Field Dispatch
Matt Connarton Unleashed 5-11-24 hour 3
Game Plan
w/Jenn Coffey, Casey Daron
Found my dog. The sacred cone shall keep the Japs bom gotten. I
will take the shield and so I will face that sidsall sent the lore.
He asked me, Jatton, you feel I must stay d sure come in
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come the flare un a thousand west. I serve my amis' wa say go
go so as the houses and that's the sire. I close my ears or
magic girl's weekly trip by dogs are water my way? Don't great or dance
dog or the body all th water. That's rare. Your busty man,
I got the says I. I know what my story and check your side.
Why can't upside shine watches that man flash lash Oh sh h, No
wanders as you say the first up like Bard, I undertake this felty go
or die as I felt like matin a bus th sense for seals for one
of the sides, I was no stay all class boy, you would buy
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foundless on its or is one dude w m n H rip the novels you're
listening to w mn H the commander don't get supremely maxillming. Welcome back everybody,
as we are well into our third hour New Marrow trace of Matt Connorton
unleashed on this Saturday morning. Here live from the studios of w m n
H ninety five point three FM in glorious Manchester, New Hampshire, on Canal
Street. It is Saturday, May eleventh, twenty twenty four. Jenny is
here as well, of course at the news table. Yes, and returning
to the show this week, we have Casey Darren. How are you,
Casey? Wonderful? How are you doing this morning? Good? Good from
the band Soda and as you tell us what you've been up to since you
were here last as I try to make sure your mic is up here.
Absolutely. Yeah. Well, the last month has been extremely busy. I
just hopped off a tour with a band called The Defiant. Yes. The
Defiant is a supergroup that consists of Dicky Barrett from The Mighty Mighty Bostones,
Pete Parata from The Offspring, Greg Camp from smash Mouth, Johnny Rio from
Street Dogs, and Joey Larroca from The Briggs. So we did a month
long tour. We started in Chicago, we went up to Canada, did
a couple of dates up there, came through New England, hit the Hometown
hit Boston which was very nice, and then we made all our way all
the way down to Florida and we did three dates in Florida. Wow,
the Boston show must have been nuts. It was great. It was great.
Well, you have Dicky Barrett, you know, Hometown Hero and then
Johnny Rio of the Street Dogs, also from Boston. There was a lot
of support out there and it was a great hometown show. Yeah yeah,
very cool. How many How many dates? Oh? I think there were
about twenty one dates maybe in the span of about three and a half weeks.
Wow. Yeah, yeah, very cool. What is the defiant?
Are they continuing on or are they always just kind of a okay yeah no.
So they they formed out of, you know, the dissolving of their
own respective bands, and this kind of took hold. They all had,
you know, shared common ideas and you know, the idea that they all
wanted to promote love, unity, togetherness and to bridge the divide that's in
our country right now. So they came together, put out this album,
had a very successful tour with me first in the Gimme gimmeis played. Probably
about half the dates were sold out, if not more. And I know
that they have more stuff on the way. I can't obviously talk too much
about that, but I know that this is not it's not a one off
thing. They are a full band. Yeah, very cool. Cool,
and you have a brand new single, so you brought your guitar. You're
gonna play live for us, but first we have a world radio premiere,
and what should we know about this track? Division line. So I wrote
this track probably about three years ago. This was in the midst of COVID
and when everyone was on online and you know, we weren't out really out
in the real world so much, and I was getting really frustrated with all
the hatred I was seeing online about everything. People couldn't speak to each other
civilly. Everything was an argument it still is online and that really frustrated me,
and people were getting their own personal politics involved in things that just shouldn't
have been political anything like any conversation turned like one way or the other.
So this song kind of expressed my frustrations about that. And then about two
years later, last year, I wrote a whole extra verse after yet another
school shooting in America, and I was getting so frustrated because I thought to
myself, we have these people online who are fighting about every single thing,
getting their own personal politics in the way, and they're ignoring the fact there
are much bigger issues in our country, the safety of our children, and
it really hurt me and it made me sad, and I needed to channel
that in some way. So I wrote this song. I wrote it three
years ago. I had Dicky Barrett in mind. I said, no,
I would love to have him on this song. At that point, I
didn't really know him. Yeah. Come three years later, we're really good
friends and he's on the track, and I'm just so happy to have him.
That's amazing. So Dicky Barrett from the Bostones and of course now the
Define he's actually on the track. He is on the track. He does
some nice guest vocals and he sings at the end of the song. Wow.
He's also in the music video too. Oh awesome. That's awesome.
Congratulations on that, all right you well. So this is the world radio
premiere of the new track Division Line Casey Darren. Of course the band is
Soda. So O t A H. I would like to spell it for
everybody. I do the same. Yeah, I appreciate it. And then
Casey's gonna play live for us in a little bit. But let's give this
a listen. Without further ado, here it is. This is called Division
Line on the Things Someone to Trust fun. Lately, the world has been
so unjust. They want us up and we blame it on each other.
They destroyed all of family's, all us sisters and our brother's de prosterity in
the visual league. It's quickly weakening our humanity. No reunity does it for
you with me? Landon is braved where no wants bring ah. She like,
dude, I don't know, it's not the true what you're telling me
reality Like you, I don't know what to do. It's hurting me that
it's fart in you. It can make you feel so cold, so isolated,
like your brothersn't don't want to turn to so you're lying in the cutter,
to sit up on the throats, that repeating against each other. Now
the red of it, it's cos the spread of it you don't increase or
now you are the heretic man if you don't commit, you know, the
thrower bed so much hantred in mental si creatures preach up to without me.
You believe that everywhere they speak great spils and crossed the heads. The kings
go out to count there the retric into a world of peace. But that's
keeps placing in the streets, one hundred districts in lockdown, with children scattered
on the ground, found the summer from the start, I'll take from my
platter and as boss convictions coupled with great nations have set shy stross four comfort
of folks, double up three ditches. There's one accepted to do the test.
You know it's not we bossy eyes. Together we can raid the fire
to get up on your head for glass because the body we fall like together.
We start a sizer and I know it's not the true. Let's telling
me a reality sad and I don't know what to do? Has hurting me?
That's hurting you? I see ride and I know it's not the truth.
What's telling me a reality? Sad? And I don't know what to
do? Yes, hurting me? That is hurting you. We've gone yo
with archive recorded over six hundred American mastering in here two thousand twenty three A
one with over forty three thousand come related. Jack, there is no time
for debate. The time for love is down, the time never there.
It is the World Radio Premiere Division line. The band is Soda and we
have Casey Darren here with us live in studio and well done. Oh thank
you very much, thank you absolutely very very catchy. And of course you
know it's got a message. And uh yeah, how did So the process
of Dicky Barrett being on the track, how did that come about? I
mean, obviously you have a friendship with him and a professional relationship as well,
but I mean did you did you approach him with it or how did
how did that come about? So my very first Soda single was an acoustic
cover of a Mighty Mighty Bosstone song called they Will Need Music. Yeah,
so I released that independently and I think I must have posted it to a
Bostones Facebook fan group or something like that, and I know that some of
the members of the Bostones kind of lurk in there, so somebody saw it.
And I know Dicky controls all the Bosstones social media, so I think
this was twenty twenty one, pre Bostones breakup, and he shared my video
and my acoustic cover of they Will Need Music, and I was like,
wow, that is so awesome. I was so thrilled. And then a
few months later I released my first single, Dying Breath, and one day
I get a text from Dickie saying, this is awesome. Keep it up.
You're doing great. And I have like a couple of connections within the
music world that who know Dickie, So I think maybe one of them gave
Dickie my number, but it was just out of the blue, like I
was very shocked. I was like, this is amazing. Wow. And
then around that time, the Bostones broke up and at the time, Dicky
came out that he didn't get vaccinated for the COVID shot, which was very
it was very divided, like people had their opinions about that. For me,
I grew up watching Dicky Barrett promote three things, love, compassion,
and unity his whole life, everything that in his core, his message was
always about uniting people, bringing people together. He was never one of those
people, in my eyes, that would ever be a controversial figure. He's
just a pure human being who you could tell was genuine and loved his fans,
loved the world, had so much hope for the future. And when
it came out that he didn't get vaccinated for the COVID shot, the internet
just started attacking him. Everyone was just so angry about it, and I
kind of took a step back and I'm like, whoa WHOA WHOA like?
And these people were writing them off, saying, I'm never going to listen
to the Boss Tones again. I'm never going to listen to him again.
Everything he said was a lie, and I was like, I just I
couldn't see how the two were related. Like I saw Dickie in the midst
of COVID. He moved from California. He was on the announcer for the
Jimmy Kimmel Show. I had forgotten about that. Yeah, yeah, So
in the midst of COVID when it started, he said, Okay, I'm
gonna do my part. He moved out of LA He moved to Arizona in
a tiny, little remote area with his family, got his kids away from
the hustle and bustle of the city because he didn't want to spread. He
didn't want to spread COVID. He was trying to do his part, and
he you know, he isolated as he should have, as we all should
have, as we as many of us tried to do. But he was
also concerned about the COVID shot. And to me, I like, I
just feel like in this world we should let people live and let live.
We shouldn't like people have their concerns. That's okay. If you want to
get the shot, oh my god, like by all means, thank you,
But if you don't like, don't chastise somebody for it. That's just
my opinion. It was really hard to see the world attacking this man who
had promoted such good values for the past thirty years forty years of being in
that band. It was hard for me and I was seeing all the negativity
online and I wrote the song and I was like, I would really love
Dicky to sing on this because it was really a passion project about my thoughts
about the division at the time and Dicky Barrett. So as time went on,
I started interacting with him a little more. I started making some of
the music videos for The Defiant, and it got to the point where he
was like, could could you help me set up a show in New Hampshire.
So we did a little acoustic show this past fall, so Dicky and
Johnny Rio came out and it was a great little show. Soda played,
we had a couple other bands play as well, and while he was here,
I brought him into my family is home. We did some rehearsals and
stuff like that, and I said, hey, Dicky, I have this
song. Would you be interested in just providing some lyrics for it? And
he was all in And he has been so supportive of me as a person.
He's so supportive of everyone, and it's been very nice to, you
know, to work with him on a professional and a personal level. And
I have to say, I went on this tour with The Defiant and I
was unsure of how it was going to go because, like I said,
these past few years, he's gotten a lot of hatred online. Yeah,
I went out into the real world. I did these shows and the outpouring
of love and support from everyone who came in was unreal. And it kind
of clicked with me last month that the hatred you see online on the internet
is not indicative of the real world situation at all. Yeah. True,
I think, Yeah, I agree, because I think that, you know,
people are well for one thing, people will say things to each other
online that they would never say never, never, ever, because they're hiding
behind a glass wall. They're not really interacting with that person, right,
so they can say whatever they want without you know, any consequence. Yeah,
in the real world, there is so much love and it was like,
I can't tell you how refreshing it was to go and meet these people
face to face have genuine conversations. I had people who said, you know,
I got the COVID shot, and I was like, and they had
this idea that like Dicky would be disappointed in them for that, and I
was like, no, that's not what it is at all. We all
have our own decisions, we all did our own things, and we can
still unite and be together as one in a harmonious union, you know,
like we people didn't make that decision out of ill will for anybody. It
wasn't like, oh, I'm not getting this shot because I want to create
like drama. It was never that right. People had their own reasons,
and I just I think that it was hard for people to understand that you
could, you know, make that decision and still have love in your heart
and like, you know, so being out on the road and seeing that
compassion and love from the real world, it was just it was a dream
come true, to be honest with you. Yeah. Well, plus I
would imagine too, as we get further away from a pandemic, you know,
people have I mean I had a lot well I don't want to get
into it, but I you know, I had There were there were points
where I was pretty angry with people and how they were they were responding to
it. As we were going through it, and I've you know, I've
let some of that. I think. I think a big thing was it
was very hard for all of us at that time. It was a very
difficult point. It was unprecedented. We had none of us had ever been
in a situation like that. Yeah, you don't expect a plague. No,
no, you don't. You don't. And everyone reacts to these situations
differently. And I think the biggest thing for me is that if somebody is
doing something with ill will and ill intention, then maybe you should say,
hey, let' let's let's write. But a big thing for me is never
write somebody off. Somebody could have an opinion that you don't agree with necessarily,
but casting them aside and not having a conversation will always let them have
that idea in their head. If you want to help somebody grow, you
want to help the world grow, so we can have a more unified idea
of how we should be going about things. You have to have conversations,
Yeah, and civil conversations, not shooting hate out at people. You need
to like talk in a civil manner. It spread love and believe it or
not, people who might have ignorant viewpoints on either side of the political spectrum.
You can help them grow, you can help them say hey, you
can help them learn, you know what I mean. And that was one
thing that was a big frustration, And that's why I wrote this song,
because I wanted to bridge the difide and say, hey, we can come
together and if we spread love, we're going to have a better future.
If we spread hate, we're going to be the same place we were four
years ago. Yeah, And I think that, Yeah, And I think
you're onto something too, and that you know, as you were talking to
I was thinking about, you know, it's I feel like it's easier than
ever for people to you know, as you put you know, write people
off or or I was thinking, you know, people just will will throw
somebody away just based on on a different difference of opinion, and uh,
you know, much better to you know. I mean, I don't I
don't worry about trying to convince anybody to believe what I believe. But but
I do enjoy engaging in dialogue with people, you know, I mean,
there are there are some things, you know, obviously on the extreme end
of things that you just where you have to say, Okay, I don't
think I can associate totally totally with this individual. But but I think,
but I think it's gotten far too. I think it's there's almost a laziness
to it in people. I think, where they say, Okay, this
person, I don't agree with this person politically, so I'm just going to
write them off because I don't even want to engage with them, right,
And I'm guilty of it too, I think we all are. But but
I think, but I think, uh, I think it's it's gotten easier
than ever for people to you know, it's why because when people talk about
how divided we are, well, we've always been divided politically, sure,
but but the division is is in the lack of interest in in dialogue.
Yes, and I think it's just more present nowadays. We've always been divided,
but the Internet amplifies that. Yeah, and it's easier for people to
just you know, spread that hatred. And for me, like I have
friends who love Biden, I have friends who are probably gonna vote for Trump
this year. And I might not agree with either of them. I might
not. You know, I certainly don't love Trump at all, never have.
I haven't been too happy with Biden. These past few years. But
I'm not going to judge somebody based on who they vote for, you know
what I mean. It's like, you can have your reasons as long as
you're not trying to put anyone down. If you're like, if you are
trying to harm somebody in your decision, that's where I draw the line.
Yeah, but if you're making a personal decision because you have your reasonings,
we can still be friends. I might not agree with you, but I'll
still be your friend. It's okay, you know what I mean? Yeah?
Exactly, yeah, well said, Well said, Well, I think
we should. So you brought your guitar. I'm dying to hear you play
live. Well, let's do it. Now, what are you gonna are
these? Are these songs that you haven't played here before? Or what are
you going to play for us? So? I was going to do an
original and I was going to do a cover. Okay, I don't know
if I've played this one live, but I was going to play my song
called Soda. I might have done it before. I can't remember at this
point, but it's a I know we did the world radio premiere last fall
for this song. So okay, I figured why don't I do a little
acoustic rendition. Oh cool, cool, very cool. If you're just joining
us, Casey Darren from Soda is here with us live in studio. We
did the world radio premiere for the new track Division Line, and Casey's going
to play a couple live for us. Let me see, I got to
bring those other, not those other, that other make up too. When
you're ready, Casey, just go ahead and strum a little for us,
So make sure. Oh that sounds nice? All right? I think we're
I think we're good. Whenever you're whenever you're ready, just go for it.
Yeah. This is a song from EP Love Hate that I released last
fall. It's a song called Soda. This is a band called Soda.
The web of blast can be had to keep track of. You're in your
head and your spinning your fortune. It's not enough to know you've got them
all tricked. You tangled up and it makes them so sick. One misstep
and and you've lost your footing and now you don't even know who you're hurting.
Could be them, it could be you. What does your heart tell
you to do? You poison no water, poison no water. But I'll
be fat hide. You poison no wader, poison no waterer. Yeah,
I'll be fat hide. I don't care what you've done to me. I'm
just so mad you have my family. I don't care if the lover was
true and no lotter, not that I can do looking back. The water
was clean, that makes sense. Why you dissurp Now it's turned the deepest
red so red the mother lies blood. You shed trickles down from your fair.
It's poling faster, and we're well aware no loving soul could live like
you did. I just hope you found what you're me. You poison the
water, poison the water, Lobby Fahinde, you poison the water, A
poison the water. It was just not my hide. You poison the water,
A poison the water, but love it by Hinde. You poison the
water, A poison the water. It was your not my hide, you
poising the water again, you poising no water. My whoa whoa, whoa,
whoa whoa. You poison the lotter, poison the water. But I'll
be fine. You're poison the water, poison the water. Now you're not
man. I very nice, very nice. Casey Darren of the band soda,
and that song is called Soda. Correct. Can you tell us again
the story behind that. So I was at a very tumultuous point in my
life around that time. I was going through a pretty terrible breakup and it
kind of shattered my whole world. I did not see it coming, and
I was just completely devastated in a really dark spot. And this is one
of the first songs I wrote, and it really so de formed as a
self healing project to get me out of that darkness. And I took all
my pain, I took all my sadness and I channeled it into the music.
So everything you hear lyrically is very raw. This was written, I
think probably within days of everything crumbling down, And my goal was I never
wanted to write anything with hate in my heart. Everything was out of love
and everything was I didn't want to ever point fingers. I was always like,
I want to rise above this. I'm gonna express my emotion, but
I am going to try my best to keep spreading love the best I can.
So the name Soda comes from the Old Testament, not a religious person.
But I kept hearing the phrase poison the water in my head and I
thought that's kind of interesting. I'm like, that kind of sounds like it
could be something from the Bible. So I looked it up. I look
poison the water and I found out that a soda is this ritual that was
given. It was a trial of the poison water that was given to somebody
that was accused of adultery. They drank the water and they survived. They
were not they were not an adulterer. They were fine, but if they
died, it was like, well they had it coming, you know.
Yeah, And I just thought it was so on the nose for what I
was going through at that time. I was like, wow, to have
that kind of like come into my head. Maybe I'm a little spiritual,
I don't know, but it just seems so serendipitous that I was like,
I think that's a cool song name. And then I said, you know,
it could be a cool band name too. So I went on Spotify.
Nobody else was called soda. I'm like, well, okay, now
I kind of have to do it because it's so hard to find a band
name nowadays, right right, So yeah, so that's where that song came
out of. All right, Uh, you want to you want to go
and play another one. Well, I've got the I've got the levels that
were I think they're good, beautiful. Yeah, I'm gonna do one more.
This is an old cover. I've played this since the beginning of Soda
as well. It's a personal favorite. I love the band The Violent Femmes.
Yea, so this is a band off their first record called kiss Off
Nice. I need someone, a person to talk to, someone who cares
to love. Could it be you? Could it be you? Situation gets
rough and that's not the panic, It's not enough. It's just a habit.
And kids, you're sick, well dolland this is it. You can
all just kiss up into the air. But I'm up back. I can
field them stair. Theyre me bad, but I don't man, they and
me bad. Yeah. They do it all the time. Yeah yeah,
yeah, they do it all the time. Yeah yeah, yeah, they
do it all the time. Do it all the time. Yeah, they
do it all the time, do it all the time. I hope you
know this will go down on your personal record. Oh yeah, Well,
don't get said distressed? Did I happen to mention? I'm impressed? One
two three bone take one one one because you left me at two two two
for my Family, had three three threef of my Heart ex and four four
four for my Headaches and five five five Them Only and six six six from
My Sorrow and seven seven No, No, No Tomorrow and eight eight I
forget what he was forming? Nine nine nun for the lost attention, ten
ten ten for everything, everything, everything, everything, you you know,
just kids supping in the Yeah, I'm out back. I can feel them
stair. They only bad but not Oh man, they are me bad.
You have me doing it all the time. Yeah, yeah, you had
to doing it all the time. Yeah. Yeah, he had me doing
it all the time. Do it all the time. He had to do
it all the time, do it all the time. Yeah, they do
it on the tap tap tap tap Time to Taptown, time to time,
time time in Tametown too it at the time. Very cool. Thank you
so much, Thank you. Are they so? Are they so around?
Are they still touring? Original lineup and anything? My girlfriend and I we
just saw them this past fall and they did the first record in its entirety,
front to back. Yeah, they all still sound exactly the same,
no kidding, Yeah, Gordon Gaino, the singer voice has not changed in
the past forty years. Incredible concert, so good, Oh no kidding,
wow, wow, very cool if you're just joining us. Casey Darren from
Soda, which is so o t a h is zoning us here live in
studio. He played a couple songs for us, and earlier we did the
world radio premiere of the new track division Line. Now is that by the
way, So division Line is that going to be? Are you doing an
album or an EP with that? Or what's the well that's it's just going
to be a standalone track. I felt that the concept matter of that song,
I didn't want to do a whole album of that. I had one
song to you know, channel my frustration into. I just didn't want to
do a full album of that. I have an album that's written that I'm
hoping to record this fall, maybe early next year. There's no really set
plan for it yet that you know, is a different subject matter. So
I figured Division Line would just be good as a standalone single and having Dicky
Barrett on it, I was like, that's nice to have its own little
page in history. Yeah, and did you say there was a video too?
This? So last night we did a world video premiere at Chunky Cinema
pub right down the street. Oh yes, yes, and it was incredible.
Do you mind if I talked a little bit about that, Oh?
Please do? Yeah. Yeah. So I put together a little fundraiser and
video premiere for the song Division Line. I raised money for the Jason R.
Flood Memorial, which I have been a part of since its inception.
To give you a little insight on that. The Flood family from Darry,
New Hampshire lost their son Jason to suicide back in twenty sixteen, and he
was eerily similar to me. He loved the same music. He loved the
Mighty Mighty Boss Tones. I'm a big fan of the Muppets. Like this
my one weird thing about me. Well there's many weird things about me,
but one of them is that I love the Muppets. And Jason also had
this passion for the Muppets. So my old band, After Image, we
played the very first Pizza Stock event, which was formed by the Flood family.
Jason had always said that he wanted to have a day long festival where
they played music and ate pizza, So the Floods did that in his honor,
I want to say. In twenty seventeen, the summer after he died,
and for them it was going to be a one off thing, and
then they saw the love and support from the community that they said, maybe
we could make something bigger with this. They turned it into a nonprofit,
the Jason R. Flood Memorial, and they have since put on I think
we're about to do Pizzastock eight this summer. So they are wonderful people.
They have been a supporter of me my music since the beginning. I love
them. If you're listening, Doug and Danielle, you have changed my world
and I'm so appreciative for you. So last night we did a fundraiser in
their benefit as well as a movement called the Choose Love Movement. So twelve
years ago, Scarlett Lewis lost her son Jesse in the Sandy Hook shooting.
Oh wow, he was in second grade, and instead of you know,
leaning towards many destructive things, she said, how can I make this positive?
Incredible? She decided to create the Choose Love Movement, which basically has
the idea that if you instill love, compassion and empathy in children at a
young age, which is something that I think most people are born with love
but it takes a little bit of learning to learn empathy and compassion. If
we instill that in young kids, we show them how other people feel when
you make certain decisions, channel in your emotions, how would you feel in
that situation. And it's teaching social emotional growth in learning in young students.
And the idea is that as time goes on, if they have this love
and this compassion and empathy in their hearts, they're probably not going to lean
towards destructive paths, whether it be drugs or suicide or the unimaginable things that
happened with school shootings. It's this idea that if we can teach that and
let people know that they have a place in this world, that they are
cared for, that they are loved, that we can create a better world.
And I found this message so inspiring and so in line with the song
division line that I said, I need to get them to be a part
of this in some way. So the New Hampshire state representative for the Jews
Love Movement was there last night. She gave a really wonderful speech explained what
Che's Love Movement is and I'm so happy that we raised five hundred dollars last
night for both groups, so I'm going to be donating that both of them
cool. And then after that we had a nice series of acoustic performances.
We had Rags to Stitches there from the area. We also had a band
called Porcelain Jumpsuit, and then we did an acoustic set last night with Soda.
We had a big, nice video presentation where we premiered the music video.
We made a couple of silly trailers, parody movie trailers, and then
we also had videos from the Jason O Flood memorial Choose Love, and I
made this motivational video that explains what division Line is about and how you know
that message of unity, compassion and love. So it was a great night.
I was expecting we had to hit fifty people. That was like Chunky
said, you got to get fifty people in this door. I'm like,
I was getting nervous. Soda is a newer band for me. I've been
in the music scene for about eight years, and you know, you build
momentum with one band, and after eight years of being in one band,
we got to that level where we could host our own show. So it
has been around for realistically, we've been around for three years, but actively
we've been it's been the past year we've been really active. So I didn't
know how it was gonna go. Yeah, I was like, well,
we'll probably get fifty. I'm so happy to say that we had over one
hundred people attend last night. Awesome, it was. It was sold out
and I am just over the moon that the love and support from everyone that
came in was unreal. It just gave me a lot of gratitude and satisfaction
knowing that, you know, this music thing, it might be for me.
Yeah, I think it's something I want to do for the rest of
my life. So anyone who attended last night, seriously, thank you so
much for being there. From the bottom of my heart, every single person,
it meant so much that you were there to support. So it was
a great event. Yeah, that's excellent. Excellent. Now, the video
for Division Line is Dicky Barrett in the video. He is in the video,
So while I was on tour with him and The Defiant, we actually
recorded all of his video parts in a hotel room, no kidding, but
I put enough layers and filters on it that you can't even tell at all.
So we did that and then Dicky was kind enough also to record a
little intro video, so we had a little intro before the video last night
where he introduced the video and he thanked everyone for being at the event.
He's a really nice guy. He's very down to earth, compassionate, and
he's always been a supporter of small artists from their inception. He's always been
bringing out small bands that you know, might not be well known. He's
always been that way. He took me out on a whim with the Defiant.
He knew that this is what I want to do with my life.
He knew that I hadn't been on a tour before. The whole time I
was on this tour, he had a text thread going to my family.
He was taking pictures of me the whole time so they could feel included in
that we could document this experience. Oh wow. He kept calling it the
punk rock School, and every time I made a slight mistake he jokingly said,
okay, that's a demerit. But in the end, I do think
I passed the punk rock School. So it was a lot of fun and
he's a very good person. That's fantastic. Yeah, excellent, excellent.
Now so what's next for Soda. Yeah, so right now, we have
a show planned in August. I don't like to overload us too much with
local shows because, as you can imagine, you do a local show once
every month, less and less people come. So we're gonna have We're doing
a festival in New Bedford. It actually has not been announced yet, so
I'm kind of spilling the beans a little bit, but we're playing a festival
in August. I believe it's August third in New Boston, New Boston,
New Hampshire, and it's gonna be a great day of music. I think
there's gonna be all sorts of raffles and food trucks and fun like that.
And we will be introducing our official lead guitarist very soon. It's been a
long time coming. We've had many fill in lead guitarists for the entirety of
this band, but we very soon we will be announcing our full final lineup.
I'm very excited. If you went to our show at the Shaskiine,
you might have caught a little glimpse of what are is going to be.
So we've got a lot on the way. I'm hoping to hit the studio
this summer. We've got another single that we demoed out I'm hoping to record.
I'm hoping to get that out. Tons of more music on the way.
Like I said, I probably have thirteen, fourteen to fifteen songs written,
ready to be demoed out and ready to get into the studio. So
where do where do you record? By the way, where was Division Line
recorded? Division Line was recorded over at right across the street at the Manchester
Music Mill. Oh black Heart, Blackhart sown with Eric Seuter. Yeah,
we had Eric on the show. I watched that episode. Yeah, it's
great. Yeah, he's a really nice dude and I actually had him and
the former lead guitar player of After Image, Brandon Cursio, helped me with
the mixing, mastering, and engineering excellent. I'm I'm not sure where I'm
going to go in the future for recording. I I'm always trying to challenge
myself. So I've done the local level thing for a few years now.
I want to branch out. I want to do bigger, bigger and better.
So we'll see where that takes me. This summer, I'm actually gonna
be going on tour as tour manager with a local reggae artist named Joe Samba,
phenomenal guy, and he does a lot of producing and we've had talks
and maybe we'll do something. Maybe we'll do some sort of collaboration in the
future with him, So we'll see. The future is an open book and
I'm excited. Excellent, excellent, And where should people go online to keep
up with everything that you're doing? So I'm on everything every single social media
outlet that you can imagine if you look up Soda Band, s O t
Ah Band, I'm on Instagram, Facebook, we have a YouTube page,
we have we have a TikTok what else do we everything? Everything? We're
on Spotify, Apple Music, all the streaming sites. So if you want
to listen to the new song again, please go listen to it. It's
live up and running on all the streaming sites. If you want to see
the music video that's up on YouTube featuring Dicky Barrett and some of those fun
trailers that we premiered last night, I will eventually be uploading on YouTube,
so keep an eye out for those as well. Very good, very good,
well, thank you so much for coming in today. We're gonna play
We're gonna play one of these other songs. Actually, I'll let you pick
which one you want us to close with. Well, let me let me
ask you. Are you looking for a more a punk song or do you
want a ska song punk? All right? Well, you know what,
let's split it in the middle. Let's do better than you. It's a
ska punk song. We'll get both of us going here. We'll do better
than you, all right. So we're gonna play that in a moment.
But before we wrap up, Jenny, pleasepe okay, that's okay, Please
remind us what we're doing later today. H yeah, later on today where
you can find us at the Mosaic Art Collective here in Manchester for the opening
of the Resurgence art of the Botanical Art Show, which I am excited to
say one of my pieces is in. There's going to be some floral work
there inspired by some of the artistry nay the exotic. The Mosaic Are Collective
is located at sixty six Hanover Streets Sweet two one, and I forgot to
mention earlier they have a terrarium building workshop coming up on me twenty second at
five forty five pm. It's only forty dollars to participate. Contact the Mosaic
Our Collective dot com for more information, and if you want information about me,
go to Gencoffee dot com. J E N N C O F F
E y dot com. All right, very good and congratulations again. Thank
you, yes, yes, and if you missed any part of today's show,
it'll be up in just a little bit at wmnhradio dot org and my
website Matt Conorton dot com. And Casey Darren, thank you again so much,
Oh, thank you so much. It is seriously always a pleasure to
be on the show. You do a great job, both of you,
so thank you so much for having me. We thank you, We appreciate
that. And we're gonna close with this. This is this is actually one
of my favorites. This is better than you from Soda here on Matt Connorton
Unleashed, and we'll talk to you all a little bit later. By everybody,
I'll heard you hit for the show. You want to see me low
seeing a couple of times to make you be a better pay I see you.
We're gonna go, but let us do you know I'm about to be
down by I'm still doing better. Don't you never do that to a play
the bill find day and somehow I know that it's not being for you,
and it's got in. The next pro say to make me feel press I'm
want to be down by them still doing So what more do you want to
know? Because I'm ready to go. I've had enough and I'd like to
both get a know I can give you some home love it. I'm like
a joke. I could do that, but then I do know better than
you that will never play it with my man day And sometime I know that
it's not mad for you, and it's funny. The next boy say to
make the things. I'm gonna be down at the field and line better than
you, the game whatever, replace the whip on. But somehow I know
that it's not that bun. You may it's murder. The next both say
it's somebody git me a c. I want to be down by the skill
of that Joe got on that Joe gotta let it go. I want to
be din on the skill. The better that Joe yo go. I want
to be down that Joe. You are listening to w m n H ninety
five point three The Command God Don't get Supreme Leader Maxwell coming w m n
H ripped the novels. Sig
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