Syrupy soundscapes, jazzy progressions and electro-influenced beats co-mingle to produce mellow and beautifully realized night music from Motown. Behind these atmospheric jams is long time composer and multi-instrumentalist Greg Utech.

MusicZeitgeist.com coaxed the following insights about the crafting of these recordings from the artist:

MusicZeitgeist: Who is Greg Utech?
I have been a musician for over 30 years in the Detroit area. Mostly on drums, but I can “mingle” with most any instrument. I have released three disc’s to date with my 4th CD due out in July. I appeared on Rick Matle’s CD “Ears Wide Shut.” Of course like most Musicians I have a “Day” job which just happens to be the best job in the world, a stay at home Dad to our first child Noah.

MZ: Where are you based? Has it influenced your output?

The “D”. Born and raised in Detroit. This part of our world seems to have a Vortex of creativity, From Motown to Madonna, and all the Jazz greats it has been a treat to call Michigan Home. The long winters foster a need to keep busy and I think this has a small part to do with the plethora of talent to come from this area.

MZ: Talk about influences on your sound

Jazz, Fusion. Artist I would call mentors include Stevie Wonder, Donald Fagen, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Joni Mitchell, Robbie Robertson, The Band, Pink Floyd, McCoy Tyner, Pharaoh Sanders, Jeff Beck, Bill Bruford, Tony Williams, Jack Dejonet, Elvin Jones, Fela Kuti, Peter Gabrial, Tereje Ripdal, Frank Zappa, Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix, Joe Pass, to name a few.

I worked in professional theater for 18 years at Meadow Brook Theater at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. From set design to writing the score for the 1993 production of Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde. This along with being around the right crowd inspired my artistic style, From being involved in over 120 professional Theatrical productions, and being a part of all of them, from Shakespeare to Ain’t misbehaving, I was exposed to some real creativity and different thought patterns that translate into my genre of music. Also a self taught abstract painter with over 30 major shows to date help play a major role in my tonal creations.

MZ: Tell us about your recording process.

Mostly from my modest studio at home I am able to create most of the rhythm and “beds” for each song, then it’s off to a more technicaly sound studio for all the final mixing and last minute solos. I produce all the tracks with some help from my friend Rick Matle who also plays most of the guitar on my CD’s. And of course when you are a one man show, it’s then time for laying out art work, song titles and order, copyrighting, duplication, and finally all the marketing involved, especially if you want to make at least $12.78 per year. But it is the love of the craft luckily and not the fame and fortune.

MZ: So what motivates you to keep making and releasing music in these changing times?

“Everything has been done before.”

It has to be fun to be somewhat unique in this world of soundalikes. The most memorable musical experience I have had was when Ralph Valdez, a DJ from WDET in Detroit, called and said he loved my 1st disc and would play it on his next show. We had a party that night and it felt as though a dream had come true.This event is realy what pushed me to continue on with endeavors. My music has also been aired on the Jon Moshier program, and “The Listening Room” with host Chris Felcyn. As well as KAOS FM in Olympia WA, Tomorrow Jazz, aTTeNTIoN sPaN raDIO, IPM.com, And reached the feature page on New Orleans Radio.com. With some generous reviews from, Joe Henry, Serge Kozlovsky, and a two-page spread in Acid Jazz Magazine by Sylvia Turin. Everyone has some “Big Break” if you believe in what your doing, and are not doing it for the money.

MZ: When will you know your work is done?

I guess my lofty goal of 10 disc’s is still attainable, but with Cd’s approaching 90 minutes these days it is like producing a double album from the old vinal days, so each disc so far has taken at least 2 years to complete, with the exception of my upcoming disc “Mars is Missing” which will be at about the three-year mark due to the birth of our 1st child Noah Gregory Utech.

VITAL LINKS:

Greg Utech in the press
Get Greg Utech’s music at CDBaby
Download Greg Utech at iTunes

Listen now to “City to City” by Greg Utech at MusicZeitgeist.com’s free Indie Music Jukebox

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Tags: Detroit music, electro, Greg Utech, jazz progressions, Motor City, Motown, soundscapes

The music of French Kicks.

Perhaps you’re at sea as the sun is setting and cool marine air starts to task against your naked, sun-courted arms.  There’s a threadbare and itchy wool blanket, just enough to stave off the chill.

Or perhaps it’s a collection of bedroom moments — the scent of lovers on sheets, their whispers and caresses — contained in a time capsule, then released in one rapturous, if fragile, discovery.

Or maybe it’s finding yourself alone in the wrong half of a bottle of wine late at night, the phone unforgivingly within temptations’ reach.

Or at the very least, it was the soundtrack to two girls making out front-and-center last night at the French Kicks’ near-capacity show at the Troubadour.

Whatever the case, French Kicks got off to a rocky start, suffering technical difficulties which left them temporarily bass-less.  Admirably, bassist  Lawrence Stumpf struggled to keep up his end of the layered vocal alchemy that makes French Kicks’ music tick as he fiddled with his non-responsive gear.

Things fortunately progressed from there as they settled into such numbers as “Over The World,” “Carried Away” and “New Man” — with its angular guitar riff that’s not dissimilar to the bass line of Grandmaster Flash’s “White Lines” – were it to have been recorded in sepia, run through a meat grinder and then rolled in shattered glass.

French Kicks wisely kept their hour-plus set mainly to selections from last year’s Swimming, the subdued, heavy-on-melody album that perhaps more than any other has found them at their most effective, and far removed from the jagged compositions that made up early works such as Young Lawyer, which had much more in common with their then-label-and-tour mates, The Walkmen.

To be sure, French Kicks’ most recent material is more often than not a balancing act, to the point where you wonder if air temperature and humidity might not affect their songs, so delicate are the propositions.  And while some performances were not quite letter-perfect at the Troubadour (with less-than-metronomic drumming being common), there was more than enough to love.  It’s not hard to imagine the combined vocal delivery of French Kicks as the indie post-rock equivalent of early Motown acts, and when their vocals were on last night, the sensation was not unlike an aural equivalent of chocolate melting on the tongue.

The show highlight might very well have been the mid-set “Love In Ruins,” which in the live context inherited a Stones-like undercurrent.  Oddly, the number that was easily identifiable as a crowd favorite — “Said So What” — came off anemic and imperfect.

Then again, that’s sort of the point of French Kicks.

Tags: Carried Away, French Kicks, Grandmaster Flash, live performance, live review, Los Angeles, Love In Ruins, Motown, New Man, Over The World, Said So What, Swimming, The Walkmen, Troubadour, White Lines, Young Lawyer