0:00

Welcome to this bonus episode of Sound

0:02

Opinions. I'm Jim D. Regardis. My partner

0:04

is Greg Cott. And Greg,

0:06

today we're excited to announce the

0:08

winners of the 2024 Sound Opinions

0:11

Music Prize. That's in just a

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Download the app or visit

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carvana.com today. We

1:05

are back. It's our second annual

1:07

prize showcasing a few students who

1:10

really wrote exceptional songs. You're correct,

1:12

Jim. We're happy to shed some

1:14

light on these students' works. And

1:16

as always, we'd like to thank

1:18

our friends at the Goldschmidt Foundation

1:20

for donating to these students and

1:23

giving us this opportunity. And

1:25

Jim, we are in our bag this

1:27

week because we're talking with the Music

1:29

Prize winners. Absolutely, Greg. And we teamed

1:32

up with my colleague Gary Yurkins from

1:34

Columbia College Chicago's Music Department who helped

1:36

compile a list of contenders. And then

1:38

the two of us chose the finalists

1:41

from that list. We'll be hearing from

1:43

the three of them today. So we'll

1:45

go one song at a time, starting

1:47

with our first place Music Prize winner,

1:49

Mary James. Greg, I've got

1:52

plenty to say about Mary's song, Femme, but

1:54

why don't you start us off?

1:56

I loved it. It stood out. It had

1:58

this jazzy soul vibe. which I love.

2:00

It had that sassy vocal. You know, I

2:03

wrote down Girl Power. It's a cliche, but

2:05

I was feeling tremendous Girl Power energy from

2:08

your track, Mary. And then I

2:10

gotta ask you, I thought the giggle at the

2:12

end just clinched it for me. It's like, was

2:14

that spontaneous or? It was a little spontaneous. Yeah.

2:16

I thought it was cool that you left that

2:19

in there. But the, it sort

2:21

of fit the energy of the whole track. I

2:23

thought it just kind of was a perfect punctuation

2:25

point at the end. So well

2:27

done. Yeah. What a song for

2:29

the year of Barbie. Right?

2:32

I'm a femme. He's a femme.

2:34

She's a femme. And then shout

2:36

out, it's raining femmes.

2:38

I love that. Do you know

2:40

who you were quoting obliquely there?

2:44

Do I remember the name? No, but

2:47

I know the weather girls. It's

2:49

raining man. Raining man. Hallelujah. What

2:52

about that killer guitar solo? Did you

2:54

play that? I did not know that was

2:56

Stephen Ryan, the guitar player for my

2:58

band, Bred on 4th or one of

3:00

the guitar players. Red on 4th. Excellent. And

3:02

you guys play out around Chicago? Yeah.

3:04

Yeah. We've definitely, we've done a couple of gigs

3:06

and we're hoping to do some more over the

3:09

summer. Cool. Okay. Now, you know,

3:11

the photo students gave us, you

3:13

know, gallery ready bios and

3:16

the writing students were in my class

3:18

either reviewing the arts or cultural criticism

3:20

in the arts. But the

3:22

songwriting contenders, yourself included, we got the

3:24

songs and the lyrics. So we know

3:26

nothing about you. Where did you come

3:28

from to attend Columbia College and what

3:30

are you studying, et cetera? I'm

3:33

from a small town in

3:35

New Hampshire called Wolf Borough.

3:37

It's the oldest summer resort

3:39

in America. That's the Wikipedia

3:41

entry. I love it.

3:44

And I always knew that I wanted to

3:46

be a musician and I was always singing and I

3:48

got here and I was like, man,

3:51

I got to start writing songs. Very

3:53

exciting. Yeah. No, it's great. And

3:56

is this just one of many, obviously, that you've

3:58

written? Why did you select this song? one

4:00

in particular to be entered in the contest. It's

4:02

one of my favorite songs that I've ever written.

4:04

I just think that it's so fun

4:07

and really light-hearted. I love

4:09

performing it. I think that

4:11

the songwriting itself is just,

4:13

it doesn't take itself too

4:15

seriously, which I liked because

4:17

I definitely can fall into

4:19

like the indie sad thing,

4:21

but I was just excited that it was a

4:23

fun song. I'm glad you said that because

4:25

I think there is sort of a self seriousness

4:27

about a lot of indie that really

4:29

turned me off to it for a while. Well,

4:32

yeah, sad indie girl music. And you know,

4:34

we've said any boy music, especially though, especially

4:36

a bunch of white boys singing about how

4:39

sad they were and it's just like I'm

4:41

getting tired of this stuff. Emo mopes. Yes.

4:44

And this is not that. What is the song you've been called?

4:46

We haven't mentioned it, Mary. That

5:01

was a bit of femme

5:03

by Mary James, our

5:06

first place songwriting

5:08

prize winner for

5:24

2024. Let's hear from our

5:27

second place winner, Mark Berg. His song

5:29

is called Field of Rain. But Mark,

5:31

tell us a bit first about where

5:33

you come from. Yes. So I am

5:35

from just like right outside Chicago in

5:37

the suburbs. I'm specifically from Bartlett.

5:39

If anyone knows who that is, it's kind

5:41

of by Elgin. That's what I usually tell

5:43

people. It's rolling green and like horses on

5:45

occasion. Not like the loop. Horses

5:49

on occasion. Yeah,

5:52

it's far me.

5:54

Tell us about your tune, man. My song

5:57

is called Field of Rain. Yeah, this

5:59

is a song I made. Like a couple months

6:01

ago. I put this out or oh, it's

6:03

been a while now I said I put

6:05

the song out over the end of the

6:07

summer last year. Mm-hmm. And Yeah,

6:10

I just I really like the song This is my

6:12

like most recent song I like put out and I

6:14

feel like it kind of combines a lot

6:16

of my like influences into one song

6:20

I feel really inspired by like all

6:22

types of big dance music and electronic pop but

6:25

also like R&B so I

6:27

feel like this song is like a like

6:30

Middle point of all the stuff I'm

6:33

inspired by. Mm-hmm I'm glad you brought

6:35

up R&B mark because I wrote down

6:37

contemporary slow jam when I when

6:39

I heard it It's kind of sexy

6:41

in its own way, right? It's it's like,

6:44

you know those soul singers who were doing

6:46

those bedroom pop records soul records in

6:48

the 70s You know reminds me a

6:50

little yeah vibe with a little touch of the

6:52

weekend in there Yeah, yeah with the electronics and

6:54

everything sure I nailed that right? All right, Mark

6:57

Yeah, exactly a little touch of

6:59

the weekend But the fun right

7:01

laughing in 7-eleven is how I hear

7:04

this as the story of a

7:06

date You know, you

7:08

know where we're headed take my hand laughing

7:10

in 7-eleven and then magic on a

7:12

twin-size bed This is like

7:15

dorm room romance, right Mark Yes,

7:18

it's exactly that because

7:20

yeah to me this song is very

7:22

much just like this like dream romance

7:25

that like Everything feels

7:27

very like movie ask or it's like oh my

7:29

god Like it's kind of weird to experience it

7:31

in real life. And yeah, I

7:33

just think I think it's a very sweet song

7:35

There's actually like that though if you brought

7:37

up where it's like magic on a twin-size bed I feel

7:39

like can't be taken like very sexually

7:41

but that's not how I meant it at all

7:44

like it's more just the like spending

7:46

time with someone you like and Like,

7:48

you know a very intimate setting and like that's

7:51

kind of how I would sum up the whole

7:53

song Yeah, there's nowhere to sit in a Columbia

7:55

dorm room except for the bad Those

8:01

clinics I hope will get you. Yeah

8:03

for sure. I wanted

8:05

to ask you Mark about the production too.

8:07

Is that all you? All the instruments and

8:09

the electronic touches and all

8:12

your stuff or you're a

8:14

one-man band as they say? Yeah

8:16

yeah so everything that I have

8:18

for the most part everything I write for

8:20

the most part is like recorded, written, produced,

8:22

and performed by me. I love writing and

8:25

like the performance part of it but I

8:27

honestly would consider producing my main thing. I

8:30

love to produce. I've been doing it for

8:32

like just over six years now. It's like

8:34

my I love it so much. And

8:36

that love of production really shows here.

8:39

Here's a bit of Field of Rain

8:41

by Mark Berg, our second place music

8:43

prize winner this year. Field

9:00

of Rain by

9:03

Mark Berg. It's a pleasure to have you

9:06

on the show. Last but

9:08

certainly not least,

9:18

DeAndre Donegan, our third place winner. DeAndre,

9:20

tell us where you come from and

9:23

how you got to Columbia and then

9:25

tell us about your tune. So I

9:27

actually grew up in the south side

9:29

of Chicago. So I've just been

9:31

living in the city my whole life and but

9:33

yeah I just chose to come to Columbia to study

9:36

music just because yeah like

9:38

Mary said I kind of always knew that I

9:40

wanted to be a musician. Like some of my

9:42

earliest memories were like dancing and

9:44

singing to Beyonce like while my mom worked

9:46

out and just like going

9:49

to concerts and really just loving

9:51

what I saw and I went

9:53

to this one concert, this Andrew and like

9:55

our concert if you all turn apart. And

9:57

I just saw it performing and I

10:00

knew that that was kind of what I wanted to do with my life after

10:02

that. Very cool. Is that

10:04

you on the guitar, finger-picked and all that?

10:07

Yeah. Where did you learn how to play?

10:10

I actually mostly taught myself. I

10:12

had lessons very briefly when I

10:15

was in seventh grade, and it just

10:17

kind of didn't work out very well for me.

10:19

So I just kind of picked it up on

10:22

my own and started learning songs

10:24

and just picking up things as I

10:26

continued to fall in love with just playing the guitar

10:28

and being with it. You learn songs

10:30

by listening to them and then trying to like

10:32

emulate it or how does that work? There's

10:35

this wonderful app called Ultimate Guitar Tabs

10:37

that I live, breathe and die by.

10:41

Cool. But yeah, I'll

10:43

usually just choose songs that I listen

10:45

to a bunch and just go and

10:47

emulate it the best I can with

10:49

the finger-picking. Well, I want

10:51

to make it clear that as music

10:53

critics, Greg and I are always citing

10:56

references and it's not to diminish the

10:58

originality by any means, but

11:00

to compare to other artists. I

11:02

hear a little Elliot Smith in what

11:04

you're doing, DeAndre, and you may or may

11:07

not have even heard of Elliot, which is

11:09

to say I'm also a little bit worried

11:11

about you because

11:13

there's a sadness in this track.

11:15

I quit life like next week,

11:18

you know, leave hope hanging, hanging,

11:20

hanging. Is everything okay, my

11:22

friend? We have

11:24

good mental health and counseling at

11:27

Columbia. Yeah,

11:30

everything is okay. I usually channel

11:32

those emotions into my music and

11:35

into my journal. Yeah. See,

11:37

that's what people never understand, whether you're

11:39

talking blues or songs in 2025. It's

11:42

like music can be a

11:44

source of catharsis for us out with

11:46

the bad and I get joy from

11:49

doing that. Exactly.

11:51

Exactly. What do you

11:53

want to do with the music? Are you going to

11:55

turn this into a living you hope at some point

11:57

or is it kind of a serious hobby? I do

11:59

hope so. to turn it into a living. As

12:01

for how to actually make that happen, I'm

12:03

not sure what I want my relationship to

12:05

music to look like professionally, because there are

12:08

just so many different options in pathways that

12:10

you can choose. So you have

12:12

the producing, you have live performing, you have corporate

12:15

bands and experiences like that.

12:17

So yeah, I definitely want to

12:19

do this professionally and full-time though, that's

12:21

no doubt. Well, it's your generation, all

12:23

three of you, Mary, Mark and DeAndre,

12:25

that are rewriting the rules in the

12:27

music industry. Because that path that has

12:30

infected many and aspiring musicians since

12:33

the Beatles, I will be

12:35

anointed by the record company and become

12:37

a star. That doesn't exist anymore. And

12:40

you three are making the music

12:42

you want to make, that

12:44

business of like making money from it may or may

12:47

not come. But

12:49

you won a scholarship for next year or

12:52

partial. Yeah, no, exactly.

12:54

I think something

12:56

that I've had to learn is managing your

12:58

expectations as an artist, just kind of going

13:01

in with the mindset of, okay, I

13:03

just want to make something really cool, I want to

13:05

make something that I really enjoy and that I really

13:07

like. And just kind of

13:10

holding out hope that other people will

13:12

also really enjoy it. So my philosophy

13:14

is kind of focus on the music

13:16

first and really put your all

13:18

into that and really put your soul into it

13:21

so that other people can have a chance to

13:23

connect with it. Well, I think all three of

13:25

you have done that. Let's listen to DeAndre's song,

13:27

I Hear You. Last

13:30

time that you called

13:32

me was a

13:34

probably not a

13:36

bad dream. This

13:39

time it's all real.

13:41

The world is ending,

13:44

don't you need me. Now

13:48

I listen closely

13:50

to the song

13:53

and I hear you

13:56

by our third plan. winner

14:00

DeAndre Dunnigan wrapping up our

14:02

bonus episode with the Sound

14:05

Opinions Songwriting Prize winners for

14:08

2024. We hope to have all three of

14:10

them back in the future when they're superstars.

14:12

Don't forget us! That is right Jim. Congrats

14:14

to the winners of this year's Sound Opinions

14:17

Music Prize and thanks once again to the

14:19

Goldschmidt Foundation for giving us the opportunity to

14:22

forward their work. You can find

14:24

said work on our website. That's

14:26

it for this bonus episode. For

14:28

more full episodes visit soundopinions.org. To

14:31

sponsor the show, email sponsor

14:33

at soundopinions.org. Thanks for listening.