Folk meets coffeehouse rock: Guitarist Josh Dillard draws influence from darker days

Originally published in The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Josh Dillard had to laugh.

He stood in his Cleveland apartment one winter morning in 2003, and while brushing his teeth, he began laughing.In an hour or so, he'd be in the post office, and in the next couple of hours, he'd be delivering mail.

By the time he returned to his apartment, some 13 to 14 hours later, exhaustion would bar him from working on the one thing he had come to Cleveland to do: music.The irony of it all hadn't yet driven him entirely insane, but right then, Dillard couldn't help but laugh at his situation, a time he recalls as one of the darkest in his life.

Dillard, today, is a soft-spoken 27-year-old CSU graduate with a degree in social work. These days he serves with Timberline Church and CSU's Campus Navigators, yet finds plenty of time to practice his craft. His weapon of choice is a Gibson 45, and when combined with his feathery-bare vocals, he has produced a coffeehouse acoustic sound that has defined his first album, "The Kate EP."

While he says his sound isn't original, "The Kate EP" has fared successfully for Dillard since its release a full year ago, drawing an audience and recognition from Fort Collins' local music scene. This Saturday, he'll be appearing at Everyday Joe's for a 7:00 p.m. performance. While Dillard has enjoyed the emerging success, he says he owes much of it to those darker times in life.

"Sometimes, we don't seek the things we need when we live comfortable," Dillard said. "We need to be challenged before we realize it, before we look into ourselves."

Running down a dream
Six months prior to his giggling-toothbrush revelation, Dillard had completed an unfulfilling freshman year at CSU.

"I had completely set my mind on leaving school to pursue music," Dillard said. "We were young, na've."

With his best friend Dan Graeve alongside him, Dillard dropped out and took to Cleveland, floating on dreams of bringing together a band and signing with a label. There, he and Graeve conspired with Dillard's cousins, forming Beggars & Thieves. Mere months into existence, Dillard's group quickly fell apart.

"(Graeve) left pretty early. Probably three or four months after we moved out there, he went back to (CSU)," Dillard said.

It was the beginning of darker days for Dillard. Graeve's departure, he says, got him thinking about his own existence, bounded to Cleveland by a year-long lease, taken up with the long hours of various odd jobs which included the role of mailman.

"After three months at the post office, it just got too hard," Dillard said. "I was living by myself, not seeing anybody, working crazy hours … I decided I needed to get out."

In the summer of 2003, Dillard made his way back home to Fort Collins, were he worked for a year and a half before returning to CSU. With a degree in one hand and his Gibson in the other, Dillard said that he has turned his attention to the art of sharing.

"I try to use the small Gibson I have as a vessel to love people, to help people get into the music," Dillard said. "When I'm playing an instrument to just share an experience, I just hope someone could grab onto a little bit of wisdom from a trial I've gone through."

Dillard said he is also focused on his church and the Campus Navigators, sharing his beliefs with others. Cleveland, he says, pushed him closer to God, and he's considering a future as a missionary.

"I've gotten a lot closer to Christ," Dillard said. "I've had a greater passion to know him personally, to share him with others, and I'm continuing to see that grow within me."

And while Dillard says his beliefs have influenced his music, he refers to various life experiences as his music's foundation.

Sharing is caring
His folksy acoustic sound is influenced by the likes of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon, while his lyrics are born out of experiences of both light and dark natures. The entirety of "The Kate EP," for example, centers on a previous relationship of Dillard's.

But there's a certain responsibility in writing about oneself, he adds.

"I think a struggle for a lot of musicians is, for a lack of a better term, self-clarification," Dillard says. "It's easy for music and art to be about the artist, when it might have much more value from sharing that experience with someone that might gain from it."

Dillard is currently writing music for a future album, and hopes to start production by the end of winter. As for the future, Dillard has some sense of where he'll be heading with his music. All it took was a year in the heart of rock n' roll.

"The winds have changed since the beginning, my focus has shifted," Dillard said. "Music is no longer a priority of making a label, no longer the end-all-be-all. I've found other things in my life that mean a lot to me, and I always want those things to be a part of my life."

Music of Dillard's album "The Kate EP" can be heard at Dillard's MySpace page and is available for purchase off of iTunes.

Christina Dietz Tries On Different Fittings in New EP

Originally written for Colorado Music Buzz

The first time Christina Dietz played the role of street performer was on a “delicious” summer afternoon in Laguna Beach, where the blue ocean chortled endlessly from across the street.

It was a picture-perfect setting, but a less then comfortable situation for a 14-year-old girl who would need to loop her five-song set list — a collection of lovey-dovey tunes she had written herself — across the span of three hours. However, the attitude and atmosphere somehow clicked, and Dietz’s passerby audience put her up $200 in donations by the end of the day.

“My sister just had her first job at Cold Stone that day, and she was heartbroken when I came home with $200 from playing all day,” Dietz says, speaking from her Monument home. She adds, with a laugh: “She had made, like, $20.”

It’s a cherished memory in the present day life of the pale-skinned 18-year-old singer-songwriter. Dietz said that day inspired her to pursue music and continue performing throughout the streets of her native home, Orange County, until moving to Monument two years ago. Since moving to Colorado, Dietz has risen from the streets to the stages with a slew of performances across Colorado venues (and a few back home on the California coast during the winter.)

This July, however, could prove to be Dietz-less. The guitarist will be heading out to California to meet up with her new producers, Craig Zarkos and Anthony Catalano, and begin preproduction for her new EP, Let’s Just Kiss. Dietz and Zarkos have been close acquaintances for years, but it was only recently when Zarkos and his new friend Catalano approached Dietz about putting together a new, sweeter-sounding set of tracks. For her, approaching the new album has meant honing the fundamentals.

“I want to sharpen my voice as much as possible before I record.” Dietz said. “It takes a few hours of a capella practice every day. It’s a lot of work, but it’s good for me, it’s like my vitamins.”

It’s also meant rethinking her sound; Dietz is looking to depart from her former acoustic style and slip into something more comfortable.

“I’m really inspired by European burlesque, cabaret, theatrical music,” Dietz said. “It’s something I’ve always been curious about… that whole atmosphere, burlesque girls and their little songs and dancing.”

The title track of the album is a mystical mix of alluring backing strings, corrosively catchy vocals and a psychedelic electric guitar solo to notch. So far, it’s the only track off the new EP that Dietz has laid out, as she plans on recording the rest of the album in August. She expects Let’s Just Kiss to be available for purchase by the beginning of September and hopes that when people take a listen, they’ll come away impressed.

“I think it’s going to be different,” Dietz said. “I don’t know if that’s too much to say, but I personally haven’t heard this special sound that I’m going for. I just want to create something that’s so special that people can’t really quite tag it.”

What Is And What Never Will Be

What comes to mind when you hear this song?

Maybe it was the first time you heard it. You were six years old and you were poolside, waiting patiently for adult swim to come to an end. You were watching some paled fatass carefully waddle around the water, pleased that his hair would remain dry. Page’s riffs came without warning through the loudspeaker radio, roaring like a pissed circus tiger that had escaped its cage after being beaten one times too many.
By the second verse, you were wiser to the bullshit. You knew it, you felt it all around, engulfing your everyday existence.
And upon Bonham’s boisterous drum outro, you soared into the pool, landing an inspired cannonball that drenched the fat guy. You may have forgotten the tears he had shed and Dad’s subsequent roar, but the fuller movie magic of that moment will be yours forever.

Perhaps it was the 700th time you heard it. It came on the disc player one May evening, back in high school, when you were cruising around town in your shitty car because you had nothing better to do with your time. While you carried the rock n’ roll persona — an apathetic attitude, a 2.1 grade point average and a Ramones haircut to go along with your Ramones t-shirt, the only CD you owned was the second disc of the Led Zeppelin box set, which you stole from your friend’s house.
Right when Robert Plant had begun the “oooh-yeah” succession, the traffic light, twenty feet down the street, went yellow. In that definitive fight-or-flight moment, you gave it your all. Your miraculous vehicle sailed like a ragged Spartan, breezing past the intersection at around 50 miles per hour —probably, easily, ten miles over the speed limit. You had just enough time to watch the light blink red in your rear-view mirror. “Fucking badass,” you whispered to yourself, suddenly urged to roll into the Adult Book Ranch.

It’s too bad that neither of these scenarios are associated with this song for you or any person in modern society. If you are reading this blog, then you listen to this song and you see that fucking car.
You hear the chorus, and you can see the dust fly as Grandad’s slightly souped-up beast drifts over a dune. You hear Page’s crunching solo and you see the parked product glowing in the orange stage light, smirking with the satisfaction of a successful stunt run.
It wasn’t your fault. You just happened to see the commercial that one time, and as a result, it literally burned through your memory bank and replaced your livid memory with its product.
These things happen all the time, it’s okay. This is just the multinational corporation’s response to the rebel rock, which had raged against it since the beginning; literally, never had a bigger middle finger been flashed. You were just blinded by the light.

Fair and Balanced

Yesterday, Media Matters revealed that the scheming crew behind Fox News morning program "Fox & Friends" had digitally altered the photos of a reporter and editor from the New York Times, giving them receding hairlines, yellow teeth, and giant Jew-noses. I'd like to think Fox News is just the biggest troll in the history of media, sneaking in these little travesties just to send media watchdogs into a foaming frenzy. I mean, with something like this taking place behind the scenes, and seeing that Fox News Organization has yet to respond to the charges, just leaves me thinking they love to piss off as many people as possible.
In that sense, well, I can't help but chuckle.
It is Fox News after all, America's #1 source for news for grandmas and grandad everywhere.

Behold, JOURNALISM

Slick heart-aches & Sordid hair-cuts

BAND: Foals
SONG: Cassius
RATING: C

Let’s dissect, you and I.
This is the video for post-punk nerdlings Foals’ catchiest single, “Cassius.” It’s a video that features the gang playing around in nothingness, dancing and flag-waving and playing with pills. Pretty random, but not necessarily new.
-For that, subtract one letter: A-1=B

Then there are the colorfully gross hearts swinging ever so daintily from a string. These ugly little metaphors buzz throughout the video, and while you wish they’d go away, I think their presence really makes this video effective. Maybe I need to get out more I can’t quite say I’ve seen something so grotesquely gripping as those strung-up hearts in a while.
-For that, add half-a-letter: B+(+)=B+

Lead vocalist Yannis Philikappis has a really terrible haircut and we are subject to him and his blackened gelled curve just too often. You want to reach through your monitor and punch him in the face.
-For that, subtract one letter: B+-1=C+

Finally, the video just doesn’t really fit my idea of cool factor. I am not left with any kind of desire to watch this video again.
-For that, subtract half-a-letter: C+-(+)= C

Neat Effects

BAND: Nine Inch Nails
SONG: Only
RATING: A

I hurried online the day I heard you could download Mr. Trent Reznor's latest creation (http://theslip.nin.com) at your own price. I wasn't dissapointed to find his new album continues that unmistakable sound that appeals to millions: perfected electronic hate.
It ranges in terms of song structure, veering in and out between dark dystopic ambiance to those solid verse-chorus-verse chart-knockin' thumpers. My mind has been engineered by years of radio and ADD medication, so it shouldn't come as a suprise that I prefer the latter.

It might be, like, two albums old now, but "Only" falls into that category with the classic simple-but-cool guitar riff that ties together a grabbag of synths and the obsessively talky vox of Reznor.

It's a good song, but it's a damn genius video. The coldly quaint office setting getting stirred up by a push-pin Reznor might be serving an obvious kind of message, but I'd be damned if I wasn't aesthetically pleased with my force-fed message. By seeing those pins rise and fall, push and pull; it's cool! It looks cool. I've got to give credit here; this video cost quite a few nickels to put together, but it was well worth skipping out the Dollar Store for.

A quick jaunt to Wikipedia reveals the director to be master of the eye-catchingly uncomfortable, David Finch. Figures.

The Man Who Wasn't There

Holy shit.

I find Vladimir Putin to be a fascinating characther, a man who definitely earned Time Magazine's "Man of the Year" award, but this article seems to stamp away at the fact that he is a manipulative, power-driven leader who'll do whatever it takes to keep him and his party in office and out of the line of questioning.

This particular "behind-the-scenes" censorship has hit home for me, the budding, unjaded journalist. What good is any kind of media that doesn't constantly question authority? It appears as if this crackdown has even resulted comical criticism being barred from the airwaves, done away with the puppets and actors poking fun of administration leaders.

Here's a pro-quote from current president Dmitry Medvedev, straight from the NY Times article:

“Our television is very often criticized,” Mr. Medvedev said in April. “They say it is boring, it is pro-government, it is too oriented towards the positions of state agencies, of those in power. You know, I can say that our television — in terms of quality, in terms of the technology used — is, I believe, one of the best in the world.”

Gotta give it to the guy, the quality of Russia television would bring tears to any Kremlin-proud eye. They even remade Grace Under Fire. Lack of dissent and pumpkinhead children do not make for quality programming Mr. Medvedev.