The Central Florida Public Media Tiny Desk Showcase is back, featuring live and local musical artists chosen by you and your votes!
The selected five bands are performing in our showcase on Thursday, June 4th at the Beacham in downtown Orlando.
They are Corey Ashton, Camila Camilo, Fernando Dappo, Cassidy Johnson, and Sarah Rogo.
Free tickets are still available.
Before the big night, the musicians each told Central Florida Public Media a little about themselves, their music, and what drives them to make it and share it with the world.
Cassidy Johnson
“I know a lot of people use music to cope, so I want them to be able to feel all their feelings without feeling…embarrassed,” said Johnson of her music.
"They don't have to put up a front," she added. "I want them to be able to kind of escape from the world, escape from their problems, be able to let go and just fully like relax and relate when they listen to my music."
Fernando Dappo
“The first band I ever became a fan of was Queen, and all of it was because of the movie Chicken Little,” laughed Dappo. He was four years old, he said, when he fell in love with the movie, specifically the song “We Are the Champions” by Queen, as sung by Chicken Little on the film soundtrack.
“I sang so much that my dad asked me if I knew where that song was from,” Dappo said. After his father played him the original version of the Queen song, “I instantly fell in love with it, and my family even nicknamed me El Champion because of it.”
Of his motive for making music, Dappo said, “I just want to pass on what my favorite artists make me feel, because when I listen to music, it makes me feel, it makes me think, it makes me appreciate life, and it makes me question things.”
Sarah Rogo
“I discovered a lot of the music that influenced me as a kid in the public library,” Rogo said. “I would wander the stacks of CDs and get introduced to a treasure trove of the various styles of music from around the world.”
Of her audience, Rogo said, “I want them to come away with hope and imagination and ways to explore common emotion in unique ways. With my music being steeped in soulful American roots, I want them to feel down home comfort while feeling the life that needs to be felt.”
Camila Camilo
Camilo says that because of this Tiny Desk video shoot, she is now the subject of good-natured teasing among her band members. “If you hear any of them being like, ‘Camila took us to Timbuktu,’ this is what they’re talking about,” smiled Camilo.
Turns out the studio where they were to shoot the video was a long drive from their Orlando homes. “I didn't really tell them how far it was from town until like the night before,” Camilo admitted. “It was a genuine mistake, and they all kind of like took it on the chin. They were really nice about it.”
She said she hopes her music allows listeners to “feel like they can share a feeling or an emotion or something at any given moment, and that it doesn't have to be this thing that they go through by themselves.”
Corey Ashton
Corey Ashton has played live music with punk bands for decades, but his love of music started even before that. “I wrote my first song in fifth grade. Actually, it was a poem called ‘Lookout Tower.’ I didn't know at the time that what I was writing would become a song,” said Ashton. “My aunt Deb and uncle Lou, both musicians who loved the words, put it to music and made a recording. I don't remember the song, but I do remember how hearing it made me feel. It was so substantial. It was something out of nothing. It was magical. It was formative.”
“I hope that something I’ve sung or will sing someday will make someone feel understood or validated,” Ashton said. “I hope that my music in some way helps to heal someone’s soul or just for a brief moment brings them peace.”
