Today we’d like to introduce you to Colin Wolf.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My name is Colin Wolf, and I am a musician/songwriter/teacher and record producer based in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where I play in an indie rock group named Smooth Retsina Glow, as well as a freelance music teacher at West End Music in Allentown, a hired church musician for MCCLV, and various music fill in teaching assignments for the Allentown School District. The guitar is my main instrument, but I also play keyboards, bass, banjo, and mandolin as well as vocals- and I teach all those instruments excluding vocals. I started in 2001 when I was 8, and by the time I was 13, I had already done my first professional gig.
From 06 onwards, I began to study with jazz greats Pat Martino and Vic Juris and began gigging on a professional basis- mostly in pit orchestras for musicals such as Beauty and the Beast, Seussical, Once Upon this Island, and Pippin to name a few. From 2009 to 2011, I held a weekly residency at the Applewood Bar and Grill once every Friday, as well as toured Slovenia with a jazz combo in my junior year of high school. After graduating, I attended Kutztown University, where I got to work with such jazz greats as David Samuels, Dave Leibman, Alan Ferber, Denise Donatelli, and Geoff Keezer, and logged 5 tours with the jazz ensemble, most noteworthy being a 2-week tour of Italy in March 2013. Additional Highlights include performing at Carnegie Hall in April 2015 as part of a pit orchestra for a choral work.
I graduated with my B. A. in music performance in 2015 and began working as a freelance musician/teacher bouncing between jazz gigs, a weekly church gig, gigging with a folk-rock band called Stoney Run Group, and diversifying myself as a teacher for the School of Rock in Easton as well as a few other local studios. In 2019, I joined West End Music in Allentown, where I teach to this day. I co-founded the Group Smooth Retsina Glow the same year, and we released our debut record New Frontiers in late 2019 – in terms of look and sound a very different iteration- but the album received some polite critical reception.
I received the Best Music Educator award in The Lehigh Valley Local music awards ceremony in March of 2020 – just before the lockdowns were implemented, but even with all the restrictions, I managed to gig at least 50 times when things partially opened in Pa – most of these were outdoors, and virtual recorded the group’s 2nd record, out of the Ether. In 2021- when things began gravitating towards normal, we found it wasn’t quite as much of a hustle to get shows because we had eeked things out in 2020, and the past several years we have refined our lineup which is composed of the following: Myself (Colin Wolf), Sarah Stoll, Jacob Wolfe, and Brian Derckas.
We released our third album Metaphysical in June of 2022, and we are currently about to release our 4th record – the first with this lineup, and our singles Overcoming and Bound by Desire have so far given us our best critical acclaim so far – with a feature in Relix Magazine, and airplay in North America, Australia, Asia, and Europe as well as a slew of critical acclaim.
Currently, we gig an average of 3 times a week, but sometimes even 4, 5, or 6 shows are even logged by us. Between my teaching, writing, and performing I can honestly say I have the basic foundation of my career goals as a professional musician achieved, and I am still working to better my abilities as a musician, songwriter, producer teacher, and businessman. I take a certain amount of pride having built from the ground up- without any agency or union assistance.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Certainly, no one in the arts can admit to being a perfect journey – and certainly, no one ever taught me how to survive as a musician in a global pandemic! Hindsight quite literally is 2020 in that sense of the word. But honestly, I was able to spin Covid to my advantage- gigging in 2020 50 times after lockdowns were implemented in Pa is perhaps a Guinness World Record! And when things gravitated back, Smooth Retsina Glow had much more increased visibility, so while it’s a part of history none of us want to relive – I take pride in how I handled it all.
Arguably, the most frustrating aspect was dealing with some of the fraught personalities that infest the music world. I’ve quit working with various types because they were either incompetent or corrosive in terms of their persona – namely studios I used to teach for because those types weigh down the human soul. And occasionally, ex-bandmates in highlight can seem like ingrates – or people who I may have worked with in the past. And of course, musicians who are comprised of various afflictions – you can guess what that’s code for are very difficult no matter how good they are musically. In the third year of Smooth Retsina Glow when we were a trio, I had to continuously remind our then bassist when our shows were because he started missing them due to his intake, and even began forgetting some of the arrangements – it ultimately all culminated when I had to fire him a third of the way through the show – it’s a true story.
For me, the most comically absurd occurred in 2019 when an ex-bandmate – he will remain nameless- quit a band I used to play in, just before we were due to play a high-profile show with 72 hours notice for reasons I don’t need to get into here (I used a student of mine, Jacob Wolfe who has since become a member of Smooth Retsina Glow), and then came back with an email saying he had copyrighted the name to the group that he and I had cofounded and he was going to sue me for the songs as well as shutting down our social media.
Somehow though we didn’t lose our shows, but it could have been a financial catastrophe because if the venues had noticed the group disappearing, they may have filled in all the dates with new groups as a precaution. And the funny thing was he never followed up on his threats. The good news was – Smooth Retsina Glow came about as a result of it – but ultimately though, I believe the struggles are part of the journey, and as long as you learn from them you can always bounce back.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I specialize in performing, teaching, producing, and writing music. I would cite the current group I work in, Smooth Retsina Glow as what I am most proud of because it has a unique blend of influences from a wide variety of artists and a catalog of unique and compelling originals- especially on our soon-to-be-released album- that have been well received beyond my expectations.
Also being featured in Relix Magazine, and won the Best Music Educator Award for Lehigh Valley Music 2019, outside of that – I’m versatile enough musically can jump between various genres as well as read music – I think I have a foundation considering I learned by ear and then learned the mechanics behind it later that has given me several opportunities I likely would not have had otherwise.
What sets me apart is I have a fairly wide net of influences musically, and while I can cover anything I’m told to do for some other genres, I can still bring my persona to whatever it is I am doing. I also pride myself on my work ethic – I can teach 5 days a week in school as well as gig 6 times and still have the same energy and professionalism daily – and if fatigue is setting in – I don’t show it!
What do you like and dislike about the city?
I’ve yet to arrive in your city, so I’ll refrain from making baseless claims until I experience it in person – and hopefully, that day will come when Smooth Retsina Glow rolls through on tour! If I have to say one thing negative – I prefer nature to urban developments as a rule- so the one thing I will always say, is I dislike city traffic – regardless of where it is.
But every city generally speaking tends to have something going for it in terms of nightlife, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say I’m sure there will be a good selection of venues to perform at that!
Pricing:
- Private Lesson Fee: $60
- Hour for performance: $60
- Smooth Retsina Glow CD: $15
Contact Info:
- Website: www.smoothretsinaglow.com
- Instagram: Smooth Retsina Glow ( S.R.G) (@smoothretsinaglow) • Instagram photos and videos
- Facebook: Smooth Retsina Glow- S.R.G | Facebook
- Twitter: Smooth Retsina Glow
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@seventhsamuel
- SoundCloud: Smooth Retsina Glow
