We Flew Off The Page

09/06/2024

Tonight! I play the pre-show for Josh Ritter at Center for the Arts of Homer, I’m on 6:30-7:30 and Josh plays at 8.

Tickets: https://www.tixr.com/groups/center4art

05/06/2024

29/05/2024

For my June episode I had the pleasure of talking songwriting with Kendl Winter, one half of the banjo duo The Lowest Pair. Oh songwriters, you’re in for a real treat this month. The rest of you are gonna love this one too. Episode drops Monday, June 3rd.

Listen on your favorite podcatcher: https://linktr.ee/wfotppod

06/05/2024

Out today! Louisa Stancioff and I discuss dissonant Bulgarian harmonies, the way the place you’re living changes your work and her new album, “When We Were Looking” which is out now on vinyl/cd/streaming.

Listen on your favorite podcatcher: https://linktr.ee/wfotppod

Stream or buy “When We Were Looking”: https://ffm.to/whenwewerelooking

📸 Matt Gaillet

01/05/2024

Happy Int’l Workers Day folks! My May guest is the talented, the hard working, the delightful Louisa Stancioff. Fresh off the release of her new album “When We Were Looking”, Louisa and I sat down to talk about the role of her Bulgarian musical heritage in her work, relationships and the way “where you are” effects “what you make”. The episode drops on Monday May 6.

Listen on your favorite podcatcher: https://linktr.ee/wfotppod

Check out her new album: https://ffm.to/whenwewerelooking

17/04/2024

I spent the last 15 years as a garbageman and I have a master’s degree from Harvard. Now I know bragging about your Harvard degree is frowned upon, but I got that degree over a period of 10 years, while working full time and raising a child, AND battling a chronic illness - and I did it all for free (as an employee of the university), it cost me $400 in course books and photocopier fees. So yeah, I’m’a brag about it.

I spent my days going toe to toe with the university as our union steward, fighting for worker’s rights, and my nights holed up in the fanciest libraries you ever saw, writing papers. Ten years earlier I had worked on a carpentry crew hanging sheet rock in one of the libraries where I later did research. Baby powder on my arms to keep the insulation from itching. My new song has a line that repeats, “I don’t think you understand….you’re messin’ with the wrong man.” It sums up my attitude as a blue collar scholar.

Speaking of sums, “Blue Collar Math” is streaming everywhere.

Find it on your favorite player (paid and free options): https://ffm.to/oog44md

The whole record is for sale on vinyl: https://www.muhammadseven.com/shop/temples-vinyl

In spite of that degree I’ve spent my whole life to this point as a blue collar worker. I’ve been a groundskeeper, a line cook, a butcher, a bread baker, (this is where you make a joke about candlesticks) a waiter, a carpenter, a union shop steward…the list goes on. A musician. We don’t often talk about artists as blue collar workers but what’s more blue collar than art making? It’s brutally hard, undervalued, humanity can’t live without it and it and it doesn’t pay for s**t (for 99% of the workers, anyhow). Sounds working class to me!

I wrote “Blue Collar Math” a few years ago, during the time when everyone was talking about how divided we were as a nation. And we were - but I think we’ve always felt divided. And I also think we’ve always been more alike than we are different. All of us. Everybody’s heard that “united we stand but divided we fall”. When you join a union (if it’s a strong one), you learn how true that really is. Working people rarely know just how powerful we are, and the truth is, we make the world turn. And when we stand together it’s impossible to ignore our voices.

The chorus to “Blue Collar Math” goes:

“If it generates a profit
You’ll say two plus two is five
I could make a couple dollars
If I make it out alive

You assumed I wasn’t smart enough
to do your math at first
But I think I figured out this time
Just what my life is worth”

I wrote this song to celebrate the brilliance of working people. What if we reached for each other, past our differences? What if we changed our minds? Refused to be manipulated and robbed? Sounds downright exciting to me.

Who worked on this track, you asked? Patrick Mussari on guitar, Kelly Jo on harmonies, Colin Lester Fleming on drums, Theo Brierley on bass and Sam Kassirer at the keys. Produced and mixed by Colin Lester Fleming at Great North Sound Society, engineered by James Bridges, mastered by Dereck Blackburn, Quiethouse Recording.

Enjoy!

M7

26/03/2024

Ohoohooo people…the radical, magical, badassical Carsie Blanton joins me this month on We Flew Off The Page to talk about her brand new album “After The Revolution”, which is out NOW on all the streaming places, plus vinyl / CD / download):

https://www.carsieblanton.com/shop/

This was such a fun, funny and inspiring conversation with a songwriter who’s on the cutting edge of making the revolution fun and truly great songwriting. Episode drops this Monday, April 1st.

Listen on your favorite podcatcher: https://linktr.ee/wfotppod

Photo Credit Tayla St Rose

01/03/2024

Freshly released for your podcatcher to sn**ch up: WFOTP episode 9 features the WONDERFUL Pamela Means. I had a great time chatting with her about tellin’ it like it is as a songwriter, our relationship to our most personal work and cosmology (among other things).

Listen on your favorite podcatcher: https://linktr.ee/wfotppod

28/02/2024

March’s guest is Pamela Means - her music is folk and jazz and powerful songwriting (among other things). You’re gonna love this one and it drops on Friday.

Listen on your favorite podcatcher: https://linktr.ee/wfotppod

16/02/2024

The 6th single from our new album is called “Elements” and it's out today!

You can listen to it here, for free or pay (it’s everywhere): https://ffm.to/2wyog1o

Here’s the first verse of “Elements”:

I live life in elements
Every word has resonance
Every sound has measurements
Every soul since genesis

This song a little out of the box for me, a straighter kind of rock song but with the vivid lyricism that’s become my signature style. It’s about the building blocks of life, the things that help me try to puzzle over how it’s all put together.

I really love Patrick's guitar work on this one, from the rhyth-melodic lick that carries the song to his solo near the end. It’s not like any guitar work I’ve ever heard, it’s sort of part guitar god / part funk rhythm, with a great driving tone. More powerful harmonies from Kelly Jo on this one, and the rhythm section (Colin Lester Fleming on drums / Theo Brierley on bass) cradles the song’s epic foundation in it’s sinewed arms (insert flexing emoji here).

I actually remember exactly where I was when I wrote this one - in the car, on the way home from a gig with the live band (Pat, Valerie, Clark and Jose). I think it was our packed show at Dedham Square Coffeehouse and we really had everything humming that night. I felt like the instruments had all transported me down into the cellular level, like that Martin Short movie “interspace” from 1987 (or maybe Magic School Bus if you’re younger than me?). I started writing this song that was sort of a celebration of what we were doing, but also an investigation into what happens when you break the stuff of life into it’s elemental parts.

THE WHOLE ALBUM IS OUT in advance on vinyl! You can hear “Elements” and the other 11 tracks in sweet, sweet analogue sound, for sale in the store at https://www.muhammadseven.com/shop

The whole album was produced by Colin Fleming, Engineered by James Bridges and Mastered by Dereck Blackburn at Quiethouse Recording

01/02/2024

My conversation with Chris Pureka is out now! I really love the two songs of theirs we ended up talking about, both very personal but also both dealing with our bigger human issues. We really had fun with this one.

Listen on your favorite podcatcher: https://linktr.ee/wfotppod

31/01/2024

My February guest is none other than the talented, wonderful songwriter extraordinaire, Chris Pureka. Drops tomorrow!

Listen on your favorite podcatcher: https://linktr.ee/wfotppod

03/01/2024

My conversation with internationally acclaimed musician, writer and activist Stephan Said is up today! If you are passionate about the intersection of songwriting and activism, this one will be especially exciting for you. But the rest of you are gonna love it too.

Listen on your favorite podcatcher: https://linktr.ee/wfotppod

27/12/2023

New Year, new season of We Flew Off The Page! My next guest is none other than internationally acclaimed musician, writer and activist Stephan Said. He’s amazing, unique, inspiring. You won’t want to miss this one, episode drops January 3rd.

Listen on your favorite podcatcher: https://linktr.ee/wfotppod

14/12/2023

05/12/2023

New episode out today! Kris Delmhorst joins Muhammad Seven on We Flew Off The Page to share some of the ways she thinks about songwriting, tidbits from her songwriting process and some great conversation about two of my all time favorite KD songs. And, you know, we talk about some other wonderful things. Don’t miss this one, it’s a gem.

Listen on your favorite podcatcher: https://linktr.ee/wfotppod

01/12/2023

Dropping Tuesday 12/5, Kris Delmhorst joined Muhammad Seven on We Flew Off The Page to talk about her life, her songwriting process, wild fermentation and other awesome stuff.

You can find the show on your favorite podcatcher, or on YouTube and Soundcloud: https://bit.ly/3rPVKKc

01/12/2023

This month’s single is titled “Medicine” and I think it’s an unusual entry into my catalogue in a number of ways.

“Medicine” is streaming everywhere, here: https://ffm.to/oaqx2dq

First off, I almost always start writing a song from words, and this one started with the acoustic guitar riff you hear at the beginning and throughout the song - at first blush it sounded sort of Cat Stephens inspired to me and I liked it. Then, lyrically I was going through a period of wanting to write about love and joy, and I think this is my most joyful song to date. It’s about really living, really enjoying the simple things in life:

“All I want’s the sun in my face
Ay Yai Yai…
Lay on down and stare into space
Ay Yai Yai…
Unplug the clocks and get lost in my thoughts
With no destination in mind…”

But there’s another dimension to the song, which is the way that my family history helps me know who I am, and how knowing who I am allows me to celebrate my own existence and enjoy the world, imperfect as it is. I think that’s what the chorus is about:
“I don’t need much of anything
Just the love of my friends
And the poems my ancestors
Wrote out like medicine
all over my skin”

This is a full band track (track credits here https://www.muhammadseven.com/tooj-credits) and I hope you enjoy it.

01/11/2023

Peter Mulvey is just a special person. A gifted songwriter, a riveting stage performer and one of those people who lifts everyone else up who crosses his path. You'll get a good sense for him from the episode, this was a really good conversation.

He's got a lot of interesting things to say about the writing process, the world and artmaking in general. I titled the episode "Peter Mulvey came to play" because of a great anecdote of his, about how we never "work music" - we PLAY music. I loved that.

This episode is out today!

You can find the show on your favorite podcatcher, or on YouTube and Soundcloud: https://bit.ly/3rPVKKc

30/10/2023

Episode 5 drops this Wednesday and features the inimitable Peter Mulvey!

You can find the show on your favorite podcatcher, or on YouTube and Soundcloud: https://bit.ly/3rPVKKc

02/10/2023

New episode! Hot off the release of his album “New Weather”, Austin MacRae visits We Flelw Off The We Flew Off The Page to talk being raised rural, the inspiration of Billy Corgan, the “lumber pile” and how he made a record about his life as a stepfather.

You can find the show on your favorite podcatcher, or on YouTube and Soundcloud: https://bit.ly/3rPVKKc

28/09/2023

My next guest (episode drops this Monday) is Ithaca based folk singer Austin MacRae. Austin is hot off the release of his new album, “New Weather”, which is an incredibly human exploration of his life as a stepfather. It’s streaming everywhere and I can’t recommend it highly enough - go have a listen and add a song to your current playlist! It’s in heavy rotation at my house. We had a great conversation, can’t wait to share it with you.

18/09/2023

My conversation with Moe Pope of STL GLD drops today!

You can find the show on your favorite podcatcher, or on YouTube and Soundcloud: https://bit.ly/3rPVKKc



📸 by John Aveni @ rose-glen.com

13/09/2023

My next guest on We Flew Off The Page is the icon, the juggernaut, the community leader, Moe Pope. Moe and his band STL GLD just kicked off the first “GLD FSTVL” (throught the Mayor's Office of Arts & Culture Boston), in celebration of the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, which will hopefully now be a regular part of the summer festival calendar. Moe and I had a great conversation looking into his history and process as a songwriter from many different angles.

Episode drops 9/18.

You can find the show on your favorite podcatcher, or on YouTube and Soundcloud: https://bit.ly/3rPVKKc

06/09/2023

Pre-orders for the Vinyl edition of “Temples Out Of Joy” is up on the website! Order here: https://www.muhammadseven.com/shop

This limited release pressing of our new album is due back from the good people at Burlington Record Plant in early December and is my favorite way to vibe out to these songs (and would make a great gift for the crate digger / audiophile in your life.) Stock is still good, but they are moving and supplies are limmited.

I’ll be releasing the album in wide release, one song per month for the next year, but you hear get the full album about six months early if you grab it on vinyl.

If my work means something to you and you’d like to feel even more like part of the team, you can become a patron for as little as $1 a month: patreon.com/muhammadseven

01/09/2023

September’s episode just dropped and it features Chris Sand! Chris has been making audiences laugh, cry and think for a long time. We had a lot of fun talking.

You can find the show on your favorite podcatcher, or on YouTube and Soundcloud: https://bit.ly/3rPVKKc

Help out the show by sharing it with the songwriters in your life! Or become a patron at patreon.com/muhammadseven