Example Application
Story & Tune, 2024 Easyfolk Featured Artist
Here is an example of a solid application. The artist not only provided good information, but gave us a sense of who they are, what they care about, and what it would be like to work with them.
What kind of support do you need right now as an independent musician/band?
We're a husband/wife duo who recently bought a home here. For me, it's a return to Portland, which has always been my favorite city. Ben is originally from Sydney, and new to Portland, but already in love. We moved up from San Diego, where I'd been for the last 6 years. We were deeply involved in the local music scene there, and had built strong collaborative relationships with local artists, venues, and music organizations. Now that we're here, we're starting over a bit - and our primary need is connection, community, and folks to cowrite and share stages with.
What is your songwriting process like?
For Story & Tune, which is our duo project, most of our songs are my lyrics and Ben's melodies, with a few exceptions. Each song usually starts in my iPhone notes, gets tossed to Ben who takes it to the piano, survives a mild disagreement or two (work with your spouse, they said, it'll be fun, they said), and eventually gets recorded/produced - often right here in our living room. We also work together to write songs for NBC Peacock's Babble Bop. The target audience for those is age 0-3, so they are really great brain breaks from our usual trauma-informed, hopeful healing grown-up work.
We also love to collaborate with other songwriters. Our happy place is the cowriting room. I'm a champion lyric fixer who specializes in helping folks get un-stuck (that second verse, yo). Ben has been a full time musician for over 20 years, and he's fantastic at finding unique melodies and knowing where the song should go next. We're both passionate (and sometimes annoyingly giddy) about helping other songwriters tell their stories in the safe, no-bad-ideas, let's do this thing in the comfort of our living room.
Describe a time you really enjoyed collaborating with other musicians.
Our final few years in San Diego, we met an artist in LA by the name of Greg Gilman (artist name Greg in Good Company) who had started a weekly songwriter event in Hollywood called Writers 'Round (www.writersround.org). He and Ben hit it off, and Ben, who is a community builder down to his core, offered to start the second Writers 'Round location in San Diego.
Our San Diego scene was really hurting. Several of the most beloved members of the music scene, folks who had been around since before the days of Jason Mraz and Jewel getting their start, had passed during the pandemic. Several key venues had also died. The scene was full of grief and silence. Ben partnered with local booking agency Acoustic Spot to get a popular venue to host Writers 'Round, and week over week, through an eventual venue change to music-scene historic Adams Ave, Writers Round SD grew from a handful of hopeful songwriters every Monday night to 60-100 folks crowding the back room of the Ould Sod every single week. All of our local favorites and legends came through to play the Nashville-style rounds - and San Diego has some truly extraordinary musical legends. We got to build meaningful friendships with our songwriting heroes, and provide a warm listening room for songwriters who were new to SD or even to music. We made sure to keep the lineup intentionally age, genre, race, and gender diverse, and it was an absolute privilege to watch the community come back together, get stronger, and start to thrive. We felt overwhelmingly lucky to be in that room every week, get to hang with those folks, listen to their songs, and call them our friends.
We left Writers 'Round SD in great hands, along with its spinoff sister, Songwriter Sanctuary, and both events continue. We're looking forward to finding (or building) similar listening room families here in PDX.
Name a few places and people that you currently engage with. Where do you gig or like to hang * out? Who do you regularly play or collaborate with?
Well, we just got here, but - my networking-hurricane husband has already been to a few of the Music Portland events, a couple PDX Songwriter events, and some great local shows at Laurelthirst, Show Bar, the Waypost, and Alberta St. Pub - for all I know, y'all are probably having coffee with him next week. We've played one house show in St. Johns and a bunch of covers gigs at a few McMenamins locations, 503 Distilling, Willamette Garage, and some surrounding area wineries.
We had the privilege of sharing a stage with our friends Karyn Ann, Hannah Glavor, and Annie Bethancourt when we came through on tour with our bestie Flamy Grant last winter, and all of them remain good friends who inspire the heck out of us on the regular. We've met some amazing folks in our 7 weeks here, and have even had our first Portland cowrite with the phenomenal Sam Hedrick. We've gotten to tour a couple of local studios, and share coffee or meals with local artists who've been amazing at helping us connect with and understand the local scene. Ben's already lending his keyboard to PDX Songwriters for their rounds. Karyn Ann and I are desperately seeking a 3rd Karyn so we can start a trio called Karyn And, because come on - too good. ;)
Let’s say a year from now you’re reflecting on a successful year in your music career, describe some moments from that year that would make you proud.
We're full time freelance creatives, so a successful year for us obviously involves practical things, like paying our mortgage and having time with our kid - we'd be proud to accomplish those things. We just signed with a publisher and would love to have "celebrate our first big film or TV placement" on the list. We'd clearly dig being Easyfolk Featured Artists. We'd love to see one of our trauma-related songs land somewhere that it helps folks who are struggling, or the moment we play our 9th or 10th gig at a Portland venue and all our favorite regulars come out to see us play. We'd love to tour again, preferably with great friends. Ben's looking forward to finishing production on a couple exciting albums for other folks, and maybe a new EP for us.
But the moments that make us most proud are almost always the after-gig-or-cowrite conversations. The gal who tells us that our silly song about not having to stay in New York gave her permission to go home would be on the list. The young Gen Z artists who come up and say "I feel like maybe you're my mom and dad now, but, like, in the best way?" The folks who have experienced loss or deconstruction or discrimination and find affirmation and reassurance in something we've written. The cowrites where folks go "Man, this was EXACTLY what I needed. I remember why I love doing this." The cowrites where WE go "Man, this was EXACTLY what we needed," and we remember, too. We're getting olderish, and have always been a little swoony - those moments are what keeps us hustling in this business and save us from getting cynical, or stale, or too naval-gazey to function. More of those moments, please.