Meet Starla Online

Remember back when you’d hop onto the family computer, log in to the internet, hear a bunch of dial tones, and then accidentally phone-tap into your mother’s phone call? 

Those were the good old days of the internet. Things were moving and shaking fast! We were skyrocketing into the future! 

And now look at us. I’m writing this blog and you’re reading it. 

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

In all seriousness, the internet is cool, this blog is cool, and Starla Online is even cooler. This Queens-based project has an affection for Tuesday’s and all things synth. Fresh off their latest release, Tuesday Birthday, we called them in to discuss late bloomer songwriting, Carole King-karaoke, and their recent forays into drawing. 

Log in, tune in, dial up, scroll down, leave a message after the beep and give this one a read through. Did it make your top five? 

VIDEO GAMES a Mad-Lib by, Starla Online

I love to HOLLER at video games. I can play them day and CRANBERRY! My mom and METRONOME are not too happy with my SLURPING in front of THE GLOVE ;(. Although Dad believes that these CRIMSON games help children develop hand-KNUCKLE coordination and improve their learning CROISSANTS, he also seems to think they have CRUSTY side effects on one's TOOTH. Both of my LOSERS think this is due to a CURSED use of violence in the majority of the MUFFINS. Finally, we all arrived at a JOYOUS compromise: After dinner, I can play 7 hours of video games, provided I help clear the TEACUP and wash the HEROES.

Would you rather

have a perfect photographic memory, or be able to see up to one day into the future?

Photographic memory. I’m fearful of the power of misremembering and too scared to be inhibited by a predicted future…

Some questions with Starla Online

What is your favorite dinosaur? Why is it your favorite?

Was gonna try to make a joke about someone old in the music scene but I’m opting for honesty: not enough dinosaur knowledge to answer…

Where were you emotionally in the spring/summer fo 2018 when you wrote the songs for “Tuesday Birthday”?

I was fresh out of a “serious” relationship and in the midst of discovering of new sound world: Christina Schneider’s Jepeto Solutions, Ryan Power, Zach Phillips…I was also in a band led by Eli Recht-Appel where he encouraged me to write my first song, “We’re Not Ready” and I suddenly became infatuated with writing music for the first time. Those first 4 songs were written really fast and I think there’s something really pure about them; The first songs you write (when you’re a late bloomer like me) are sort of a culmination of everything leading up to it. Feeling-wise I think it was a pretty impulsive time for me but it was also reflective and very transformative my songwriting puberty! lol.

What is your go-to Karaoke song?

Ideally any Gina X Performance song, but that’s usually unavailable sooo Carole King’s “It’s Too Late”.

Being a centrally solo endeavor. Do you collaborate often with others while putting a song together?

Rarely…I’m trying to do more of that though!  Usually my songwriting starts with a chord progression and lots of self-doubt and then I send voice memos to my closest friends with caption “should I keep working on this??”

Where is somewhere you have always wanted to record?

Honestly the real recording dream for me is to become proficient enough to self-record and produce on my own eventually! Maybe even to tape if I can figure that out.

Has a song ever made you happy? Do you know why it made you happy?

Of course! Today I listened to “All I Wanna Do” by The Beach Boys on the train which fits the happy-love-song prototype well: pretty chord progression, timbre between instruments, lyrics, and Brian Wilson’s voice. It’s so lush. Vocal timbre can be a huge dealbreaker for me in liking a song…ultimately I think the chord progression is usually what elicits that happy song feeling for me though.

Do you draw all the art for your album covers? When did you start drawing?

Yes I’ve ended up doing them all on my own with some help from my uncle/friends with photoshop and illustrator! I haven’t drawn very much…I used to paint from time-to-time in middle school but drawing is new and I’m enjoying it a lot.

Android or I-phone?

It’s all evil buttttt iPhone.

Do you think NYC is haunted?

The city as a whole? I don’t think so…I’m not terribly superstitious in that way though.

Describe your sound with the name of a breakfast cereal.

Blueberry Morning / Cinnamon Toast Crunch combo. =)

Did you always live in the city? Did where you grew up influence your music?

I moved to New York 4 years and I’m originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. I studied jazz trombone in middle school and high school…I think the genre influenced me more than the location! There’s not really anything like the DIY scene in New York happening in the Bay Area, or if there is I don’t know about it yet. The question of influences is hard but I think that my music has an East Coast/Northeast sound more than it has a California sound.

Can you remember what the last argument you had was?

The last argument I got into was last week in my genre studies class…about the question of appropriation in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, HA! Academic arguing is much different than friend/relationship arguing though, so the stakes were pretty low for this one.

Any final comments? (This is your electronic soapbox for one last answer.)

Follow my Youtube channel playlists :) :) :) That would make me really happy