Smoldering. Eclectic. Energetic. These are words musician Jon Prophet uses to describe is music. Jon professes, “Great music has its own magic and will survive in spite of mediocrity. I have always felt these songs, my songs, need to be out in the world to inspire people and to move themselves into higher realms of awareness.”  The works of artists like Chris Whitley, Tricky, Jeff Buckley and Grant Lee Phillips inspire Jon to bring a poetic sensitivity to music without losing energy or intensity. He offers a sweet tonic for the trials and tribulations of the human heart. His intense voice is haunting yet soulful and belts out with sad, seismic passion that unfurls like a sail in a summer storm.

As a teen in his small hometown of Show Low, AZ in the 1980s, Jon absorbed himself in the heavy metal acts of the time: Metallica, Megadeath, Exodus, Testament, Slayer, Anthrax and so on. He’d watch Head Bangers Ball late nights on MTV eagerly awaiting something heavy and menacing. One night, a song entitled “Hands all Over” by Soundgarden played and, for Jon, cut through the pretentious bullshit like a dull, rusty knife. Then it happened: Nirvana dropped the single “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and well, you know the rest.

Prophet formed and re-formed bands after high school and a bit of community college, until moving from Show Low to the “big city” of Phoenix. He worked as a drum tech and roadie for a few well-followed local “ass rock” bands. (In case you’re wondering what that means, it is basically a term for any band, back in the day, that could get a crowd full of hot and scantily dressed females out to their shows. Those were part of the benefits to the gig!)

Jon had a vision to write songs that would make people feel the way the music he loves made him feel: the sense of mystery and wonder that Jim Morrison conveyed with his enigmatic lyrics and rich voice, or the physical exuberance expressed by air drumming along side Neil Peart or Keith Moon, or the visceral thrill of “wind milling” with Pete Townsend or riffing with Jimmy Page. Artists like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Al Green and Sam Cooke, with their smooth soul sounds, made Jon aware of a world far beyond his own. “This is the greatness I continue to aspire to. These creative geniuses keep bringing me back to music. I think my biggest criticism of today’s music is the lack of risk-taking.”

Jon began to produce, compose, and perform his own music in the early 90s. He opened for the Foo Fighters and country legend TG Sheppard. He toured regionally in the southwest US with cover bands, released 2 records of his own music, and played with amazing musicians in hundreds of shows for thousands of people. Not a bad deal.

The glorious moments of the stage, however, didn’t make up for the frustration over not getting the attention Jon felt his band and music deserved.  “I got bitter and jaded and I knew I needed to take a break from it.”  Jon began to travel, study, and explore the world, all the while gaining perspective and enjoying a free lifestyle that had not been possible previously. “My experiences in the last several years have been eye-opening. Much has changed for me. Despite my wandering journeys and attempts to leave music, it has never left me. Music is the most loyal and committed partner I have ever had.”

Jon is currently working on a new record of earthy, roots rock, neo-folk and Americana style songs to be released in the fall of 2011. www.jonprophetmusic.com ▲

We have about three hours until we are toast. Our 6am rendevous finds perfect dawn light in the dry creekbed where we are shooting the cover for David Lucas’ new Downriver CD project. The shoot will be in the can before the intense heat of the Texas sun in July turns us to toast.

A month or so after our shoot, I spent some time with David at a hotel bar in Austin where he works. The CD had just arrived from the manufacturer. It’s his new calling card for live shows to come.  I got to learn a little more about this aspiring blues/rock artist.

The big-sounding guitar and vocal work of Downriver is in contrast to David’s down-right soft-spoken niceness. David is native of the the Niagra Falls area of Ontario, Canada. He and is wife settled in the Austin area in after having spent some time in Houston. (Does anybody move from Austin to Houston?)

David has applied for US citizenship and is proud to be living in the US where choices abound. This night at the bar, a young couple was having drinks: the man was a soldier on leave, the woman was his wife who met him in Austin for the weekend. Upon learning this, David reacted with sincere and enthiastic appreciation for the soldier’s service and gave the couple a copy of his new Downriver CD. David has a near term goal to join a USO tour and give back all that he can to the troops.

“I want to be buried in this dress,” says Patricia Vonne as we set up for our first few shots in the Imperial Room at The Belmont in Austin.

I’m standing in the mens’ restroom, camera in hand, inside Momo’s nightclub in Austin, TX. The door is open, exposing the lavatory to the narrow walk-through that serves as a passage from the outside deck into the club’s booth seating area.

I don’t really care that some guy is in there wondering what I’m taking pictures of. It’s the only way I can get a full-length shot of the girl standing on the other side of the doorway, up against the red painted brick wall opposite me. She’s holding a Corona. I’m glad she’s game for one last set of pictures. We’ve been shooting at a different location for a couple of hours already, and I know she didn’t expect to continue the shoot at the club.  I tell her this is the last picture, “I promise.”

Just a few minutes before, Tara Holloway was taking it all in as we sat on the steps of Momo’s deck. From there, you’ve got a relatively good view of the stage and can hear the music without it being on top of you. Kacy Crowley was doing a solo acoustic set for the small late-afternoon crowd. Holloway sat jotting notes into her red Moleskine. “I’m not copying her lyrics. Really, I’m not!,” she assured me with a playful grin.

And she has no reason to. Like Crowley, Holloway writes from a very honest and open place. It’s so real you can feel it. It’s so good, you want to hear it over and over.

You have a great laugh. It’s one of the first things people think of when they think of you.

It’s something that people can’t help but to mock actually! hahHAhHa! They mean it affectionately, but it happens alot where I laugh, and then someone else does the whole Count Dracula thing. Is that what I sound like? Laughing is the best thing ever… hahahHAhhahha!

Your voice is often compared to some of the great female vocalists for its strength, texture, and heartfelt power? You know what I’m talking about. How do you feel about those comparisons?

I feel GREAT about those comparisons! Thanks Ed! Women in music will easily always be compared to one another, and really all music is like that. People want to name it, when they hear it. It’s just about communicating a feeling, when you compare. I do it!

You mentioned Howlin Wolf as a major influence. Can you talk about that. How were you introduced to his music?

Vinyl. That’s how i got into Howlin Wolf and alot of my early influences come from my Daddio’s record collection. I really got into the blues when I was 16 [1996]. It didn’t matter that none of my friends ever thought twice about a turntable, I did.

My dad was always giving me shit for listening to everything on vinyl. He figures it’s a saving grace to record it on tape, the first listen. But I had a love for dropping that needle and listening to the crackles. Still do.

Yeah my dad would come home after a Saturday morning out record hunting, he’d open my door a hair (I was always still sleeping by noon, when he’d be arriving home with what gold he found), and he’d yell from the kitchen, so excited, “Kid! Listen to this!” And he’d be blasting the new records so I could hear.

Where do you play locally, in Ottawa? What’s that like?

I play EVERYWHERE in Ottawa. There are some really great legendary places to play in and around Ottawa. Each with a different vibe. Honestly, some gigs are just to keep my head above water. These are called “cover gigs” hahahHHA! But the original shows are special. ▲