We Speak Music
Finding Grace in the Everyday: Goodnight Moonshine’s Business Unusual
For Goodnight Moonshine, the pause forced by 2020’s shutdowns became a period of profound reinvention. Guitarist Eben Pariser and vocalist Molly Venter, accustomed to the rhythms of touring, suddenly found themselves immersed in domestic life, raising three children and confronting the unrelenting demands of home and heart. Out of this crucible arose Business Unusual, a folk-jazz album that celebrates life’s quiet, overlooked moments.
The record explores the paradox of abundance and overwhelm. While the duo’s lives were full in ways they had long imagined, the reality often felt “underwater”—a sentiment many modern families will recognize. The album turns these challenges into art, transforming late-night feedings, kitchen conversations, and fleeting moments of connection into songs that feel intimate and universally resonant.
On the musical front, the album is a nuanced fusion of folk narrative and jazz sensibility. Pariser’s guitar favors improvisational space, allowing songs to breathe, while Venter’s voice communicates warmth and lived experience. With Chilenski on bass and Sands on drums, the music achieves a delicate balance between spontaneity and structure, while Seitz’s mixing preserves the immediacy of the performances without losing sonic depth.
In keeping with its ethos, Business Unusual challenges conventional release models. Nearly 1,000 copies were hand-delivered before the digital launch, framing the album as a gift rather than a product. In this gesture, and in the songs themselves, Goodnight Moonshine reveals an essential truth: when approached with honesty and care, the ordinary moments of life can be extraordinary, and creativity can flourish even in the most unusual of circumstances.
We Speak Music
SCARECROW’s John Blaze Delivers a Career Milestone With “Twisted” and Earns Josie Music Awards Song of the Year Nomination
John Blaze has spent nearly four decades fronting SCARECROW, the New York hard-rock outfit he founded in 1989, and in 2026 he delivered one of the most ambitious releases of his career with “Twisted.” Now, the song has reached another major milestone: “Twisted” has been nominated for Song of the Year in the Metal/Alternative category at the Josie Music Awards.
The nomination places Blaze and SCARECROW among this year’s recognized independent artists and songwriters at the Josie Music Awards, with the awards ceremony set to take place at Nashville’s legendary Grand Ole Opry. For an artist whose career has been built on persistence, independence and decades of hard-rock storytelling, the recognition gives “Twisted” an entirely new chapter.
Written by John Blaze and Chaffin, “Twisted” pulls together a lineup of guest players that reads like a rock family reunion, built around Blaze’s long-standing friendship with Dee Snider and the legacy of Twisted Sister, a band woven into SCARECROW’s story from its earliest days.
That connection goes all the way back to the beginning. SCARECROW’s original lineup featured guitarist Eddie Ojeda, best known for his work in Twisted Sister, and the two camps have remained connected ever since. “Twisted” makes that history explicit: Dee Snider appears on the record with guest vocals during the track’s climactic second verse and chorus, lending the song an instantly recognizable jolt of arena-rock power.
Snider isn’t the only marquee name in the credits. Mark Wood, founding violinist of Trans-Siberian Orchestra, contributes electrifying violin work that gives “Twisted” a cinematic sweep uncommon in modern hard rock. Rounding out the track are TJ Jordan on lead guitar and Bobby Marks on drums, creating a powerful, road-tested foundation behind Blaze’s signature gritty vocal delivery.
The Josie Music Awards nomination feels particularly fitting because “Twisted” isn’t simply another SCARECROW release. It brings together different eras of Blaze’s musical life while pushing the band’s sound forward. There’s history in the recording, but there’s also urgency. It doesn’t sound like a band looking backward. It sounds like one with unfinished business.
For Blaze, the nomination also represents recognition of a career that has largely been built outside the traditional machinery of the mainstream music business. Independent rock artists rarely survive for decades without a fierce commitment to what they do, and SCARECROW’s longevity speaks for itself. From the band’s early years and its 1991 debut, through the Blood, Sweat and 20 Years retrospective and the theatrical production I Am SCARECROW, Blaze has continued developing a world around the music rather than simply releasing songs.
That makes the Song of the Year nomination especially meaningful. After nearly four decades of building SCARECROW, Blaze now heads to the Josie Music Awards at the Grand Ole Opry with one of his most ambitious songs recognized in the Metal/Alternative category.
And there’s something wonderfully appropriate about the song that got him there.
“Twisted” connects SCARECROW’s beginnings to its present, reunites Blaze musically with figures tied to the band’s history, and demonstrates just how much fire remains in the project. With Snider and Wood contributing to the record and Blaze still driving the band he created from the ground up, the track feels less like a nostalgic reunion than a statement of survival.
Now it’s also an award-nominated song.
For John Blaze and SCARECROW, nearly four decades into the journey, “Twisted” has become more than another entry in the catalog. It’s a career milestone — and this September, that milestone is taking SCARECROW all the way to the Grand Ole Opry.
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