Songwriter Studio puts spotlight on local musicians (VIDEO)

Annie Adams didn’t let a little thing like being unable to play a musical instrument stop her from starting a band, and a one-woman band at that.

“I always wanted to make my own music, but it wasn’t something available to me without learning an instrument,” said Adams, whose band is called Evasive Flowers. “I tried a few times. But I’m really a singer. It just occurred to me when my partner had a loop pedal, that maybe I could do this with just my voice.”

A loop pedal allows musicians to record a passage of music or rhythm and play it back, indefinitely, as they add more “loops” or perform live over the recordings.

Adams will perform Friday as part of a series of shows called the Songwriter Studio. It’s being staged on the first Friday of most months by Creative Rush, a group of Wichita artists.

In addition to performing, featured songwriters will discuss their creative process with a moderator, Torin Anderson, and take questions from the audience. The series opened last month with an appearance by Rudy Love Jr. and continues next month with the Kentucky Gentlemen. Friday’s show is at Digital Brand in Old Town.

Kylie Brown, who helped found Creative Rush, said the idea for Songwriter Studio grew out of another program it puts on called First Tuesday Talk, which puts “three random creative people” on a couch in front of an audience and invites them to talk about a particular topic – or bring up their own.

“We do those kind of events that bring people together for community, for inspiration, for networking, for artist empowerment,” she said.

With Songwriter Studio, the idea is to show the community that local music is varied and creative. “People think it’s just cover bands playing downtown,” she said.

Brown said it’s important that artists be able to talk about their work, although she concedes there’s a school of thought that music and other art should speak for itself.

“It gives you chills when they’re playing music and talking about music at the same time,” she said. “I want people to feel something when they go to these. If we can give them background on their music, people feel more connected that way.”

The Songwriter Studio programs will start with an introduction, a couple of songs, a session between Anderson and the artist, a couple more songs, a Q-and-A with the audience, and a couple more songs. That portion, lasting about 45 minutes, will be taped, hopefully for showing on public television or elsewhere, Brown said. After that, the songwriter will play a few more songs for the live crowd.

There is space for 50 people. Tickets will be sold at the door on a first-come, first-served basis.

Brown said Creative Rush has a diverse line-up of songwriters scheduled and is particularly drawn to “multiple-creative types” such as Adams. In addition to music, Adams is a vegan chef who creates a dinner for R Coffeehouse in Riverside every Wednesday.

“I do a lot of curries, soups, sandwiches, pastas, whatever I feel like cooking,” she said, adding that she lines up live music or poetry to accompany the food.

Her real day job: security guard at the Wichita Art Museum, which she took “just to be around artwork.” She hasn’t had to throw anybody out yet.

Adams, 29, said she hadn’t sung much since her days in the high school choir before launching her music career about a year and a half ago.

“I’ve heard songs in my head for years,” she said. “I’ve heard melodies. I’ve written poetry since I was 12.”

Performing solo was both “natural” and “really scary for me,” she said. “It was just something I had to do. I don’t think I really ever felt right until I started playing.”

She’s played at Kirby’s Beer Store, Rock Island Live, the Donut Hole and other venues. She’s also the singer in Domestic Drone, a band she describes as “really heavy psych rock.”

Adams recorded an EP of six original songs called “Ice Queen,” also the name of one of the tracks, that is available on bandcamp.com. She hopes to record enough additional tunes for a full-length CD soon.

Adams creates the background tracks for her songs mainly through her voice, sometimes running it through effects pedals. She may hit the microphone to produce a rhythm.

“I’ve tried to become more minimalist,” she said. “I used to do like 10 (loops). Now it’s more like five.”

As for lyrics to songs like “Change,” “Medicine Man” and “Gone,” she says they come from “heartbreak, fear of the unknown” and similar feelings.

She has a fondness for wordplay, too, which explains the name of her band.

“I like puns,” she said. “I was was just sitting around with a friend of mine coming up with different puns. Evasive flowers, like a vase of flowers. I’m kind of an evasive person. It made sense to me.”

This story was originally published April 2, 2015 at 3:17 PM with the headline "Songwriter Studio puts spotlight on local musicians (VIDEO)."