VOLUME 7 | ISSUE 1 |
Gayle Skidmore swing and jazz pop for years and have wanted to work on something like this but didn’t really know where to start,” she said. “I was really inspired working with Brandon O’Connell and felt like he really made it happen. I loved getting to stretch myself by working in a different genre and mood. It was refreshing to focus on the message of the song, which is not how I usually write.” The single is just out, but Musician Gayle Skidmore may have traded San Diego for her current home, Denmark, The Netherlands, but longtime fans will find her latest single, “Viva La Vita,” to have the same adventurous spirit of her best work. A multiple San Diego Music Award winner, including Best Singer-Songwriter (2013), Best Pop Album (Sleeping Bear / 2014) and Best Pop Artist (2015), since relocating she’s added De Best Singer-Songwriter van het Groene Hart (2017) to her trophy shelf. “Viva La Vita” finds Skidmore expanding her musical palette. “I’ve been really into electro
Skidmore is already looking ahead. “I am working on three new albums for this year,” she said. “I released a song a week for
two years on Patreon, and have now grouped those into albums and am working on production.” The prolific Skidmore has penned thousands of songs in her career. “I think I have eight albums in total, but I’m aiming just for three this year,” she said good naturedly. The first will be an indie folk pop album, Gills & Wings. “I’m producing and engineering that release myself.” It’s the second release where she’s helmed all the production. “I released “The Naughty List” before Christmas, which was my first release done entirely by just me in my studio, The Liger Loft, and mixed and mastered by my husband Rob Teeuwen.” Ever restless, Gills & Wings follow up takes Skidmore’s music in a completely different direction. “After Gills & Wings is released, I will be focusing on my solo piano album,” she said. “I am composing several pieces around a particular historical event in the 1800s that is tied to one of my relatives. Did I get very deep into my family history in lockdown? Yes, yes I did.” Skidmore hopes to hit the road in support of her new
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recordings, but no firm plans have been made yet. “It’s been such an uncertain year and trying to plan a tour has been difficult with everything fluctuating,” she commented. “But I am working on a late spring tour, knock on wood.” www.gayleskidmore.com
Mystery Machine / She’s Not Mine
San Diego has a long history of great ‘blink and you’ll miss them’ bands, short lived, but memorable. That said, none have left a mark quite like The Mystery Machine, a sixties inspired combo, that managed three gigs, and one recorded song a bit later, back in the summer of 1983. The seeds planted then still reverberate through the music community today, with the young players in the band now respected scene veterans: Ray Brandes (vocals), Carl Rusk (guitar), Mark Zadarnowski (bass), Bill Calhoun (keyboards) and David Klowden (drums). Now nearly forty years since The Mystery Machine roamed the Southland (if briefly) an EP has been issued by Spain’s Dralasite Records. Available in black, green or orange vinyl, with artwork by acclaimed artist Darren Grealish, the vintage track – “She’s Not Mine” penned by Rusk LOCAL NEWS | LocalUmbrellaNews.com
is joined by two 2012 recordings by the band. The latter lineup replaces keyboardist Calhoun with David Fleminger. “The Mystery Machine The Mystery Machine was started by Carl Rusk and myself in the summer of 1983,” explained Brandes. “We had previously been playing British beat music in the Hedgehogs but were listening to a lot of folk rock and sixties punk that summer, in particular the Byrds, Love, the Leaves—the sound of Los Angeles, 1965.” “She’s Not Mine” originally appeared on the 1984 Voxx Records compilation album, Battle of the Garages Volume III. Fans of the song have always wondered if there might be more music in the vault. “Over the years we’ve had a few requests to release some more Mystery Machine material,” Brandes confirmed. “In 1983 we had recorded four or five songs with Steve Epineter at Studio 517 on a two-track machine, but that tape had long been lost. In 2012, Carl was in town, and we were kicking around the idea of recording a few tracks to add to “She’s Not Mine.” The thought was that since we couldn’t find the old tape, we’d release an EP of old and new material.” The songs were recorded at David Fleminger’s Kearny Mesa rehearsal space. “It was a pretty spontaneous plan, and unfortunately the logistics of flying Bill out here to record on short notice were too much to overcome, so we just had Dave sit in on one of the songs. Carl and I each brought a few ideas to the studio. I had recently finished a demo of “Wood and Smoke” and I thought it might make a good Mystery Machine song. We recorded that, as well as a cover of The Free-for-All’s “Show Me the Way.” Fans will be sad to hear that there were almost more recordings. “There were a few more songs we were rehearsing, among them the Golden Earring’s “Dream” and the Poor’s “She’s Got the Time” but /LocalUmbrellaMedia
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they never made it onto tape,” Brandes recalled. Fast forward nearly a decade and it was a fan from Spain who finally got the ball rolling on this release. “A few years later I was contacted by Manuel Ortiz, a Mystery Machine and Tell-Tale Hearts fan who was starting a label, Dralasite Records,” Brandes said. “He wanted to release “She’s Not Mine” and anything else we had. That was the impetus to remaster the song and complete the mixing and mastering of the other two.” This release has been a long time coming but Brandes considers it to have been worth the wait. “I’m quite proud of the EP—it sounds fantastic, and is a very high quality package with a couple of color postcards, a beautiful cover design by Darren Grealish, and liner notes by Mike Stax.” With the players all still active, might there be further music from the Mystery Machine in the future? “There are no current plans to record anything else or to perform live,” Brandes said good naturedly. “But one never knows, does one?”
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