This week, listen to a playlist of the three winning tracks by Charles Sadler, Military Special and Mother Banjo.
This week listen to a playlist of three winning tracks by Charles Sadler, chosen by Melisa Rivière, Military Special, chosen by Dana Raidt, and Mother Banjo chosen by Andrea Myers.
Charles Sadler | The Clockwork Golem Encounters the Backwards Engineer
I am the lead singer for the Band Stellar Vector. I am the principal songwriter and piano player for the Electronica act Aurascape. I am the keyboardist for grunge rock band Tasha's Laughter. Right now, I'm a very tired Charles.
Military Special was forged in the fires of the Summer of 2007. They played their first show at a keg party in a Minneapolis basement shortly thereafter.
Founding members Peter Blomgren, Joe Schweigert, and Jake Hartnett—of Afternoon Records alums Look Down—hooked up with James Shaff (of Viceburgh), and Jake’s brother Joe Hartnett to form the original lineup of Military Special. Those five recorded a quick demo before the departure of the Hartnett Brothers in September of 2007.
Mother Banjo is a one-woman band featuring Ellen Stanley on banjo and vocals. Raised on rock and pop music and trained classically on piano, oboe and voice, Ellen fell in love with folk music as a teenager as she became hooked on public radio and discovered the church coffeehouse scene in southern Connecticut. It was there that she got exposed to a wide variety of acoustic artists and devoured the sounds of singer-songwriters, bluegrass bands and old-timey ballads. Although an avid prose and poetry writer, Ellen did not connect with her own songwriting voice until she graduated from college and moved to Minneapolis where she bought a house, got a cat and took up the banjo. After performing pretty regularly at cabaret-style variety shows and open mics, Ellen has started touring more nationally, hitting clubs and coffeehouses from New York City to the Montana Rockies.
about mnSPIN 
Winning tracks from each contest are selected by panelists from within the music industry. Each week a three-song playlist from the winning submissions will be featured on the mnartists.org and Summit Brewery web sites. Quarterly listening parties at area venues will take place and a compilation CD of music from the yearlong contest will be produced.
Submission Specifications and Entry Process Any and all types of music accepted; only three tracks per musician will be reviewed for possible inclusion on the CD. Tracks can be uploaded to artist pages on mnartists.org, and a URL of the page can then be e-mailed to mnspin@mnartists.org. Submissions must come from mnartists.org members. To sign up for membership, visit www.mnartists.org/join.do?action=join. For assistance with registration or with uploading music tracks, please e-mail info@walkerart.org or call 612.375.7611.
mnSPIN is sponsored by mnartists.org, Summit Brewery, Springboard for the Arts, and McNally Smith College of Music.
