IndieShark Music News, Reviews & Interviews
Mark Newman and his band’s new single is the simply titled Ghosts, calling to mind a mix of country legends like Merle Haggard and a folk, honky-tonk Dwight Yoakam with a slightly poppier sound. The song has this kind of evanescent quality to it, the ambience and lyricism immediately conjuring the image of your favorite roadtrip across middle America. For me, there would be no better venue for blasting it than my friend’s convertible racing down a twilight-hued road in St. George, Utah.
The song has that kind of hardscrabble, evocative quality, coupled with Newman’s slightly caustic croons. Everything about the track feels organic and stems from the genuine talent of the players, devoid of cheap trickery or electronic gimmicks present in pretty much every Top 40s hit these days. Couple that with the fact Newman may not be trying to out-and-out reinvent the genre, but at the same time has his own, definable niche within it, and it’s safe to call me a fan.
There’s a lack of pretension and a kind of matter-of-fact quality to Newman’s presentation, not just musically but in terms of overall aesthetic as an independent music performer. He strips away all of the excess and over-polishings of a modern day musical act, opting instead for the focus solely to be on the music in and of itself. It’s clear he has little interest in being much of a personality, harkening back to a time when singer-songwriter was a subcategory in the popular music echelons.
Back during a time when there was almost an academic, intellectual side to popular music and the figures within it, the likes of a James Taylor, Carly Simon, Leonard Cohen, or Jennifer Warnes coming to mind. None of these people were interested in overt sex appeal or working other angles of the popular music scene, while still being signed at the top to major record labels. Today, we’re seeing something of a renaissance in that trend with the rise of self-distribution and platforms showcasing alternate figures in the fields of alt-rock, experimental, and other genres following with similar aesthetic.
The lack of pretension likely is owed to who Newman is as a person. In a detailed interview with indie music publication The Strange Brew, he explained his entire creative process as dependent on the world around him, rather than compensating for it. “I watch the news a lot. Sometimes the subject matter jumps out at me. The hard part is making it sound like a song, not an essay.
Sometimes I’ve written the music or at least a riff or chord progression and have no idea what I want to say, lyrically, then one day the music will inspire the story,” he said. “…I’m from New York and that’s where I live now. I’ve also lived in Atlanta and Los Angeles. There are a lot of great musicians here so the bar is pretty high. It was the same in Atlanta and L.A. Musical influences vary regionally. I tried to incorporate what I picked up into what I was already doing. Now, with the internet, you can hear great musicians from anywhere.”
Mark Druery
