Schuh, guitar, vocals, songsmith, and founder of The Foundry, tells me that he began FFR “to find sustainability and balance in my life with music.  What a new age answer,” he goes on, and laughs: “Haha, but it is true.”  This blend of honesty and irony is one of his leading characteristics and splattered all over his music.  “Lyrically speaking I paint strokes with dark topics and match them with upbeat pop tempos.  I like the juxtaposition,” Schuh explains, “I would like to think that we are approaching music the right way, substance over style.”  

Schuh started making music in college and it was at that advanced age that he discovered that he done struck talent.  Ironic?  Yes, indeed.  After reallocations and convergences amid the usual evolution, the current members fell into place and the FFR of today (Justin Nardy, bass, Danny Matteson, lead guitar, and Justin McCrady on drums and backing vocals) swooped into the panorama of 2005.  It fits that FFR’s magnificent productions are peppered the same vein and discuss the ironies of current issues like technology, the corrosion of society, the deterioration of an individual person, to sounds that thrum like the warm, thick textured air of a summer afternoon by the creek.  Amid the tenuous strumming, light percussion dotting the background, and the vocals that swing like a hammock, the lyrics (to completely drain that metaphor) are the jolt that your little sister gives the hammock to wake you up. 

Totally organic and swarming with nutrients, FFR will give your day a bright and earnest start and bring those “electric harmonies” of life to light, to quote a phrase of FFR’s song Transistor Kids.  Ummmm, apparently, it’s good for you.

COMING TO MOSCOW – HEAR THE FOUNDRY FIELD RECORDINGS (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=4488088) with JOHANNA KUNIN.

Friday night, 6 March 2009, 8:00 p.m., The American Legion Cabin (317 S. Howard St., 83843),     brought to you by Stereopathic Records.  Be there.

Molly is a freelance journalist and a senior at New St. Andrew’s College with a special interest in postcards and goldfish.  She writes for The Loop 21 and keeps the blog A New Amsterdam.

Johanna Kunin

Piano-lovers, music-lovers, dream-lovers, and the rest of you,  lovers, of Moscow, come be transported to Cascade rainforests and other lands far, far away by the luxuriant piano reflections of Johanna Kunin. Johanna’s piano, laced with flute, percussion, vibraphone, inspiration, and the serenity of her own voice, frequently illumines the radio-waves of Seattle. Other times, Johanna electro-funks keyboard with the band Velella Velella, or opens for her friend Karl Blau.
Johanna studied the traditional classical/jazzical piano course during her childhood in Minneapolis. It was a good diving board to launch her into her own genre.  Besides her extensive resume as composer and performer, you can be impressed by the fact that Johanna recently both designed and bound a volume of her compositions in an Etsy masterpiece for you to enjoy at home on your own personal piano. Now that her masterpiece book is finished, Johanna often stirs it up with a self-professedly “mustachio’d” 10-piece orchestra.
8:00 p.m., March 06, 2009 (that’s a Friday), Johanna performs with the Foundry Field Recordings at The American Legion Cabin (317 S. Howard Street, Moscow ID 83843).  Soar to new heights; dream new dreams.

Molly is a freelance journalist and a senior at New St. Andrew’s College with a special interest in the Cascades, postcards, and goldfish.  She is an intern at The Loop 21 and keeps the blog A New Amsterdam.

The Kids is Turner’s post-college “self-improvement project,” started in 2005 by Turner + Girl.The band evolved into Turner’s baby as time passed and feelings changed. Derek (bass) and Erin (glockenspiel, drums, bass, vocals) came along after meeting Turner at Evergreen College in Olympia, WA, the Kids’ hometown.

Sundance Kids plays hybrid country because those are their roots; they’re hybrid because they quit country/folk for pop a couple of years back. They’re twee because, well, why not? “The original idea of the project was play really cute twee-country songs, the kind that would make people chuckle and giggle and say ‘awww!’,” Turner explains. Gradually the country advanced into twee with more pop-appeal.

Like in all good westerns, Sundance Kids is travelling westward; this is their 3rd tour of the northwest and they are thrilled to be back in Moscow. “There’s a Co-Op, the country is beautiful, the Palouse is just lovely,” says Turner; he continues: “We’re really excited to play with Yarn Owl, our friends from Pullman.”

Bring your sweetheart to hear Sundance Kids and Yarn Owl at the Nuart Theatre in downtown Moscow (516 S. Main Street) on Valentine’s Day, Feb. 14, 2008, at 8:00 p.m., $5 at the door.  ~xox, molly miltenberger

Molly is a freelance journalist and a senior at New St. Andrew’s College with a special interest in music, postcards, and goldfish.  She is an intern at The Loop 21 and keeps the blog A New Amsterdam.