New Blog - 11.13.2011
All of the hot Melle website action will be on the Von Melee blog
This is a new blog and reflects the new way, my droogs. The next show will be in March - April 2012 in April.
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IT MATTERS SO MUCH BUT ONLY IF YOU VALUE INDEPENDENT MUSIC.
Otherwise don't sign up and turn the radio back on.
- Chazz
Ps. Does anyone know how to fly a plane?
New Show, Thurs., 11/10/2011 9:00PM at the Skylark
Skylark Lounge. One 40 minute set. Let me know if you're coming and I'll have a little gift for you.
See ya there.
Melle
We started a list of people very generous to Von Melee. Thank you all, you are the butterfly flapping its wings to create a typhoon!
!! 8-10-2011 !!
Bob Chazz: The last biological humans?
Melle: Yes. To make a band you gotta recruit your people and you gotta recruit your robots. Compare TV now to TV 20 years ago. Compare "You've got Talent" (America's Got Talent) with "Star Search." The visual element and the music are almost completely driven by programs. The way my fans listen to my music or find my music is suggested by narrow AI algorithms. In 20 years the whole idea of lo-fi or hi-fi or synthesizer versus acoustic is going to be completely irrelevant.
I say Von Melee is probably going to be some sort of VR...virtual-reality organization at that point in the future 2021 or 2031, whenever it comes to pass.
Look at production values, the robotic lights, the immense sets that are built for these reality television programs, for just a just a pilot. Information technology has allowed a rapid advance of the lights, the PA systems, the microphones. I still thought wireless microphones didn't work and were really expensive!
Now I see how much we already have melded with our tools, with our technology. We're pass the point of no return and really have been for a while. And it's good.
Bob Chazz: So by saying you're not a Luddite that means you're not anti-technology?
Melle: That is right I am not against technology. Personally it was a bit of a copout and lack of confidence in my abilities to learn the technology. I just found it hard to follow the song, I'd get very distracted and lose track of the performance.
On sound of faith the performances are a bit stiff for that reason. What brought me back is the idea that all of the people I admire that make the music that I listen to embrace the technology.
I watched a movie about Ray Kurzweil. He has this idea of the Singularity. After the initial future shock I really started to look back at it, I just got really inspired
So, "Von Melee" occupies that space as the voice of the last biological humans.
!! 7-22-2011 !!
Bob Chazz: What Do You Mean by the Oldest Album Ever Made?
Melle: Well I guess I'm future proofing it. It's sort of an end of an era with the technology I'm using a tape 2-track, a digital four track, an off the rack microphone. This is all technology that was even beyond the Beatles
It's sort of a last hurrah, these songs, even the idea that the artist is in full control. Doing this album at Hollow Earth is all about the last gasp of the auteur or even that mindset.
Five decades from now people are just going to talk to a cloud that will create the exact music they like, I mean that's already happening so it really changes the idea of rockstar.
I always tell people my albums are not done until they're heard. Jjust a sound in an empty forest before that.
As music progresses the songs will never be done because they'll never repeat or they'll have ingredients added in by the listener.
Working with primitive technology, what I'm learning is that I'm not a Luddite.
!! 6-27-2011 !!
Hello, been about a year but a new album is in the works entitled Von Melee. Melle says it will sound like the oldest album ever made!
It will be both analog and digital and all the songs are already written. Strong words to follow.
Thanks for visiting. Melle Johnson's songs bury spiritual treasure inside sunny melodies.
Listen here.
He blends vocals, acoustic guitar, bass with the best studio musicians in Denver and beyond. People like Mark Wesson, Andy Dana and Jeff Johnston.
Melle Johnson,s music takes the empowering and inspiring intent of new thought music, and combines it with the
- inspired folk rock of Cat Stevens
- the pop punch and grandeur of Neil Diamond
- the melodicism and economy of Brian Wilson.
Melle's debut album “sound of faith” was released in 2009. Hours of collective visioning, days of back room negotiations and
millions of hush money were paid.
Listen to "sound of faith" at Last.fm and hear the results.
Mix the passion of rock, the clarity of folk and the mystery of metaphysics and you got quantum folk. You got Melle Johnson.
Buy the CD version of sound of faith (Leads to my Createspace store.)
“sound of faith” is available for $5.99 as a digital download at Amazon.
articles on...
The song "By the Light" is co-written with Paul Thomas. Here is an article with the lyrics, and a couple of notes about how the lyrics shaped Melle's singing and production. Read article (Feb. 27th, 2010)
The song "Sound of Faith" is a meditative journey through past lives, future hopes and an endlessly creative world. Read short article. (Nov. 28, 2009)
New Age Music and the Birth of Quantum Folk. Read article (Nov. 15th, 2009)
Namaste.