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<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cIt seems so hard to get people to actually listen to music,\u201d says Salt Lake City rock musician Andrew Shaw. \u201cThere’s so much saturation right now with so many bands making great music and other entertainment vying for your attention. Someone dedicating any amount of time in their day to listen to the sounds I’ve created is great. And if they have some sort of emotional response to it, even better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shaw recognizes that, when it comes to consuming music, we live in a different world than he did in high school. Twenty years ago, purchasing an album was a commitment. You owned that record and you looked at it; you unpacked it and kept it in your CD player to listen to over and over again. \u201cNow that everything has gone to streaming, it seems more like visiting a buffet where I get a taste of this and a taste of that, then quickly move on to the next thing,\u201d Shaw explains. As a musician, he knows that is how people encounter his music as well.<\/p>\n
As is the story with many artists, Shaw\u2019s passion for music was instilled at an early age. He grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, where his parents had him begin piano lessons in second grade. His father played the piano and the coronet (which Shaw picked up in grade school). In high school, he played the euphonium in concert band and marching band. But when he was 15, Shaw picked up his dad\u2019s guitar. He never took a lesson, but taught himself and started playing pop songs and whatever he could find.<\/p>\n
His first band was called Acrylic Caulk. \u201cWe were literally a garage band,\u201d Shaw explains, \u201cso we got our name by looking around and saying words that we saw in the garage.\u201d He reflects on this time in his life apologetically. \u201cIt was the \u201890s. It was high school and we all had crappy taste.\u201d They played pop music like Third Eye Blind and Deep Blue Something\u2019s \u201cBreakfast at Tiffany\u2019s.\u201d \u201cThere was a drummer and two guitar players playing music and our friends thought it was cool,\u201d he says unequivocally. But Shaw wasn\u2019t the cool, brooding teenager dying to break out of class one might associate with a budding rock musician. He got good grades. He was a mathlete. He was in marching band, student council, and theater. He was a nerd and a total do-gooder. \u201cI still am \u2014 a total nerd and a total do-gooder.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shaw is one of those introverted leaders. He seems shy at first, but once you get him talking, you\u2019re drawn in and want to be part of whatever he\u2019s talking about because you know he\u2019s up to something great. You might run into Shaw at the City Library \u2014 not because he hangs out there, but because he works on the fifth floor running the communications department. \u201cI love the library and all the first amendment democratic stuff around public libraries,\u201d he says. \u201cThey\u2019re the center of the community.\u201d But Shaw wouldn\u2019t associate himself with everything you think about when it comes to libraries. Working there was something that was more serendipitous than sought-out. When Shaw moved to Salt Lake City in 2003, he was following a girl. Two weeks after he arrived, he got dumped (and wrote a lot of \u201cbad\u201d songs about that). The \u201cnew\u201d City Library had just opened and he began to volunteer, which turned into a part-time job at the gift shop, which turned into a full-time job in the administration office, which led to a graduate degree in library science. But you wouldn\u2019t call Shaw bookish. \u201cI\u2019m a horrible reader,\u201d he admits. \u201cThat\u2019s how I introduced myself at staff orientation: \u2018Hi, I\u2019m Andrew and I don\u2019t read books.\u2019\u201d Quite the revealing statement for someone with a bachelor\u2019s degree in English. Why major in English? To read more? To learn how to write? As a songwriter, it makes sense to take that path. But Shaw confesses, \u201cI wish I could say it was that intentional.\u201d Shaw attended the University of Nebraska, studying electrical engineering because that\u2019s what smart kids with good grades did. But he hated it and noticed there were no girls in his class so he moved on to psychology. After diagnosing himself with every disorder he studied he landed in the English Department.<\/p>\n
He enjoys writing poetry, and trying to write fiction, but what he truly loves is writing music. \u201cI don\u2019t really believe in astrology,\u201d Shaw begins, \u201cbut I feel I\u2019m a Gemini through and through because I have these multiple personalities. I\u2019m super passionate about the work I do during the day at the library, but I also love the music stuff. And even within the music stuff I have four bands and each has their own personality and they have their own thing I\u2019m trying to do within those bands.\u201d<\/p>\n
Color Animal is Shaw\u2019s big, central band and what he considers the most accessible. Their latest album \u201cWhy Don\u2019t We Have Fun?\u201d was released on April 1. The title is meant to be a fun and encouraging answer to “What do you want to do tonight?” In another, perhaps more literal way, it laments the fact that having fun seems to be more difficult the older we get. Shaw is the front man in Color Animal and writes all the songs, but in his band Albino Father \u2013 a noisy, psychedelic group \u2013 he plays bass and gets to let go a little and enjoy the music while someone else writes it. Magic Mint is Shaw\u2019s solo venture, but he calls it his \u201csolo group\u201d because the sound resembles a full band. \u201cI\u2019m creating a wall of sound\u201d Shaw explains. \u201cDrums have a reverb, guitar and vocals go through a delay pedal; there are a lot of effects going on.\u201d One fan describes it as \u201cwalking a tight-rope instead of singing or playing guitar.\u201d This fan happens to play glockenspiel in Shaw\u2019s last (but not least) band called \u201cThe Sister Act.\u201d She also happens to be his wife, Utah artist Mary Toscano.<\/p>\n
Being married to an artist has its pros and cons. On one hand, collaborating with your artist wife on the design for your albums makes for the best cover art ever. On the other hand, money is tight, and they have to take turns scheduling \u201cstudio time\u201d in the second bedroom in their downtown condo. But they clearly work well together. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m an infinitely better designer and probably musician than if I didn\u2019t know Mary,\u201d Shaw gushes. \u201cShe\u2019s so good at what she does.\u201d<\/p>\n With several albums already released for Color Animal alone, Shaw is certainly prolific when it comes to writing music. But when asked to talk about the meaning behind his music, he doesn\u2019t exactly have an answer. Shaw feels the music he grew up listening to was, in retrospect, overly earnest and manipulative, and that\u2019s something he wants to avoid in his songwriting. Even though he is very interested in social justice issues, Shaw\u2019s still figuring out how to make it work with his music. Last summer, he did wave his social justice flag when he performed \u201cThe Preacher and the Slave\u201d by Joe Hill outside the City and County Building in Salt Lake City, where Hill was tried and convicted for murder in 1914. \u201cThe Preacher and the Slave\u201d parodies the popular Salvation Army hymn \u201cIn the Sweet By and By\u201d and is arguably Joe Hill\u2019s best-known song. Shaw feels our world is suffering without a modern Joe Hill or Bob Dylan. So with “Why Don’t We Have Fun?\u201d he tried to not shy away from making a statement and to figure out how to make it work instead. \u201cMusicians and artists need to be part of the conversation,\u201d says Shaw. \u201cI think we can illuminate new corners or connect with different audiences that are feeling disengaged with the talkers, politicians, and academics. I don’t want my lyrics to come off as saccharine, manipulative, or overly earnest, so I’m trying to find that balance of contributing to the conversation in a way I think is engaging and thought-provoking.\u201d<\/p>\n But Shaw isn\u2019t eager to explain his songs to anyone. \u201cI can probably unpack for you what I was thinking about when I wrote certain lyrics or what I think about as I perform certain songs or what they mean to me, but I don’t expect for that to be the meaning for everyone else, too,\u201d he clarifies. \u201cI love it when people get their own meaning out of something.\u201d Spoken like a true artist.<\/p>\n Being an artist is something Shaw takes very seriously. He feels more comfortable calling some of his compositions \u201csound art\u201d as opposed to music. He sees a lot of other musicians doing interesting things as well and is inspired by their experimentation. He recalls going to see a band play and the drummer brought out a shovel as part of his kit. Shaw observed as the sound guy went up to one of the band members: \u201cHe walked up to him with a microphone like, \u2018how do I mic this?\u2019\u201d he laughs. Shaw has been experimenting with loop-based music lately. A few years ago he was doing it completely separate from his pop music, but he finds himself combining them more. Recently, he played at the Marmalade Library Branch and at 12 Minutes Max (at the City Library) with this more experimental \u201csound art.\u201d He enjoyed how different that experience was compared to playing a gig at a bar. \u201cPeople asked questions after the performance,\u201d he says, \u201cand it was nice to have to articulate in words some of the things I was doing with my music.\u201d<\/p>\n Shaw looks forward to experimenting more in the future, but there are more pressing things on his time. Now that Color Animal\u2019s newest album has been released, he will continue to finalize a project with Salt Lake\u2019s Municipal Ballet Company which will be choreographing dance pieces to the music he writes for Color Animal and Magic Mint. \u201cI\u2019m so excited to see what the choreographers and dancers have in store,\u201d says Shaw. \u201cThe Municipal Ballet Company does amazing work and they are big fans of Salt Lake City, just like me. Sarah [Longoria] wants to make great ballet available in Salt Lake City for both the audience and the dancers.\u201d Longoria is the company\u2019s director and Shaw admires how she\u2019s creating opportunities to keep more of the dancers here that come out of our universities. Those shows open May 12 – 14, but they\u2019ll also play the Ogden Arts Festival in June and perhaps some more dates throughout the summer.<\/p>\n Another musical project that has come about in recent years is the opportunity to score films. Artist and filmmaker Kenny Riches approached Shaw to write the music to his 2012 film \u201cMust Come Down<\/a>\u201d and again, for \u201cThe Strongest Man<\/a>\u201d which was an official selection at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Riches admits he doesn\u2019t speak in musical terms at all so when he talks to Shaw about what he is looking for, Shaw will record some music for him and he has to articulate what he likes or doesn\u2019t like. \u201cHe ends up recording a crazy amount of music and I use just a very small percentage of it, but he works at it until we’re both happy,\u201d says Riches. \u201cAndrew is dedicated, and very, very patient.\u201d Scoring films has been a dream of Shaw\u2019s because he\u2019s always felt music was a great part of filmmaking. \u201cBreaking into that, or anything music-related, as a full-time gig seems out of reach for me, but I’d love to work with other filmmakers and earn more of a living making music.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n\n\t\t\t
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