Great Guy, Great Music

I'm going to take this time out from writing an awful paper to write this nice little blog here.

So on my first ever post I said how I always find music in the most round about ways, while here's another story for ya.

So I went to NYC for Sasha's golden birthday and one night we went to her friend's friend's party. So I'm there having fun and then I realize everyone is smashed and there's this guy who looks like he's going to die, so Sasha and I decide to help him out while he's puking his brains out. Then I hear that there's this girl in the bathroom pretty mu

ch dead too and then this extremely tall guy with extremely fun hair comes walking out. It was Josh. So we bond over the fact that we're taking care of alcoholics and how I look like some girl that he knows....which I kinda do, but definitely not exactly.

But anywayzzzz we became facebook friends (that sounds so stupid..ehh oh well), I remembered he said he played the guitar and I only assumed that he could sing because it seemed like everyone at the party was a musical theater major....and then I saw he had a music myspace so I checked it out and was pretty much blown away. So I decided to whip out my journalistic skills and interview him for your pleasure of course.

Josh Eberhardt was born June 5, 1990 and grew up in San Francisco, which he says is "the best city ever. It's just not too big and not too tiny and it just has a good vibe, sparks creativity like a mofo." He goes by Caleb (his middle name) in all his music stuff, but he did introduce himself to me as Josh and later told me I could call him whatever I wanted...so I'm thinking he's pretty flexible with the whole name thing. On his myspace page he's labeled as a hip hop/folk/ indie artist but he writes more folk.  "I find myself writing my folk and performing that more, uurrrm, I dunno why really, a lot of venues here at purchase are small and I don't think they'd get to hype if i did my hip hip but, I like performing then just the same (the genres), I wish I could do more hip hop though, I wanna feel that rush that I see at like concerts and stuff, I haven't really had a chance to do my hip hop live,"he said. You can listen to some of his hip hop on his myspace. He's looking into working on more of it this summer, so look out for that. When he's not writing music, he's like any other busy student. He's a freshmen acting major at SUNY Purchase who tries to do as many performances that his schedule permits.  I asked him if he liked acting more since that's his major, but he answered with this statement:

Nooooo they're both my passions. I love them just the same, its just that I always said I'd study acting in school and pursue music on the side. My brother is really a strong force in trying to get my stuff heard, so he helps,calls me sometimes with opportunities to perform or record n stuff. I also applied to some schools for music....

Along with acting and singing, he can tap dance (which he wants to include in his music, but hasn't totally mastered yet), play the guitar, piano, and drums (and just to clarify...not trap drums, like djembe, n congas, n stuff). I'm pretty sure he's just really talented and a nice guy who is extremely passionate about what he does. He said, "I'm picky as hell with my sound so it could take a couple weeks, or almost a month...that's with my folk stuff though. My hip-hop prolly takes less than 2 days..I'm picky, really picky." But being picky is definitely not a bad thing. Watch his youtubes and you can tell that he is picky...i even asked if he took multiple shots and of course the answer was yes. Here are 3 out of his 7 clips (i think that's how many) for your entertainment. Warning: Sorry the layout gets a lil funky after the clips but I don't know how to change it.

I don't know if you took the time to read the comments or not, but people requested him to try out for the next American Idol and said he was the best cover of "Skinny Love"on youtube...so I know I'm not the only one enjoying his voice and music. I guess I should tell you a little bit more about his past because people like that kind of stuff. He started singing when he was around 3 years old, but his rapping and studio experience started in 7-8th grade. That's also when he really got into writing stuff. He starting playing guitar right before the summer of '05 but during the summer he broke his hand and couldn't practice his new talent.Everyone can thank his high school roommate for teaching him how to play the guitar. Yeah, that's right I said he had a roommate in high school. He went to Idyllwild Arts Academy, an arts boarding school in the mountains above palm springs. This is also where one of his musical influences(Trevor Hall) went, so isn't that just schweeet. His top 5...he'd probably change some of them now because who can really name only five, but anyway he said: Common, Trevor Hall, Bob Marley, Nas, and Stevie Wonder. His inspirations pop into his head sometimes, but sometimes he'll just hear a song and  immediately think of something. He said his song "Reverend" came from listening to Amos Lee's "Keep It Loose, Keep It Tight." He's also learned to write his shit in his phone so he doesn't forget it. That would suck if he had an awesome concept and then totally forgot it....So I should have a really nice transition right here, but my brain is starting to get a lil fried.haha sorry. But you can find his songs on myspace, like I said before, but he's also on Itunes. That's right...Itunes.You can buy his EP "Sun in December" for just $4.95.He said a lot of people are like "dude, wow you're official." He's trying to play it down, but I still think it's pretty cool. He said there's a website...tunecore.com...that's 20 bucks a year and it takes about a month and a half to get up there.He said they take about 1.90 or something like that for each purchase so that's not that bad. The comments/reviews are all really good too. He says, "I'm gracious as hell. It doesn't enlarge my head much, I try not to let anything do that, but yeah i'm very gracious, for the money spent and for the time spent to write the review,and of course their ears."So hopefully you guys can increase the number of ears for him. He says he wants to be somewhere between getting big in the industry and just making music. He said, "I definitely want it to be hear by a good amount of people. That'd be really nice, but honestly,if makin it big is not supposed to happen, I can live with that. I really would just enjoy makin my music, being in love, and living happily. I have the gift of music and thats enough, it's a blessing you know? the gift of art itself. its an outlet and thats just enough for me."There's so much more about him, but I'm gonna let you find out for yourself.So yeah there ya go. I'm done "suckin dick" as my friend would say. (if you don't get that phrase..it just means praising talent or something you like ..haha) Check him out. I'm not going to analyze his music like I try to do with others because I want you to check it out yourself. But try to appreciate the emotions and range in his voice along with the rawness of musical talent. If you didn't click on the link before..here's his myspace page...and then if you look for his Itunes type in Caleb and click on the first Caleb (rock) and his ep is "Sun in December."

In closing I'm going to leave with some more of his words. "lovvvveeeeeee. just to do so. Know what I mean? to anybody."