Golden Hour with Charlene Kaye

Latest Episodes:

Shanghai Restoration Project - Give Up a Day Job and Collaborating with Your Partner Dec 21, 2021

Show notes

Shanghai Restoration Project is a band that is as uninhibited and imaginative as their name suggests. In this episode of Golden Hour, the two members of this genre-bending electronic duo, Dave Liang and Sun Yunfan, talk with Charlene all the way from their new home in Barcelona, Spain. They discuss how they each decided to give up a 9-to-5 to pursue a career in the arts, how they first started collaborating, and why Asian creatives need to stop caring so much about what their families think.

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Thao Nguyen - Finding Healing In Music and Becoming Her Truest Self Nov 17, 2021

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In this episode Charlene gets into it deep with the magnificent artist Thao Nguyen. She is most well-known as the charismatic frontwoman of Thao & The Get Down Stay Down, whose latest album Temple was released in 2020. Charlene and Thao talk about her long and prolific songwriting career, visiting Vietnam for the first time, and why she feels more at peace now than any time in her 14 years of making music.

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Ian Chang - The Singular Drummer on His Road to Becoming a Professional Musician Nov 02, 2021

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Today on the pod, Charlene catches up with her friend, the brilliant drummer and composer Ian Chang. Ian's style of drumming is utterly singular, and his wildly inventive songs have been praised by everyone from NPR to Modern Drummer. While Ian is perhaps best known as a member of the dark indie band Son Lux, he's also been the man behind the rhythm for records by Moses Sumney, Landlady and more. Ian and Charlene talk about their shared experience living in Hong Kong as kids, starting out in their musical journeys as pop punk fanatics, and the challenge of find one's own voice as an artist when your musical influences stretch far and wide.

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ÊMIA (Anh Le) - Storytelling in Songwriting and Singing Karaoke Backup Vocals Oct 19, 2021

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In today’s episode, Charlene meets up with fellow New Yorker Anh Le, better known as ÊMIA. The 24-year-old Vietnamese American is a singer-songwriter whose music boasts a mix of powerful pop vocals, clever songwriting, and creative production styles. Charlene and Anh discover they have a lot in common: both had an early love of Avril Lavigne and spent their childhoods moving around. Stay until the end and listen to Anh give us a special acoustic live performance of her unreleased song, Super Fun Party Girl.

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Mike Park - Asian Man Records Founder on a Life in Punk Music Oct 05, 2021

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To say that Mike Park is an icon in the world of ska and punk music would be an understatement. Not only is he the frontman of the ska/punk bands The Chinkees, Bruce Lee Band, and Skankin' Pickle, but after starting his own label Asian Man Records in 1996, he's worked with over 100 artists putting out their music, including Alkaline Trio and Less Than Jake. In this episode Charlene and Mike talk about his getting signed to a major label in Korea, supporting up-and-coming Asian artists, and who the band name "The Chinkees" came from.

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Kenton Chen - Viral YouTube Covers and Learning Self Love Sep 21, 2021

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In today's episode Charlene is joined by the unbelievably talented Kenton Chen. Kenton is known for his jaw-dropping covers on YouTube with Scary Pockets and Postmodern Jukebox. He's sung with artists such as Kesha, Portugal the Man, Demi Lovato, and Jennifer Hudson. Charlene and Kenton talk about their parents reaction to them becoming artists, share what their careers might have been if they did not pursue music professionally, and hear about Kenton's solo project, Bridesmen.

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Stephanie Jae Park - Becoming Eliza Hamilton and Finding Her Voice Jun 28, 2021

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Our second guest on the podcast is the incredible Stephanie Jae Park! Stephanie is a Korean American actor, singer and songwriter who currently plays Eliza Hamilton on the national tour of Hamilton and has a long list of Broadway credits that include the King and I, Cinderella and more. During the pandemic, she and her partner Voltaire Wade-Greene, who was the dance captain of the original Hamilton cast, started a band called Saffron Lips, for which they co-write and co-produce all of the music. We get into that, her upbringing on Guam, her time at Cincinnati Conservatory of Music (CCM), and the crazy story of how we met.

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Darren Criss - Returning to Music and Mixed Race Identity May 18, 2021

Show notes

My first guest on the podcast is one of my oldest friends and musical comrades, Darren Criss. Darren and I met at the University of Michigan at our very first open mic, when I saw him playing "I'll Make a Man out of You" from Mulan on an acoustic guitar (so late 2000s). We became instant friends and played our very first shows together around Ann Arbor and beyond. After college, I moved to New York to pursue music and he moved to LA to pursue acting. And if you know him, you know that he played Blaine Anderson on Glee and most recently won an Emmy for his role as Andrew Cunanan on The Assassination of Gianni Versace—and is now getting back to his roots as a musician. He just released a new single called f*kn around and if you watch the song’s live performance debut on the Late Late show with James Corden, you’ll catch me playing guitar with him. We were able to sit down and have a long conversation about his Asian American identity and how he has come to embrace it as a part of how he defines himself and his art.

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