ASCAP Music Cafe bringing Sundance newbies

Singer/songwriter K.S. Rhoads hasn't attended the Sundance Film Festival — until now.

Rhoads, who was part of the Ten Out of Tenn tour that rode into Kilby Court last year — will perform at the festival's ASCAP Music Cafe on Jan. 28 and 29.

"I'm looking forward to getting up there to Sundance," Rhoads said during a phone interview from his home in Nashville, Tenn. "The set list is based on what I'm doing live.

"I've never been interested in the idea of me playing by myself live," he said. "I'm always jealous of people who came together as a band, and that never happened to myself. So what I've been doing live is looping myself with a beat box."

Rhoads said by the time he finishes a song, the loops have fleshed things out in the arrangements.

"I'm actually building a song while it's going on," he said. "But it only works on some stuff, because the song has to be circular to work with loops and some of my stuff is linear."

Rhoads said his main musical influences include the Beastie Boys.

"I liked beat-boxing and freestyling (rap) on the playground, and discovered instruments later on," he said. "But really, it's been all across the board."

The musician said he's lucky to be an independent artist because he can keep his musical vision intact.

That doesn't mean, however, that he hasn't written some catchy pop hooks. Rhoads said his CD "Dead Language" features songs that are independent sounding, but also contains songs that are more conventional.

"(The CD) is probably more independent sounding that I think, but I had a professor in college that said 'You have to master the rules before you break them.' And that stuck with me forever."

Rhoads cited visual artists Picasso and Jackson Pollack, and composer Prokofiev, who demonstrated they could make conventional art and then began breaking the rules to find their own style.

Rhoads now feels he is free to fully make the music he hears in his head.

"Now I'm ready to embrace it all," he said.

Rhoads said he's looking forward not only to playing at Sundance, but also hitting the slopes.

"I want to ski," he said. "And I want to make some connections, because I eventually would like to score movies."

Scoring movies is something that New Orleans-rasied singer/songwriter AM recently did.