Indy In-Tune #129: Modern Motion

Explicit content warning

11/26/12 • 59 min

I've heard some interesting criticisms about Indianapolis lately. Apparently Rolling Stone magazine allegedly referred to this city as (paraphrasing) a great place to grab some food and use the restroom while you're heading to Chicago, Detroit, or Cincinnati. Ironic, since I now use Rolling Stone magazine to line my cat's litter box. A more-respected friend of mine who recently moved here said it feels like Indianapolis is stuck in a time warp where it was constantly twenty years earlier here than it is on the rest of the planet ... fashion-wise, culture-wise, music-wise, etc. Another local musician remarked (again ... paraphrasing) that this is where all of the new ideas from the coasts and Chicago eventually filter to in order to be excremented out of the country once and for all. Nice, eh? On the surface, Modern Motion may appear to be a throwback band, nostalgia act, or some sort of 80's tribute. Closer examination, however, reveals a greater musical diversity, depth, and technical prowess than what was typical of that era ... and trust me, I am a player of that era, I have a Yamaha DX setup in my basement to prove it. I, on the other hand, liken this band to other bands of ambitious youths, like Goliathon ( | ) who inherently understand a style of music even though it may have been made before they were born, and are able to combine it with more modern sensibilities and make it appealing to a contemporary audience. While much of the era they emulate was very self-absorbed and simplistic, Modern Motion exhibits a diversity -- or even an optimistic/pessimistic duality -- in their approach that bears careful, and repeated, listening. Trust me, it continues to get better each time. Links referenced in the show: Modern Motion can be found here | | | | You can get their Big Mode EP, and a lot of other musical goodness, via their . We'd like to thank for being our participating audience this evening. We should probably try to get her on the show soon. Apparently my memory was faulty. We were drinking from the , not the 2002 one. It is my subtle tribute to a classic episode of the , which inspired my purchase, despite the fact the podcast was warning me not to purchase it. Though the name of the band was not given, the dueling drum solo on a spinning riser trick was made famous by the Newsboys. You can catch a video of one such battle .

Previous Episode

Indy In-Tune #128: Whoa!Tiger Returns

There came a point back around Show #118, coincidentally co-hosted by one of tonight's guests, Jack Barkley, when I realized how truly blessed I am to have so many cool friends in the local music scene. We sat around that night, talked about frivolous things, serious topics, played music, took questions from the Internet audience, drank copious amounts of beer, and just, generally had a blast hanging out. Unfortunately, I had to go back to being a corporate drone at a soul-sucking day job the next day, which led to another realization: Thursdays are worse than Mondays for me, directly proportional to the amount of fun I had playing "radio guy" the night before. I was reminded of this recently, when Whoa!Tiger dropped by for a similar evening of fun, and became the first full band to play a live, on-air set from "Studio B." Co-incidentally this their first "unplugged set" as well, and yet another miserable Thursday for me. I mention this here because there are many references to the performance throughout the interview. Unfortunately, the recording was deemed sub-standard for this podcast, therefore we have substituted tracks from their latest album, instead. See what what happens when you don't listen live? It seems like every time Indy In-Tune puts something together, Whoa!Tiger tend to dominate it. In 2010, they won the inaugural Podcast Battle of the Bands -- sweeping the top three songs by popular vote and prompting our judges to create the category, "Best album by a band without superfluous punctuation in their name." They repeated the feat by being the only band to hold down the #1 through #4 spots on Indy In-Tune Radio's top twenty countdown. Whoa!Tiger is the musical equivalent of that overachieving valedictorian/quarterback/prom king you went to high school with that pretty much excelled at everything he did and was a nice as he was gifted. Makes you just want to slug the collective lot of them, eh? Links referenced in the show: Whoa!tiger can be found here: | | | | . They first appeared on , and later on . Bassist Eric Tullis first appeared way back on . Font man Jack Barkley appeared as a guest host on and . and This show, however was co-hosted by , who appeared on Show #101. Their latest album, The Rollout, can be purchased via the usual suspects ( | . It was produced by Mike Lyons at . is a reference to the bassist from Dream Theater, who is notorious for rarely, if ever, speaking in interviews. Whoa!Tiger recently headlined the 4:00 PM slot in the Connors tent at on Saturday. They will also be headlining at Birdy's on November 24. is a reference to the 1994 Robert Zemeckis film. I wouldn't have thought this obscure enough to warrant a show note, but apparently, Ben proved me wrong.

Next Episode

Indy In-Tune #130: Tony Cheesebourough

You know, I started the streaming radio station because the new day job plus a toddler running around didn't allow me any time to keep up with podcasting on a regular basis (yeah, like I was ever regular about podcasting). Now, suddenly instead of doing one podcast a month, I'm finding myself doing two per week. Not sure what happened there. On the other hand, I'm finally getting around to doing interviews that I've been threatening to do for years now, namely this show featuring Tony Cheesebourough and next week's show with Marvin Parrish, two guys that I've known socially for a while, but haven't had the chance to get in front of the mic to tell their story. I'm also trying to figure out why it's been seven years and 130 episodes before I got a straight-up blues player on this show. Believe me, it's not for lack of trying, they're just generally too busy to come in for an interview. Actually, considering Tony is equally well-versed and capable in funk, gospel, and RnB music, maybe I still haven't gotten a "straight-up" blues player. No matter, Tony is a fascinating guy with a seemingly endless supply of great stories, just a few of which are represented here, along with a sampling of some of his diverse musical endeavors. Look for him to hopefully complete three new albums this year in between touring with the Ohio Players and sitting in at the Noodle. Links referenced in the show: Tony Cheesebourough can be found here | | Co-Host can be heard in the background of several early shows. He is best known as the host of "" open mic night and the -- airing Sunday nights on Indy In-Tune Radio. Tony currently tours as the guitarist for the He formerly played with His three albums, "Wanted Dead but ... Alive!," "Blue Cheeze," and "Too Way Street" were produced by Ryan Atkins at . He recently appeared with and . The former being a somewhat well-known international recording and touring artist; the later being one of my terrestrial radio heroes and host of WFYI's . Our last track, Drift Along, is a tribute to .