photography by Elizabeth Lavin |
The RPM Challenge is designed to force creativity. Participants in the international event, held in February, are to create an album, from scratch, in a month. Lindsay Graham, the director of business intelligence and market research at SMU, found out about RPM the last week in
February. In other words, with one week left in the challenge. But he entered anyway. The man’s music connections run deep. He has his own studio, Junius Recording Company (www.juniusrecordingco.com). Within hours of calling and e-mailing around, Graham had the best indie talent in the city collaborating. “There wasn’t a single ownership of any track,” Graham says. “It was happy fun shine hippy love going on.” He mixed until 3 a.m. every night and turned in the album by March 1. The thing is, he thought it was good enough to release to the public. Others agreed. Available June 15 on iTunes and on his studio’s website is Telegram, a 13-track paean of cross-pollination that sounds as if Graham had, oh, at least a year to master it.