There’s a new EP in town that’s sure to get you groovin’. With a full sound and a whole lot of soul, Charlie Degenhart’s music can’t help but makes you feel good. This week COREnered is flying out to Nashville to talk with Degenhart about how life inspires his sound, and he lets us in on his favorite spot to discover new music.
- What is your first musical memory?
Well, before I was old enough to have the money to buy records, I remember recording songs off of the airwaves by sitting this big old, red-plastic tape recorder I had up against my AM/FM clock radio. I’d be hanging out in my room and when I heard the first bar or so of tune I liked come on the radio, I’d jump up and hit the ‘record’ button on the tape recorder. So you had this ‘indirect’ sound, full of hiss and everything. . .and you’d always miss the first couple of beats, but it didn’t matter. Capturing great songs so that I could play them back over and over was such a rush! - What was the first concert you ever went to?
My first concert was a free Chicago performance at beautiful Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. . I’m thinking around 1989? (I think I might still be hung-over from that one. . .)
- What or whom do you go to for musical inspiration?
Life. . . that happens to me and that happens to my family and friends. Some folks take pictures with a camera, I use a pen and a guitar to mark my passing through this life.
- Without using the words “alternative,” “pop,” or “rock,” describe your sound.
Describe my sound? Lyrically thick, romantic, groove-heavy, pretty-melody-laden, at times edgy, acoustic-based (yet usually electrified and/or horn-intensified), psychedelic and smart. . . on a good day, that is. (On a bad day? A lot of pitchy noise.)
- Stones or Beatles?
Stones or Beatles? Absurd question. Darkness or Light? How can one exist without the other? Stones for groove and attitude. Beatles for lyrics and melody, and “positivity.” My world would be chaos if not for an equal balance between the two.
- What’s your dream collaboration?
Easy⎯Daniel Lanois. I love his sonic world.
- Do you find the song or does the song find you?
Songs find me. I keep the pen ready. I watch you all and let you bring the songs to me.
- How do you discover new music
I’d be lost without Grimey’s New and Preloved Music shop here in Nashville. I tend to buy new things on vinyl. Listening on vinyl helps me to maintain a proper reverence for and ritual around the listening experience. Every couple of weeks or so, I’ll go into the store and just ask what I need to have…and their e-mail blasts keep me hip to anything out there I might be interested in.