The Jacktones' Ian Suhovy gets 'New Life' on solo album

Plus, a new video blog from Nate Butler and Dal Stewart.

There’s a very clear homage early in the first track of Ian Suhovy’s EP “New Life.”

Without giving things away (you can hear it for yourself) it’s a bit of wah-guitar disco-funk that sets the tone for the Jacktone’s frontman’s first solo outing.

“This record differs from The Jacktones because its more produced, with pop and funk elements,” Suhovy says.

“I had a lot of fun doing it and creating it.”

The five songs — recorded and produced by Suhovy — are indeed funk heavy, especially in the rhythm guitar layers and vocals.

The songs correlate to Suhovy’s “new life,” he says, living one moment at time, in the present, “with more mind awareness.”

Check out: The title track.

“New Life” is streaming now on Spotify and Youtube. You can hear a radio premier of the track “The Wrong,” tonight’s Homegrown show on New Rock 104.1.

Nate and Dale

On Saturday, Dale Stewart debuted the pilot episode of a new video blog he’s doing in collaboration with Nate Butler.

Billed as “A Discussion with Sound Effects,” the 10-minute episode is filmed via Zoom and edited into black and white has the pair name dropping the band Cleavage and DJ Don Fischer; exposing the truth behind how Butler does his radio show each week on KFSR and what he learned from being on reality TV in Sweden.

Both Stewart and Butler are master archivists —Butler with Local Show and Stewart with his Stagedive Records website and his Youtube channel. Collectively, the pair may have more historic knowledge on Fresno’s music scene than any two people out there and while it’s not exactly clear how often new episodes will get uploaded, the idea of these two sitting down to shoot the shit and share stories is immensely exciting for area music nerds like myself.

BNDCMPR

This week, I stumbled upon BNDCMPR, a website that allows people to make, play and share playlists using the Bandcamp platform.

So, just for funsies, I created my own playlist, The Fresno Bandgeeeek.

I can’t promise it will get updated every day, or every week even, but I’ll change up the songs when I remember (so, bookmark that sucker, I guess).

I’m open to suggestions, so if there’s a theme you’d like to hear (Fresno ska bands for example) or artists I should check out, let me know.

That’s it for this week. Remember you can now hear me on the Homegrown Show Sundays at 8 p.m. on New Rock 104.1 FM. If you have anything you think I need to be looking at or listening to, feel free to let me know: jtehee@gmail.com