Benjamin Scott Folds is an American singer-songwriter from Greensboro, North Carolina. After playing in several small independent bands throughout the late 80s and into the early 90s, Folds came to prominence as the eponymous frontman and pianist of the alternative rock trio Ben Folds Five from 1993 to 2000, and again during their reunion from 2011 to 2013. He has recorded a number of solo albums – the most recent of which, What Matters Most, was released in June 2023. He has also collaborated with musicians such as Regina Spektor, "Weird Al" Yankovic, and yMusic, and undertaken experimental songwriting projects with actor William Shatner and authors such as Nick Hornby and Neil Gaiman. Since May 2017, he has been the first artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
Benjamin Michael Lee is an Australian musician and actor. Lee began his career as a musician at the age of 14 with the Sydney band Noise Addict, but he focused on his solo career when the band broke up in 1995. He appeared as the protagonist in the Australian film The Rage in Placid Lake (2003). He has released eleven solo studio albums.
Disney Music Group (DMG) is the music recording and publishing arm of Walt Disney Studios, a division of Disney Entertainment, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company. It is located at the studio's headquarters in Burbank, California. The division's subsidiaries consist of two owned record labels—Walt Disney Records and Hollywood Records—along with Disney Music Publishing, the publishing entity that administers the company's music, as well as Disney Concerts. Disney Music's Vevo account on YouTube is currently one of the most-viewed YouTube channels as of June 2023.
Joseph Anthony Budden II is an American media personality, broadcaster, cultural critic, and former rapper. He first gained recognition in the latter occupation with his 2003 single "Pump It Up", which peaked within the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 and preceded the release of his eponymous debut studio album (2003). Met with critical and commercial success, the album peaked within the top ten of the Billboard 200, although it served as his only major label release for Def Jam Recordings; he thereafter released seven albums independently to continued critical praise. While doing so, he performed as a member of the hip hop supergroup Slaughterhouse, which were signed to Eminem's Shady Records in 2012; the group released two studio albums.
Majosha was an American alternative rock band formed around early 1988 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It featured Ben Folds on bass and keyboards, Millard Powers on guitar, Evan Olson on guitar, and Eddie Walker on drums. They released a self-produced EP, Party Night: Five Songs About Jesus in 1988, which contained four tracks, none of which were about Jesus. After gaining popularity, they released their first and only studio album, Shut Up and Listen to Majosha in 1989. The band disbanded in early 1990 and the members went on to pursue other projects.
Marc Andrew Gunn is an American musician and podcaster.
Shut Up and Listen to Majosha is Majosha's first and only full-length album, released in 1989. This album never made it to CD, and was only ever available on vinyl and cassette. All songs were written by Ben Folds and Millard Powers except "Emaline", written by both Ben Folds and Evan Olson. Songs "Emaline" and "Video" later appeared on Ben Folds Five albums, and "Kalamazoo" was released on the Folds solo EP Super D.
"Still Fighting It" is a song by Ben Folds released in 2002 as the second single from his 2001 album Rockin' the Suburbs. The song is a bittersweet ode to the pain of adolescence dedicated to his son Louis. He would later write an accompanying song for his daughter Gracie on the 2005 album Songs for Silverman, and he often performs the two songs together live. The B-sides on the single release of "Still Fighting It" are live versions of "Zak & Sara" from Rockin' the Suburbs and "Boxing" from Ben Folds Five's self-titled debut album.
Chuck Folds is a musician living in North Carolina. He is the younger brother of the piano playing pop/rock star Ben Folds. Chuck has played bass in a number of bands since the late 1980s, including Bus Stop with Evan Olson, Britt "Snuzz" Uzzell, and Eddie Walker. Bus Stop independently released 4 CDs and played the south-eastern U.S. for about 7 years, becoming one of the more popular bands in North Carolina during the early 1990s.
"Brand New Key" is a pop song written and sung by American folk music singer Melanie. Initially a track of Melanie's album Gather Me, produced by Melanie's husband Peter Schekeryk, it was known also as "The Rollerskate Song" due to its chorus. It was her greatest success, scoring No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart during December 1971 and January 1972. Billboard ranked it as the No. 9 song of 1972. It also scored No. 1 in Canada and Australia and No. 4 on the UK Singles Chart.
Carl Sturken and Evan Rogers are New York–based songwriters and record producers. They have produced hits for Ruben Studdard, Wild Orchid, Christina Aguilera and Evelyn Champagne King and helped build the career of Rihanna. In addition to being principals of Rihanna's production company SRP Music Group, they have achieved more than twenty top 40 hits, twelve top 5 hits and six BMI Awards. Their songs have sold more than 60 million albums around the world.
Kudzu Wish was a band formed in 1998 by Devender Sellars, Eric Mann, Tim LaFollette, and Geordie Woods after befriending each other while studying at Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina. Adam Thorn later joined the band in 2000. Depending on whom you ask, Kudzu Wish was an indie rock band, a punk rock band, a post-hardcore band, or an amalgamation of some or all of those genres. Perhaps guitarist Eric Mann defined the band most accurately:
"it means a rock band of 5 dudes, whose many music influences just happen to make sense together. In addition, it also means a lot more than music to me. It means community and friendship."
Avery Millard Powers III is an American musician, songwriter, record producer, and Grammy-nominated recording engineer. While a student at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in the 1980s, he collaborated with fellow student Ben Folds and with Alabama-based singer-songwriter Owsley, both of which he continued to work with as a musician and as a producer for the next several decades. Since 2005, he has played bass guitar in the band Counting Crows.
The Gregory Brothers are an American musical quartet, specializing in comedy music and auto-tuning recorded speech through their YouTube channel Schmoyoho. After the success of their songs "Chrissy Wake Up" and "It's Corn" in the summer of 2022, NPR reported that they "are responsible for some of the biggest viral songs of the past decade."
Benjamin Schiff Platt is an American actor, singer, and songwriter. Platt, the son of film and theater producer Marc Platt, began his acting career in musical theater as a child and appeared in productions of The Sound of Music (2006) and The Book of Mormon (2012–2015), rising to prominence for originating the title role in Broadway coming-of-age musical Dear Evan Hansen (2015–2017). His performance in the latter earned him multiple accolades, including the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical, the youngest solo recipient of the award at the time, in addition to a Daytime Emmy, and Grammy Award. Platt reprised the role of Evan Hansen in the 2021 film adaptation of the musical, produced by his father. He then played Leo Frank in the 2022 New York City Center Gala production of Parade, which transferred to Broadway in 2023 and earned him another nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.
Tyler Gillett is an American film director, cinematographer, actor, writer, and producer. A co-creator of the filmmaking collective Radio Silence, Gillett co-directed, with Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, the horror films Devil's Due (2014), Ready or Not (2019) and Scream (2022). He was also featured in a popular 2020 episode of the podcast Reply All.
Reply All is an American podcast from Gimlet Media that ran from 2014 to 2022, featuring stories about how people shape the internet, and how the internet shapes people. It was created by P. J. Vogt and Alex Goldman, who were the show's original hosts; they had previously hosted the technology and culture podcast TLDR for WNYC. Emmanuel Dzotsi became a third cohost in 2020.
Dear Evan Hansen is a musical with music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, and a book by Steven Levenson. The musical follows Evan Hansen, a high school senior with social anxiety, "who invents an important role for himself in a tragedy that he did not earn".
Breakmaster Cylinder, also known as The Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder or by the initials BmC, is a musical composer and producer who has provided title themes and background music for a number of radio shows and podcasts, principally with Gimlet Media's Reply All. Known for their pseudonymity, Breakmaster Cylinder does not make public appearances and has employed stand-ins for interviews, photographs, and other media appearances.
Triad City Beat is a free weekly alternative newspaper with distribution in Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point in North Carolina. It was founded in 2014 by Brian Clarey, Jordan Green and Eric Ginsburg, who were former editors and reporters for YES! Weekly. The newspaper primarily covers topics local to the Triad such as news, politics, culture, opinion, music, and food. It describes itself as an independent voice to hold "economic and governmental powers accountable" across the Triad and North Carolina, and as a defender of democracy, as well as "LGBTQ+ rights, racial justice and an urban sensibility". It has an estimated circulation of 10,000, and is published every Thursday.
