Allen Stone - You just gotta hear this guy!

Every once in a while an artist comes along that you simply have to tell your friends about; not because they’re cool, or because you saw a great show or because of some outrageous stunt paparazzi caught on film, but because their talent blew your mind! One such artist is Allen Stone. 

In an age when the most popular singers rely on auto-tune to stay on key, it is high time that a pitch-perfect performer like Allen Stone steps into the national spotlight with a voice that would only be diminished by digital processing. A voice, filled with pain and ecstasy, that requires you to stop, listen and feel. His style and success harkens back to the days of Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, and it is no surprise that those are two of his inspirations. What is surprising is that Stone, a 20 something white-boy out of rural Washington in 2012, is being compared to Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Prince, Sam Cooke, Bill Withers—by the biggest publications in the world. Even more surprising is that little indieAndie is even able to review this guy who received praise from MTV, CNN, NPR, The New York Times, Billboard, and reached #2 on iTunes R&B/Soul charts, because (get this) he accomplished all of this as an independent artist!!! That is almost as inspiring as his music. Well, maybe not quite. In any case, you’ve just got to hear this guy. 

Seattle's Josh Niehaus reflects on the 90s in Zanadu.

Another great and truly independent artist out of Seattle; perhaps the Olympia Brewing Company is right about the water up there. Josh Niehaus couples his gift of song writing with a polished production value uncharacteristically high for an unsigned artist. To top it off, Josh writes about his music in a way that we, at IndieAndie, couldn't have done better ourselves. So, without further ado, this week's spotlight is a repost of a spot Josh Niehaus wrote about his song Zanadu; a tribute to growing up in Seattle. 

-andie

Growing up in Seattle during the nineties was the best! Well, maybe it would’ve been cooler to be in Paris in 1789 or in Greenwhich Village in 1968. But, if you had to spend your teen years alive during the 1990's, you couldn't hope for a better place to do in it than Seattle. I can already feel the non-Seattle-ites rolling their eyes, and saying, "how can you possibly back that up?" Well, to understand what was so great about Seattle in the 90's, let's take a look at the popular culture that it emerged out of, my first decade, the 80's; a time when the counter cultural revolution was but a fading memory, and in its place stood an empowered GOP with Reagan at the helm. A time when the airwaves were saturated with synthesizers and drum machines. A time when Eddie Van Halen melted peoples faces with some of the most iconic guitar shredding ever played. In other words, it was a time when the spirit of rock and roll was being suffocated under a nation's desperate plea for order and conservatism. A time when the chaos of rock’s sound was quantized into new-wave dance fluff by primitive computers. And a time when the men and women who yielded rock’s most powerful weapon, the Axe, were all trying to be Van Halen. But luckily the cultural tides shifted as I entered into the 90's, and Seattle was at the center of this movement.

From the muddy banks of the Wishkaw to Puget Sound, the 90’s were ruled by flannel wearing, garage dwelling, skateboard riding junkies from Seattle, whose appearance left but one title; Grunge! Grunge was a genuine form of expression, free from consonant fluff, cheesy synthesizers and overly-reverberated drum kits. Free from ostentation, affectation and record label subordination. It was a tiny movement that housed a few creative geniuses who sounded nothing like the billboard bands of their times, yet astonishingly took over the charts. Of course the labels caught on, as they always do, and began mass-producing Nirvana knock-offs by the mid to late nineties. But there was a time, in my childhood, in my city, were there was a genuine artistic movement that the whole world wanted a piece of. A time when I could ride my skateboard down 'The Ave' to buy comic books at Zanadu, bump into Krist Novoselic at Cellophane Square, see Pearl Jam in concert for free, or, sadly, attend a community wide vigil for Kurt Cobain; the unofficial poet laureate of our city’s scene. 


My song Zanadu is a tribute to growing up in my city during this era. The song ends with a simple notion that 'all good things must come to an end'. Grunge is dead. And Although I am left with only memories, the music lives on as a reminder of how lucky I was to grow up within the pages of music history. 

Check out more music and videos by Josh Niehaus on Facebook or Reverbnation. 

Guns of Nevada prove that Seattle still rocks!

There has been a totally unintentional bias towards bands from the Northwest recently, especially Seattle. But don't assume that this is out of laziness. We are scouring the Earth for great independent acts as you read this, and we promise that other regions will be featured soon :) But the fact is that independent Rock and Roll is burgeoning anew out of the once great music mecca! And since 2007, the Guns of Nevada have been leaving their mark all over Seattle's vivacious soundscape. 

The Guns of Nevada are "true believers in PBR: Punk, Blues, Rock". They playfully admit to "stealing from the likes of the Ramones, AC/DC and The Man in Black", but their unique blend of punk rock, alt-country, a dash of Americana, and high-voltage energy, produces something greater than a simple combination of their influences. They have created a sound that makes you want to move and howl! Rock fans around the Northwest do yourself a favor and head out to see the Guns of Nevada live (click here for upcoming shows). The rest of ya'll, enjoy the Guns of Nevada from afar, and don't fight the stirring in your soul.

Listen to "Ain't No Story" by the Guns of Nevada. 

To top it all off, their 'record label' is listed as 

"Label?.... we don't need no steenking label". Oh yeah Andie Likey! 

This post was written by Andie's chief rock corresponded Shia.