Music you've never heard, part 1

At the risk of actually writing something useful, we've done a couple of noteworthy interviews with musicians in the 19 Minutes Arts Center in the past week. You've probably not heard of either of them. Until now, I suppose:

Nolan McKelvey is a good guy. His website lists something like 30 recordings he's played on, but he's still sheepish when it comes to talking about his music. He's especially sheepish about discussing the couple of love songs that show up on his latest album, "After the Roses".

To interview him is to open a window into the life of lesser-known, but talented musicians around the world -- scheduling the interview around his day job, discussing a touring schedule that's prolific but not exactly what you'd call "geographically diverse", and talking about the realistic expectations of a solid local band.

But mostly, in this latest interview, McKelvey and drummer Andrew Lawher have some engaging things to say about songwriting and playing music. They're not about to play an extended nationwide tour, nor is XM demanding more copies of their CD so the archived interview is a good place to check them out.

There's another band worth checking out -- one which might soon see itself in the national spotlight, but the interview doesn't run until tomorrow morning, so we'll save it for then. (This is what we call a "forward promote" in the radio biz.)