June 2017

Music on the Mesa Festival launched its third year on a hot day in El Prado NM, just north of Taos, at the Taos Mesa Brewery. Under clouds that gifted rain later in the day at a very opportune time, music lovers came early, swelling crowds to capacity every single night of the fest.

On this opening Friday, June 2, festivalgoers were treated to NM singer/songwriter Ry Taylor on the large earthen amphitheater and the California-based Sweetwater String Band on the patio stage.

Over the past few decades, the Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance has grown to be more than just a single event in Trumansburg, NY and this year the latest addition to the roster returns for its sophomore year: the GrassRoots Culture Camp 2017 runs from Sunday through Wednesday, July 16-19, the four days leading up to the 27th annual GrassRoots Festival which takes place July 20-23. Both the camp and the festival are held at the Trumansburg Fairgrounds.

Brookyn-based, alternative rock band, Factory Edge, announce their second album, Sunset Park, due out August 4thSunset Park was recorded over a sweltering July weekend in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park at the workshop where the band practices.

A tried and true Michigan musician, Joshua Davis is set to release a new album, The Way Back Home, on September 8, 2017. Produced by Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, The Way Back Home is Davis' latest full-length studio album and first since his 2015 appearances as a Top 3 finalist on NBC's "The Voice" (season 8).

Kiefer Sutherland’s cinematic “Shirley Jean” video, which tells the story of a man's last night on death row, taking the form of a goodbye letter to a woman he once loved, premieres on CMT channels and platforms June 21.

Potions and Poisons is the fourth studio album of original music from Head for the Hills, the Colorado based post-modern bluegrass outfit of Adam Kinghorn, Joe Lessard, Matt Loewen and Sam Parks. There’s no reinvention of the wheel here--no computer programmed banjo rolls or digitally arpeggiated fiddle lines. Instead we find Head for the Hills at the peak of their powers of musical alchemy, building little worlds of sound from the detritus of bluegrass, jazz, hip hop, folk and soul.