Beat Radio
Beat Radio selfie from frontman Brian Sendrowitz.
No winter is ever complete without new music from Brian Sendrowitz’s musical outfit Beat Radio and we bring news of the forthcoming album Take It Forever available January 29 on digital and May 25 on limited edition 12″ vinyl via Awkward For Life. We have the premiere of the single “Song for Camden Power” plus a listen to a few other songs for Forever that provide musings of the kind of internal reckoning and embrace of life & art pursuit realizations that makes it all feel like everything is going to work out alright. Human experiences here are song from the plight and resolve of the artist with a warm tip of the hat to fans, friends, and family alike all the while.
“Song For Camden Power” is a tribute to a Beat Radio fan who kept in touch with Sendrowitz via emails years back who left the world too soon. From learning the chords to cover Brian’s songs to discussing religious-like epiphanies; Beat Radio provides an epitaph for a long last pen pal made through chords that connect and strum the heart’s dearest strings. Brian spells out a ballad of his band that provides a eulogy to a long gone fan that shared a deep understanding of the music, and existed on his own wavelength. The song resonates with a solemn reverence that reaches for into the great unknown that breaks out of the life & death cycles to recognize a shared correspondence that ended too soon.
The album Take it Forever begins with the motorik title track that reaches for meaning and something that matters beyond the bitterness of the world’s muddles and mayhem. Warm calls to take it easy and more are made to the world weary listeners as narratives continue like natural song therapy sessions heard on “Lost in the World”, measurements of existence and movement on the brass inflected scuzz of “Losing Time”, to musings on audio aesthetics and histories heard on “Art is a War, There are Casualties”. Take it Forever moves between motifs of the temporal and the infinite and what it all really means exhibited on “We’ll Be Forgotten”, moving from the present to past the faded memories to manifest destinies that meet through visions and intimate observations on “Dreaming of the West”. The thoughts, notions, and feelings that connect the art and the audience are contained here in the latest Beat Radio song cycle that provides music for meditative moments and endless eras of thoughts and cascading perspective.
Brian Sendrowitz provided us with the following candid thoughts on the individual who inspired the moving tribute “Song For Camden Power”:
Camden Power was genuine sweetheart and a kid who was into our band. He used to buy all our albums on Bandcamp, and write me emails sometimes. This was the first message he sent me, on the day after Christmas, in 2011:
Dear Mr. Sendrowitz,
I was wondering if you had the time you could tell me the chords to “Stranger Flowers”? I met this girl and it very much reminds me of her.
I’m not sure how you feel on the subject of others using your words to woo girls. Thank you for your time, and your music is amazing.
Sincerely,
Camden Power
I don’t remember whether or not Camden got the girl, but we kept in touch for a while. He would ask me about songwriting and recording stuff, and he would post covers of songs I had written to YouTube and Soundcloud. I always got the sense that he was a really kind and gentle guy, and his sense of enthusiasm about music reminded me of what it felt like when I was first starting out. I guess I saw a little of myself in him.
A year and a half or so later I got a message from Camden via Facebook. He didn’t seem like himself and rambled a bit incoherently. I knew he was aware of my love for Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation writers so I thought maybe it was some sort of writing exercise. “I’m gonna get to retrace some of Jack’s old steps,” he said. A few messages later he confided in my that he had has some sort of vision, of God, and he wanted to speak with me about it. I felt uneasy about it, but since I didn’t really know him all that well and I’m not a religious person I let him know as kindly as I could that I was happy he had found this source of inspiration, but I was on my own path and it was a different one.
A few weeks later I saw people posting on Camden’s Facebook page that he had passed away. He had been driving and lost control, and collided head on with another car. I immediately felt a deep sense of regret. I wondered that if maybe he had been troubled by the things he has written me about, maybe I could have been there for him more than I allowed myself to be. It’s a strange thing to mourn the loss of someone you’ve never met in person. I was too far away to even really know what has happened, but I felt haunted by it.
I knew Camden lived and breathed music, and the best and only way I could think of to honor him would be with a song. This one’s for him. I like to think he’d be psyched to know that it exists, and is driving around somewhere listening to it, volume timed out.
XO-B
The new Beat Radio album Take It Forever is available now on limited edition 12″ vinyl courtesy of Awkward For Life.
