And tells us what he’s been listening to lately.
Alex McMurray may just be one of the MVPs of the livestream movement that was so rapidly necessitated in March of 2020. Last year may have even been one for his personal record books, as he had two albums on our top 10 list and performed on other albums included in our top 50 roundup.
We caught up with McMurray to ask him the following:
What music have you been listening to lately?
Laura Nyro. The Chieftains. Luke Kelly. Studio One Ska. Toots and the Maytals. Bob Dylan. Ry Cooder, and Cousin Dimitri every Sunday.
Do you think it’s easier or more difficult to be creative during a pandemic? What advice would you have for musicians who are struggling to create right now?
Probably more difficult. In my own particular situation there are three of us bouncing around the house–everybody home all the time–so writing is tough. My son is still pretty young so I’m already well trained in the art of taking as much advantage of free time as one can. If some time becomes available, say if there’s a play date or something, i can shift into a creative mode pretty fast. At the same time, if nothing is coming that day I don’t beat myself up because at the very least it has probably set something up for the next time. At this point I have quite a few half-baked ideas laying around, so there’s usually something I can bang away at pretty quick. My advice to anyone trying to stay creative during a time like this is get outside as much as you can and make a list of things to do. And get off the computer/phone.
Can you tell us a little something about the upcoming Write Brothers record release celebration?
Yes we had a lot of fun putting it together. We were trying to figure out a way to do something resembling a “CD release event” for our new record Into The Sky during the pandemic and decided on a sort of concert video with live appearances of the remaining Writes (or Left Brothers). We convened at B Mac’s in the quarter back in October on an uncommonly hot and sunny day and played the songs from the record. Mike Mayeux, who is a recording engineer and does video production, captured the performance on an array of cameras and studio quality microphones, and edited it all together in a beautiful way. We were joined by André Bohren, who produced the album, on drums and Dave Pomerleau on bass. When we “live stream” the video on Saturday we will be able to cut away to Paul Sanchez, Jim McCormick and myself live, where we will comment on the songs and answer folks’ questions that they type into the youtube chat window. It’s all very modern and Covid-y…like a hybrid zoom meeting…We only wish that Spencer Bohren were still with us if only to hear what he’d have to say about it all. Tickets are available here.
Don’t forget you can watch Alex McMurray perform every Tuesday from 8-9:30 p.m. CST solo and with the Tin Men Saturdays from 2-4 p.m. CST. Both performances are available on FacebookLive.
