The Sam Chase & The Untraditional

The day you stop growing is the day you start dying. This notion can produce a hairpin change of course for an artist; after all, the audience can sniff out the tired and the stale in an instant. For The Sam Chase & The Untraditional- and the reason we keep having them back- change and growth are the sustenance that keeps them dazzling crowds with every performance. They are constantly writing, tinkering, investigating how to improve what’s been established and push boundaries with that which is freshly hatched. The band puts in this work as a matter of being. They’re not chasing industry models or leveraging success, they approach their craft with a respect for the time they’ve dedicated and the contributions of their co-conspirators. If they appear to be having a ball in the process, it’s because the process itself is the part of the elixir. For a group of people who could do anything with anyone, they’ve chosen each other to share their living, exploring, rejoicing and grieving, and they’ve chosen to include us as well in their jubilant circus. As long as there remain dips and dives and hidden gems along their path, they will continue to walk it, and all of us who encompass For the Folks will continue to walk alongside them. This journey is a treat, the inherent change necessary, and the fact that we get to transform together is why people started singing songs in the first place. Music is calling, and like Muir to the mountains, we all must go.

Mothra

The music that most inspires us is that which best reflects life. We want to hear what we cherish, to feel the connection that sometimes resides only in our minds, to finally be a part of something. Mothra captures this ultimate proximity with a sound that not only seeps inside us but seems to root up from a depth we may not have known was there. The music is close in the manner of adjoining temples, where another’s thoughts start to resonate as one’s own. The varied instrumentation swaddles the weaving harmonies, remaining close to the earth as the sound bestows a visual effect onto the listener. The strange beauty is not unfamiliar. It is a door that has always been there, obscured in a tangle of moss and vines, a door that is finally and majestically cracked open into a landscape full of yearning and fascination. The music enables a letting go and the crumbling of barriers that stake out the distance currently hobbling our world. In 1862, Emily Dickinson wrote “The Heart wants what it wants, or else it does not care,” and we are still chasing that notion. Mothra’s music ignites creation as well as reflection, both the stone drop and the ripple, and it implores to us to listen to and embrace that which has always beckoned us.