Folkstar – folk rock band

We hung out with the most awesome girls last week!

After the transformative experience of performing at Girls Rock NC for the first time last year (Kim gushed about it here), we were lucky enough to be asked back for another performance this year.

Girls Rock is an international organization with camps in different states run by female musicians. Not only do the girls learn new instruments, form bands, and write original songs which they perform at a local venue at the end of the week, but they also attend workshops on things like self-defense and body image. When we showed up to set up for our performance, they were crowded around a turn-table learning to DJ. Kick ass!

Folkstar performing the jazzy number "Abolitionists" at Girls Rock NC 2013

It was the end of the day, so our performance was short. But we were honored to play and answer their questions and hopefully instill a little additional awesomeness into their lives. The campers were the first people to see live performances of some of the songs off the new album, including “Loud and Clear”, “Trampoline”, and “Abolitionists”. It was exhilarating to play these songs live for the first time, and we were fortunate to have such an enthusiastic audience!

Afterward, we hung out with our very funny and very talented musician friend Emily Pakes. Rumor has it there might be a collaboration in the works very soon 🙂

There will be a lot of exciting things coming up as we prepare to release Loud and Clear, so bookmark this page and buckle in!

Keep listening and dreaming!

Check out the official lyric video for “Loud and Clear”

Because lyrics are such an important part of our music, especially on this new album, we’ve decided to do lyric videos for some of the songs. We are excited to share our first of these videos, for the song “Loud and Clear“.

The song and video reflect Sue’s experience with hearing loss. While the lyrics tell the story of her grappling with the physical effects of this life-changing experience as well as frustration with doctors and specialists, the music itself provides a second layer to the story. Sue uses her guitar riffs to sonically imitate the things she experienced on this journey. We hope you enjoy this intensely personal first cut off the album and can’t wait for you to hear the rest!

If anyone has animation contacts, we’d love to do an animated video for this song. Get in touch!

Folkstar's new album Loud and Clear from Karmic Fury Records

Karmic Fury Logo

Folkstar’s first single off Loud and Clear released!!

We’re excited to announce that the first single, the title track from Folkstar’s new album Loud and Clear is here!!

The blues-pop song “Loud and Clear” reflects Sue’s experience with hearing loss. While the lyrics tell the story of her grappling with the physical effects of this life-changing experience as well as frustration with doctors and specialists, the music itself provides a second layer to the story. Sue uses her guitar riffs to sonically imitate the things she experienced on this journey. We hope you enjoy this intensely personal first cut off the album and can’t wait for you to hear the rest!

The single “Loud and Clear” is available exclusively as a digital download from Bandcamp.

Folkstar's new album Loud and Clear from Karmic Fury Records

Karmic Fury Logo

Fan mail!

First batch of cards and letters from students

In addition to being delightfully meta, receiving some really creative cards and letters from sixth graders about our song “Cards and Letters” made us feel just plain good.  These awesome students in Connecticut (where I’m from) watched our video and discussed it in class, then posed some well-thought out questions in addition to crafting some very nice cards. They drew some of our favorite things, including stars, musical instruments, music notes, and, of course, cats. How did you know about our undying love for these things, Shepherd Glen?

Sue and I wrote them letters in return, which we had to resist the urge to deliver personally (what?…11+ hours isn’t THAT long of a drive). We hope you like them and continue to like us, Shepherd Glen. Emails and Facebook “Likes” and comments are nice, but nothing compares to good old fashioned snail mail. Ah, nostalgia.

Second batch of cards and letters from students

We are always grateful to our fans who express their love in all forms and do our best to make sure you feel our love and gratitude in return. So keep sending us letters, hit “Like“, Tweet, post your own video responses to our videos, and just continue being creative and awesome. Speaking of creative and awesome, we’ll be posting information about the album release date very soon. We can’t wait!

-Kim

PS – Below are some of our return letters to the students…

Dear Molly,
Congratulations on playing saxophone. That’s a hard instrument to play!
You asked us “What inspired you to write Cards and Letters?”
Well, the inspiration came from people putting pressure on about not being what they want us to be. We all have people (parents, teachers, and friends) who pressure us to be a certain way or don’t understand that we like different things than they do. The song is about feeling like you’re not the person others want you to be and struggling with the feeling of not being good enough. In the end though, we’re unique individuals, happy being who we are, and we’re the best we can possibly be (“the best version of me”).
Thank you for the inspirational words “Keep writing unique music and singing about things you love.” That means a lot to us.
-Kim & Sue of Folkstar

Dear Cherena,
Thank you for your letter! We’re happy to hear that you enjoyed our video for “Cards and Letters.”
You asked us “How long did it take you to write the song?”
Hmm… That’s tough to answer precisely. Each song is different, but for “Cards and Letters” the lyrics came first and they were written pretty quickly. Then Kim came up with a rough version of the song on acoustic guitar. Then we decided the exact structure of the song. For this song the biggest choice was deciding if it should end with the chorus or if it should end differently. We chose the second option and ended the song with “I’m the best version of me.” After that, Sue spent several days writing the electric guitar, bass guitar, and drum parts. So, for a rough copy of the song, it didn’t take very long, but to complete the song it a while. Also, it took months to do the actual recording of the song.
Thanks also for writing that you hope we write many more songs. We definitely will!!
-Kim & Sue of Folkstar (more…)