A couple of years ago when I used to frequent a certain social media/music promotion website, I would occasionally run across submissions by a group of teenagers from England called Escape Route 36.

At first I didn’t pay much attention. Teenagers with a band, how good could that be? But soon I began to notice Josie Charlwood, the female lead singer with the flaming red hair. She could really belt ‘em out. It was shocking to hear such a powerful voice coming from such a small package. I thought, this girl is going places.

After hearing some of Josie’s recent solo work, I think I was right. Just 17, Josie is already developing a devoted following on the web with her videos, which demonstrate her use of loop pedals and a powerful set of pipes. Her songs include covers of bands like MGMT and the Gorillaz, as well as originals.

I just interviewed Josie via e-mail and got some great answers:

You’re 17 now, is that correct? How old were you when you realized you had musical talent?

I am indeed 17 at the moment but turn 18 this July. I never touched an instrument until I was around 11 – I have my cousin to thank for that. She’d just got into singing and I wanted to do the same! Instead of buying the karaoke machine I desperately wanted, my Dad insisted he’d teach me the chords to any song I wanted to sing so I could play along on the keyboard. He indeed did this and that is how my interest in piano and singing began.

How did you get involved with Escape Route 36? Can you give me a few details about the band – who the members are, what they’re up to now, etc.?

Escape Route 36 was essentially a project we started in our school days to help inspire all of us in terms of the music. At school I had a tough time with music in general (I think I can speak for the boys too) as we were never really given the encouragement when it came to performance and/or creativity. In contrast to this, the band was a great thing which we all enjoyed and helped me at least get through exams and stuff. The ER36 project started when we were all 14/15. The boys were all from school too and we’re still great friends, even though we’ve taken different paths. I’m not sure if they would all want their names mentioned but I can tell you one’s going into photography as far as I know and one into music production (specialising in Dubstep).

How long did you work with ER36 and when did you start recording solo?

As a band we worked together for around 2 years I think. Things changed when we left school and wanted to concentrate on other things. It was however a great experience for me (and I hope the boys too) and I learnt a lot about performance, arrangements and working as a team on the whole. After the “No Divider” album I obviously wanted to keep recording and experimenting with my originals. The first single was “The Mirror” with two of my good friends sessioning; Dan Hardingham (drums) and Blyss Gould (bass). Shortly after this (and a few other tracks!) I really got into filming for Youtube; this is when solo stuff became more prominent for me.

Why did you decide to use looping and how do you see that process developing as you create new songs?

I first got into looping after being massively inspired by singer-songwriters Ed Sheeran and KT Tunstall, both well known names now! I’m all for trying new arrangements and looping was something I’d never tried so I decided to give it a go. People sometimes ask me if I’d had “lessons” as such; this never happened. In fact I bought a BOSS RC-30 loop pedal back in April 2011 and just began experimenting. I paid a lot of attention to how loop artists break their tracks into parts. After a week or so (and some serious practice) I filmed my arrangement of “Electric Feel” by MGMT.

How is working on your own different from being in a band?

It’s very different. When working with a band you have so many ideas to share and compromise with, which always results in new things. You also have people to share the music with and that’s such a good feeling. However, it can also be hard work and a lot harder to arrange compared with a solo gig. With solo rehearsals you can put in as much or little as you want, whereas with a full band everyone has to be fully focused else it won’t go anywhere.

Do you still collaborate and if not is that a possibility for the future? What about working with other musicians?

Of course, I love to work with other musicians! I’ve made tracks like “My Life Begins Now” and “The Mirror” where I’ve done live session work with other musicians and that’s been great. I also have a growing interest in the electronic music industry and have collabed on several tracks with Dubstep/DnB producer Filthzilla, who is a very close friend of mine. Both of these things are ongoing projects and I am always eager to work/share ideas with new musicians.

What has gigging been like? Have you been able to perform live very much? Does your age complicate that because of age restrictions at clubs, etc.?

I love gigs, but in the last year or so have done very little. I’ve sung at a couple of small events but have mainly been concentrating on exams – I’m sitting my A Levels at the moment and want to get this right! There will always be time for gigs in the future. The amount that I’m doing at the moment age isn’t really an issue and I should be 18 by the time I get back into serious gigging.

I understand your parents have been involved in the music business. Could you tell me a bit about that? I think your father sang and is your manager now and your mother also was a singer?

Erm, well Dad [Toby] is now a producer (formally a chartered accountant) and Mum [Annie] a music teacher at the local Primary School. They have both been musicians for a while now, in fact they met through playing in a band together. Dad now runs the tobesmusic.com independent record label, which all my music is released through.

How did your parents influence you musically?

I think my parents are the reason I’m so into music these days. They have always supported my growing interest, right from the start. Dad essentially taught me most of what I know about harmony and theory and was my main teacher when learning keys. I never really had formal piano lessons. The only instrument tuition I’ve had was singing lessons for just less than a year, a few years back. My parents are still so supportive and I learn new things from them all the time, whether it’s based around guitar, piano, or music technology.

What bands have influenced you most and who are your current favorites?

This is a hard question! I really am into such a wide range of music. For looping, Ed Sheeran and KT Tunstall. For songwriting, so many artists inspire me. I’m really into funk and love music from people like Stevie Wonder and bands such as Steely Dan. I’m a great Genesis fan too – we had their albums in the car for a bit when I was younger. In terms of more recent bands I enjoy alternative music such as Porcupine Tree, Bloc Party and Everything Everything. There really are too many artists to list.

Do you have an album in the works?

Indeed I do! It’s on my list of things to get done (alongside my A Level exams and driving test). At the moment it’s more about building my portfolio, especially online – gotta keep the Youtube channel active. However, I am working on an album to hopefully be released this year.

What are your long term plans? Are you going to make a career out of this? Are you thinking of getting signed to a label or would you rather stay independent and release music digitally?

I am definitely looking into a music career whatever the case, but I’m still unsure of what I want to do. I’ve got myself a degree placement in London, beginning this September and plan to come out with a full music degree before I really decide what to do for the future. Until it (hopefully) becomes a career I am in no rush to be signed to any label nor make any money out of my art. However if I could eventually make a living out of what I love, that would be amazing.

It looks like you’ve got a growing fan base on Youtube and recently got some nice attention from Reddit. Is the Internet your primary source of marketing? Do you think you could do this without the Internet?

The internet is definitely the reason my music is “out there.” I’ve been able to build an active online profile essentially from home, whilst still concentrating on my education and other things. It’s great that people are enjoying my music from all over the world! At this age especially, I would not have achieved that otherwise.

I’ve noticed you get a lot of comments about your hair. Is it more pro or con? (Heard enough redhead jokes yet?)

Haha, this is the first time that question’s come up in an interview. I get plenty of redhead jokes, but I don’t mind them. People are always going to find something to comment on, after all. I like the colour of my hair and it makes me more recognisable too! Someone stopped me in a shop in Chichester and said “excuse me, are you Josie Charlwood?” Could just be my point of view but I’m sure that wouldn’t have happened if I were a brunette. Overall I don’t think there are any “cons” to being a redhead, except being terrible at hide and seek.

This cover of MGMT’s “Electric Feel” may be my favorite performance so far.

She also has some great originals, such as “Better Days.”

I’m kind of glad she didn’t get that karaoke machine.

Josie essentially uses Youtube as her home base. Check out her Youtube page for lots of cool videos. You can find her band page on Facebook.

She distributes music through Bandcamp and iTunes.

That’s what I wish Congress had done before they decided to take on Internet piracy. Two bills — SOPA in the House of Representatives and Protect IP Act or PIPA in the Senate — claim to be about protecting intellectual property, but they were written with the help of Hollywood lobbyists who just did not understand how the Internet works. They did not get enough input from the technical experts who might have helped create laws that worked, and are fair.

If these bills make it through Congress, the Internet will end up being severely disabled. Legitimate websites will go out of business and many businesses of the future will be stillborn. And the pirates will go right on pirating.

If you haven’t heard much about these bills it’s understandable. They have barely been mentioned by the mainstream media. Luckily, the Internet has a bit of sway as well. The word is starting to get out. Today, some high profile websites, including Reddit and Wikipedia are blacking out their websites to protest the proposed legislation and get people to call congress. Google has posted an anti-censorship message and plea to contact congress. That ought to carry some punch.

I don’t think I can actually do a “blackout” on a WordPress.com blog, but I’d like to pitch in. These bills need to be stopped.

The legislation is complicated, but this article does a pretty good job boiling it down and explaining how it could hurt the Internet. I found it to be a pretty easy read:

http://blog.reddit.com/2012/01/technical-examination-of-sopa-and.html

Once you’ve read that, if you haven’t yet contacted your congressman or senator, I would urge you to do so.

Also check out Google’s petition.

Edit: It looks like RateYourMusic.com, my favorite album rating site, is also having a blackout today to protest SOPA/PIPA. Good for them. Site owner Hosseign Sharifi gives a great explanation of how his perfectly legitimate, non-pirating website could be shut down by this legislation. Click that link and read it for yourself.

Check him out and pitch in if you can.

And check out some of his songs on his website if you haven’t heard him before.

Here is one of my favorites:

The year-long project, Doleful Lions vs. the PMRC, will cover the so-called “Filthy 15” songs most harshly condemned by the PMRC during the 1980s.

The Doleful Lions will release up to one song a month throughout the year, with bonus tracks around the holidays. “I am already coming up with a lot of ideas for what I want to do. Some of the songs will be really straight and some won’t,” said Jonathan.

The Doleful Lions’ occult/gothic pop would likely be targeted by the PRMC if the organization was still active, but Jonathan’s motive is intensely personal. “I blame Tipper for fucking up part of my childhood so I guess I want revenge,” he said.

“In the mid-‘80s my mom read Tipper Gore’s book [Raising PG Kids in an X-rated Society] and came to the conclusion that the weird music I listened to played some part in my being bad in school and getting in trouble all the time. So she went through all my records and listened to the songs and wrote down all these lyrics that she said she objected to and wanted to know why I liked all this occult violent music — that is how she saw it anyway — and one day when I was at school she threw out all my records. My parents made some rule where I could only listen to music approved by them and all of it had to be from the 60s or something. It was a weird time.”

The Filthy 15 list was part of a Washington Post article in which the PMRC suggested (per Wikipedia) that the RIAA and the music industry “develop ‘guidelines and/or a rating system’ similar to the MPAA film rating system,” as well as “printing warnings and lyrics on album covers, forcing record stores to put albums with explicit covers under the counters, pressuring television stations not to broadcast explicit songs or videos, ‘reassess[ing]’ the contracts of musicians who performed violently or sexually in concert, and creating a panel to set industry standards.”

The article got rock music and magazines removed from from American stores including Walmart, J. C. Penney, Sears and Fred Meyer.

The moral crusade didn’t stop there. In September 1985, the Senate held a hearing on so-called “porn rock,” taking testimony from musicians Dee Snider, Frank Zappa, John Denver, as well as PMRC representatives and Senators Al Gore and Paula Hawkins. The Dead Kennedys were actually put on trial for violating obscenity laws (it ended in a mistrial).

It was a strange time to be alive.

Songs on the Filthy 15 (with their lyrical sins) include:

1 Prince “Darling Nikki” (Sex)
2 Sheena Easton “Sugar Walls” (Sex)
3 Judas Priest “Eat Me Alive” (Sex)
4 Vanity “Strap on Robbie Baby” (Sex)
5 Mötley Crüe “Bastard” (Violence)
6 AC/DC “Let Me Put My Love into You” (Sex)
7 Twisted Sister “We’re Not Gonna Take It” (Violence)
8 Madonna “Dress You Up” (Sex)
9 W.A.S.P. “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” (Sex/Language)
10 Def Leppard “High ‘n’ Dry (Saturday Night)” (Drug and alcohol use)
11 Mercyful Fate “Into the Coven” (Occult)
12 Black Sabbath “Trashed” (Drug and alcohol use)
13 Mary Jane Girls “In My House” (Sex)
14 Venom “Possessed” (Occult)
15 Cyndi Lauper “She Bop” (Sex)

“I am surprised no band has ever done these songs in this way before,” Jonathan said. “The Filthy 15… the whole concept was so ridiculous. I watched a couple of hours of the PMRC hearings on CSPAN the other night, it was really amazing to watch these Senators wasting time and money on such bullshit. I think the project will be pretty fun.”

Stay tuned. The first release will come out Jan. 30. Songs will appear on this page as they are released. In the meantime, check out the Doleful Lions’ other work. Their entire discography is now available through Bandcamp.

I almost cheated and made Daniel Knox’s - Evryman for Himself one of my top 5 picks for 2011. It was officially released 2011, but the truth is I’ve had the previous independently-produced version of this album in heavy rotation since 2010. The two versions are slightly different (so slight, I can’t really tell unless I strain my ears). If you haven’t heard it, do yourself a favor and get your copy from his new label, La Société Expéditionnaire.

This is the song that made me a Daniel Knox fanatic:

Daniel Knox “Ghostsong” from Daniel Knox on Vimeo.

Right now, the boogeyman the folks in charge and the companies that lobby them use to try to restrict the free flow of information is Internet piracy – It’s a real problem with real consequences, but the proposed solution is akin to curing the disease by killing the patient.

In the past, the boogeyman was obscenity. America has always had a tug of war between cultural conservatives and people who like to push boundaries through art and music.

In the 1960s, all it took was a few bad words to get you in trouble. Censorship wrecked the career of stand-up comedian/spoken word artist Lenny Bruce, who was arrested a number of times on obscenity charges. Most of the charges were defeated in court, but fighting them ruined him financially. TV and radio were heavily censored and musicians had to be careful to disguise themes such as sex and drugs in metaphor. There were others who paid a price as well.

After a period in the ‘70s when the culture lightened up about topics like sexuality and drugs, there was another crackdown in the ’80s as evangelical Christians and clergy suddenly found themselves with some serious political power and decided to throw their weight around. Tipper Gore and the PMRC went after heavy metal, punk rock and rap. In 1985, representatives of the PMRC, musicians Frank Zappa, John Denver and Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, and Senators Paula Hawkins and Al Gore testified before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on the subject of record labeling and obscenity. (Check out the Wikipedia page. It’s a pretty good read.)  Snider in particular shocked a lot of people by not being the dummy they expected and putting the moralizers on the defensive.

The push to censor and control the sale of music with explicit lyrics continued into the ’90s. Store clerks got arrested for selling the rap record “As Nasty As They Wanna Be.” A record store owner in Florida was put on trial and convicted (overturned on appeal) and the rappers themselves were put on trial for obscenity (acquitted). I bought a copy of 2 Live Crew’s album after I heard about the arrests – I wasn’t even into rap at the time, but I couldn’t abide that kind of censorship and I wanted to know what the fuss was about. Turned out to be nasty as you would expect and also damn funny.

It’s hard to even remember what the mindset was back then. Check out this excerpt from the TV show Quincy (which incidentally featured a performance from bona fide punk group Mayhem). It’s funny today, but it was dead serious at the time.

America has changed since then. Rap has become mainstream. Formerly scary rappers Ice Cube and Ice T have acting careers (Ice Cube has been in a kids’ movie and Ice T played a cop on TV). The country lost its fear of heavy metal, thanks in part to the parody “This is Spinal Tap.” Punk rockers grew up and went mainstream. Henry Rollins of Black Flag is working on a show for National Geographic. How mainstream is that? History tells us that sooner or later we’ll get another moral crusade, however.

Check out Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys taking on Tipper Gore on the Oprah Winfrey show in the ’80s. I think the PMRC folks thought they were getting a punk rock moron like Sid Vicious when they took on Jello, but he turned out to be anything but. He gives Tipper a pretty good shellacking in this clip.

Fear is a powerful tool, one that politicians can’t resist. Whenever anything new pops up in the culture that they find threatening (the Occupy Movement for example), the folks in power will appeal to our moral sensibilities to try and stop it. And it might actually work, for a while… But sooner or later change will come, whether they like it or not. Americans are very adaptable and I think the country will evolve into something better than what we have now — but that doesn’t mean the process will be painless.

I am just wrapping up a post about goth pop artist Jonathan Scott of the Doleful Lions, who was personally affected by the PMRC and is working on a fascinating musical project to remind people of that era.

So, here are my here are my top five albums:

1. Tune-Yards – Whokill
Unique album from a talented and creative artist. There’s something naive and complicated at the same time about Tune-Yards’ African-influenced indie rock. It’s as if Merrill Garbus found some uncontacted tribe in the African rainforest and instead of going the Deep Forest ethnic-ambient direction, turned it into something off-kilter and funky. I guess I would have to say this is not for everyone, since a couple of people I tried to turn onto this album didn’t seem to take to it. Maybe they’ll come around.

2. Rebirth Brass Band – Rebirth of New Orleans.
This was an impulse buy at Waterloo Records. I picked it up last July and I still can’t seem to get enough of it. It’s a jazzy mix of New Orleans second line, funk and hip hop. Mostly instrumental, but with some great shouted choruses, in songs like “Why Your Feet Hurt” and “I Like It Like That.” I gushed about the the band a little bit in in a blog post which includes an awesome video of the band in the streets of New Orleans.

3. Sarah Jarosz – Follow Me Down
Very impressive sophomore album. I love her voice. Her original material continues to impress me, but her covers are amazing, especially her cover of Radiohead’s “The Tourist.” I also love “Annabelle Lee,” adapted from the poem by Edgar Allan Poe. She also has some really good bluegrass musicians backing her up.

4. Pickering Pick – Tiger Balm

This one caught me off guard. Sam released this in June, but I just discovered it a few weeks ago. As always, excellent songwriting, beautiful melodies and sweet vocals. This time he had a new studio and you can really hear it in the production. He’s busy updating the equipment, so the next album will sound even better. I love every song on the album, but “Like a River” is truly amazing.

5. Daughters of the Sun – Ghost with Chains
Nice album from one of my surprise discoveries at this year’s Psych Fest. And by the way, they are very impressive live. It’s partly psych, partly ambient, but with tribal-sounding percussion and shoegaze vocals. To look at them, you expect some kind of heavy metal, but instead you get this hypnotic psychedelia. Catch them if they come to your town.

And here are my top five artists discovered in 2012:

1. Sleepy Sun. I found this group at Psych Fest in Austin back in April. Awesome, trippy, acid-drenched blues. Fever has become one of my favorite albums and it would’ve made my top five of 2010 if I had discovered it in time. Check out their website which has an embedded live version of “Marina.”

2. Atash. Kickass Austin-based group I discovered almost by accident during SXSW. I was hunting for free and cheap shows and was just about to give up when I found them giving a free performance at Central Market on North Lamar. They put on a HELL of a live show. Their music seems to have Gypsy, Persian, Indian, and other influences. I downloaded Republic of Love off Amazon.com and I’ve really been enjoying it.

3. Chubby Knuckle Choir. A great local find. As I said about them in June, they have such an odd fusion of sounds, yet they sound like roots music, like roots music from a country that never existed – but should have. They are performing in Bastrop, Elgin and in the Austin area. You can hear what they sound like and download some of their tuns on their Reverbnation page.

4. Dana Falconberry. One of the musicians featured in the wonderful documentary Echotone. There were actually several new artists in that soundtrack that impressed me (Belaire was another), but Dana’s “Possum Song” was especially wonderful. I got a free soundtrack album from Paste Magazine (I think it still works – enter your e-mail and see) and I’ve been playing the hell out of it for months. She just came out with an EP, Though I Didn’t Call It Came, which I have yet to get my hands on.

5. Jogja Hip Hop Foundation. This was a recent discovery, one of those truly startling discoveries. The idea of melding hip hop with gamelan music never even occurred to me. They’ve created something unique and vibrant and I think we’ll be hearing from these guys for years to come.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 15,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Check out this video from Wanlov The Kubolor, a half-Romanian, half-Ghanaian musician who performs a mix of Afro-beat, reggae and pidgen music.

And check out xworldmusic. I could spend hours there. Probably will, when I get some more time.