Eddie Cohn and Angela Madsen on Swoop’s World Late Night

Eddie Cohn

On Wednesday May 14, 2014 at 8pm/PST (10pm/CT, 11pm/ET) we are happy to welcome the return of singer/songwriter Eddie Cohn to Swoop’s World Late Night. Join us as we sit down with Eddie to learn about his new music, crowdfunding campaigns, and what else he’s been up to since the last time he was in studio with us. After Eddie Paralympian Angela Madsen will stop in and chat with us and fill us in with last minute details as she prepares to take off Thursday May 15, 2014 on her ocean row from Long Beach, Ca. to Honolulu, Hi. Of course we’ll be up to all of our usual fun with our Brewskis beer tasting segment, TBones Timeout, USC legend Anthony Davis, as well as crazy insights into any interesting news stories of the day. Swoop’s World Late Night is on Wednesday’s from 8pm/PST – 11pm/PST tune in at Swoopsworld.com.

Eddie Cohn
As long as people have put words to music, there have been love songs in the world. They represent the most common emotion that binds us all together as humans and they can express every step of a relationship’s journey: the ups and downs, the sex, the drama, the joy and frustration, the first blush and the breakup.

Singer/songwriter Eddie Cohn is just one example of an artist who is not immune to the allure of a well-crafted love song, having studied the work of other artists and exploring similar themes in his own work. All of which was simply building up to the raw, heartfelt emotion that he brings to his latest album Guarantee Me Love.

“It’s a bit of a surprise to me, too,” he says of writing the songs for this new release. “I know firsthand how it’s not so simple anymore: being with someone and being in love with someone is work. At the same time, it’s work that all of us really want to do. We all want to find true love. Our hearts are all craving it. So I wanted to make a record that, while is very personal, is also something everyone can connect with.”

That feeling of tenderness and candidness prevails on this, Cohn’s third full-length. Not only through his unfettered lyrics “I remember when I felt lost/you wrapped me in shade/every night I want you beside me/then today I woke up with a goddamn mistake/think I’m gonna run far away/won’t you guarantee me love”), but also his performances on the album. His voice, always one of his strengths, feels more present than ever. It feels like he’s in the room with you, pleading, cajoling, and enticing with each line. The cracks are present around the edges, but they only add to the sentiments within.

The songs continue to resonate through the strength of their arrangements. Key to that was the sturdy work of his longtime drummer Adam Gust, but Cohn also wanted to experiment as well. Inspired by albums like Beck’s Sea Change and Other Lives’ Tamer Animals, he incorporated a lush, almost cinematic backdrop of strings to mesh with his guitar, keyboards, and vocals. To bring that to life, he called on Phil Peterson, a Seattle-based cellist and arranger who added lovely arrangements and texture to almost all the tracks on Guarantee.

Another key player in the process was producer Dan Silver, a renowned musician from L.A. and founding member of the alt-rock band Standing Shadows. According to Cohn, Silver helped realize the driving urgency of “Help Me Feel Something,” the sultry pulse of “Dreaming of You,” and the no-holds-barred rocker “Soul Fix.”

“It was a relief to have the right man for the job,” Cohn says of Silver’s influence on the album. “I met Dan three years ago at SXSW. We kept bumping into each other at parties and shows in LA. We also found out we’re both from Ohio and we love the same bands. It felt like a great marriage. We formed a great musical connection. It was a great process.”

The next step is to bring the music to the world. Guarantee Me Love will be released towards the spring or summer of 2014, but Cohn is ready to give people small tastes of the full album. His plans are to release a single or two, videos, and remixes, and even some EPs featuring stripped down versions of the songs on Guarantee.

“In our ADD world, people don’t sit through full albums anymore,” Cohn says, “I want to enjoy the process of getting it heard and take my time with it. Let it naturally unfold.”

Cohn is gearing up to set a Kickstarter campaign in motion so he can tour the U.S. during the coming year and, as he puts it, “find people that will gravitate towards the music.”

And to hear Cohn talk about Guarantee Me Love, it’s with the same sense of wonder, pride, fear and anticipation of someone entering into a new relationship, apropos sentiments considering the theme of the music within.

Angela Madsen on The Spirit of Orlando

Angela Madsen
Angela Madsen is an accomplished ocean rower with 6 Guinness World Records for rowing oceans. On June 10, 2013 she set out to row a solo ocean rowing boat with no support boat from California to Hawaii. She was to stay on her little boat the entire time, no one to give her any food or water. She needed to have enough provisions on board to sustain her for as long as the journey was to take. Her goal was to row as many hours a day as she possibly could and try not to drift too far off course while asleep.

Her quest to attempt the solo row began with the idea followed by logistical planning, purchase, the shipping and outfitting of a solo rowing boat. It became a tribute row to Veterans of all services and to Spirited Adventurer and her friend Orlando Rogers who was tragically killed in a plane crash on May 15th 2011. He was 26 years of age and was a Royal Marine. Orlando was very supportive of Angela and all of her projects and he was very excited about her intentions to do a solo row. It was during the planning for the row that she felt it would be fitting to make that row a tribute to honor his memory. He wanted and planned on being there for Angela as he was on the Circumnavigation of Great Britain. “Though it will not be the same, he will be there with me for every rowing stroke and every nautical mile. Orlando was a very special and amazing person. The name of my boat shall be The Spirit of Orlando” said Angela.

Due to severe weather related problems Angela was forced to abort her California to Hawaii row and leave her boat adrift on the high seas. Her story of getting home, eventually locating her boat and getting it back to her home base is but yet another small chapter in her remarkable story.

On May Thursday May 15, 2014 Angela and Tara Remington will set off from Long Beach, Ca. for their Military & Veteran Tribute Row row to Honolulu, Hi. Join us as we learn about their preparations and how excited they are the day before they launch.