Alphafalls Answers 5

Over the past month and a half, I have done my best to really spend sometime writing about truly independent musicians, such as Luke Scott-Hinkle, a.k.a. Alphafalls. Currently Scott-Hinkle is working on Alphafalls second album, “Umbrellas Over Rain Clouds,” due to be released in late April this year. And there are two things I need to thank him for; the first for wanting the blog to share his music directly with you on this blog (listen to and/or download “Different” below). And second, of course, I would like to thank Scott-Hinkle for finding the time to Answer 5.

Photographer: Makoto Scott-Hinkle

1. Who are your musical and non-musical influences?

I have let my non-musical influences affect me more than the musical ones. I have several muses. One is the muse of the dark I hate you for how you treated me songs. Another is my muse of unreturned love and rejection. Both of these muses are real people. It's a strange feeling to be equally affected by people I've lived with and people I never see. I guess sometimes it's easier to love what isn't there than what is...

For musical influences, I grew up listening to 60's pop that my parents played and also to classical music. My first instrument was the oboe when I was ten. I danced ballet from age eight till I was sixteen. I quit dancing when I decided my future was writing rock music. I was home schooled (of the unschooling variety). While some of my heroes dropped out of high school to become rock stars, I skipped a step by never going to school. Some of my influences include Alice in Chains, Tori Amos, Soul Asylum, Lisa Loeb. Lately, lots of Kill Hannah and Florence & The Machine, lots of artists who are women and play the piano, 60's pop.

2. I have always thought that geography impacts music to various degrees. How has Springfield, OR been an influence on your music?

This place is fucking dark in the winter. I moved to Springfield, OR from New York when I was six. I can still remember the feeling of my first winter here. It was like a bleak rainy twilight of suppressive gloom had moved into the neighborhood. The rain and fog comes in October and often doesn't leave till May or June. Summers here are like California, just a little cooler. How's that for contrast? I have a love hate relationship with the weather and climate here. I lived in Nashville for two years and was a lot less depressive there. I like what darkness (literal and emotional) does for me as an artist. I have never much cared for happy music. It's not what I’m here for. Seasonal affective disorder is standard issue here, but I see it as something that serves me. Also, music is my therapy, and it's a therapy I enjoy going to. There is lots of literal truth in my music, and even more emotional truth.

3. “Alphafalls” is a moniker for “Luke Scott-Hinkle.” Why use a moniker; what’s the meaning behind it?

I record my songs as if there were a whole band. Having a group name gives the expectation that the recordings will be fully produced with lots of instruments. This isn't just a guy in a garage with a guitar, this is Alphafalls, the rock band. Plus this left the door open to having additional members when I was at a point in my career when that made sense. My next album is currently being created in a test tube with the help of a mad scientist and his assistant.

Photographer: Makoto Scott-Hinkle

4. You wrote the following in a blog entry: “God is a prostitute. For the right price, He will Love you to Death. God and the devil are two sides of the same mistake. And change is expensive. But I want my life to be expansive.” Could you take a moment and think a few months back and give us exactly what was going through your mind when you wrote these words?

I want people to examine what they think they know and see if it is what they really know. Perhaps the question "What was going on in my emotions when I wrote that?" would apply. I didn't have a clear thought in mind when I wrote it, but I liked how the words felt, so I wrote them down.

5. You took on the topic of gay teen suicide in the song “Different.”

The song was inspired by the gay suicides but it's about more than that. It's about accepting yourself even when the people who should be on your side aren’t. It says, "Hey, you're an idiot. But I'm in the city now and I'm doing fine. You should love me and I'm still upset about it but I'm fine because I've realized that you aren't my family because functional families allow their children to become who they are supposed to be, not what their parent's or their parents religion says they should be." So there!

I wrote this song in May of 2010. I was standing naked in the shower when I started singing the chorus, I could tell it was good by the way it affected me emotionally. So I got out of the shower and dripped water all across the hardwood floor of my house on my way to get my notebook and portable recorder. I didn't know what the song was about at first because I have always had a decent relationship with my father. Then I got to think about why someone would feel that their father wasn't really their father. That question led me to the premise for the song. I feel that songs already exist before I write them down, but I still have to spend a lot of time interpreting what they want to become in tangible form. "Different" is really right inside my usual subject matter, most of my songs are about feeling rejected, misunderstood or hurt in some way. Usually about romantic failure/longing and loss, but family relationship are pretty similar and just as painful. Some songs I set out to write, this one asked to be written. Love is the greatest most human emotion, so to tell someone they are wrong for loving is completely cruel.




Keep up with Alphafalls at their homepage, MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. Read more ...

Alphafalls (Part Two): "The Missing Seasons"

A few months back, I listened and wrote about Alphafalls’ music on their MySpace (link) and it has taken me this long to follow up on that post (my apologies). As I wrote back in November, what initially caught my attention was the band’s description of the music: “If the Beatles had grown up listening to modern pop and Seattle grunge, you would have Alphafalls. Classic song form meets current sounds…” And then I got to listening and got to thinking, and I will repeat myself: I love nascent artists – the possibilities are endless. Twenty-years ago, a young artist/act would not have the means to put their music out there in the way that MySpace has allowed artists to over the last seven years. There is no longer the need to wait for a major or indie contract … there is no longer the need to rely on promoters to get your music half way around the country or the globe. Moreover, there was a time that albums were not necessarily part of the journey, but rather the end product, but all of this is changing. This is something that Luke Scott-Hinkle (who employs the moniker Alphafalls) understands well.



“The Missing Seasons” (8 August 2011 in the USA) may be a “complete” album, but it is also the Scott-Hinkle’s journey in music and discovering his “voice.” The album opens with “Adam & Evil (This Time),” which I think is a bold move, considering that thematically the song is perfect as a closer. The two themes at work here is that of “Adam” (having everything you could imagine, an entire world of creation, but no one to share it with) and moving on through failed expectations. This sets the album up beautifully. This is followed by the savvy “Love Me Back,” which in this position on the album, the emotional drama of the music is played out in the vocals and the rhythm guitar. The third track, “Frozen Moment,” has the most haunting line in it, which has haunted me since I heard it the first time: “The smell of your lips lingers as into you I bleed.”

The arrangement of the tracks can really bring out something different than hearing it in isolation or in different combinations. “Feels Like Goodbye” gains visceral power where it is sandwiched as the fourth song on the album. It is followed by “A Little Love To Die By,” which was not streaming on the band’s MySpace. The piano / key arrangements are really different than the rest of the songs on the album. And when he sings, “What the fuck is this life for?” there is more undertow than on any other song on the album. Musically, a bit darker, a bit more sophisticated, this is one of two songs on the album that may not fit in with the rest neatly, but definitely makes you wonder what else is influencing Scott-Hinkle other than the Beatles or grunge.

This is followed by “Drink” and “Said That You Would Be” (the other track that does not fit in comfortably with the rest, bordering on a real sythnpop feel at times), the album closes with “Different,” which was also not streaming. The song addresses the recent incidents of gay teen suicides – “Who I love is not wrong, your reaction leaves me stunned …. If you were still my father, if you were still my brother, if you were still my friend, you wouldn’t see me different.” Ending on much the same note as the album started, being “Adam” and learning to stand alone, the song captures the anguish of being different and being shunned for it. It is a song that will resonate with anyone whose differences has been met with ire and ill will, at the same time bringing up an issue that seems to be rarely talked about: teen gay suicide. A bold closing to any album!

Track Listing:
1. Adam & Evil (This Time)
2. Love Me Back
3. Frozen Moment
4. Feels Like Goodbye
5. A Little Love To Die By
6. Drink
7. Said That You Would Be
8. Different

Keep up with Alphafalls at their homepage and MySpace. Head over to iTunes (USA link) to preview and purchase the album.

Here is the video for “Adam & Evil (This Time)” (original) from their YouTube Channel: Alphafallsmusic.

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Alphafalls (Part One)

One of the amazing things about the Internet is the ability to discover and track artists, new and old. And though we are living in a Facebook-revolution world, the reality is that MySpace is by far superior for discovering music – the search options allow for this. And one of these bands that I have been tracking and intrigued by is Alphafalls. Hailing from Springfield, Oregon USA, Alphafalls is the moniker employed by Luke Scott-Hinkle. The band’s MySpace page (and homepage) has an interesting description that immediately caught my attention: “If the Beatles had grown up listening to modern pop and Seattle grunge, you would have Alphafalls. Classic song form meets current sounds…”

And so started my intrigued, but then again I love nascent artists, because they have more possibilities than established ones. Generally, by no stretch of the imagination do established artists have major shifts in what they do, so I am intrigued to know how Alphafalls will continue to unfurl.

Alphafalls recently released their debut album, “The Missing Seasons” (8 August 2010 via download, USA). I will be taking a very careful listen to this album in the next few days, but I thought I would share my experience first of when I lurched over to the band’s MySpace page and listened to what was on offer. Currently there are six songs that are streaming on MySpace (and of course, I am going to put my two cents in on each one). The album consists of eight songs, two of which are not streaming … and of course they are presented in a different order – which can radically shift your perception of them. And for that matter, I am not sure if these versions are “faithful” to the album versions. But think of it like this: these are my first impressions – not my dissecting of the album.

“Adam & Evil (This Time)”: one of these short songs that pack more power than you would expect. Scott-Hinkle uses one of my favorite metaphors in this one: Adam – you know that feeling, of feeling that you have everything but no one, or at least no one worth holding onto. It is a universal feeling once you have been on the dating scene for too long. But “learning to stand on my own feet again” is something we all have to learn if we are going to find our happiness.

“Feels Like Goodbye”: I love the guitar arrangements on this one and the simple and ambient keys in the background. In one simple phrase: this mid-tempo song is beautifully sad.

“Frozen Moment”: Poetic and visceral, Scott-Hinkle croons, “The smell of your lips lingers as into you I bleed.” Eerie, but brilliant.

“Love Me Back”: The vocal arrangements are most distinctive on this one; think of typical grunge style singing meets acoustic rock. It is not a combination that one would really think of using, but Scott-Hinkle wraps the song in a savvy rhythm that carries the song.

“Said That You Would Be”: This one breaks the mold: the vocal arrangements, the keys for more than just ambience, and the general ethereal-esque feeling of the song make it a standout.

“Drink”: Here is a mantra for you: “Let’s drink till we die.” I think that line sums up the nihilism and dejection of the song’s lyrics, yet the music does not play pantomime to the lyrical content. Imagine this: the music captures the lethargic mood one goes through before thinking about giving into nihilism and dejection.

So, my advice, check out the band’s MySpace page for a taste of what Scott-Hinkle has to offer. And if it has captures your attention like it did mine, you may want to seek out the debut album, “The Missing Season,” which I plan to listen to this weekend. More to come very soon.

Keep up with Alphafalls at their homepage and MySpace. Read more ...