting in unison, it's like AC/DC in the bottle of booze.
I love it. Love it, love it, love it.
Here's the other thing that I really loved about this song.
The lyrics are obviously heavy. They're obviously dark.
Have you ever noticed that really good punk song can sing about something dark and upsetting and heavy? But the way they pull it off musically, it sounds happy?
You ever noticed that? Like, my dog just died in a car fire and all my hard drives were in that car, and so was my last pair of underwear.
But they can sing it and present it to you in such a happy way and a fun way that you're smiling through the whole thing of it. The band that reminded me of was kind of like all American rejects on this.
And then for the ending of the song, they bring you back into that, you know, they take you out of the coffee shop and they bring you back into the, or they take you out of the metal shop and bring you back into the coffee shop.
The whole vibe of this thing, I love. Same chords all the way through. That's fine. That didn't bother me because the production is good.
The drumming is fantastic. They might have snapped that to the grid a little bit, but you really can't even tell. I wouldn't be surprised if they just threw up a metronome and laid it down and didn't have to fix that much.
I'm not a big fan of snapping shit to the grid anyways. To me, it just takes the life out of it.
But I just, this song just put a whole smile on my face because of the unison chorus, the unison chorus is the really smart use of the first inversion of the five chord.
And the bass point on it. Great feel. Great track, guys.
I can't wait to hear more from this band. I know we've featured them a little bit on our shows and good stuff. Really good stuff. Definitely puts a smile to my face.
So I hope you guys enjoyed that little thought process on it.
Alright, next up, let's go down to Australia and this one is going to throw you for a loop. This song is from a guy by the name of Jack Femeister.
I'm going to switch it up a little bit and I'm going to tell you about this song before you listen to it.
So I first heard of Jack about a year, year and a half ago when I reviewed one of his other songs.
I think I reviewed a song called Backwards Sideways. And when you listen to that song, you realize you're dealing with somebody who's absolutely extraordinary.
Not only in terms of a guitar player, but a vocalist and a storyteller. It was like...
You know how when you find that band or that singer/songwriter that nobody else knows of and you're just like, "Oh my God, I found somebody who's going to be huge."
Next, right? We all have that.
I remember that band out of Canada, the Pyrenees and ladies, I heard about them and was listening to them long before they ever broke and you're like, "Man, these guys are going to be massive."
But when I first heard Jack's music, it reminded me of a really smart Jack Johnson.
It reminded me of John Mayer and I just fell in love with this music and blogged about him.
And then we reconnected recently as we were launching our new website and I was telling more and more people about Bitcoin and Value for Value and I talked to him, "I'm like, dude, you got to get in here."
So he sent me over a couple of songs and they're starting to drop into the Value Versa.
And when I first heard what you guys are going to hear, it absolutely threw me for a loop because it was such a departure from what I had heard of him before.
And what you're about to hear to me reminds me of Jeff Buckley and Radiohead.
And what I had to do, frankly, point blank, is I had to research what this song was about.
And when I saw Jack talk about this song on his Instagram account, I started researching James McNeil Whistler who was a painter, born in Massachusetts, grew up in Russia a little bit as a kid, moved to London to attend boarding school.
And then went back to West Point where he was at West Point at the time where the superintendent was actually Robert E. Lee.
And he was dismissed from West Point for poor grades.
Long story short, James McNeil Whistler goes back to Europe, bounces back and forth between London and Paris, parts of Italy, and becomes a world-renowned painter.
And you probably know or have seen one of his paintings called Whistler's Mother.
So once I started digging deeper and deeper into this artist that Jack was writing about, and then I came across the story of Nocturne in Black and Gold, which was a painting that came out in 1975.
And John Ruskin was an art critic at the time.
And he absolutely vilified this painting as well as Whistler's work.
And Whistler took him to court for it. And Whistler won the case.
But he won basically what amounts to today is like a quarter of a penny.
He was only awarded one farthing, which is a quarter of a shilling.
And I'm telling you all of this because sometimes we can get lost in the chords and the production and the lyrics.
And we forget to look at what the artist's intent was and what the artist was trying to write about.
Maybe that's what Jack is trying to do here. I reached out to him. He's over in Australia and we're on different time schedules, so it's always hard to get current messages back and forth.
But it's art for the sake of art, right?
And I think that's what Jack is writing about here.
And sometimes when things take you back when you're surprised or even shocked by something that an artist that you absolutely love,
when they put something out and it takes you back and you're like, "What in the world is this?"
Sometimes you have to dig deeper and throw away your prejudices with respect to it.
In my case, kind of throw away my prejudice with respect to commercialization or song structure or production or anything like that.
And to me, the song is brilliantly produced.
But it is definitely art for the sake of art, and that is why I love it.
For the same reason that I love, like if you dive into the deep stuff of Jeff Buckley before he died, like there's a great record out there called "My Sweetheart The Drunk."
And if you dive into some of the deeper stuff on Radiohead, you start getting deeper and deeper into art for the sake of art.
And that is what I love about this song.
So let's listen to it and then we'll come back and talk about it a little bit.
When John Russ gets here, he said I'm playing a part of the head.
Upon the public's fence,
I'm expecting that he'll be here.
But John Russ is gonna play.
His breath's pretty as it will.
Upon the message, bad a picture of Mary's song.
His despair even makes me sad. His despair even makes the sound of his voice.
He's asking why's the Lord so he had a little bit more.
He's the only one. He thinks his head was before.
But did he ever have a thought?
But there are thoughts beyond these thoughts.
I mean, you know we can't even play.
I know that I know you're the only one.
I know you're the only one.
And you're the only one.
I know you're the only one.
So let the tears of time change, and then follow memory away.
Yeah, you should think about what you said.
Far from here, it's like a dream.
With joy is paid, I'm in.
To have to know the pain of me.
Now it's candlemen to break me.
What your eyes is gonna burn.
And the trials of bored.
They hung it upside down and caught.
It's not a good one.
See there, the colors of a chord.
And that takes a lot of time to be loved.
Something in it rings.
It's passing, so there's been the flabby kiss in my knees.
And all my family on a glaring, glaring, and I speak.
I hear the calls, stuck in the doors.
You hear the oven, and I know we're your last.
It's gonna burn.
I know you're the last, the last is day.
You decided.
The fact don't mind the pain.
And your eyes is gonna burn.
Go!
I know you're the last, the last, the last.
And I miss Jellie, my little one.
There's a penny in my name.
And Ruskin says I can keep the church.
John Ruskin is gonna burn.
So now that you know the backstory to that song, what does that do to your impression of the song and your review of it?
If you read the story of the trial, it's fascinating.
Two key points and Jack covers it in his song.
They hung the picture upside down when the painting was being discussed in the trial.
And number two, Whistler actually went bankrupt as a result of this trial.
Now Whistler was a true artist and a bit of a vagabond and never, you know, didn't have a steady job and typically relied on benefactors for his existence.
But all the same, what that critique and that trial did to his life was substantial.
And I think when you listen to this song that details all of that stuff and you think about the picture,
I think what Jack created here is an exceptional audio representation of not only the picture, but the trial and the trials and tribulations of Whistler's life.
Very dry mix, very sparse arrangement.
You know, it sounds like a fender Mustang, a cello and some odd percussion.
And if you look at the painting, minimal colors, this is eerily similar to the piece of art that the song is about.
Like the song really mirrors the painting and the anguish of the trial.
Fascinating stuff. Fascinating stuff. So the whole point of this review is that sometimes you need to do some research and things to understand them better.
And we need to shed our preconceived notions to really understand the beauty and the piece of art.
And I really hope you guys love that song because the more I read up on this story and the more I read about Whistler, the more I dig this.
And I really hope you guys are sending Jack some sats on this and wait till you hear the rest of this stuff. He's fantastic.
All right, so shall we read off some boosts in Zaps from the previous week? Let's do that. Let's do that.
So I believe we left off with Saints and Sats on the 27th. So we'll pick it up with I'm happy. I am API.
Listen to us on fountain. Listen to the Phantom Power music. I can see the streaming sats. Thank you so much. And Leon styles. Listen to the Phantom Power music hour with 1889 sats.
Listening on fountain. Wow. Thank you very much. Bear snare checking in Allen C Paul checking in with the streaming sats. Thanks y'all.
Just listening. Man, you've been just listening a lot, babe, or gal, whoever you are. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
Meermortals podcast. Love you guys. Thanks for checking in and listening and sending sats. Got a nice little bump from True Fans as well. And from Cody Christopher.
Hey, what's up, buddy? Love your interview on Wave Lake the other day. Chad F. Thanks, dude. Lots of sats coming in from you. Appreciate it. Adam Curry as always. Thank you, sir. Chad F. Another one here on podverse. His bro.
I can't read that one on here. Of course I can. We're not governed by the s FCC. Chad had a question about a bro country. We'll leave it at that.
Meermortals podcast again checking in True Fans again. Check in and thanks y'all for the streaming sats. Meermortals. You guys were listening via fountain. Appreciate that.
Joe Martin, brother Joe. How you doing, man? Thanks for listening. Really appreciate it. Dovey Doss checking in Nick checking in as well. Thanks for the streaming sats.
Let's see here. Moving on. Guy smiley. Lots of sats coming in from you. Really appreciate it. You've been listening to us on fountain. You were listening to the Phantom Power artist hour. Thank you for that.
Nick, what were you listening to? You were listening to the Phantom Power music hour on fountain. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Guy smiley.
Boatloads of sats coming in. Alan C. Paul 439. Fantastic interview on the Phantom Power music hour. Listening on podcast guru.
He was listening to my interview with Man Like Quacks. Awesome. Thank you, sir. The non-amus 100 sats coming in. Thanks so much.
You were listening to the interview with FM rodeo. Lovey. Lovely. Smash my records. Boosting for forearm shiver. Give me that Kansas crop punk.
You got it, baby. We gave it to you on this one, didn't we? You were listening to the Phantom Power music hour on fountain. Thank you, Cody. Appreciate that. Love your show. Of course you know that.
Man Like Quacks again. Dude, Man Like Quacks. You don't need to be sent to me so many sats, my friend. Like keep those for yourself, buddy. I really appreciate it.
Who else we got in here? I also see a lot of sats coming in directly on the fountain app and somebody had sent in a thousand sats. I just got a user number for thanking me for playing Alicia Stockton.
Which we did on the, I believe we did on either last week's music review or this week's music hour. Maybe we did them both. I don't know. We're doing so many shows I can hardly keep them straight.
But I thank you all for the sats and the sats and the boosts. Oh, that's where it was. The Alicia thing was over on Noster. It was a boost. Okay. No, it was a zap because it's a, it's a zap in Noster. It's a boost in RSS.
See, I've been doing this for months and even I still get it confused, but that's all right. That's all right. Hey, hey, all thanks so much for listening. We really hope you enjoyed it.
This was a little longer. We went like 42 minutes on this one.
But we hit some really deep, deep songs today with four arms, shiver with Jack Femeister and with Arreas. So certainly hope you guys are staying healthy out there and staying warm in this winter.
And last but not least, of course, do not forget to smile for your mug shot, the old Tom Delay trick.
All right. Look up Tom Delay and you'll know what I mean. If you're going to get arrested and you know you're going to get arrested, smile because it's, it's going to go public.
Even if you're innocent, even if you're horribly guilty, smile.
But it's one of my few tips in life that I know with absolute certainty will always benefit you. And that is smile for the mug shot.
Until next time, see ya.
[MUSIC]