My new album is called Circus Heart, named after a song that almost didn't make it onto the record. At my first meeting with Matt Sever, the producer, he suggested adding a Brazilian baio groove to the guitar/percussion...all of a sudden I was in love! Once I loved the song again, it seemed natural to make it the title track of the album; of all the songs I've written, it contains the purest statement of how I feel about myself relative to the world: "All the women I'm afraid of are counting greys / Like seconds 'til the New Year of their glory days / Carefully concealing their busted parts / Trying to keep their eyes off of my circus heart." To me, that means that I do not want to spend my entire adult life feeling old and apologizing for the space I take up.
Moving forward with this song, and this title, gave me inspiration for the rest of the album. I felt enabled to be fearless, to take risks that I would have been nervous about in the past. I traded in acoustic instruments for crunchy electric ones, and experimented with drum loops and synthesizers. I pushed my voice to new places, working to communicate as honestly as possible. I chose to cover Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation" because I love the message; I love the fact that she basically says 'I couldn't care less what you think of me,' over and over and over again. I think this should be required listening for little girls! For me, having just taken a surprising detour from touring folk singer into the land of national network television singing competition and back again, singing "Bad Reputation" was kind of cathartic.
Many of these tunes address the time I've spent on the road in the past several years, and a few of them chronicle the stories of people I have met in my travels. This is an intimate collection of songs. They are at times jubilant, at times buoyant, at times plaintive. These are the most honest songs I have ever written. They are me, giggles, warts and all.
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Rebecca Loebe is an award-winning indie-folk singer from Atlanta, GA. Since quitting her job as a full-time recording studio engineer in 2006, she has performed 100+ shows per year at colleges, coffeehouses and theaters in over 30 states of the US and in Europe. In the spring of 2011, her performance on the US premiere of The Voice impressed celebrity coaches Christina Aguilera and Adam Levine, prompting them both to ask her to work with them.
Circus Heart was released on September 18th, 2012. Find out more about it at rebeccaloebe.com
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Tom Tom Club Release First New Music in More Than 12 Years
By Erik Philbrook, Editor-in-Chief, Playback
Tom Tom Club. Photo by Jessica Glick.
Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth, founding members of Talking Heads, formed Tom Tom Club more than 30 years ago to pursue their love of funky pop musical bliss. On September 11th, they followed up such Tom Tom Club hits as "Genius of Love" and "Wordy Rappinghood" with a brand new EP, Downtown Rockers.
Rolling Stone has debuted the new music video to the album's title track, "Downtown Rockers," which pays tribute to the many bands that rocked the downtown music scene in New York City in the '70s.
The new album comes on the heels of a major US and European tour. Chris Frantz explains: "We recorded the basic tracks soon after Tom Tom Club toured with the Psychedelic Furs in October of 2011 at our home studio. These tracks were built from improvised jam sessions with Bruce Martin on keyboards and Pablo Martin on guitar, Tina Weymouth on bass and me on drums. This is the same way we began Remain in Light with Talking Heads. This time our only instruction to the other players was to keep the parts simple with lots of space like Booker T. and the MGs would do."
The new EP features six new songs and is now available on special-edition 180-gram vinyl as well as on iTunes and Amazon. Tom Tom Club will also kick off their upcoming tour at the Brooklyn Bowl on November 1st.
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Join the Tom Tom Club at www.tomtomclub.net.