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Artist Spotlight

Ross Victory is a singer/songwriter turned award-winning author of the books Views from the Cockpit: The Journey of a Son and Panorama: The Missing Chapter from Southern California.

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As the son of public servants, a missionary father and a law enforcement mother, exploration and service were built into his foundation having travelled to over thirty countries and volunteered with homelessness causes to teen suicide prevention.

 

Ross spent his early years collecting Pilot pens, notepads, singing and interviewing himself in a tape recorder. With an acute awareness for his young age, he was eager to point out hypocrisies and character inconsistencies in children and adults through English assignments. He provoked reactions from teachers with writing that could bite, wink, and smile. Though some of his writing was provocative for a third grader and led to concerned phone calls, adults looked forward to what Ross would write or say next.

 

He gravitated to writing music lyrics and producing beats on Sonar Cakewalk to cope with isolation he felt in his childhood from feeling different. In high school, he impressed his classmates and teachers when he wrote and recorded a song about a nine-year-old girl who died from gang violence. At fifteen years old, Ross submitted the song to a songwriting competition. Competing against a sea of experienced adult songwriters, Ross was awarded the distinction of Runner Up. This validation was formative for Ross at his young age; it gave him the sense that he was on to something, and it was worth developing.

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Ross wrote and submitted these songs and stories to online competitions for feedback, which helped him find his direction, style, and voice. In 2007, Ross entered a Myspace singing competition for a chance to be featured on the Step Up 2 The Streets Music Soundtrack produced by Atlantic Records; Ross reached the Top 5 male finalists. Ross describes himself as a writer first, songwriter second, and a singer last. Editors and songwriting judges have described Ross’ writing as ‘never lacking soul’ with the ability to anger or soothe–but always descriptive and transparent.

 

While pursuing a Marketing degree from Cal State LA, Ross interned in the Sales & Marketing team at Power 106 radio station in Los Angeles. The internship led to an opportunity at ASCAP (Performing Rights Organization), where he worked with the process of music publishing and obtained hands-on experience with songwriting and licensing.

 

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Unable to land a dream job in the industry, Ross moved to South Korea to work as an English as a Second Language teacher. After many years of teaching phonics to advanced-level English, he began to work in Operations Management in international schools. These roles married Ross’ love for language, international travel, and Marketing together in a unique way.

 

After the back to back death of his brother and father, Ross was faced with profound grief which pushed him down a road of deep self-reflection about life and his personal legacy. With laser focus and new-found understanding, Ross combines his creative passions and practical work experience to inspire and entertain readers and listeners with his books and music in a way that feels fresh and sincere.

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Artist Spotlight

“Subterranean Homesick Blues” finds a new direction through Ghost of Panama

Ghost of Panama

Rearranging a song that carries six decades of cultural weight is a creative challenge, but Ghost of Panama approaches “Subterranean Homesick Blues” with clear purpose. The rock band radically reworks Bob Dylan’s counter-culture hit, reshaping its identity while keeping its rebellious spirit. It’s a tribute to musical heritage and a statement of artistic independence all in one.

This new interpretation is very much shaped by the production, made at Ghost of Panama’s home studio in West London. The setting allows an intimate approach to reinterpreting a familiar song and lets the group engage directly with the material, taking it in a new artistic direction.

“Subterranean Homesick Blues” centers on the tension between conservation and transformation. Ghost of Panama is true to the song’s rebellious spirit without adding to its legacy, and this approach gives the release an adventurous feel, grounded in countercultural energy but driven by a desire to see what the composition can become in a different musical context.

Their version of this 60-year-old classic shows that respecting a song’s history can also mean breaking the rules and finding new ways to express its spirit. Fundamentally, “Subterranean Homesick Blues” presents Ghost of Panama as artists who want to engage with the past without being tied to it. The release’s strongest identity is a familiar heritage reimagined through a singularly forward-looking creative vision.

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Artist Spotlight

“NO MORE” by Amanda Holley connects healing, awakening, and survival

Amanda Holley

“NO MORE carries that kind of emotional weight, and some songs feel like they come from lived experience but reach for something bigger. Amanda Holley blends R&B and soul, turning a lifetime of survival into a vision of healing, awakening, and the determination to move beyond what caused the pain.

“NO MORE is a healing anthem for people who have gone through bad experiences and reached a place of higher awareness, but it’s also an emotionally charged protest. The duality is introspective and outward-looking at the same time, turning personal survival into a broader declaration that some experiences, conditions, or cycles should end.

Holley had a premonition of the song six months before the world went into global shutdown. In the vocal booth, working out melodies with her collaborators, she pictured people in the streets. Those images were hard to imagine at the time, but subsequent events would make them painfully familiar.

“NO MORE is given a particularly contemplative underpinning by the context. The identity of R&B and soul leaves room for emotion. The song’s themes link survival, awakening, resistance, and the need for change. Amanda Holley is an artist using music to process personal endurance and a broader sense of social awakening. It’s got a complicated significance, and its release feels like a glimpse of a moment when personal intuition and public reality collided in an unexpected way.

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Photo Credit: Yulia Shusharina

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