Moon Radio Hour is back for an exciting extravaganza of creative talent for their July installment. Smooth-voiced host, George Schricker, interviews guests, Emma Hamel, The Mount Olympus Players, and Ryan Mear for three unique creative takes on life, sorrow, and love. This episode features the YouTube-viral hit song written by 18-year-old singer-songwriter Emma Hamel, from Berrien’s Springs, Michigan. She sings a somber line detailing what it’s like being a 2020 graduate (from Andrews Academy), “I want to walk across the stage / I want to hug someone goodbye / With everyone I love, standing by my side.”
Emma first found Wild Rose Moon at age 16 while looking for a good, welcoming space to participate in open mic nights. What a blessing to both Hamel and the folks of the Moon that she found the sound stage there––immediately scoring a clip online from her first performance at the venue. She enters this show, bright-eyed and inspired, holding the spirit of the young dreamer she is. Her hit song “Standing By My Side” is currently at 173 thousand views and counting. She also debuts a new song entitled “Care Less” the video for which is streaming on her YouTube channel now. Hamel writes honest emotional songs and her soft sonorous voice helps listeners feel like they are getting a direct peek into her heart. She sings, “I wish I wished a little less / I wish I wasn’t such a mess.” After both songs, Emma engages seriously in interview questions, able to address the somber mood of each song and their cathartic purposes while Schricker wryly observes, “You certainly have captured the mood of more than just high school graduates; your song seems an anthem for the whole COVID-19 experience––the sacrifice and the death of so many events. “
After Emma’s stellar performance, The Mount Olympus Players, a group of local Plymouth High School graduates, unveil their new radio play, “The Mount Olympus Radio Hour: From No Man to Every Man”. Written and directed by current Hope College student and Wild Rose Moon summer intern Katy Smith, the play introduces a mythical radio show hosted by two Ancient Greek gods, Athena (Smith) and Apollo (Levi Crawford). Apollo’s inflated nature contrasted with Athena’s level headedness makes for a fun back and forth banter-filled script. The duo interviews the poet Homer (Andrew Hanes), who plugs a relevant and necessary new concept—that every person has the capability to institute change and be a hero. Smith’s actor comrades are Ball State University students Andrew Hanes and Levi Crawford, a fellow Wild Rose Moon intern. Haines, along with music producer John Bahler, worked together to compose an upbeat, silly song to Katy Smith’s lyrics––“Yell, scream, and whisper / You and me, we’ll make a stir,” finishing with a play on words from Homer’s Odyssey, “From No Man to Every Man.”
In the third act of the show, Ryan Mear, friend of the Moon, sound engineer, and co-host for Wild Rose Moon’s new streaming series Moonlight, lights up the house with two of his original songs. Self-effacing and shy, Mear’s demeanor belies his intensity. In his last song, “See Me as I Am,” Meer is holding nothing back. He tabs up and down his slick electric guitar, leaving himself a long guitar solo in the middle. His voice holds a unique tremolo signature, a raspy, Jim Morrison baritone filled with pathos. During the program, he recounts the story of how he found Wild Rose Moon and how his successful career at the space resulted from his meeting regional Irish Folk Band Kennedy’s Kitchen, good friends of the Moon. He put it best, saying, “I came [to the Moon] to see them [perform], and I think joHn Kennedy introduced me to George and the staff, and after that I just needed to be here.”
Overall, the July episode of the Wild Rose Moon Radio Hour is an eclectic group of creatives, coming together to show off what they love to do most in a plethora of musical genres in a 150 year old storefront in Historic Downtown Plymouth. You can catch this next episode on WTCA 1050 AM/106.1 FM at noon on Saturday, July 4th, and on Monday, July 6th at 9 P.M. on WVPE 88.1. It’s the perfect place to drop in for a listen, The Wild Rose Moon Radio Hour – A Home for Humans.