The Latest From OurStage's Greatest

posted in: OurStage Updates

With hundreds of thousands of artists making up the OurStage community, sometimes it’s hard to keep track of all the latest cool happening with our favorite musicians. Luckily, we subscribe to hundreds of OurStagers’ newsletters and email updates so we can always be there to lend a hand or a congratulatory high five. Consider this post a fist pump, thumbs up, ass slap, whatever you will, to these artists for their continuing hustle. Stay awesome.

You may remember the alt hip hop group OMG from their cooler than cool showing in the Coors Light Search for the Coldest Competition, where they froze out competition to become finalists and opened for N.E.R.D. Now they’re heating things up with their latest single “Chase the Sun” released on August 3 from their upcoming debut LP Mr. Mars. The funky hip hop beats will put you in a block party mindset complete with warm tall boys, but the swaggy hip hop vocals will melt you down into a groovy puddle right on the pavement.

Some music is just written for heartache. But if you’re really looking to torture yourself, you’re gonna want the songs that were written from heartache. Chris Akinyemi delivers in “Aya Mi” (means My Heart in Yoruba) of his debut Autumn EP, a soft acoustic song about what sounded like a wrenching break up with his college girlfriend. Just as you’re about to slit your wrists, female harmonies and the slightest percussion accents are dropped in (4:20) for a revitalizing finish. Regardless of the inspiration for the song, Chris has the last laugh, as the “Aya Mi” music video will soon premiere on MTV.

Our DVR may be slightly backed up with the new episodes of Entourage (what? Sunday nights are busy!) but The Niceguys video for their new single “Ari Gold”, off their upcoming The James Kelley EP, is enough to remind us why we need to make a date with our remote, and soon. Spitting a take-no-prisoners philosophy, we want to bump the song while driving around cursing off our boss (hypothetically, of course!).  In the latest issue of Rolling Stone (p. 56)  Jeremy Piven insisted he really is a “nice guy”… maybe The Niceguys can make him one of their entourage.

Amy Kuney makes the kind of music that lends itself to pop culture and relevant going-ons. Her song “All Downhill From Here” made an appearance in the uber-creepy Catfish, a was-it-or-wasn’t-it documentary exploring online relationships. Most recently “Gasoline Rainbows” was used by So You Think You Can Dance choreographer Stacey Tookey to convey a wake up call in regards to growing environmental issues. Whether it’s intentional or not, Amy is certainly tuned in.

Being sick sucks. Being sick with food poisoning sucks even more. Being sick with pneumonia, food poisoning AND being in Germany probably sucks serious bratwurst. But Xoe Wise is bouncing back and getting ready to depart on a North American tour with Matt Ryd, hitting pretty much every major city and adding in five performances at Microsoft locations, who are sponsoring her. Look for our care package of TheraFlu in the mail, Xoe.

The New York Times, as they say, has all the news that’s fit to print. So it’s only fitting that Sarah Solovay popped up in the N.Y./Region section last month in an interview about her career as a seventeen-year-old musician juggling songwriting and prep school. Despite a respectable number of song placements in TV and film, “her biggest achievement was opening for [John] Mayer. Fans [judged] for her on OurStage.com, and on July 24, 2010, she took the stage in front of 18,000 people in Scranton, Pa.,” where our old friend music exec Bruce Tyler noticed and took special interest in her career. Taking the summer to work on her new album, it’s back to the stacks in the fall for Sarah.