Catch An Orchardite Or Two in “Covering Coven”

Who could have imagined that from the minds that brought us everyone’s favorite high school musical dramedy Glee was something far more twisted, terrifying and truly controversial? In 2011, Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk introduced horror fans to an entirely new and progressive idea not really seen before on television as they dreamed up American Horror Story, now one of FX’s fan favorites.

In its first two seasons, the visually spellbinding anthology series covered everything from hauntings, alien abductions and brutally graphic murder depictions to touching on the more real and relatable issues of true American horror including teen violence and school shootings, suicide and self mutilation, adultery, drug addiction, homosexual discrimination, experimental torture, rape and mental illness among many others. Fast forward to this year where we head to New Orleans to explore an aspect of American folklore and reality — witches — as leading ladies take front and center and we are introduced to our Coven. With an all-star cast peppered with familiar faces in completely different roles including Jessica Lange and Sarah Paulson joining the likes of new additions Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett, the fight between the power of witches and the ritual behind voodoo is captivating and not to be missed!

Now, we here at The Orchard have noticed a trend: with great television, there is now often a great recap series to accompany it. The Walking Dead has Talking Dead, Breaking Bad had Talking Bad, and now the newest season of FX’s American Horror Story: Coven, has Covering Coven. “The Recap” has come a long way since its meager beginnings of fans just blogging about their favorite shows purely because they wanted to. Now you have TV stations dedicating at least half an hour of precious airtime to a recap show and writers being paid to give us their opinion. And it’s not just the network television stations picking this up — YouTube is filled with fan-produced recap shows that generate quite the following.

Shock Till You Drop, a top horror web publisher, also took notice of this trend and has enlisted five women to do a weekly recap of Coven, including yours truly — along with Perri Nemiroff, Sasha Capelli, and Alexis Saarela. We must say, we were a bit skeptical when first asked to do this. Why would people care about our thoughts and theories on the show? Well, the numbers don’t lie. With the first episode in our series generating just over 1K views, it shows us that fans really do want to see if their theories match with ours, or if we can blow their minds with different insight into the show. Covering Coven also takes on a new approach to the recap show: a 5 person Google Hangout. So instead of having one person sitting in front of their webcam droning on and on about the show, our show is a conversation focused web series that runs 12-15 minutes max and hits all the juicy points in the show, as well as the subtleties that you may have missed when just watching it yourself.

There are 8 episodes left in this season, so it’s definitely not too late to start watching! Tune in to FX tonight and every Wednesday at 10pm EST to see what your favorite witches are up to, then look out for the latest episode of Covering Coven each Thursday afternoon on the Shock Till You Drop YouTube Channel.

If you still aren’t convinced that this show is for you, check out our first episode (massive spoiler alert!) and you just might change your mind:

- Megg Hochbaum and Allison Ullrich

Welcome, Cookie!

Introducing Cookie Pryce, Senior Client Relations Manager, UK

So you wanna know a little bit about me?

Formerly a member of the UK’s leading Female Rap outfit ‘The Cookie Crew,’ I enjoyed a ten-year career as a signed recording artist, touring with an array of U.S. greats including Public Enemy, De La Soul, Stetsasonic, EPMD, GUY and Bobby Brown. I have also recorded with the likes of Gangstarr, BlackSheep, Davy DMX, Danny D, Roy Ayres and the late Edwin Starr.

Since hanging up the microphone I have embraced many roles within our industry from Marketing, Publicity and Promotion to Project Management and mentoring young people.

I’ve worked for and been a consultant for several Major and Independent Record Labels, Entertainment & Publicity Companies including: Universal Music-UK, Atlantic Records-UK, Koch Entertainment-New York, SMC Recordings-San Francisco, Strange Music Inc.-Kansas City, Propas International Rights Management-Canada, RSK Entertainment-UK, Timezone International-New York, MOBO Organization-UK, AEG/The O2 Arena-UK, Connie Fillipello Publicity, Emms Publicity, From The Rib Music, Imani Entertainment Group and Cash Money Records.

I have spearheaded Marketing & PR campaigns in the UK for some of the biggest names in the music industry including: Missy Elliott, P Diddy, Lupe Fiasco, Lil Kim, T.I., Twista, Brandy, Mary J Blige, KRS-One, Raekwon, RZA, Grand Puba, Erykah Badu, The Roots, Rakim, Danity Kane, Tech N9ne, Krizz Kaliko, Akala, George Michael, Mariah Carey, Veronica V, Eve, Trevante, Kenny Dope & Rasheed Chappell and Tamar Braxton.

I’m also a board member at Diaspora UK, a non-profit music foundation supporting and lobbying for equality and diversity within the music and creative industries.

My experience led me to running my own bespoke consultancy service to the creative industry (UK and US). I’m not only a massive music fan, but also a former recording artist who was able to migrate my skills, passion, knowledge and expertise over to the other side of the business, becoming a one-woman band that conducted a whole orchestra and I’m about to go on tour with THE ORCHARD.

I love food & music, food & life, food & family, food & friends, food & cats, food & shopping and most of all, I love being ME.

November 2013 presents another opportunity……….I’m joining a progressive company!!!! I’m extremely excited about my new role and looking forward to working with you all!

On that note….. sit back and enjoy the in-flight entertainment, popcorn and drinks will be served shortly ;)

“Let’s Go” Get Crunk with the Neighbors (or Get Attacked by an Airbag Trying)

You may or may not have seen a certain red band trailer recently featuring Lil Jon’s “Let’s Go,” from our very own TVT Records, but you need to. It’s hilarious.

Neighbors, the working title for the new flick from Nick Stoller (Get Him To The Greek, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Muppets Most Wanted (side bar: how stoked are you for that one)), stars Seth Rogen as a new father matching wits with an obnoxious frat, presided over by Zac Efron.

You can check out the trailer below, and look for the film in the spring of 2014.

Label Spotlight: Norton Records

In Defence of the Internet: Creativity is Flourishing

A couple of weeks ago, David Byrne wrote an article in The Guardian suggesting the opposite of this headline. He argued the Internet is a steamroller on a path to crush creativity.

Since we’re apparently in the age of writing open letters, here is my response to that prophecy.

Creativity has never been this easy to express. Be it writing, music, photography, video or art, the tools at our disposal are powerful and, in most cases, much cheaper to utilise. This fact is often overlooked in debates about the Internet and digital music as a whole.

Much is made of the barriers coming down between artists and fans due to two-way conversation on social media, but those lines are blurred further still, not by Robin Thicke, but because the fans are no longer simply fans. The fans are artists too. They often create their own music, take photography, write their own blogs or upload videos.

Content creation is no longer the preserve of the minority.

The pot of revenue becomes increasingly divided between more and more thanks to the ease of distribution, but is that really a bad thing? It may mean fewer musicians can sustain full-time employment from music, but many more can make money from it. It may drive more and more into being hobbyists, but more people are creating. Ultimately, I see that as a positive. Who are we to begrudge the opportunity for people who are talented enough to make music that inspires people to buy, listen and attend shows?

Similar upheaval is happening in journalism, with blogs rising in prominence, largely fueled by hobbyists rather than qualified journalists. What are you going to do? Ask them to refrain from blogging?

The guy who picks up a bass guitar and strums along to “Born to Run” on YouTube is a content creator. Should we ask him to stop?

Regardless, when you look around, it’s easy to see that new, talented artists are emerging and are becoming successful. Did the Internet hamper them or empower them? The answer from these artists would be overwhelmingly the latter, I suspect. They have built their audience and made money by using what the Internet has to offer.

New methods of consumption are enabling many young people to pay for a service that they want. To them, ownership is not an interesting concept, ease-of-access is. The alternative is having a generation growing up that considers paying for music as alien, an acceptable situation for no-one.

We must do our best to ensure artists and creators are rewarded as richly as they deserve, but the Internet is not the devil here; it is a facilitator and a toolset. As a musician, the real challenge is being better than your peers, because there are so many of them. How do you rise above the masses? You have to be great.