Michael Oberman
Michael Oberman
Author and Photographer
Michael Oberman’s photographs are on permanent display in U.S. National Parks including Steigerwald and Modoc and in museums including the Utah Museum of Natural History and the Ontario Science Centre (Toronto).
Six photos are on a five year tour of U.S. and Canadian museums in an exhibit called “Imaginate”…under the auspices of the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto (where the same six photos are on permanent display).
Before photography, he spent his life in the “music business.” Michael started as a music columnist for the Washington Star and a six year period interviewed more than 300 major recording artists…including David Bowie, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, James Brown…the list is too long for this page. He later worked for a record company and managed artists. Now he is back to his true love: Photography.
In 2019, Oberman was signed to a publishing contract for a book about his life in the music business. He spent eight months writing “Fast Forward, Play, and Rewind.” It will be out on October 15, 2020 in the U.S. and December 1 in Great Britain. (adapted from web site)
How To Find New Rock Artists You Might Love
Everybody gets in a musical rut once in a while. Are you on the hunt for something new to capture that feeling you had way back when? Just clicking through Spotify or Pandora may not be enough due to how our brains work. While allowing a streaming service to choose songs for us can sometimes work, it’s not the best way to find new jams. Read on to learn more about some tips to find new music so that you can lift your mood with some new rock artists and shake off that routine! Roaming The Arts is a music curation platform whose goal is to promote other musicians/authors/artists. Visit Roaming The Arts to discover some new rock, classical, and indie musicians today!
Try Roaming the Arts Radio – check out the 2020 Time Capsule
Finding New Rock Artists
The first thing we should get out of the way is that old music isn’t always better, you were just younger and more impressionable when it came out. Many people have the mindset that modern music is “not good,” which is not the case. The real story is that newer music just isn’t hitting you emotionally the same way that stuff you liked in your youth did. Older brains are quite resistant to forming new connections to music, and tend to prefer music from our formative years to the exclusion of pretty much everything else. When you look for new music, it’s important to clear your head and eliminate as many distractions as possible. There’s no wrong answer on how to find new music; your goal should be just to consume as much new media as you can, while enjoying the tunes. Kick back with your favorite drink in a comfortable pad, and let the tunes take you back to your happy place. Some useful implements include music streaming service and some way to enjoy the streaming service such as good speakers or headphones. Of course, while you’re going through this music discovery process, make sure to be mindful of your surroundings and those who live in you.
Our world of 2020 is offering very limited live performances, so check out BandsInTown for a daily guide to nationally known artists who are streaming a performance.
Tips To Find New Music
When finding new music, make sure to check out our reviews of each streaming service in order to figure out how to find new music with each. For many streaming apps there’s a “radio” setting, and sometimes you may want to continually make new radio stations when you find another song you enjoy in that same auto-generated playlist. Keep repeating this process until the radio station you make begins to match your mood. Some other tips to enjoy are:
- Change how you listen, such as using Amazon Music or Tidal rather than Spotify
- Watch your favorite movies and add their soundtracks to your library
- Check out the background tracks to your favorite YouTube videos
- Find artists that work with your favorite bands
Of course, these suggestions can only point you to where to look for- putting yourself in a situation that lets you form a fond memory or connection to the cues that would bring back a positive emotional response.
Contact Us Today
Are you looking for ways to fall in love with some new rock and indie artists? Roaming The Arts is a place for you to find new music anywhere in the US. Email Roaming The Arts to find out more today!
Allen Toussaint
in memorium
Artist Biography by Steve Huey
Producer, songwriter, arranger, session pianist, solo artist — Allen Toussaint wore all these hats over the course of his lengthy and prolific career, and his behind-the-scenes work alone would have been enough to make him a legend of New Orleans R&B. Thanks to his work with numerous other artists, Toussaintbore an enormous amount of responsibility for the sound of R&B in the Crescent City from the ’60s on into the ’70s. His productions kept with the times, moving from rollicking, earthy soul in the ’60s to gritty, rambunctious funk in the ’70s. As a composer, Toussaint proved himself a consistent hitmaker, penning more than a few gems that have since become R&B standards and been covered by countless artists working in many different styles. In keeping with that across-the-board appeal, Toussaint worked in some supporting capacity for a wide variety of rock and blues legends, particularly from the ’70s on. On top of all that, Toussaint waxed his own records from time to time, enjoying a creative peak in the ’70s with several albums that highlighted his laid-back vocals and elegantly funky piano work. Even if he wasn’t always the most visible figure, Toussaint‘s contributions to New Orleans music — and to rock & roll in general — were such that he earned induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.
Martin Cruz Smith
Martin Cruz Smith
Martin Cruz Smith is an American mystery novelist. He is best known for his eight-novel series on Russian investigator Arkady Renko, who was first introduced in 1981 with Gorky Park. Wikipedia
Joe R. Lansdale
Hap and Leonard series and Stand-alones.
Locations in Texas
Champion Mojo Storyteller Joe R. Lansdale has written novels and stories in many genres, including Western, horror, science fiction, mystery, and suspense. As of 2018, he has written 45 novels and published 30 short-story collections along with many chapbooks and comic-book adaptations. He has been inducted into The Texas Literary Hall of Fame, and several of his novels have been adapted to film.
His Hap and Leonard series of ten novels, four novellas, and three short-story collections feature two friends, Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, who live in the fictional town of Laborde, in East Texas, and find themselves solving a variety of often unpleasant crimes. The characters themselves are an unlikely pairing; Hap is a white, working-class laborer in his mid-forties who once protested against the war in Vietnam and spent time in federal prison rather than be drafted; Leonard is a gay, black Vietnam vet. Both of them are accomplished fighters, and the stories (told from Hap’s narrative point of view) feature a great deal of violence, profanity, and sex. Lansdale paints a picture of East Texas which is essentially “good” but blighted by racism, ignorance, urban and rural deprivation, and government corruption. Some of the subject matter is extremely dark, and includes scenes of brutal violence. These novels are also characterized by sharp humor and “wisecracking” dialogue. These books have been adapted into a TV series for the SundanceTV channel and a series of graphic novels began publication in 2017. Season 2 of the television series is based on the second Hap and Leonard novel, Mucho Mojo, and season 3, which premiered on 3/7/18, is based on the third novel, The Two-Bear Mambo. Much of Lansdale’s work has been issued and re-issued as limited editions by Subterranean Press and as trade paperbacks by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Publications. His current new-release publisher is Mulholland Books. Lansdale also publishes with Dark Regions Press and Tachyon Publications, and with his daughter Kasey he has started a new publishing company called Pandi Press to control the re-issue and publishing of his older works.
NPR Tiny Desk Concerts
Tiny Desk Concerts
Among the best online options to watch your favorite artists in performance.
An eclectic collection of 3 song sets recorded in the offices of NPR in Washington, D.C. by a wide assortment of well known and soon to be known musical artists. Check out the video of Tower of Power in the office at NPR.
Follow the YouTube channel.
