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University freshman Colin McLaughlin,left, plays with his band "Shades of Blue." The blues-rock band recently released its debut album.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
KU freshman's blues-rock band 'Shades of Blue' releases self-titled debut album
COURTNEY BIERMAN
@courtbierman
As a senior in high school, Colin McLaughlin wanted to start a band, and he didn't care what kind.
"I just kind of wanted to play some music," McLaughlin said. "As long as I had creative freedom to do what I want to do, I was really down for whatever. I could have done strictly blues. I could have done straight, hard rock music. As long as I had a say in our creative process, I didn't really care what came out."
A University freshman, McLaughlin is lead guitarist of Shades of Blue, a "blues-infused rock band" started last April with other Kansas residents. While attending high school in Lenexa, a friend introduced McLaughlin to Christian Sanchez. The two found that they share a love of blues and rock music, citing Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, The Black Keys and others as influences.
Shades of Blue's self-titled album debuted last month.
"We like all sorts of different genres of music, but for some reason it just seems like the whole core of music is to speak to the emotions that you can't really speak in general," Sanchez said.
He quoted Aldous Huxley, saying, "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."
Sanchez and McLaughlin agreed that blues was the right genre to "portray a message." Together McLaughlin and Sanchez, with Sanchez acting as the band's manager, recruited bassist Tommy O'Halloran, drummer Thomas Pribyl and singer Alex Haywood, who was a finalist in the KC Superstar competition.
Shades of Blue recorded its album with Kansas Citybased producer Christian Horton. Everyone in the band is a student, which made scheduling "a struggle," Sanchez said. The band hit the studio four
weekends in a row, would spend all day playing, and then celebrate a hard day's work with a trip to Pepperjax.
All songs on Shades of Blue's ten-track album were written by McLaughlin and Sanchez. Sanchez is a fan of folk music as well as blues, and he tries to imitate the storytelling quality of traditional folk songs with tracks such as "Soul Cancer," about becoming lost in one's own misery, and "Mr. Afghan," from the perspective of a young boy whose father is going off to war.
The songwriting process usually starts when McLaughlin comes up with a guitar riff and Sanchez begins writing lyrics. When they feel like they have something with potential, they play it for their bandmates who help them finish the song.
McLaughlin has been playing guitar since elementary school. After quitting his lessons and forgetting about the instrument for a
few years, he picked it back up four years ago and began teaching himself using YouTube videos. He says musician John Mayer was a big influence on him during this time, and he originally taught himself some of Mayer's songs to impress a girl but then "[fell] in love" with blues music because of Mayer's style.
Since Shades of Blue's founding, the group has played live shows and open mic nights at multiple venues in and around Kansas City. The band is in talks to play a Missouri Mavericks hockey game and participate in battle of the bands competitions at the Nelson-Atkins Museum and at Rockhurst University, where O'Halleran and Pribyl are upperclassmen.
Live shows are one of McLaughlin's favorite parts of being in a band. He says he loves the opportunity live blues music gives him to improvise.
"A lot of blues is kind of improvised and kind of on
feeling, so I'm not worried about trying to put something together and not mess that up and worry about doing exactly what's on paper," he said. "I kind of just go with what I'm feeling. And it's kind of relieving, just to be able to play and not have to worry about that."
Shades of Blue's second album is currently in the works. McLaughlin and Sanchez are writing, and recording is set to start in the spring. McLaughlin is taking the lead on some of the lyrics. He has high expectations for the sophomore album.
"I love the first album, but I think it's a great starting point because we kinda —we'd never really done this before, and I think for our first album it's really good," McLaughlin said. Not to sound conceited or anything, but I'm really proud of what we've done."
After the second album is released, the future of the band is uncertain. Two of
its members, Sanchez and Haywood, are still seniors in high school. While Sanchez is planning to attend the University next year and room with McLaughlin, none of the members are sure where they're going to end up after graduating from their respective schools.
"I'm just kind of expecting that the band is going to eventually break up because people are going to leave," McLaughlin said. "My goal is I want to play as many live shows as I possibly can before we're done, and get our music out there as we can. I mean, this is my first experience in a band so I'm just kind of feeling it out, seeing what it's all about. And I think we can do a lot."
Shades of Blue's self-titled album is available on Spotify and iTunes. Copies of the album can also be purchased at live shows. More information can be found on the band's website, shadesofbluekc.wix.com.
Check out these must-watch TV shows for the new year
OSCAR SANCHEZ
@OhMySanchez
JORDAN STRAUSS/AP PHOTO
JORDAN STRAUSS/AP PHOTO Aziz Ansari arrives at the 73rd annual Golden Globe Awards on Sunday, Jan. 10, 2016, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills. Calif.
Many of you may still be sweating over what Claire Underwood is capable of heading into season four of "House Of Cards." You may still be recovering from whatever hallucinogens seeped through your laptop keyboard as the cast of "Orange Is The New Black" splashed around the Litchfield pond in a euphoric, yet dysfunctional attempt to recreate the famed "Charriots of Fire" opening scene with last summer's season three finale.
A carryover from 2015, Netflix original "Master of None" offers touching vignettes of the life of a commercial actor in his early 30s, Dev, played by the show's creator Aziz Ansari.
But, nonetheless, 2016 is here, so get it together. It's time to break another sweat and get in game shape before midterms with four of the best shows on TV or streaming that will leave audiences craving for either some of Chang's Frito Fritter's or a way to break out of the encumbering madness of the binge-watch.
"Master of None"
Dev, surrounded by a group of quirky, socially-conscious friends along with parents Ramesh and Nisha, is faced with the proverbial fork in the road: either choose to stay the status quo and keep with his mediocrity or challenge himself to find love in the labyrinth that is New York City, all while uncovering hypocritical paradigms that brings most of the charm and satire in the show's 10-episode run to light.
Series creator/head actor Ansari successfully blends current social issues - such as LGBT acceptance, racial equality, and economic status with relatable anxieties many young adults face in the everyday life such as intimacy, friendship and parenthood.
"Transparent"
Staying on the subject of
Nominated for a Golden Globe and two Critics Choice TV awards, this revitalizing take on modern insecurities deserves a full look before a second season comes around the corner.
modern insecurities, Amazon Prime's "Transparent" successfully takes what would be a cheap ploy and evolves the show into a self-realizing, progressive piece non-complacent with the simple laugh track.
The show focuses on the patriarch of the family, Mort Pfefferman, played by Jeffrey Tambor, as he transitions into the matriarch Maura. Maura, left to take on her superficial L.A family, is cleverly positioned by show creator Jill Soloway as a catalyst capable of transitioning the audience itself into buying into her and her family's strife while actualizing the future family archetype.
Already capped off with a full season two available for streaming, a third installment will come sometime in 2016, according to Cinema Blend. "Transparent" has 25 recognized wins out of 37 nominations, catapulting Amazon Studios as a viable competitor in the television market.
"Making a Murderer"
Making a Murderer
As if the current tensions between the justice system and civilians was ever more
The subject of the 10-part documentary, the now-poster child for future college law lectures Stephen Avery, is based upon a man once wrongfully convicted of rape and murder. Avery, who sues the justice department for mishandling his case, is found a prime suspect in the disappearance and murder of one Teresa Halbach.
While the documentary has had its controversy due to the use of editing and cinematic landscaping that puts the audience behind Stephen Averv, it is a rare
charged, Netflix's "Making a Murderer" slides in just before the end of 2015 and cranks up the heat to a scathing high.
Based around a fictionalized 1970's record label facing boom or bust, show creator and one-man mob squad Martin Scorsese
A wild card pick, as its first season is set for this Valentine's Day, HBO's "Vinyl" is poised to make major headway for the rock-'n-roll television genre.
vehicle that manifests a side to the story for the convicted that one rarely sees. It successfully uses gripping, emotional storytelling that has its seeds in classic, fictionalized films such as "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "12 Angry Men" that pierces the hearts of many even today.
"Vinyl"
partnered with writer Terence Winter ("Wolf of Wall Street," "Boardwalk Empire") and Mick Jagger as executive producer to create a juggernaut — a show capable of waiting at your doorstep with a pack of blow and Hardballer tucked into its breast pocket, ready to make you swallow your teeth and forget your morning breakfast.
Bobby Cannavale, Olivia Wilde, and Ray Romano are the tip of the iceberg for the deep "Vinyl" call sheet, one already dripping in brio and strutting vivacy, making it the head of the table as far as hot TV commodities go.
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