As a modern music industry rock & roll journalist that loves reggae, punk rock, rap and industrial music, one might believe I don't like or listen to American pop. Nope. Like any 80's kid we grew up on soulful paeans, postpunk poetry and plenty o' pop music. Some tracks on those albums were bubble gun. Others were doorways into mental mindscapes you didn't want to visit for long.
While popular music gets kicked around by more extreme musical mavens who obsess over ballads that sound like people being run over by heavy machinery while chainsaws roar to life (I'm talking about you, Charlie's Family by Download...or "Chainsaw" by Skinny Puppy) I've always loved pop for being able to be depressingly poetic, where other genres are afraid to do that too much.
Don't listen to this album in the dark alone high
on sativa cannabis joints, like I do.
"Live to Tell" by Madonna is pure, unadulterated American pop. I love it. That's why you are reading about Tara Macri and her music, here. I see musical roots worth appreciating, especially because of the humanity suffering can demonstrate. (Trust me, I work in Hollywood. We know.) Every emotion has it's place in modern music, it's just that when you read the very oldest literature on Earth, it's about what "Grace" is saying.
The haunting loneliness within "Human Nature" by Michael Jackson and Madonna's "Live to Tell" goes beyond spacetime. Like "Grace," those songs are about the wisdom and understanding that you get from losing something you loved that will never return. You can't talk to anybody about it. Nobody has the time to hear it. Besides, what they went through is probably worse.
Madonna's song is about loss. She remembers something. It's not repeated. Must be horrible, though! While the lyrics can be a mystery, that's what makes "Live to Tell" relatable. We ALL have a history of agonizing something that can never be expressed, only hidden from others until the happy guests have left and you are alone in the dark, where it's always there.
"Why," by Annie Lennox, is one of those ones.
The mournful agony expressed in the song "Why" by Annie Lennox is soul breaking. It's not just about loss and regret...it's the weight of it that never goes away, even with wisdom, experience and understanding. In the music video for the song, Lennox is a total queen, expressing a dozen emotions in a fraction of a minute most film actors can't. There is a visual glorious power in the final visual act she deserves.
That's beyond American pop, or post punk synth pop. It's timeless, tragic poetry. This is why the kind of music "Grace" embodies with the lyrics it has can stand up to any ancient ballad, poem, or play, whether it's "King Lear" or the Japanese kabuki play "Shunkun" which ends with an image on the stage of psychological trauma you don't want to know firsthand. It ain't always easy, being kabuki.
"Shunkun"
Consider the ancient love ballad, "Greensleaves." We don't know who wrote it. We don't know who it's about. Listen to the song. You'll notice something. It didn't end well for the songwriter. Centuries later, that tune is still rather popular. It was probably pop for it's time! Love can be pain, and pop can be about the admixture. "Grace," by Tara Macri, is that and more. It is also timeless.
"Grace" achieves a sort of perpetual motion machine energy by being uplifting, yet grounded in loss, suffering, spiritual anomie, and more. Tara Macri channeled her own heartache to create a song that has roots in rock, gospel, soul, synth, hip hop and jazz. Her own personality spiritualizes the work, taking the words, music and visuals to celestial heights only humans who have suffered can imagine.
Not to give away too much about Tara Macri's song and music video, just listen very carefully to the chorus. The song speeds up. There are back up singers. High tonal notes like serenading angels. Except. Listen to the words. They aren't happy. It's pain. Because that's the real truth. Dorian playwrights would have loved to sing "Grace" during the height of the Hellenistic Era. Most of their popular plays featured these miserable themes, where the hero loses everything except understanding.
MEDEA...the tragic, absolute lower depths of
isolation, loss and mortal misery timelessly
expressed in words, written by Euripides centuries ago.
(Actress Emőke-Katinka Márton from
The International Festival of Ancient Greek Drama.)
The music video for Tara Macri's cool creation ends with a message of hope. Similar to the very important "We," within "We will get by," in the epic song "Touch of Grey" by The Grateful Dead, sure, life can be misery. The world can seem worse. Every day might seem darker. At least you are not alone. Look around. Nobody is always having a good time, either. "We will survive." At least Macri has friends who empathize.
By the way, I'm not saying Tara Macri's music is merely pop. Or any genre. She's complex, like any inspirational, expert symphony. Read on to enjoy this awesome interview featuring her own wise words about life, "Grace," and living with music, today!
Tara Macri, on IMDb
“Grace” is about being thankful for the people supporting us. Did something happen that helped inspire that idea? Or was it just furthering enlightenment?
"Grace" actually started as something very personal that I was doing on my own. I lost someone very close to me and writing became a cathartic way for me to work through what I was feeling. I wasn't really thinking about releasing a song or what it was going to become. I was just trying to make sense of the loss and put some of those feelings somewhere.
Tara Macri takes the stage as
"Amber" in HAIRSPRAY.
Somewhere along the way "Grace" became less about the pain of losing someone and more about being grateful that you had that person in your life at all. It became about love, connection and the people who leave a mark on us.
That's really where “Who's your Grace?” came from. We've been asking people that since the song came out, and I love hearing their stories. Your "Grace" can be someone who's still here, someone you've lost, or even a pet. It's really anyone who has changed your life and stays with you in some way.
From the music video for "Grace."
Your incredible, vast career in entertainment doing everything else too really stands out. Does this give your songwriting more depth, compared to an average musician who just sings and writes?
I don't know if I'd say it gives me more depth than another songwriter, because everybody brings their own life experience to their music. There are so many amazing songwriters out there that I look up to.
But I definitely think everything I've done as an actor and performer influences the way I write. As an actor, you're always looking for the story underneath the words that aren't being said, what the person really wants where the emotion changes.
I think I naturally do that when I'm writing songs too. And then performing on Broadway taught me so much about how music and storytelling can work together. So, for me, acting, singing, performing and songwriting don't really feel like separate things anymore. They're all different ways of telling a story and connecting with people.
Another shot from the music video, featuring Tara Macri in a
dance sequence which is a dire threat to the Bollywood industry.
Your music carries such a strong sense of positivity and inspiration. Do you think there’s a place for more uplifting music in today’s landscape, or do you feel that darker, angrier themes naturally have a stronger presence in the industry?
Yeah, absolutely. I think there's room for all of it. Music should reflect what people are actually feeling and sometimes that's anger, heartbreak, or frustration. Those songs can make you feel understood when you're going through something.
But I also I think people really need hope and joy right now. And uplifting doesn't have to mean that everything is perfect. "Grace" actually came from something painful. For me, the positivity is about what you do with that pain and finding some light on the other side of it. I've always loved music that can make you feel something and still leave you feeling a little better than you did before.
If you ever checked my email you'd notice many about musicians. So many it's beyond human. Some stand out. The musician known as Toussaint Morrison definitely did. The music video for "Dancin' in the Dark" video from the upcoming SHPSHFTR Vol. 1 full length album being released September 4th captures your imagination many different ways. What do you see? Twisted, surreal animation like that one cool sequence at the end of TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE or a heist film from the 90's? I'm happy either way.
Toussaint Morrison, a fine fellow.
Somebody else took this picture.
Please give them credit for it.
His IMDb photo is fine art, too.
Please forgive me...I just can't write about musicians, comedians or artists that my humble self doesn't respect, enjoy and like. My interviews are designed to be encouraging conversations that way. When Score Press set me up to talk to Toussaint Morrison, I got all wiggly with excitement. Wow! His music video is so avant garde! C'est formidable! That's French for, "cool." It was in the 90's during high school when I learned it in class. Now I'm out of French. That's ok, his band is not out of cool!
Toussaint Morrison with some of his band.
The description for the music video in my email describes Morrison's big influences such as Questlove, comic books and video games. Who couldn't love those references? I should have asked Morrison if he liked the comic book PLANETARY. He's the kind of gentleman who would enjoy the deep levels of a comic book about comic books like that. Cool people get the meta. They understand satire is complimentary, and how a comic book writer like Warren Ellis can be so badass they create a creation that escapes their captivity. We can do that with our lives, in our own lifetime.
Another album by Toussaint Morrison. An
astute observer will notice it says something
in French. Something about love?
In the music video (produced by the mavenous Mike Lauer) his band, the Riverdale Five, engage in what Morrison calls, "survivalism." The big moves they make reminded me of a classic, "Bangarang," by SKRILLEX. Featuring a parallel "heist with a heart of gold motif," it is just one level to the music video Morrison's mind gifted us with.
"Bangarang" and "Dancin' in the Dark" both have cartoon elements amidst surreal narratives. That's difficult to do. It takes a Kubrickian interior understanding of what makes styles tick to get them to tock with each other within the body they are the bones of. You'll love his organic vision.
The incredible Questlove. Any artist influenced by this
elite director, producer and musician is amidst geniuses.
This picture is from Stereofox Music Blog.
Enough of my prattle...behold the interview!
"Dancin' in the Dark" has a light hearted pop coating with a vast, infinite array of dark poetic influences underneath. Does this song have a specific message?
Hey Jasen! First off, thank you so much for responding to the press we've sent your way. To get to your question, the short answer is a sinister yes. "Dancin' in the Dark" is the letter in the absence of someone who has suddenly disappeared. It's not even an explanation, it's an invitation to the next step into the unknown.
I wrote this story after a sudden fork in my life appeared, and I was forced to either entertain an entirely authentic version of myself and not acknowledge the elephant in the room, or embark on a journey of danger, honestly and solitude.
"Dancin' in the Dark" is the story of no calm without chaos, and sometimes the chaos is calming (depending on your nervous system and childhood).
The art for the music video is surreal, reminding me of a living cartoon. The cinematography is also very dark, with vivid primary colors. Did you come up with those captivating visuals?
SHPSHFTR Vol. 1 is an album based on the reality of it being ok to not be ok, and that sometimes we revert back to comic books, video games, cartoons we saw as kids and can find a source of courage in them.
The whole, big, beautiful band,
the Riverdale Five.
If you know who took this picture
give them a hearty endorsement.
For me, "Dancin' in the Dark" goes back to those weird Archie comic books I'd see on the racks at comic stores, or even the perceivable pitch dark of early Grand Theft Auto and Liberty City, where there was a whimsical not-give-a-fuckness to just go for whatever it was you desired to do.
Whether it was toppling a kingpin who backstabbed you during a bank robbery, or to win the talent show to raise money for the school ( 'cause like, why was Archie and The Gang always having to raise money for their school? Was there no public funding in Riverdale?). Oh, and yes, I picked out the colors for the music video. Once I saw that green couch, I knew it had to be in the faux phot shoot for the gang.
The warped reality as cartoons becomes horror in
TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE.
There's a story to this video. People have to watch it. The story reminds me of badass heist films like POINT BLANK, the criminal epic LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS, or other gems like DEAD PRESIDENTS. Why did you decide to go that route with the music video?
Ahhhhhh, I love that you picked up on that and referenced DEAD PRESIDENTS!!! When characters, or really anyone, decides to rob a bank or commit to organized crime of stealing multiple cars, it's not an act in a vacuum.
There's a story to the desperation, and although the gang in this music video goes from needing money to heisting fly-assed Honda Civics, there's a whimsical misguided desperation there proving really anything can happen at any time in the world they're in. I decided to go that route with the video because I knew the gang wouldn't make it to the end together.
I wanted to play upon the bravado of Arch and see where Reg and J could end up in the smoke and shrapnel after the fallout. (To be continued...)
Back when 90's films you loved about
the 70's said what needed to be said,
punched up, spoke truth to power, hated
hypocrisy and were controversial yet cool.
What's the worst question a journalist interviewing a musician can ask?
I honestly don't think there's a "worst" question a journalist can ask a musician. 1. Because the lowest never seems to be the lowest. There's always some more insane rock bottom people perceivable get to. 2. "Worst" is as relative as it gets. I toured for a band for 10 years on the road and slept on wood floors in the 90 degree heat of North Carolina. My "worst" or tolerance for "worst" will be different from the next creative.
"Think of it," Dialta Downes had said, "as a kind of alternative America: a 1980 that never happened. An architecture of broken dreams."
-William Gibson, "The Gernsback Continuum"
"The future could influence the past in various ways. First, it's the difference between the microscopic and the macroscopic demission of the physical world: Retrocausality may appear in the microscopic world but cannot appear in the macroscopic world.
The microscopic and macroscopic are different worlds. Therefore, the impact of future events on past events is only possible in the microscopic world of quantum mechanics."
-Professor Yi Jiang, "Can the Future Influence the Past? A Philosophical Analysis of Retrocausality," Shanxi University, Taiyuan, China
"If you want a classier explanation, I'd say you saw a semiotic ghost...they're semiotic phantoms, bits of deep cultural imagery that have split off and taken a life of their own...you saw a different kind of ghost, that's all. That plane was part of the mass unconscious, once. You picked up on it somehow."
-William Gibson, "The Gernsback Continuum"
"In experiments like the delayed-choice quantum eraser, later 'choices' about measurements alter the correlation of data, allowing physicists the evaluate the past states of entangled particles."
-A.I. Overview, "Retrocausality and Quantum Information," Google
"Los Angeles was a bad idea, and I spent two weeks there. It was prime Downes country: too much of the Dream, there, and too many fragments of the Dream waiting to ensnare me."
-William Gibson, "The Gernsback Continuum"
Taylor Chaney Glomstad gets it done.
Producing, hosting and performing in stand up comedy shows means knowing comedians and more comedy show producers. Meeting Taylor Chaney Glomstad was an accidental honor. Already admiring his work was easy. There's a lot of comedy shows, networking events and late evening filming to do, so seeing the man in 3-D was not. Sometimes, at night, I can't even find myself.
My awesome spouse and the humble writer were at Steven Marcus Releford's A.A. comedy show, which I've already written about, and the man history knows as Taylor Chaney Glomstad introduced himself and showed me an old pseudo-digital camera that could record a few seconds of video on a 1.44 MB floppy disc.
Doing the show.
He let me serve as a doorman several of times (doing martial arts means doing security for friends/relatives/business contacts) which was more fun experience on my resume next to, "Performed Service of Summons as an Officer of The Court for Various Lawyers and Law Enforcement Agencies throughout Los Angeles including San Bernardino County, Armed Security for Private Corporations under Federal Contract (it was the 90's) and Vertical Stunt Fighter."
Seeing the show up close, watching behind the scenes, was inspiring. Glomstad has an artistic gift. He was a good boss, too, no nonsense. With so many wheels spinning behind the scenes to create the show, it takes a whole new talent to delegate without losing it. He did it with aplomb.
Somewhere in L.A.
Having grown up in the 70's and 80's loving MTV, late hour cable shows like NIGHT FLIGHT, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, strange PBS specials or TV documentaries featuring people from far away, or just far out on drugs, and the numerous weird shows that could blip into existence out of the underground, featuring a band you liked that was too cool for prime time, watching his show was as nostalgic as it was visionary. The past as the future, shaped by one artist's vision.
A modern, epic, post-retro look.
Glomstad's style is from another era, and another dimension. I love the references to David Lynch, of course, although his show goes beyond into it's own place. The show is surreal. Off-balance. In a good way. There's a live band, and, of course, he occasionally talks to God.
Interviewing people for me is easy. They are a very good, best friend. I'm not going to hurt their feelings, embarrass them or play mind games. My job is to celebrate their successes, advertise their art, and elevate their career. We are all in this as one. You've read the 1,000+ interviews I've written. Nothing special/fake.
The show!
So of course Glomstad's stylish take on the interview is fun to watch. A comedian that just performed is experiencing a rush. It's adrenaline up there, when you are watching those people who watch you. You've seen me do it. Not easy. I'd hate to do an interview after that. Geesh.
His interview style gets it done his way. There's a professional, biomechanical, visionary, transcendent, ascendant, cybernetic, artistic, vintage/retro, multidimensional quality to the "stage show" Glomstad glorifies as much as he commands. It was fun to work for somebody that bolted it home like a real boss. He's already Netflix ready.
Russell Navarrette, a.k.a. "God" and
host of ROAST BUSTERS, his own show.
A special shout out to fellow journalist and stand up comic Russell Navarrette, who is the voice o' God during Glomstad's show. There's a back and forth to their banter that's spicy enough to enjoy. It was always a drag when Johnny Carson's cohost just kissed his butt. Playing God ain't easy. Navarrette does it. Although surely surreal, the banter makes the show always good.
On the mic.
Vaporwave is easy to remember. In the 80's and 90's, technology was scarce. Television had a particular, warm glow. Polychromatic. Combine that with light bulbs and outside streetlights...now you have a suburban, somewhat technological experience. It's still not vaporwave. "Floral Shoppe" by Macintosh Plus, is.
You are in an office in Southern California, during the same era. Personal computers are creeping in. Still no email or smartphones. Or cellphones! The light from outside could be neon. It combines like Mario Bava film lighting with the PC on the desk, which displays only green. Telephones with digital displays are harsh amber, foreboding, like my first Brother word processor.
Modern retro.
Later PC's could show more color, yet it was a mote in the darkness when offices turned off at night. That's vaporwave. The barren wasteland of the normal world, quietly becoming suffused with the distant horizon of hypertechnology and cybernetic online media oversaturation.
There's hope in technology. It can free us. For a fee. There's still not a lot of it, though, and the digital phone on the desk gives us little luminescence. Walk alone down the city streets long enough, and the darkness will vanish you.
At The Comedy Store.
Once the PC turns off, there's nothing. Payphones are a block away. Streetlights go out. You have no smartphone. Limited hues of flickering dusty neon filter through the greenish windows (seriously, watch films and television shows during the 80's. They are all green). Wires hum. Machines hiss.
There's ghosts in the darkness. Any technology you'll experience is programmed. Voices from the past. The iPhone ain't around, yet. The minimalism in the essence of vaporwave music heralds the beginning of a technological age, or as an oasis from the chaos online social media gave us.
More Taylor Chaney Glomstad art.
Here is what Taylor Chaney Glomstad had to say in an interview after his last show. His next show is June 1st, 2026 at Molly Malones in Los Angeles, CA at 8:30 p.m. Don't miss it. We hope you enjoy this for now:
Where are you from, and how did you get started doing stand up comedy?
I'm from the pacific northwest, I started doing stand up in middle school, I had the itch then and did it in front of my middle school class for 6th, 7th and 8th graders. I did it a couple more times and, I don't know why, but when I went to college there was no where to do stand up comedy in a small town, it wasn't really happening, so I ended up doing broadcasting.
I moved to LA for acting and when I turned 30 I did stand up again.
Host of the show, in the know.
Where did you get the idea for your show?
The show is an amalgamation of things I like. Things that I find when I talk to people about. I always tell people the show is essentially like Arsenio Hall and early Conan O'Brian had a baby. With a hint of David Lynch. I love TWIN PEAKS. I love the surreal. The whole concept is like, my show was made up during The Pandemic, so there was nobody to interview buy myself.
Art is perspective.
I really wanted to do a talk show, though, so I would interview myself with a computer helmet on and just responded with .gif's or any comedic theme from shows and movies in the 80's and 90's. My love for all that turned into, "I want to do this live." I just interviewed comedians and disguised the show as an open mic. That's how it spawned.
The aesthetic for your show is intentionally retro. Early cable television, early MTV, early music videos, that kind of look. Why is it that you like that? Is it nostalgia or just something that you are drawn to?
I have a lot of props in the show and it's just the stuff I've collected over the years. This show basically falls under, "Vaporwave." I call it, "A vaporwave talkshow," or, "The only vaporwave talkshow," as far as my understanding goes.
I'm obsessed by the era in time I barely grew up in where the early dawn of the internet and physical media still exists, but so does the promise of tech, the future of how that would expand our lives, so the early promises of the internet, I guess. Knowing what I know now, I wish we could go back to when 1986 never ended.
I own several minidisks, but I can 't afford a minidisc player. If that answers your question.
On the set.
Your show looks like it's ready to go. I could already see this show on Roku, old skool MTV, or even Amazon or Netflix. So where do you see your show going in the future?
That's a good question. Down the road we are going to do pop up places throughout L.A., California, maybe 'Vegas. I want to take it back to my hometown. I'd also, if I could, own a small theater, I'd love to have red velvet curtains for the band playing, something more David Lych-ian.
I want a small bar that has 20-50 arcade games, it's like "Flynn's Arcade," Then you walk into a small theater and sit down, it's stadium style seating, ideally all of the seating is looking down on the stage, or you are peering into something.
On the street.
As a producer and comedy show host you have an outside perspective that is different than a comedian that just go off the bus to make it in L.A. What is your advice to any stand up comic starting out in L.A.?
I was talking to a couple of comedians the other day who have traveled or done stand up in New York, or other major cities and it's interesting that other comics don't want to host. Every other city, a lot of really good comics love to host and it helps them get comfortable right in the moment.
So that would be my advice. I love hosting. I do talk to a lot of people who don't do their own thing, don't do anything, they just show up and hope for time. One of my good friends, Steven Marcus Releford, told me to, "Do your own sh*t."
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