Twelve Mondays - Ari Hest

Andy Recommends: Twelve Mondays by Ari Hest

DL link: http://drop.io/12mondays



Why I Like It:
When my wife Karen and I were living in CT back in 2004, one of our friends won a radio contest to have Ari Hest come and play a solo concert at her house. We had never heard of him and went with no expectations at all. We ended up really enjoyed his music and his very laid back style and his albums became a regular part of our listening rotation.


Last year, Ari came to play a show in Portland (where we recently moved to) at a very intimate venue called Mississippi Studios supporting his latest album - Twelve Mondays (more on that in the Bio). His music can be described as acoustic, melodic, thoughtful, easy to listen to and for me, it evokes a bit of a hopeless romantic feel. He was traveling with a very talented band and they put on a great show that made for a fun date night. While Ari will not necessarily win any awards for being overly unique or for outstanding technical musicianship, he's a very talented and prolific songwriter that I hope you will enjoy listening to.


About Ari Hest (From his website):

Many singer-songwriters toil for months on their Macs, trying to make a demo that sounds polished enough to score them a record deal with a major label. But Ari Hest has done the exact opposite, as he continues to defy the conventional route of a musician.Already signed to a major, he opted out of his label deal so that he could have more control over his art. He then embarked on his ambitious ‘52’ project, during which he spent all of last year immersed in an unprecedented effort – to write, record, produce and release one new song per week, for 52 weeks in a row. Now, he will self-release his new studio CD, ‘Twelve Mondays,’ on March 10th. The album features reworked versions of 12 fan-selected songs, culled from the past year’s extraordinary output. It’s a renegade path that reveals the ‘New Music Industry’ at its best, and allows Hest’s impressive work to find the audience he wants it to find. ‘Twelve Mondays’ showcases the diversity of Hest’s songwriting – from the haunting, minimasterpiece “Broken Voices” to the USA TODAY ‘Listen Up Music Pick’ “The Weight,” which was praised as a “poignant, acoustic reverie…” — From the wistful travelogue “Ride The Brake” to the radio-friendly “Dead End Driving,” it’s a remarkable mix that’s distinguished by the intelligence, nuance and range of Hest’s material. Add to that the fact that these songs were written amid the week-to-week gauntlet of ‘52’, and it’s all the more impressive.


Favorite Tracks:
#2: I'll Be There
#3: Dead End Driving
#7: Cranberry Lake
#9: Morning Streets
#10: Ride The Brake


About Me:
My music listening background was first influenced by my older sister, who was listening to the Eagles, Queen, Rush and other such bands when I was growing up. For the most part, though, I followed standard top 40 pop/rock music growing up until High School.


Like every good Asian American kid, I grew up learning Classical Piano starting at age 7. I was ok, but never great at it. I picked up the trumpet in 5th grade and attempted for 6 years to play that in concert and marching band with little success. One of my best friends started learning guitar during our junior year in HS, and I decided I finally needed to learn something cool. Without a single formal lesson, I started learning the guitar (both electric and acoustic). I found I had a pretty natural talent for that instrument (unlike the trumpet and piano) and that my ear was good enough to be able to learn most pop/rock songs very quickly.


From here, my music interests leaned heavily towards "Guitar Heros" such as Van Halen, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Nuno Bettencourt, The Edge, Mike Petrucci, Jimmy Page, Eric Johnson and more. After college, I joined a band (we called ourselves "Masala") that started out doing covers of anything from Bare Naked Ladies, The Monkees, Oasis and Matthew Sweet to R.E.M. and Toad The Wet Sprocket. We eventually moved into writing our music and managed to write and produce 2 CD's of original music.


Today, my musical tastes have gotten a bit more open and softer than during my guitar hero days. Sometimes it's the simplest melodies and hooks that I appreciate vs. amazing technical musicianship. I'm looking forward to broadening my normal listening routine with this Klub!