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Indie Artist Spotlight: Mike Falzone
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The main reason why I am an avid supporter of independent music is because of artists like Mike Falz...The main reason why I am an avid supporter of independent music is because of artists like Mike Falzone. He’s the complete package; it is hard to imagine the reasons why such a talented musician is still unsigned. Harvesting critical musical elements into song writing, performing and fan appreciation and connection, Falzone packs a tight clean punch while staying true to himself. Always capable of standing out with his unmatched humor, Falzone quickly establishes a personal bond with audiences on all mediums with his clever choice of words. Recognizing the power of technology, Falzone also offers a free downloadable album of previously unreleased songs for fans to enjoy.
As a first time listener of Falzone, it’s hard to deny that you’ve stumbled upon something real and of substance. With every resonation and toe tapping vibe, you get the addiction to his message and style, as an after shock of something great. With the instinctive ability to integrate a vintage sound into a new wave style of song writing, I can’t help but hear myself in the stories of growing up and going unnoticed in the lines of a brilliant songwriter.
To add to the many faces of Falzone, his talents extend to amateur stand up comedy as well. Recently releasing his first live comedy album “Stupid Questions,” Falzone is making the most out of doing what he loves. Along with comedy and music, Falzone still manages to keep fans updated and entertained by also returning home to upload a new YouTube video as often as he can.
Currently playing nonstop shows and hitting audience’s one set list at a time, Falzone, along with his band, The Peppermint Trick, are hitting the road for an upcoming spring tour of New England.
As a guy who thrives on witty jokes and sarcasm, I know one person who won’t be complaining about how many times I use the name “Falzone” in this week’s edition of the spotlight, yeah that’s 10 times so far Falzone. But if there’s one artist whom I truly think deserves to be among the rankings of the Billboard’s Top 40, it is most definitely the man who defines the drive of an independent musician, Mike Falzone.
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Mike Falzone & the Peppermint Trick, Do it for the Story (album Review
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There are a handful of local bands that fit into a certain category: They’ve been doing what they do...There are a handful of local bands that fit into a certain category: They’ve been doing what they do for some time, and every so often they put out a new release that ups the ante, improving upon what they’ve already accomplished, gradually upgrading themselves from local acts into professionals. Mike Falzone and his The Peppermint Trick’s latest EP exemplifies this phenomena. His bouncy, groove-based rock songs are more polished than ever, the arrangements are more interesting and even the cover art is cooler. He’s opened for Third Eye Blind, Teddy Geiger, Matt Nathanson and State Radio, among others, and the crowds of those bands probably took well to Falzone’s college-rock-friendly sound, which just keeps getting better. —Mike Sembos
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How do you define honesty?
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So how do you define honesty? Mike Falzone’s new CD tackles just that question. Connecticut’s very o...So how do you define honesty? Mike Falzone’s new CD tackles just that question. Connecticut’s very own singer-songwriter’s recent release Fun With Honesty is a great listening experience that takes you from a musing about the music industry (Famous), to observations about love (Fenway), to ominous warnings of dark days ahead (Trouble) in only 6 songs. Everything about this album is witty right down to the cover art by Sean Fournier, which serves as a tribute to the rise and fall that musicians often take from humble beginnings to superstardom.
The CD starts with Famous. Famous is a track so catchy you’ll be singing along by the 2nd or 3rd listen. In the current music scene it seems every artist must sell themselves, or fit into a mold. Falzone tells the tale of an artist seeking the spotlight and willing to change himself to fit in at all costs. Equal parts biting and witty he takes on image tactics and stereotypes. He then declares “We could fake the world out”; letting us in on a sort of inside joke. It is Falzone’s inability to compromise himself that will make him a standout in the music industry. Next we roll into Fenway (No End In Sight) with its groovy rhythmic backdrop we see the little things about relationships that make us fall in love.
The next track Unfortunate Science is the height of the CD for me, telling the painful truth that sometimes we settle for Mr/Ms. Right Now instead of Mr./Ms. Right. In a world where a lot of people seem to lonely Falzone makes us see love, sex, and dating from many points of view. While the refrain plays out the scenario, “And what I see time after time is they settle for whatever they find and leave the good ones far behind.” It makes us realize the absurdity of the choices we make regarding our love lives.
The track Trouble is a dark song dealing with things that everyone goes through. The nerve-racking experiences of failed relationships and financial distress are things that weigh heavily on all our minds, things that keep us awake at night. Falzone hits the nerve with this track. Meanwhile, All You Gotta Do plays on the uncertainty of relationships and the truthfulness that we all long for in said relationships. Fun With Honesty is then capped off with Unsuccessful Supervillian featuring CT-based band The Smyrk. With lyrics such as “Its really not about how many battles you’ve won” I have to beg the question: Is this reflective of struggles artists may go through? I don’t know. But with a great title, and passionate vocals, Falzone gives us the brutally honest truth: You’re not gonna win ‘em all.
Fun with Honesty is just that: Honest. The songs on this CD say the things we are thinking but are to afraid to vocalize. Falzone is wise and talented beyond his years. Even though I feel his music reaches out to people of all ages he is a twentysomething, writing about things that twentysomethings go though, the way only a twentysomething could. He reaches out to the people of his generation playing on our different backgrounds and experiences with life, love, work, ambition, and the way we interact with each other. The songs on this CD could be described as six very different dates, mainly because the songs are each so unique and different from each other. Some make us laugh, some make us think, but each leave an impression. You get inside of them and listen to their messages and the messages you hear may have you asking: How honest am I being with myself? Why do I make the choices I make?
To say that Fun With Honesty is Mike Falzone’s best work to date: Yes. To say this is the highest of his heights would, in my opinion, be incorrect. I believe this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this 23 year old singer/songwriter. If you are looking for a straight-out opinion here it is: Pick up this CD and enjoy it because it is the real deal. Sprung straight from the heart and mind of Mike Falzone you are getting pure talent that is not contrived or over processed. So here is an honest question for my readers who are looking for a pure, real sound: If you aren’t listening to Mike Falzone who are you listening to?
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Borders helps local musician with new CD
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The days of a young musician signing with a record label and having an album released nationally are...The days of a young musician signing with a record label and having an album released nationally are just about history, so it has become incumbent upon artists to find other methods of having their music reach listeners.
Local singer-songwriter Mike Falzone has stumbled upon a "novel" way to get his new album, Fun with Honesty, exposed to a wider audience: He has hooked up with the Borders Books & Music chain.
Falzone, a Stamford native who spent most of his 23 years living in Stratford, played some shows at Borders outlets and formed a connection with one of the chain's district managers, Craig Kennedy.
Basically, Falzone said in a phone interview Monday afternoon, "I bugged the hell out of him.
"I'd been playing in-store shows
for him for a while, just like little events here and there," Falzone said. "Eventually, I said to him, 'I'm working on this thing that I'm really proud of and I want to make a big push for it. It's good enough to be in the stores, but I don't have a label. Would you want to take a chance and help me out a little and put it in your stores?'
"He said, 'No problem,' and set me up with a tour so I can do some performing and signings. So far, it's been working out really well. We're at the very beginning stages of getting it out there, but it's great exposure."
Though his upcoming touring schedule is dotted with Borders appearances in Connecticut and Rhode Island — including one in Farmington Sunday at 2 p.m. — he has several
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other dates coming up in the region. Falzone will be part of a Mardi Gras party at the Acoustic Caf (335-3655) in Bridgeport Saturday night at 7, at Chef's Table (255-1779) in Fairfield Tuesday night at 6 and he'll have a proper CD-release party Wednesday night at 7 at The Space (288-6400) in Hamden.
Falzone is working hard to promote Fun with Honesty as, even though it's his third release, he feels this one has finally captured the sound he's been seeking.
"This is the first time I've ever been in a studio with full production," he said. "The first two CDs were my music with hip-hop machine beats behind them because it was all I could really afford to do.
"But this time, I spent money and went in to a real studio with real musicians and got a nice big sound. Everything that I wanted to do for the past couple of years, I got to do. Everything's real. It's not like computer beats. It's real people putting their own feel on the music."
To help flesh out his sound, Falzone turned to Darian Cunning, one of the most talented musicians on the local music scene. Cunning produced Fun with Honesty at the studio at the Black Rock Art Center.
"Ever since I was in high school, I would drive to the Acoustic Caf and watch Darian in open mics and stuff," Falzone said. "He was one of my biggest inspirations. I would see him doing crazy stuff just with a couple of pedals and an acoustic guitar and I was like, 'If I work at it, there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to do the same things.' "I used to travel far and wide to watch him play. And I've been seeing him for years and he still just blows me away every time I see him play."
Falzone's love of music started at a young age, when he would sit and listen to records with his father. He also had an uncle that played in a Beatles cover band, so, as Falzone said, "I was always around it, so I always wanted to do it."
"I learned how to play in third grade and I think I played my first show in eighth grade," he added. "I've been playing shows ever since."
He released his first album, Between the Airport and Lordship, when he was a junior at Fairfield University. "I thought my songs were good enough to put up for sale. Looking back, they weren't," he said with a laugh.
His second record, Fairview, came out "about a year after that" and it was, he said, "a little better, not great."
Still, having records out helped him secure slots on local showcases, which helped him discover other artists on the circuit.
"I listen to mostly local music," Falzone said. "If you ask me my favorite bands, I'd say Christina Abbott, The Smyrk, Darian Cunning. "So whenever I'm offered an opening spot, I jump at it because, not only do I get to play before a new audience that's come to see somebody else, but I also probably will get another favorite band by the end of the night."
Falzone also was lucky enough to snag an opening assignment at a concert by Third Eye Blind at the Webster Theater in Hartford. It was a big step from local clubs to a venue packed with about 1,400 people.
"It was a ridiculous amount of people," Falzone recalled. "The place was like completely sold out, wall-to-wall. It was just one of those great opportunities that comes up every once in a while."
Even though the crowd was much larger than any he's played before or since, Falzone claims he wasn't at all nervous.
"Not really," he said. "I used to get really nervous, but now if I feel any tension it's because I just want to run up there and play. I can't wait to go up there and I can't wait to give it all I've got."
He's going to have to keep giving it all he's got if he wants to attain his goals as a musician. Falzone is realistic and harbors no pie-in-the-sky dreams of becoming a megastar.
"I don't want to be on 'MTV Cribs' or anything like that. I just want to be comfortable and play music," he said. "I want music to pay my rent instead of a regular job. "It sounds clich, but it's been what I've wanted to do ever since I was little. It's been my goal. Like some kids want to be an astronaut or a fireman, I wanted to be a musician.
"There's a lot of the country that I haven't seen and I would love to see the country because my music takes me there. I would love to see other countries because my music takes me there."
For more information on Mike Falzone or for a list of tour dates, visit www.mikefalzone.com or www.myspace/mikefalzone.
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Known for...
...known for his funk-based, indie/soul songs filled with gleeful lyrics...
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Connecticut Yankees court the Gypsy
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The explosion of the computer generation constantly amazes me. When I turned 16, my mother gave me a...The explosion of the computer generation constantly amazes me. When I turned 16, my mother gave me a beautiful, bulky cellular phone, which I was to keep turned off, in my glove compartment, and use only in case of automotive emergency. Now, barely 10 years later, I can hardly remember what it was like to not have a phone always on hand—not simply to make calls, but to check my e-mail, cruise the Internet, take pictures and
download music.
In the last five years alone, MySpace and YouTube have grown from novelty Web sites to multi-million dollar companies, feeding our ravenous need for instant gratification and perpetuating our short attention spans. While I do believe that this technological evolution has many drawbacks, the absolutely fantastic part—the part that I love—is what it has done for the independent music scene. Artists that once may have never had a chance to reach a larger audience now have the ability to build a fanbase worldwide before they even record their first album. No one knows this better than Mike Falzone and Sean Fournier, acoustic singer-songwriters from Connecticut, who can attribute much of their recent success to the wonders of the World Wide Web.
These two solo artists became acquainted through MySpace and became friends when they met at an open-mic night shortly thereafter. With mutual admiration, they decided not to team up and become another Simon and Garfunkel, but to tour together and showcase their complementary talents. Fournier has reached over 15,000 fans on MySpace, and Falzone developed a local following at Fairfield University, winning Best On-Campus Band with his original group, Jonnieproud, and again as a solo artist. On a whim, the two decided to film some of their escapades and release them on YouTube.
“I was a film student in college, so we thought it be funny to make some movies to promote us a bit and give our friends a laugh,” Falzone explains. “But then we started getting feedback from fans who wanted to know what we were up to and when the next episode was coming out.”
The documentary Makin’ It became so popular, in fact, that the next installment will be a full-length account of their summer tour.
But any Joe Schmo can put music and movies out on the Internet; it doesn’t necessarily mean he will become a smash hit. There has to be talent to back it up, and these guys have plenty of it. Falzone began performing when he was 8 years old, a tear-jerking cover of Hootie and the Blowfish’s “Let Her Cry” for a third-grade show-and-tell. “My teacher was blown away,” he recalls, “but I was thinking how easy it was—it only has three chords!”
Thankfully his repertoire has expanded significantly since then, where he has embraced his own sound: frenetic strumming and lyrics that spill out so quickly I can only compare him to Jason Mraz (with a better voice). Fournier waited a bit longer to pick up a guitar, teaching himself at 17, and in those seven years, he has developed into a smooth vocalist with a mellower style.
What truly puts the two 20-somethings ahead of the pack, and what ultimately connects them to their audience, is their impressive songwriting that displays a maturity rarely achieved so young.
“The best songs come the quickest for me,” Falzone says. “If you try to start a song and then come back to it a week later, you are not going to be as in the moment as you were when you started.” He describes the songwriting process as “therapeutic,” a way to examine his own experiences, as well as those of people closest to him. Fournier similarly notes on his Web site (www.sean-fournier.com) that he “hopes the listener can relate to his music and put words to a feeling that they couldn’t previously put their finger on.”
The dynamic duo of Mike Falzone and Sean Fournier will make their first-ever appearance in Wilmington this week as part of their East Coast tour. Like the city’s vibe, they are expecting a laid-back, communal experience. “We don’t know anybody down there,” Falzone jokes, “so pretty much anyone who comes to the show will be a friend to us!”
Come spark up a hookah, catch some great acoustic music, and hang with the boys Wednesday, August 15th, 9pm, at the Juggling Gypsy.
