Zach Kadro

March 10, 2010

Zach Kadro has a calming personality. He chooses his words carefully and asks thoughtful questions. His music is much the same.

Kadro grew up in metro Detroit. Unlike many of the Michigan transplants you’ll meet across the country, he has embraced the region that nurtured him during his earlier years and has found beauty in an area that many people find dreadful. He’s no homebody though. Zach has lived in India, Jamaica, Brazil and spent time in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. One could assume his travels have given him the gift of perspective.

Kadro recently released a music video for “Look For Better Ways,” the first single on his debut album Changes in Time. See full Story - backfortypresents.com - Back Forty Presents

“Spread some love around,” advises Zach Kadro as a positive preface to a psychedelic jam on his latest record Changes in Time. Having lived in enough countries to provide him with a wider scope on the world (such as India, Jamaica and Brazil, as well as spending some quality time in Europe and the Middle East), this formidable musician has accomplished his fair share of love spreading. It seems appropriate that he would be the one to encourage you to do the same.

When I listened to Changes in Time I was conflicted by a contrast that led me in a circle back to an overall appreciation of the record. You can hear the character and charisma of old amazing rock, garage, surf and psychedelia, however, the recording quality is so streamlined that it leaves little to the imagination. The title track of the record sounds like a late-1960s Beatles homage recorded in Santana's studio in 2000, but the strange thing is that I like it. One of my favorite singer-songwriters, Geoff Farina, once sang: "We only give the sweetest ?looks / And we only steal from the ?greatest books."

Zach Kadro is a good looking, charismatic dude with a handsome innocence and inviting smile. He also draws influence from a mountain of arguably perfect music that he tenaciously makes his own.

Kadro is a University of Michigan graduate, a man of the world, a man of love, a man of music and a man of the people. You can listen to four new songs for free and purchase his new record for $12 at ZachKadro.com. He is also kind. Check this out: $2 from each sale will be donated to Forgotten Harvest, the non-profit group whose main goal is to "relieve hunger in the Detroit metropolitan community by rescuing prepared and perishable food and donating it to emergency food providers.”

You can also check him out with backing band the Outliers throughout metro-Detroit. Or you can catch his solo acoustic performance on January 9 at Peabody’s in Birmingham. (Some of us from Real Detroit will be there. We've been fans of this songwriter since his teen years and have enjoyed watching his musicianship evolve.)

Kadro is currently shooting a music video for the song “Look for Better Ways,” which serves as an anthem for the nostalgic apologist. “What’s done is done / Can’t be undone / You felt so strong / What went so wrong / Look for better ways / If you’re stuck in yesterday today.” Each verse is separated by a screeching "Free Bird"-ian melody that coaxes you back to the lyric break like a siren with a bottle of whiskey. (Look at screenshots of the shoot, on location in and around Detroit on his website.)

This music is a shot in the arm for those of us that love the simplistic beauty of melody with an edge and a moral. This multi-instrumentalist and producer has a gift for making you chill out and feel, or get up and do, based on your current mood. Our changes in mood make us eclectic as a people, but our opinions of said moods are always our own. Take a chance on my man Zach, he has the goods to get you through the doldrums. — Ryan Clancy - The Real Detroit Weekly

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