Indie Rock N Ramble w/Lucia & Glynn
Up Close And On Fire With S And K Ep 19 Jakesway And Soul Exchange New Edit

Jakesway were an original music project from Mehoopany, PA that self-released three albums with music that mixed rock, country and pop. The project was spearheaded by Gary Kashack, a veteran of several Scranton area cover bands until he and a handful of friends and collaborators started to go into SI Studios in Scranton with a goal to record and release the originals that Gary had been stockpiling over the past few years. Jakesway’s Reverbnation page gives as the project’s main influences Matchbox 20, Social Distortion, The Smithereens, and the GooGoo Dolls. With four such disparate influences, it’s not surprising that jakesway’s three albums all had cuts played not only on rock radio in Northeastern Pennsylvania but on pop and country stations as well. The project was put on hiatus a few years ago, and after recharging, Gary has adopted the stage name Gary Carl and recently released a solo country CD, Off The Grid, which may turn up on a future episode someday soon. For now, let’s highlight three tracks from their second album, the appropriately titled It May Get Loud – and this was definitely one release where we had trouble deciding on which three tracks to select because they were all too damn good.

Tracks: Unassuming Angels, You And Me, So Simple So True

SOUL EXCHANGE

Soul Exchange are a five-piece rock band from Stockholm, Sweden – a country more famous musically for giving us ABBA, a slew of notorious Black Metal bands like Dark Funeral, Marduk, and Dissection, and most recently the ever-popular and mysterious Ghost. Soul Exchange do list their fellow countrymen Ghost as both a favorite band and an influence, but outside of sharing a predilection for mixing pop songwriting with rock influence and some dark thematics, they don’t have much in common with Papa Emeritus and his Nameless Ghouls. The band – vocalist Daniel John, guitarists and brothers Hans and Thomas von Bell, drummer Benny White, bassist Patrik “Patte” Ekelöf, and lyricist Jens Joel Evaldsson – likes to describe themselves as “The sound of a new world being born, and the louder sound of an old world being destroyed.” Their second album, Bloodbound, caught the attention of North Carolina-based independent label Mervilton Records, which has released the album worldwide, and it’s most certainly caught our attention here on the show.

Tracks: Left Behind, Torn To Pieces, Hangin’ On