Mining the same rich vein as ’90s alt-country favorites like Freakwater and Whiskeytown, the Good Graces unspool delicate, warbling indie-folk and jangling roots pop. The project originated in 2007 but really started gaining momentum when it was handpicked by the Indigo Girls to open their 2015 summer tour. More of a community musical collaboration than a band, the Good Graces are the brainchild of singer, songwriter and guitarist Kim Ware and include a rotating cast of a dozen musicians playing the typical four-piece accouterments, as well as piano, harmonica, mandolin, wind chimes, cello, violin and more.

“I’ve never really called it a band,” Ware says. “I'm kind of weird about that term, which is a little silly, but I’ve always liked to mix it up depending on what I'm doing at the moment. I'm super fortunate to have a lot of really talented friends, but many of them have their own thing going on, and it's hard to expect the same group to be available all the time. I’ve always called on different people."

But Ware’s attitude has evolved on this point recently, given her deepening connection with the core members of the Good Graces’ latest iteration—pedal-steel and electric-guitar player Jonny Daly, and Uncle Green drummer Pete McDade, who were a key part of the sound and creative process on new record Set Your Sights (out July 7 via Pretty New Songs / Potluck Foundation). “Making this record did help me settle on a solid lineup that I'm going to at least be using for shows—Jonny, Pete, Lee Kennedy, Chad Mason and John McNicholas. I can’t overstate the importance of their contributions to the Good Graces.”

True to form, Set Your Sights was written on Ware's front porch on acoustic guitar. Touting such influences as Neko Case, Laura Veirs, K.D. Lang and Lydia Loveless, Ware's Southern drawl and straightforward, confessional lyrical style are at the forefront of the songs, while the production is atmospheric and exquisitely layered, showcasing a menagerie of styles.

Exploring themes such as getting older, past relationships and coming to terms with your place in the universe, this album is Ware's attempt to examine past missteps. "People so rarely learn from their mistakes,” she says. “Everyone talks about it, and it's easy to throw that out there, but we so rarely focus on why we made a mistake in the first place. It's important to not just treat the symptom but the underlying cause. I think that should be the bigger focus."

In the past, Ware has been described as a less surly Lucinda Williams or a country-fried Liz Phair. This time around, she also channels Beth Orton's spaced-out Trailer Park soundscapes, especially on album opener "Out There," which asks the age-old question, "Are we alone in the universe?”

There are punk-tinged jangle rockers, too, like "Remember the Old School," and languid, fiddle-anchored waltzes like "The Hard Way," a song that sidesteps the group's signature twang for an orchestral existential crisis. "Sometimes, joking around, I call this my midlife crisis record,” Ware says. “It's about getting older, regret, feeling bad about things I've done in past relationships, and just trying to figure it all out. A lot of the sad relationship stuff—it’s my way of analyzing what went wrong. Making this record, I learned that, sometimes, coming to terms with something means accepting you might never come to terms with it.”

It's a record that finds kinship with those who’ve fallen a few times and had to find the strength to pull themselves back up. It's the story of a woman taking personal inventory and learning to live with her choices. But it's also the story of a woman who can say she’s really lived. Sometimes looking back is the only thing that can propel you forward.

Richmond, Va.-based guitarist Thorp Jenson has officially announced the release of his forthcoming debut album, Odessa, out October 20. In conjunction with the announcement, Jenson shared the album's first single "Oklahoma" at Glide who called the track, "Spirited and energetic," and praised Jenson as, "A vibrant songwriter and dynamic frontman."

Jenson creates the kind of music that makes you want to spend all night in a Southern dive bar and wake up the next morning just to drive across the country—and his songs are at home in either scenario. Jenson’s self-produced debut, Odessa, encapsulates the free-spirited heartland-rock ethos of Tom Petty with a healthy dose of storytelling and singer/songwriter introspection. The record features Jenson’s rich, soul-warming vocals and bright lead guitar supported by musicians and co-writers who have worked and toured alongside artists like Foxygen, Matthew E. White, Natalie Prass and more. 

“I wrote a lot of these songs thinking about characters,” Jenson says of Odessa. “It always ends up including a part of me—you can’t get away from that—but if you’re only telling your own story, you’re kind of pigeonholing yourself.” 

This character embodiment is apparent throughout the album, no more so than in the title track—a vivid, rollicking tune in which Jenson imagines himself a soldier returning from war to a small-town home that doesn’t quite fit the one in his memory. Along with opening track “Oklahoma,” “Odessa” helps set the overarching rock & roll aesthetic of the album, which Jenson says was influenced by The Rolling Stones, whose catalog was in heavy rotation leading up to the sessions. Jenson also surrounded himself with noticeably simpatico backing musicians. “I needed to bring in the right drummer to do what I wanted to do,” he says. “Somebody who had listened to Charlie Watts at some point in their life.” That drummer was Dusty Ray Simmons, the band rounded out by bassist/keyboardist Andrew Randazzo, guitarists Charles Arthur and Andrew Rapisarda and saxophonist/backup-singer Suzi Fischer. “It helps to have some of your best friends be some of the best musicians you know,” Jenson says. “They really brought it.”

Jenson channels Ryan Adams at his most apocalyptic on Odessa’s dark yet ultimately hopeful “All We Have Is Time,” and shows off his songwriting chops on “The Garden/2nd Season,” a two-part track punctuated by a “Layla”-inspired outro, and featuring lyrics co-written with Foxygen/Matthew E. White bassist Cameron Ralston. The album’s lone cover, Jenson’s take on Modern English’s “I Melt With You” was a bold addition, he admits, but despite his childhood disdain for the track (“I hated that song growing up”), playing it at a wedding gig helped him see past the blinding ’80s sheen to the solid framework underneath, which he’s transformed into a spacey, comfortingly languid love ballad.

Growing up 25 miles south of Richmond in Chester, Va., Jenson, the son of a loving but frequently on the road truck-driver father, received much of his young education from his older brother. “I was maybe what you’d consider a ‘bad kid,’” Jenson recalls. “We were bouncing around on our bicycles, smoking pot. Small-town America—there’s nothing to do. In some ways, it’s kind of sad; but in another way, it’s poetic.” 

As an early music fan who “hit the ground running” with ’90s grunge, Jenson also found inspiration from his dad’s record collection, which included ‘70s staples like the Grateful Dead and Derek and the Dominos. But, above all else, he was moved by Tom Petty’s Wildflowers, which came out when he was in seventh grade. “It’s just one of those albums,” Jenson says. “That record, to me—it’s just perfect.” 

With Odessa, Jenson offers up a collection of spirited and energetic compositions, setting fire to his lyrics with incendiary lead guitar tightly woven with soaring keyboards, arresting harmonies and a pulsing heartbeat of a rhythm section. After years of building a name for himself as a side-man guitarist in the Richmond music scene, Jenson is now poised to break out as a vibrant songwriter and dynamic frontman with his own story to tell.

Check out the new video from Joel Harrison, whom The New York Times has called “protean” and “brilliant.” The song gives a lyrical nod to Robert Hunter writing "Stella Blue" at the Chelsea, along with many of the hotel's other notorious rock & roll denizens, and musically it channels the feel of the Dead's "Mississippi Half-Step."

Always eclectic, veteran guitarist/songwriter Harrison has previously recorded traditional country standards with Norah Jones, as well as big-band albums & avant-noise skronk—and that just scratches the surface. His latest—pensive, dreamy Americana/indie-folk record The Other River—dips its bucket at every turn into the deep well of American music.

With it's slithering upright bass, ragtime piano & swirling psychedelic organ, "So Long Chelsea Hotel" finds Harrison playfully lamenting the gentrification & skyrocketing rents that led to the closing of this seedy New York City landmark. Harrison himself lived at The Chelsea for a time, in the wake of notable guests from Dylan Thomas and Jack Kerouac to Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Robert Hunter, Patti Smith and Sid & Nancy. It's a fittingly sordid, ramshackle tribute, delivered with a sneering bite that prefers the profane to the sacred.

Singer songwriter Craig Gerdes "rolled into Nashville, on four bald tires, on his beat up, old 4-door Plymouth car...with a stack of songs he'd written, and some old school country pickin, he was gonna be a country music star..." Says the opening line of his autobiographical song "Redneck Sons a Bitches" that tells the summarized tale of his discontented journey from Nashville rejection to releasing his debut album Smokin' Drinkin' & Gamblin' on the Indiana based Sol Records.

Craig took to the stage at a very young age following in the footsteps of his father, and fronting his dad’s band working his way through high school performing in all the honky tonks of Central Illinois. Marrying his high school sweet heart, Janel, they began raising a family together very young. Craig worked hard to take care of his family and continued to play, never letting go of the dream of being successful in the music business.

As his kids had grown, around 2006 Craig made his fateful journey to music city and began showcasing and working his way up and down music row. He landed a writer position at VMG Nashville, working for the legendary Jim Vest, and began the process of demoing songs hoping to get the cut that would establish his career. Craig did have several cuts of his songs over the years and commuted to and from his home in Illinois back to Nashville. However, the entire time his true passion was to be an artist himself not just a Nashville writer. In 2012 Craig began the process of working up a couple of tunes for commercial release and pitched it around town with the help of Vest... 3 singles were recorded but the response on music row was that Craig’s old school classic country stylings had no place in modern day Nashville.

The song continues “As I roamed from place to place, getting those doors slammed in my face, I was looking for that, elusive record deal... Where the hell did I go wrong writing all those old school country songs? Billy Jo Shaver said son I know just how you feel.” a sentiment seconded by the great Bill Jo Shaver at a show they played together when he heard Craig’s story... As the song concludes Craig’s finds his moment of clarity and determining inspiration when an unnamed Nashville label executive tells him “You long haired, redneck, sonsabitches, aren’t wanted here in Nashville, TN... that kind of country don’t play in Nashville, TN” which seems ironic, given legions of Chris Stapleton, Sturgill Simpson and Cody Jinks fans that might argue that these days...

Craig was determined and released the songs on his own. He began touring regionally upwards of 250 shows yearly, performing in clubs and festivals from Illinois to Texas, Florida, Alabama, Ohio, Louisiana and all points in between both with his band and solo as part of the Last Honky Tonk Music Series, including the historic Florabama, Luckenbach, and the Frank Brown Songwriter festival. His travels lead him to find Brian DeBruler CEO of Sol Records, home of Outlaw Country artist Dallas Moore, Pure Grain, and others, who produced the record in Indiana along with Jim Vest, Craig’s original Nashville mentor, who also plays pedal steel on much of the album along with another Nashville legend Robby Turner. Larry Franklin also graces the record on fiddle.

Smokin’ Drinkin’ & Gamblin is collection of 7 original songs written by Gerdes, plus a hand hewn cover of the 1977 classic “Slide Off Of Your Satin Sheets” featuring Jim Vest on pedal steel, who played on the original cut with Johnny Paycheck 40 years ago, and a powerful rendition of Dallas Moore’s “You Saved me From Me” a song about an angel that had a personal significance to Gerdes that you can hear. His uniquely identifiable voice is genuine and honest, his stories pull you into each song painting pictures in your mind throughout the record. “Each & every song has significant meaning to me, whether it was written by me or someone else. Whether I was writing about my own life experiences or someone else's, it's in this record - REAL LIFE – Drinkin’, cheatin’, lovin’, leavin’, killin’, pride, rejection, hearts full of love, broken hearts with no love” says Gerdes.

This record sets the stage for Craig and an ever broadening national fan base in the US and overseas. Despite the slow embrace of “traditionally influenced” what some call “Genuine” or “Real” country music by the industry, the audience continues to grow feverishly where the truly and uniquely gifted songwriters of vision find a resonance with a broad audience who have begun what we hope to be a regained interest in, and appreciation of, the art and vision of music and the song. One needs to look no further than the sales figures of Chris Stapleton’s latest releases that had little to no radio promotional support yet no shortage of free streaming availability as evidence. This is a renaissance period in the music industry and artists like Craig Gerdes, Dallas Moore, Cody Jinks and others that are releasing their own records, their own songs, the way they hear them, independently or on indie labels like Sol Records who has been producing and distributing independent artists since 1991 continue blazing a new trail, all of their own... It is the truly the Rise of the Independents!

Smokin' Drinkin' & Gamblin' drops Jan. 26 via Sol Records.

Born a sixth-generation central Illinois resident, singer-songwriter-musicianTom Irwin, uses his long standing local roots as a sound base for a world wide view of a life in the music arts. The 50-something, guitar playing guy, called “a modern day troubadour” by John Stirratt of the Grammy-award winning rock band, Wilco, spent a lifetime making a living making music in the Midwest with occasional forays into the rest of the country. When Stirratt played a gig at the Castle in Bloomington, Illinois with Chicago rockers Candy Golde (Bun E. Carlos, Nick Tremulis and Rick Rizzo), Irwin’s group the Hayburners opened the show and caught the ear of the acclaimed bassist, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and arranger. It took a few years of scheduling to get it all together, but the outcome of the collaboration is All That Love, the latest music collection from Irwin and one that “catches the vibe these songs needed,” according to Stirratt.

The song selection on the record bridges a lifetime of writing with some tunes recently penned, a few others that were written over thirty years ago and what ever else John and Tom agreed to from the hundreds of original compositions in the prolific songwriter’s back catalog. Stirratt enlisted members of his other band The Autumn Defense, including New York City’s Greg Wieczorek, aka, G. Wiz, on drums (Norah Jones) and Chicago-based musician and owner of Lakland Music, John Pirruccello on 12-string guitar and pedal steel. The multi-talented Scott Ligon (NRBQ, the Flat Five) played an assortment of instruments including piano, organ, accordion, bass and guitar. Theresa O’Hare added flute to the title cut and Paul Von Mertens (Brian Wilson, Poi Dog Pondering) blew sax on the song, A Maybe Moon. Irwin’s hometown band, the Hayburners covered the sounds for three songs on the record with Stirratt playing bass, acoustic guitar, odd sounds and background harmonies as needed. The recording took place at Wall to Wall studios in Chicago, a downtown studio staple for 40 years that was recently demolished to make way for luxury condos.

From his beginnings in music as a teenager learning Deep Purple songs with friends and Johnny Cash tunes from his dad, Irwin soaked up the deep and flowing current of American popular music. By the time he started his first band at age 14, through a run with a regionally successful, new wave band called Condition 90 in the mid-80s, the concept of music as a lifestyle was well set in place. By the late 80s, Irwin had embarked on a solo career consisting of a guitar, a voice and plenty of self-penned songs with regular independent recording releases that continues through today. Consistent regional gigs of over 200 dates a year for decades, garnered him several “Best of” awards for music in the Springfield-based, weekly newspaper Illinois Times Readers Poll, ranging from Best Folk Band in 1992 to Best Americana Band in 2015 and several Best Male Musician and Vocalist in between. In 2001 he opened up for Willie Nelson and Family at the Illinois State Fair grandstand with his band the Hired Hands to a boisterous crowd of 5,000 Willie fans. After a 20-year run of almost every Sunday night at the Brewhaus, a legendary local bar, Downtown Springfield, Inc., made Irwin the one and only recipient of a “Downtown Music Legend” award, presented for “achievement in the arts to the community at large” as a token of appreciation to his dedication to live music and original artistry in the area.

During this decades-long, decorated music career, Irwin helped raise three sons to adulthood, received a Master’s of Arts in Liberal & Integrative Studies at the University of Illinois Springfield, released eight full length independent recordings and since 2000, penned Now Playing, a weekly column on local live music, for Illinois Times.

Now with the new album in hand, Irwin begins the process of reaching out to a national audience through the time-honored practice of promotion and publicity, touring and traveling, but mostly through doing what he’s always done — play good songs well with a dedication to the spirit and emotion of a life based in original music and heartfelt performance.

Craig Gerdes is a singer whose voice is steadied by the legion of angels he believes watch over him. He tells stories at a Southern pace, with a soft voice and slow drawl. His new album Smokin' Drinkin' and Gamblin' is full of outlaw-country rug cutters and ballads about strong heads and weak hearts. Fueled by nostalgia, his songwriting talent turns old habits into dependable crutches nursing the phantom pain of distant love.

Though he hails from rural Illinois, his sound is old-school, four-to-the-floor, Texas-style honky tonk, reminiscent of greats like Waylon Jennings, Leon Payne, George Strait, Jim Lauderdale and James McMurtry. As great songwriters often do, he spent time as a writer in Nashville, where he had some success, and learned that his songs were too country for the cosmopolitan elite. 

Smokin' Drinkin' & Gamblin' is full of outlaw-country rug cutters and ballads about strong heads and weak hearts. Fueled by nostalgia, Gerdes' songwriting talent turns old habits into dependable crutches, nursing the phantom pain of distant love. The nine-track album is full old-school four-to-the-floor honky tonk that calls to mind country legends like George Strait, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson.

His new single is out just in time for the holidays. "Christmas Eve At Our House" is an upbeat, boot-tappin' country Christmas number in which Gerdes weaves all of country music's tropes (whiskey, cigarettes, fightin', Mama) into an autobiographical tale of a holiday family gathering. Led by blazing pedal, plenty of timeless country guitar licks and carried by bouncy two-beat bass, this song is a worthy entry in the canon of Christmas-themed country music. 

Jamie McLean Band has been receiving great press in anticipation of its new LP, One and Only, produced by ex-Wilco drummer Ken Coomer (Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris) at Nashville's legendary Sound Emporium, and featuring contributions from an impressive list of guest artists, from Americana mainstay Sam Bush to reed man extraordinaire Jeff Coffin (Bela Fleck, Dave Matthews Band) and mesmerizing British singer/songwriter Lucie Silvas. No Depression, PopMatters and Glide have all shared singles leading up to the Feb. 23 release.

When Jamie McLean and his band get cooking, signature Gibson Les Paul slung over his shoulder, jangling downhome American rock & roll blaring from the speakers—damn the torpedoes, it’s like 1976 all over again. With the depth and honesty of his songs, and the effortless showmanship of his live performances, you can trace a clean lineage straight back from McLean to the legends whose influence he’s proudly stitched on his sleeve.

“I’ve been working at this long enough now that I know what’s going to be a great song and what feels extra,” McLean says. “Tom Petty had the line, ‘Don’t bore us, get to the chorus.’ That always resonated with me.”

McLean’s new LP, One and Only (out Feb. 23), was brought to life with the help of producer/ex-Wilco drummer Ken Coomer (Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris), and it’s the most assured studio expression yet from the Jamie McLean Band. The album also gets a lift from its impressive collection of guest artists including Americana mainstay Sam Bush, who serves up potent flights of mandolin picking; reed man extraordinaire Jeff Coffin (Bela Fleck, Dave Matthews Band); and mesmerizing British singer-songwriter Lucie Silvas.

“Some of these songs called out for sounds we don’t normally have,” McLean says. “A little piano, some B3, saxophone. So we had the core [Jamie McLean Band] trio providing the foundation, and then we just grabbed as many badasses as we could from the Nashville scene to augment the band.”

Cut at Music City’s legendary Sound Emporium, One and Only was culled from pure heartbreak, McLean grappling with the dissolution of a long-term relationship just prior to writing the record. He potently distills the experience into the album’s 11 tracks, from the Petty-esque swagger of “You’re Not the Only One” to groovy escapes (“Let’s Get Out of Here”), laid-bare ballads (“Not Today”), open-road country rambles (“Virginia,” “One and Only”), chooglin’ boogies (“Sing It”), soulful summits (“Yesterday’s Champagne”) and—with closing track “Holding On-Letting Go”—a gospel lilt that seamlessly bridges church and concert hall.

“Songwriting is elusive,” McLean says. “It’s like trying to capture lightning in a bottle.’ Really, it’s about being in the right place at the right time. And that’s what happened with this record. I feel like these are my strongest songs to date.”

McLean cut his teeth playing guitar for years in the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, eventually departing to carve his own path as a solo artist. He soon began collaborating with bassist Ben Mars and drummer Brian Griffin, and the Jamie McLean Band was born. Since then, they’ve been burning up the American highway together, playing countless shows, and have thus far released three studio records and a live album. McLean has the sharp, roguish eyes of a hard-touring musician, his resume thick with sessions for everyone from Norah Jones to Aaron Neville and Chuck D; bills supporting Elvis Costello, Dr. John, Robert Randolph and Trombone Shorty; epic performances at Madison Square Garden, Bonnaroo and Fuji Rock; and endorsements from Gibson Guitars and Esquire magazine.

With the release of One and Only on the horizon, the Jamie McLean Band is poised for a breakthrough, its Americana rock & roll honest and true as ever.

“With this new record, I’ve finally let my guard down a bit,” McLean says. “I’m not afraid to say what’s on my mind.”

Jamie McLean Band "One and Only" Tour
Feb 8 Charlottesville, VA - Southern Music Hall
Feb 9 Leesburg, VA - Smokehouse Live
Feb 10 Rocky Mount, VA - Harvester Performance Center 
Feb 11 Graham, NC - Haw River Ballroom 
Feb 13 Chattanooga, TN - Haw River Ballroom  
Feb 14 Knoxville, TN - Bijou Theatre
Feb 16 Asheville, NC - Diana Worthham Theater  
Feb 17 Charlotte, NC - McGlohon Theater
Feb 18 Atlanta, GA - Terminal West
Feb 19 Nashville, TN - The Family Wash
Feb 21 Durham, NC - Blue Note Grill
Feb 22 Washington, DC - Hill Country DC
Feb 23 Roanoke, VA - Blue 5
Feb 24 Richmond, VA - Cary Street Cafe
Feb 28 New York, NY - Rockwood Music Hall
Mar 1 Portland, ME - Port City Music Hall
Mar 3 Boston, MA - Atwoods Tavern
Mar 4 Sellersville, PA  - Sellersville Theater
Mar 15 Virginia Beach, VA  - Doc Taylor's
Mar 16 Easton, MD - Avalon Theatre
Mar 17 Philadelphia, PA - World Cafe Live

Book Club’s evocative sound is the perfect embodiment of the old Joni Mitchell line: “Every picture has its shadows / And it has some source of light.”

While Book Club’s lineup has changed and expanded over the years, founding frontman, guitarist, singer and songwriter Robbie Horlick’s vision has remained the driving force. His laidback voice, emotive and winsome, alternately evokes a shimmery pastoral beauty and deep shades of despondent darkness. The impressionistic lyrics don’t specifically describe events as much as arouse emotions. The music press took notice with Book Club’s last record, 2015’s One-Way Moon, which received high praise from outlets such as Paste, Exclaim!, No Depression and NYLON, the latter writing, “heart-wrenching lyrics with rich, gorgeous melodies … haunting and wintery … folk at its best.”

On Book Club’s ethereal yet riveting new third LP, Dust of Morning, the melodies and tempos never feel rushed. Rather songs such as “I Heard a Distant a Call,” “Honest in Disguise” and “When the Bells Rang Out” beckon the listener to float, drift and dream along with the set’s predominantly acoustic instrumentation.

Book Club never hits you head on. With the classically inflected strings and Horlick’s thoughtful musings, they gently invite you to examine the vagaries of life. Poetic lines like “every shadow hides a dawning”—from the aptly titled “Every Song, Another Question”—eschew easy answers, contemplating the quirks of existence while allowing space for listeners’ own interpretations to simmer and smolder in their minds.

Dust of Morning began to take shape after Horlick’s 2016 solo tour of Europe and the U.K. “I did three weeks there and I was writing the whole time,” he says. “But it was hard to zoom out and distill it all. After I got back, I decompressed and a lot of this stuff just spilled out. It’s not really a clear narrative; it’s things that occurred to me through the prism of that experience.”

The sound on the new Book Club record is spare and open, often with brushed drums, and hints of piano, cello and violin providing a somber bed upon which Horlick’s everyman voice and wistful lyrics lay together. The organic sound and recording approach made for a natural fluidity. “We did most everything live in the studio over a long weekend in the same room with everyone in line of sight,” Horlick says. “Two or three takes of each song—the strings were recorded with the guitar, bass and drums so there was no layering, just nice and easy.”

Even the album’s more lyrically desperate tracks, like “Can You Put Your Eyes On Mine?”—its protagonist pleading with a significant other to “put the phone away” so they can speak without distraction—are tempered by a sunny performance, often featuring the lovely harmony vocals of the band’s new pianist Lauren Love.

From the engagingly torchy country of “So Many Nights” (featuring Love on lead vocals) to the more insistent, rhythmic and string-driven “It Takes a Thief,” Dust of Morning explores a diverse and distinctive sonic palette within the indie-folk genre. Even though the subject matter seems intimate and personal, Horlick reminds us that the singer is not always the narrator. "These songs aren't all autobiographical. I mean, there are snippets, but sometimes I find the perspective of these narrators more interesting than my own."

California/Texas-based bluegrass group The Vintage Martins released their debut LP Traveled today on Louisville-based indie label Eastwood Records. PopMatters praised lead single "Ocean"  for creating "intricately-crafted, emotive landscapes of lush acoustic sound to get lost in."

Traveled is the debut record from acclaimed bluegrass group the Vintage Martins. The band is a culmination of a musical friendship between Eric Uglum and Bud Bierhaus which spans over three decades. The pair often perform as a trio, enlisting Ron Block (Alison Krauss & Union Station), and as a full band with the addition of Christian Ward (Sierra Hull) on fiddle and Uglum’s stepson Austin Ward (Kenny & Amanda Smith Band) on bass.

While the instrumentation and songcraft of Traveled are indeed traditional bluegrass, Uglum’s production flourishes give the album a timeless sound that recalls the work of genre luminaries like Ricky Skaggs, Alison Krauss, and Sam Bush. Gorgeous two and three-part vocal harmonies lead the way amidst waves of lush acoustic instrumentation. The song choices reflect the group’s eclectic tastes, ranging from Bierhaus’ Sunday tent-revival originals to classic country (George Jones’ “Open Pit Mine”, Tom T. Hall’s “Only The Wind”) and legendary folk ballads (“Someday My Ship Will Sail”).

California native Eric Uglum is an internationally known musician, producer, and owner of New Wine Sound Studio in Southern California. He has performed with several bluegrass luminaries like Ralph Stanley, Alison Krauss, James King, Stuart Duncan, Ron Block, Rob Ickes and many others. His debut solo album, Shenandoah Wind, was selected in 2010 as Album of the Year by Bluegrass Now Magazine.

Texas State Flatpicking Guitar Champion Bud Bierhaus is a lifelong musician and a Texas favorite for bluegrass-style guitar and tenor singing. He has performed with many well-known country and bluegrass stars including Chris Hillman and Herb Pederson, and has been featured at bluegrass festivals and music venues across the globe.  

The Vintage Martins came to fruition in what began as a casual studio encounter. Bierhaus would often find himself in Uglum’s southern California recording studio running new material by his friend and producer. Uglum was taken aback by what he was hearing, and recalls an epiphany in which he blurted out “Gosh, that’s gorgeous--let’s record that!” Over the course of several months, these unintentional “sessions” would serve to create the collection of songs that became Traveled.

Traveled is the first record of the duo’s career that showcases Bierhaus’ vocal prowess. “Bud was singing a lot more than in the past,” says Uglum, “Which I always thought he should do.” An accomplished singer in his own right, Uglum prefers being the “side guy” of the Vintage Martins and focuses on second guitar and razor-sharp harmonized vocals. He fondly recalls watching Emmylou Harris as a child and wanting to be that person--just out of the spotlight but essential to the foundation of the group’s sound. “It’s playing to our strengths,” he says, “When I’m doing backup and Bud is on lead.”

Harris’ influence on the recording is at its most obvious with “Some Day My Ship Will Sail”--a classic folk tune she made famous on the 1987 release Angel Band. It was the first song the Vintage Martins recorded together, and after passing it around among friends, the track somehow reached the ears of Rodney Crowell. He loved the track, and when word got back to Bierhaus and Uglum, they decided to continue to record together. Not a bad endorsement for a new act.

The band would ultimately be courted by Eastwood Records; a Louisville, Kentucky-based label founded in 2015 by Wesley Allen as a way to support the efforts of regional artists and musicians. With a focus on releasing vinyl records, the label’s driving philosophy is “Putting Louisville on Wax,” although Allen was so taken with The Vintage Martins that he decided to re-release their debut record with the full Eastwood treatment. “We were content to play shows and not worry about the business side of things,” admits Uglum, adding, “We’re thrilled and honored that Eastwood would buy and repackage an already-released record.”

After all, who better to carry the torch for music in the Bluegrass State than a proper bluegrass band? In 2018, it’s onward and upward for The Vintage Martins and Eastwood Records.

Black mirrors and social feeds have damaged our ability to connect on a deeply meaningful level. Alt-country/outlaw guitar-slinger Boo Ray delves deeply into the dire state of communication in the modern world with his new record, Tennessee Alabama Fireworks. The album plays like a southern gothic noir, and in his own words, explores the “nitty-gritty, guts and ugly parts of the human experience today.” These songs creep into the brain with his most poignant lyrics to-date. Boo Ray is every bit a hard-boiled poet as many of the pioneers that came before him, from the likes of Tony Joe White, Willie Nelson, and Jerry Reed.

Boo Ray fervently draws upon the situations and hurdles that make the world such a difficult environment to navigate these days. Continuing the dialogue from 2016's Sea Of Lights, Boo Ray dives head first into even more vulnerable territory as he wrangles themes of heartache, reopened wounds, loneliness and swallowing his pride. With “A Tune You Can Whistle,” a raucous honky-tonk boogie that is as sincere and hopeful as it is macabre and melancholic, he laments about “one nation under the influence” of computer screens that have cast our humanity into a shroud of anxiety and detachment. Always self-effacing Boo Ray confesses in the middle-8 "If the pain of the pain wasn't worse than the pain of the change, not a single damned thing'd be different I'd still be the same."

“She Wrote the Song” surveys the scene at ground zero, just after impact as Boo Ray sings about true love mangled by miscommunication, dysfunction and addiction. Boo Ray’s strong unique voice carries with it a warmth and wisdom you trust and believe. “Don’t Look Back” is a reeling road song contrasting a weariness from, and an insatiable love for the highway. Boo Ray conjures cinematic southern gothic imagery when he sings, "Ragtop Eldorado floatin' down the road / Moon lights up the bayou like a dance floor at a disco."

Tennessee Alabama Fireworks was tracked live to tape over five days at Nashville’s Welcome to 1979 Studio, which has recently seen the likes of Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Jason Isbell and many more capturing their sounds within. “Making a record at Welcome To 1979 was a real powerful creative experience,” says Boo Ray. Producer Noah Shain, whose pedigree includes work with fellow outlaws Nikki Lane, Nico Vega, Dead Sara and Badflower, among many others, captures Boo Ray’s full-band storytelling style as vivid cinematic soundscapes that hit right at the heart and pull no punches.

Boo Ray grew up in the mountains a couple of hours west of Asheville, North Carolina, where he began songwriting at twelve years old, learned to play the guitar at fifteen and put a band together at sixteen, playing clubs around the region. In 2005, Boo Ray wandered from Athens, Georgia, out to Los Angeles, where he spent a few years working with a slew of west coast musicians before he was picked up by a bondsman and hauled back down south. In a little bit of a tough spot and needing a ten dollar item to hustle, he slapped together the ten best tracks he had for his first album. With the help of Steve Ferrone, Noah Shain, Paul Ill, Monica Ewing and Producer John "Q" Keggler he released 2010's Bad News Travels Fast out of a halfway house.

Having learned what a one-sheet was from Hollywood actors & models on the west coast, he shipped 100 promos stuffed with CDs, one-sheets and Moon Pies as his first official Americana Music Association Radio Campaign. As a result of Boo Ray’s amazing songs and his tireless work ethic, his record reached the top 50 and stayed in the Top 100 of the Americana Chart and the Top 40 of the Roots Music Report for an entire year.

His first Nashville record, Six Weeks in a Motel followed in 2012 and gained enough attention to lead to a successful publishing deal, plus the recording and release of Sea Of Lights.

In addition to his music, Boo Ray spends some of his free time doing custom leather work, making hand tooled guitar straps and belts for his guitar picker pals, truckers, bikers, cowboys and rock & rollers. His customers have included Johnny Knoxville, Juliette Lewis, Billy Gibbons, and other household names.

Upon returning from tour earlier this year, Boo Ray went straight into the studio with his band to lay down his next record. His creativity hit on all cylinders, and Tennessee Alabama Fireworks was born out of a deep searching desire to address some grim realities of today’s world and it’s constantly-disconnected relationships. The album shifts between joyous, zen-like optimism (“Don’t Look Back”) and devastating critical care situations (“Outrun the Wind”) that can only come from living life and learning to navigate dark waters. Even considering such hard, inescapable truths, Boo Ray eyes a future full of hope and promise with craftsmanship that is built to last.

When E.G. Phillips talks about his musical influences, it sounds like some cosmic cocktail party: Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Blossom Dearie, Tom Lehrer. And don’t forget the time-travelling gate-crasher: Talking about his lyrics, Phillips says, “One of the parlor games that I’m sure people could play is ‘Spot the obscure Doctor Who reference.’”

What it all adds up to is some of the most compellingly originally, slyly humorous, and sneakily affecting singer-songwriter music you’re bound to hear in this homogenous age. And Phillips brings all of that to the table on his bold new album, At Home At Sea. The new disc builds on his 2017 debut Fish From The Sky with material written since he started playing out on ever-inventive San Francisco scene.

This is not to say it was a straightforward journey — a few songs on the new record are resurrected from the distant past with new lyrics while others had been temporarily mothballed but then given new life.  Of two of the songs Phillips says “I had a different vision of them belonging to a sequence of songs about a particular relationship that didn’t work out. I ended up pulling them into this album.” Of the amalgamation that resulted “It wasn’t until after the recording was completed that I started to realize the common threads that were in there — notions about attachment and its complexity.  A lot of the songs are about relationships that have gone awry or perhaps should have been avoided in the first place."

While the subject matter may have been up in the air, Phillips was sure that he wanted to emphasize his love of jazz music this time around when he went into the studio with producer Ben Osheroff. ”In general, this album focuses more on the jazz influence of my songwriting. For a time, I lived near Positively 4th Street records in Minneapolis. They had a whole Jazz section. And when I went in there I decided to start poking around out of curiosity, and I came across Miles Davis’ Kind Of Blue. I just started exploring Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington. I started to going to jazz concerts. I was on a quest to collect as many Blue Note albums as I could. It wasn’t an immediate, ‘Yeah I get this.’ But I wanted to.”

Phillips assembled an impressive team of local musicians with whom he'd previously shared bills and developed personal relationships (some of whom “accepted payment in the form of bottles of wine,” he jokes) for the album. And he tasked them with bringing his alchemic creations to life. “With writing, there needs to be an aspect of play to it,” Phillips says of his approach. “You’re sort of a mad scientist. You know, ‘What happens if I do this? How does this work?’ You’re a kid in a sandbox. You’re creating things just to see what they do. Pure, unadulterated experimentation. Wanting to create Dylanesque or Beatlesque sort of songs and carry in the jazz tonalities and constructs was appealing to me.”

You can hear the way that Phillips mixes up the medicine in the various songs on At Home On The Sea. “The Albatross Song” and “A Finnish Midsummer Midnight” surge forward with nimble lyricism and an almost deranged momentum, as if Colin Meloy were fronting They Might Be Giants. Phillips also seems right at home crooning the piano-driven torch song “An Alternate Route (To Your Heart)” and navigating the complex Latin-tinged rhythms of “All I Can Share Is Photos.”

Other stylistic detours include the countryish longing of “Lighthouse At The Edge Of The World” and the Zeppelin-style drama of “The Comet And The Wandering Moon.” But Phillips saves his greatest tricks for last on the album, keeping the arrangements spare and letting the beauty of his songwriting shine through on “You Will Sail With Me” and “Your Inexorable Pull.”

Another quality that characterizes Phillips’ songwriting is his agile vocabulary; you won’t likely hear too many tunesmiths that can work in words like “funicular” and “concentric” so deftly. “Words are wonderful toys,” he says. “There’s a lot of meaning imbued in particular words. There’s what you can do with sound as you string things together. There are concepts that you can relate to each other that may not seem immediately related, but you can create a picture using images.”

"There's an old saw that you hear with creative writing — ‘show, don’t tell,’ — which is something that I’ve brought to bear with my songwriting. It’s much more powerful and much more emotive to paint a picture that will resonate with people, as opposed to just stating something directly.”

Eclectic influences and inspired wordplay aside, E.G. Phillips has a straightforward goal for At Home At Sea: “I want it to resonate. I want people to feel that the writer is giving voice to their own thoughts and feelings. It’s a sympathetic tone. It’s something that feels right. I also want them to really enjoy the music and the songs. There are some albums that people turn to when they feel like they need comfort, and I hope that this can be one of those albums.”

Did he accomplish that goal? Upon listening to the record, let’s just say you won’t need a TARDIS to make that leap.

Nashville Americana rocker EG Vines is set to release his debut LP Family Business on October 11th, and shared several singles from the album leading up to the release. NPR named him "one of ten Nashville artists to add to your playlist" and praised his "well-crafted, catchy songs" as "poignant."

Having burst onto Nashville’s bustling Americana scene with his debut EP in 2018, E.G. Vines is preparing for the release of his first full-length album as a solo artist. Produced by Jordan Lehning (Kacey Musgraves, Robert Ellis, Rayland Baxter), Family Business is a deep dive into Vines’ broad-ranging roots rock sound paired with lyrics that relate themselves to the human condition. As its title suggests, at its core lies a focus on what makes us, as a collective society, family. With lead single "The Salesman" already in rotation at regional taste-maker Lightning 100, Vines is poised to break out on a national scale.

The skyrocketing riffs of “The Victim” kick the album off in style, complete with high-rising instrumental breaks and Vines’ own soaring across the track vocally. It gives listeners something expressive and personal to start out on while touching on today’s social climate. Vines recalls, “I started writing ‘The Victim’ when I was at the beach with my family thinking back on the progression of my life. It talks about victim mentality—if you feel like a victim, you’re going to be a victim. There is a way to break out of that and hopefully we learn to see it."

“The Hate Remains” sees the roots rocker delving deeper into history than he perhaps ever has as a writer. Accompanied by gentle guitar tones and the subtly sweet warble of his friend Charlie Whitten's whistle, Vines recalls his time attending the University of Alabama. Reflecting over its troubled past, he sinks into the still lingering scars of the civil rights era and slavery. “It’s me going back after not having been there for a while and looking at how everything has changed physically with the campus, but there’s still underlying problems,” he states.

Inspired by America’s gun violence epidemic, Vines ruminates over his desensitization towards news of mass shootings throughout the melancholy Americana of “Feel Again”. Mournful pedal steel sweeps throughout the song as Vines doles out its passionate and all-too-honest message. He flips the blues grit dial to 11 in “Blood In The Streets”, a favorite of his live shows and one that he was especially excited to record in the studio. “That was a fun one to record,” Vines recalls. “It really came to life in the studio with the group. It’s fun, it’s rock, it’s loose.” Closing track “Poor Man, Rich Man” sees Vines leaning into a heaping helping of gospel-tinged soul to contrast very different upbringings. As he sinks further into the song’s swampy groove, Vines ultimately settles on a message of love, expressing, “If you don’t feel right / then try to hold each other tight.”

Growing up in Jonesboro, Arkansas, Vines first cut his teeth as the frontman to an alternative rock band in high school. Since then, he’s become a respected name amongst the greats of Nashville’s expansive roots rock cabal. First moving to Music City in 2009, Vines quickly became a hot commodity for his work with The Bandoliers, a respected facet of the blues and Southern rock scene in the mid-2010s. The band released their last album in 2015, at which point Vines acted on the urge to go solo.

Dropping his debut EP, Conversation—produced by Eddie Spear (Brandi Carlile, The Delta Saints)—in 2018, the rocker gave listeners their first taste of a more thoughtful, nuanced side to his songwriting. It was a much longer process than he was used to, with Spear acting as a songwriting mentor more so than a traditional producer, scrapping Vines’ initial batch of tunes and pushing him to hone his craft before releasing new material. The finished product was worth the wait, and showcased Vines’ newfound, stirringly eclectic Americana sound.

All in all, Family Business is an album about family, but not solely the nuclear sense. Vines has a knack for injecting his thoughts on hot button issues and well-crafted life anecdotes into his music as any bonafide roots rocker should, but his vision is wider in scope. In communicating his ideas on love, loss, and life, he instantly creates a connection with listeners that feels universally relatable and utterly personal. To this end, he aims to make us—one and all, as humankind—feel like family.

"Drunkard's Dream" via Spotify

"The Victim" via Spotify

CATCH EG VINES ON TOUR:

Sep 14 - Nashville, TN - The King House (Americanafest)
Sep 27 - Lexington, KY - Best Friend Bar
Sep 28 - Cincinatti, OH - Madtree Brewing
Oct 5 - Atlanta, GA - Smith's Olde Bar
Oct 10 - Nashville, TN - The Basement East - Album Release Show
Oct 23 - Asheville, NC - Isis Music Hall
Oct 25 - Tuscaloosa, AL - Alcove Tavern

Over the course of two years spent out on the road, tirelessly playing show after show, Nathan Kalish cultivated a collection of story songs grown from not only his own life experiences but also incorporating the experiences of the people he encountered along the way. His 10th album, the self-produced Songs for Nobody, shows you a secret world via Kalish’s unique outsider perspective. Through his cutting and intimate lyrics, he transports listeners to the passenger seat of his touring van, to a phone call with a loved one and behind the lens of a magnifying glass aimed at the darker shades of American culture.

Kalish has lived the life of a curious wanderer, taking his music to town after town while creating a catalog of songs that act as colorful snapshots, like polaroids in a family photo album. He’s released nine albums over the course of his career, shared the stage with Lucinda Williams, Molly Tuttle, Lucero, Steve Miller Band, and earned accolades from Rolling Stone Country, Saving Country Music among others.

Because of his father’s work as an evangelical missionary, Kalish and his family never stayed in one place for too long. After living for a few years in Austria and Prague, the Kalish’s returned to their home country of America. During his middle school years in Chicago, Nathan started playing in local punk and hardcore bands while learning to play guitar, bass and drums. As he grew older, he took odd jobs to help finance his passion. With his band The Wildfire, Kalish hit the road hard for three years, honing his craft while enduring a grueling and extensive schedule of shows across the U.S. and Europe.

After leaving his band in 2012, he found himself at a personal crossroads. After enduring a stressful few months while living in Michigan, he opted to leave it behind and once again get back on the road. After forming a new band, The Lastcallers, he got back to the basics and returned to intensive touring. Eventually, after two records released and many, many gigs together, Kalish needed a change and opted to go solo.

During this new chapter, Kalish drove from city to city, acting as a driver for Lyft while trying to evolve his creative processes. Life, as it tends to do in times of transition, began to throw him curveballs. After a few financial setbacks and a change in policy from Lyft that only allowed him to drive in one city, he chose to take a chance and settle down in Nashville.

Taking a breath from the strain of life on the road enabled him to create his 2018 record I Want to Believe. Produced by David Beeman (Pokey LaFarge) at Native Sound in St. Louis, the album showcases Kalish’s unique and wide-eyed perspective, set alongside engaging honky-tonk ready instrumentation. Rolling Stone even called it the "heartland rock and alt-country soundtrack to looking for UFOs in Roswell, New Mexico."

Kalish’s newest LP Songs for Nobody was recorded at Nashville’s Trace Horse Studio and provides an auditory evolution of that engaging, mysterious psych-folk sound. Finding inspiration from acts like Darrell Scott and Daniel Romano, Kalish brings a gritty moodiness to his expertly-blended traditional country elements. By recruiting incredible locally-based talent that includes acclaimed guitarist Laur Joamets (Sturgill Simpson, Drivin N Cryin) and pedal steel aficionado Adam Kurtz (American Aquarium, Joshua Ray Walker), Kalish tapped into the magic of Nashville’s tightly-knit creative community to bring his vision to life.

"It was a big communal effort,” Kalish says. “I had my road band and a bunch of additional friends all track it live in the studio. Sometimes we would have 8 people working toward a common goal. It's very much a Nashville album... almost all of the friends who are on it are people I play with in town on the regular. This recording is in a way saying 'yes' to that level of collaboration.”

The result of that collaboration is an LP filled with heart-wrenchingly honest and reflective songs that leave a lasting mark on anyone who listens.

An examination of America’s culture of greed, “No Hope” acts as an anthem for the everyman who give their all without receiving their fair dues in return. “Give me your tired, give me your poor,” Kalish proclaims. “Give me your huddled masses yearning for more, and we’ll put ‘em to work for crumbs on our factory floor, then show them the door.”

“Pam & Tim” continues that spotlight on the challenges small-town Americans face, delivering a gut-punch of honesty that few songwriters can deliver with such vigor and authenticity.

“Delta Woman” was born from a chance visit to a friend’s apartment in Stockholm, where he got to explore their vast collection of Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash memorabilia. Among the items were a handwritten set of unfinished lyrics from Cash, which Kalish found himself drawn to. He took what Cash had started and completed the song in his own style, creating a connection that reaches beyond time and place.

The haunting title track “Songs for Nobody” shows the mental and emotional strain life on the road can bring. From the tedium of long hauls across the country to the stale smell of gas stop cuisine, the moments that precede and follow nightly sets in strange cities provide their own unique set of challenges and stressors. Note by note, Kalish examines what the cost of those fleeting moments on stage can bring.

Even with its unexpected curves and bumps, Nathan Kalish’s committed relationship with the road is one that still has many more miles to go. With a busy 2020 planned, Songs for Nobody will mark an important chapter in Kalish’s creative journey, which is only just beginning.

On the heels of recent press at American Songwriter, who deemed his new single "foot-stomping outlaw country," Joe Stamm has officially announced his debut studio album, The Good & the Crooked (& The High & The Horny), out September 25. The Joe Stamm Band makes countrified roots-rock with an emphasis on the roots, drawing on Stamm's small-town upbringing in rural Illinois for a sound that blends heartland hooks with Nashville twang. It's a sound that's taken the songwriter from the college apartment where he strummed his first chords to venues beyond the Midwest, sharing shows with personal heroes like Kris Kristofferson and Chris Knight along the way. With his debut studio LP, The Good & The Crooked (& The High & The Horny), Stamm begins building his own legacy, leading his band of road warriors through an album rooted in all-American storytelling and guitar-driven swagger.

Recorded in a converted barn outside of Iowa City, The Good & The Crooked (& The High & The Horny) is a studio album that owes its electrified energy to Stamm's live show. It was there — onstage, guitar in hand, headlining a club in Peoria one night and playing with artists like Tyler Childers and Easton Corbin the next — that Stamm sharpened the edges of his self-described "black dirt music," rolling Americana, country, and blue-collar rock & roll influences into his own style. Some songs were autobiographical, spinning true-life stories of love, loss, and life in Middle America. Others, like the barn-burning "12 Gauge Storyline," were character-driven and fictional. Whittled into sharp shape by a touring schedule that kept Stamm and company on the road for as many as 150 days a year, those songs took new shape in the recording studio, shot through with amplified riffs, grooves, and arrangements that rolled just as hard as they rocked.

Fiction and autobiography come together on the album's title track, a coming-of-age anthem that finds Stamm writing about the humor, heartache, charm, and chaos of youth in America. "Everyone falls into at least one — and usually several — of those categories," he says of "The Good & The Crooked (& The High & The Horny)." "That song really captured a sense of things, a sense of people, and a sense of what it's like to grow up in America."

For Stamm, growing up in America involved a good amount of time on the football field. A teenage quarterback in a sports-obsessed town, he led his high school team to back-to-back state appearances, becoming a local celebrity along the way. When an injury brought his sports career to an end during his college years, though, Stamm found a new passion in music, diving into the work not only of classic country crooners like George Jones and Johnny Cash, but also the modern-day heavyweights of Texas' country scene, including Randy Rogers Band, Pat Green, and Reckless Kelly. Before long, he was writing his own songs — and just like his favorite Texas artists, he rooted his music in a strong sense of place, bringing a midwestern spirit to his own brand of country music. Stamm was soon packing venues across central Illinois, trading the athletic fame of his teenage years for an equally rewarding — and longer-lasting — brand of recognition.

"I like writing about characters and coming up with stories," says Stamm, whose diverse past — including his time in an evangelical Christian household, his athletic days behind the line of scrimmage, and his creative rebirth as country music's newest rule-breaker — is woven throughout The Good & The Crooked (& The High & The Horny), lending personal details to even the most fictional of songs. "Songwriting is where experience and imagination meet," he adds, "and each song finds a different spot on that spectrum."

With The Good & The Crooked (& The High & The Horny), the spectrum is as wide as it is compelling, with Stamm roping together a range of honky-tonk hooks, rock & roll guitars, heartland twang, and country swagger. He's a songwriter. A bandleader. A storyteller. And while he'll always be a proud midwestern native — a man shaped by the creek bottoms, fields, and fence rows of Metamora, Illinois — he writes from a more universal perspective on his full-length studio debut. These aren't just his stories, after all. They're all of ours.

Joe Stamm Band's The Good & the Crooked (& The High & the Horny) is due out September 25

Launched in 2010 by brothers Kenny and Hayden Miles, Wayne Graham make articulate, wide-ranging Americana that nods to — and also reaches far beyond — the band's southern roots. Raised in Central Appalachia, the siblings grew up amongst the rugged hills and soon-to-be-shuttered coal mines of Whitesburg, Kentucky. It was an area caught halfway between old-school tradition and a new way of life. From the start, Kenny and Hayden's songs reflected that unique balance, mixing folk, rock & roll, and other sounds into sharply-written songs about family, faith, life, love, and all points in between. "It was all about using music to express what we couldn't express otherwise," says Kenny, the band's guitar-playing frontman.

Named after the siblings' larger-than-life grandfathers, Wayne Graham have transformed themselves from East Kentuckian heroes into something far more global over the course of six albums and one EP, earning acclaim as far away as Germany — whose branch of Rolling Stone praised the band's "full-bodied, catchy songs with dry and poetic lyrics" — along the way.

Wayne Graham's latest album, the self-produced 1% Juice, is another collection of explorative, earthy rock songs that blur the borders between multiple genres. After releasing an album of B-sides, Songs Only a Mother Could Love, in 2019, the brothers reconvened in their parents' East Kentucky basement, where they'd recorded most of their past work — as well as projects by Senora May, Laid Back Country Picker, Sean Whiting, and others — in their own Fat Baby Studios. Their last album of new material,  Joy!, had been Wayne Graham's most successful album to date, released on both sides of the Atlantic and supported not only by an American tour, but a string of shows across Europe, too. Kenny and Hayden decided to keep that transatlantic spirit alive with 1% Juice, reaching out to German collaborators like Ludwig Bauer to add horns, strings, and other sonic touches to the songs. At its core, though, 1% Juice is a family affair — a diverse album created by two brothers who've developed distinct approaches to songwriting, as well as unique outlooks on modern life.

"Hayden and I think about similar things in very different ways," says Kenny, who shares the album's songwriting credits with his drummer brother. "Our minds go side-by-side for a while, then veer off in opposite directions. This record is a little bit of a push-and-pull — or a vibration back and forth — between two different outlooks that ultimately lead to the same place."

The results range from Kenny's "Tapestry of Time" — a mellow meditation on the passing years, shot through with drums that evoke a ticking clock and a swampy, soulful outro — to Hayden's "Some Days," a lush, countrified album-closer inspired by the Byrds' twangy jangle and the Bible's exchanges between Jesus and Saint Peter. Between those two bookends, the guys personify a lonely public phone on the Wilco-worthy "Pay Phone," get funky with the challengingly complex "Never Die," and turn the album's title track into a groove-driven instrumental. No two songs are the same — and for Wayne Graham, that's the whole point.

"The songs sound different," says Kenny, "but they all point in the same direction." And while Wayne Graham usually play shows as a full-bodied four-piece band, 1% Juice shines a light on the instrumental and creative abilities of the band's two co-founders, who layer these songs with colorful streaks of guitar, percussion, keyboard, vocal harmonies, brass, and whatever else the canvas demands.

"When you're recording, you're making a painting," Kenny adds. "You add layers until you're really taken by the image you see — or the thing you hear."

Wayne Graham's early releases may have focused on the sounds and stories of modern-day Appalachia, but the band has expanded, evolved, and electrified since then, with 1% Juice showcasing the full range not only of their influences, but their abilities, too. This is an album that's every bit as diverse as the countless communities and cultures that lay between the band's Kentucky home and the German headquarters of their European label. With 1% Juice, Wayne Graham proudly operate at 100%. 

Indiana-based country artist David Quinn releases debut video for "Born to Lose" at Ditty TV, in advance of his sophomore LP, Letting Go, out October 23rd. Quinn assembled a crew of ace supporting musicians, starting with producer Mike Stankiewicz (Willie Nelson, Maren Morris) and keyboard player Micah Hulscher (Margo Price, Jim Lauderdale). Hulscher brought in a few colleagues in Price’s backing band, including drummer Dillon Napier and guitarist Jamie Davis, along with pedal steel virtuoso Brett Resnick (Kacey Musgraves). Rounding out the band is guitarist Laur Joamets, a guitar virtuoso best known for backing Sturgill Simpson and Drivin N Cryin.

David Quinn likes to write in his old pick-up truck. Most of the songs on his second solo album, the sharp-tongued, open-hearted Letting Go, came to him during a ramble around the Midwestern countryside. “Driving is one of my favorite things to do. There’s something special about heading somewhere, but it’s not necessarily about where you go. It’s more about the ride there. There’s where stuff comes to me.” The ride there is one of the ideas Quinn addresses on this record, offering an idiosyncratic take on country music featuring some of the best players around. For him wandering isn’t just a passion but a compulsion. “It’s like what they say about some sharks: If they’re not moving, they die. Deep down I might have a little of that, because I’ve always gotta be doin’ something, always gotta be movin’ around.”

During one of those long drives in his pickup, Quinn got the idea for a new song that would determine the sound and the spirit of the album. “It all started with that first line, ‘I’m lettin’ go of everything that’s holdin’ me down.’ That line just hit me—this is what I’m trying to say. Then, I just built on that idea of letting go of all the groupings, all the expectations, whatever people end up putting on you.” That one line grew into a spry, two-stepping ode to transience, emotional and otherwise, with a killer guitar lick and a rambunctious spirit borne of long drives with the windows down and the radio up.

Examining freedom in its many forms, Letting Go is as musically adventurous as it is lyrically insightful. “I got pushed into this traditional country thing on Wanderin’ Fool, and I got tired of trying to fit into a genre. I love music and just wanted to let every influence in and not worry if it was a little different. I wanted to make the record I wanted to make, and hold strong to my instincts. So I’m excited to put this out there and say, This is who I am.” Songs like the barnstorming “Thunderbird Wine” and the woe-is-me “I Hope I Don’t” integrate a wide range of influences—from Texas outlaws to Bakersfield badasses, from southern rock heroes to Nashville cats. Wherever he rambles, however, Quinn remains rooted in the Midwestern soil: “It always comes back to John Prine. I got started in the Midwest, so he’s somebody I love.”

To capture that sense of musical freedom, Quinn assembled a crew of ace supporting musicians, starting with producer Mike Stankiewicz (Willie Nelson, Maren Morris) and keyboard player Micah Hulscher (Margo Price, Jim Lauderdale). “When I first met Micah, I was so intimidated. He’s probably the best musician I’ve ever played with. Right before he came in, I heard someone say he’s got perfect pitch. I thought, damn, I don’t really want to sing around him now!”

Hulscher brought in a few of his colleagues in Price’s backing band, including drummer Dillon Napier and guitarist Jamie Davis, along with pedal steel virtuoso Brett Resnick (Kacey Musgraves). Rounding out the band is guitarist Laur Joamets, a guitar virtuoso best known for backing Sturgill Simpson and Drivin N Cryin. His crackling guitar licks push “Ride On” along at a pedal-to-the-metal clip, as he becomes a musical foil to Quinn: Joamets darts in and out of the spaces around Quinn’s words like a gremlin in the works, then unleashes a rip-roaring solo that slyly underscores the jumpiness of the lyrics. “I ain’t gonna run and I ain’t gonna fight,” Quinn sings in his commanding twang. “Gonna ride that train southbound, gonna fly on through the night."

The crew worked quickly to track Quinn’s songs without losing any urgency or buffing away any of their rough edges. “I’ve been playing three or four shows a week, so I’ve been playing these songs a lot. I knew pretty much how I wanted them to sound. So we tried to work quickly. I hate getting wrapped up in perfect—doing a bunch of takes and punch-ins. I’m just not interested in that, at all. I want to capture the sound of a band.” They prove dexterous and agile, especially on “1000 Miles,” where the relentless rhythm section and nimble guitars count the long miles along some lost highway and change tempo the way you might take a highway exit. Yet, Quinn exposes an undercurrent of melancholy in his performance, as though that constant and often exciting motion takes its toll: Lovers are abandoned, roots severed, friends left in the dust. “That one touches on not necessarily having a destination. The meaning is more in the moment of leaving.”

These are songs about new starts and the gumption it takes to make them. Perhaps no song demonstrates that lesson more clearly than “Born to Lose,” whose bluesy swagger makes the lyrics sound even more haunted (“There’s a crow calling out my name…”). “It’s about my struggle with depression, which is something I’ve dealt with for a long time. The verses are about that impending doom you feel, when you wake up with a dark cloud hanging over you. It’s something you have to will yourself out of every day, so there’s this constant back and forth. Writing this song let me say, ‘I’m not gonna let that stop me and everything is going to be fine.’”

Ultimately, putting those fears and worries and confinements into songs allows Quinn to let go of them. “You write it to get rid of it. I enjoy that process. It’s been fun, but strangely, I always end up learning new things.” It’s fitting then that Letting Go ends where it begins: The wistful closer “Maybe I’ll Move Out to California,” which dreams of a better, more settled life out west, picks up the same melodic and lyrical themes of the short “Intro” that opens the record. It’s a deft stroke of sequencing, one that portrays Quinn as a man who lives forever in that moment of leaving, where he finds joy and heartbreak and endless inspiration.

David Quinn's Letting Go is due out October 23.

Appalachian folk-rock/alt-country group Wayne Graham have officially released their new LP, 1% Juice, a self-produced twelve-track collection of roots-rock songs that draw inspiration from Americana, classic country, Southern rock, indie-fok & more. Leading up to the release, the group was featured at American Songwriter, Culture Collide, Whiskey Riff, Americana UK, Songpickr and more. 1% Juice is out everywhere today.

Launched in 2010 by brothers Kenny and Hayden Miles, Wayne Graham make articulate, wide-ranging Americana that nods to — and also reaches far beyond — the band's southern roots. Raised in Central Appalachia, the siblings grew up amongst the rugged hills and soon-to-be-shuttered coal mines of Whitesburg, Kentucky. It was an area caught halfway between old-school tradition and a new way of life. From the start, Kenny and Hayden's songs reflected that unique balance, mixing folk, rock & roll, and other sounds into sharply-written songs about family, faith, life, love, and all points in between. "It was all about using music to express what we couldn't express otherwise," says Kenny, the band's guitar-playing frontman.

Named after the siblings' larger-than-life grandfathers, Wayne Graham have transformed themselves from East Kentuckian heroes into something far more global over the course of six albums and one EP, earning acclaim as far away as Germany — whose branch of Rolling Stone praised the band's "full-bodied, catchy songs with dry and poetic lyrics" — along the way.

Wayne Graham's latest album, 1% Juice, is another collection of explorative, earthy rock songs that blur the borders between multiple genres. After releasing an album of B-sides, Songs Only a Mother Could Love, in 2019, the brothers reconvened in their parents' East Kentucky basement, where they'd recorded most of their past work — as well as projects by Senora May, Laid Back Country Picker, Sean Whiting, and others — in their own Fat Baby Studios. Their last album of new material,  Joy!, had been Wayne Graham's most successful album to date, released on both sides of the Atlantic and supported not only by an American tour, but a string of shows across Europe, too. Kenny and Hayden decided to keep that transatlantic spirit alive with 1% Juice, reaching out to German collaborators like Ludwig Bauer to add horns, strings, and other sonic touches to the songs. At its core, though, 1% Juice is a family affair — a diverse album created by two brothers who've developed distinct approaches to songwriting, as well as unique outlooks on modern life.

"Hayden and I think about similar things in very different ways," says Kenny, who shares the album's songwriting credits with his drummer brother. "Our minds go side-by-side for a while, then veer off in opposite directions. This record is a little bit of a push-and-pull — or a vibration back and forth — between two different outlooks that ultimately lead to the same place."

The results range from Kenny's "Tapestry of Time" — a mellow meditation on the passing years, shot through with drums that evoke a ticking clock and a swampy, soulful outro — to Hayden's "Some Days," a lush, countrified album-closer inspired by the Byrds' twangy jangle and the Bible's exchanges between Jesus and Saint Peter. Between those two bookends, the guys personify a lonely public phone on the Wilco-worthy "Pay Phone," get funky with the challengingly complex "Never Die," and turn the album's title track into a groove-driven instrumental. No two songs are the same — and for Wayne Graham, that's the whole point.

"The songs sound different," says Kenny, "but they all point in the same direction." And while Wayne Graham usually play shows as a full-bodied four-piece band, 1% Juice shines a light on the instrumental and creative abilities of the band's two co-founders, who layer these songs with colorful streaks of guitar, percussion, keyboard, vocal harmonies, brass, and whatever else the canvas demands.

"When you're recording, you're making a painting," Kenny adds. "You add layers until you're really taken by the image you see — or the thing you hear."

Wayne Graham's early releases may have focused on the sounds and stories of modern-day Appalachia, but the band has expanded, evolved, and electrified since then, with 1% Juice showcasing the full range not only of their influences, but their abilities, too. This is an album that's every bit as diverse as the countless communities and cultures that lay between the band's Kentucky home and the German headquarters of their European label. With 1% Juice, Wayne Graham proudly operate at 100%. 

Sara Rachele is at her best when she confronts difficult themes. Her 2015 song “Rebecca” is a heart-crushing recounting of having an abortion and its latent after-effects. 2020’s Scorpio Sun, the follow-up to her 2019 release Scorpio Moon, is as uncompromising in its honesty as it is uplifting in its search for beauty. “For this album,” Rachele explains, “I'm trying to strip my music back and be who I am, where I am, right now: a person who's been really run around and had to retreat from a lot of different situations, who is trying to fix things, trying to fix myself.”

In the aftermath of the Scorpio Moon production, a tightly-constructed affair with a full band and several production issues, Rachele (pronounced “ra-kelly”) found herself returning to the songs that didn’t make the cut. “I was trying to write through some personal issues that had been going on, and I also wanted to see which songs could stand up by themselves. I wanted to know which of these songs could be vulnerable and not feel like trauma porn or what have you.” This album’s title is inspired from Rachele’s realization that most of the people around her as she worked on Scorpio Moon, including her ex-boyfriend, were Scorpio sun signs.

Where Scorpio Moon was a complex, atmospheric collection of jazz and pop-influenced songs, Scorpio Sun is a complete about-face. Recorded with Rachele’s long-time collaborator Spencer Garn, this new LP is a more stripped-down affair: just Rachele’s haunting voice, hypnotic guitars, and captivating lyrics bolstered by Rachele’s recent work ethic (a low-residency MFA in poetry at New York University).

While Rachele generally keeps her poetry and lyrics separate, the pensive and hypnotic “Squirrel Song” is the first of her poems that she’s translated into music. Once Rachele added a chorus, she was off to the races. On “Still Alive,” we see the contrast in Rachele’s poetry and lyrics. The bare-bones ballad is a stark and plaintive response to heartbreak. “I left Georgia and my partner had just moved out of my house and taken a bunch of my shit, including my music. I wondered, what's beyond that? When things end, whether it's with a person or a drug or whatever, what happens after that?”

“Terry Richardson,” on the other hand, finds Rachele at her most courageous and powerful. Her life and MFA program brought her to trips in Paris, where Rachele confronted a vibrant independent art scene. When comparing these artists to her friends in L.A. who lived through the high times of music celebrity culture in the 80s and 90s, Rachele found herself wondering where the inspiration for true art comes from and why it can sometimes dissipate. When reflecting upon abuse by those in power across the entertainment industry, Rachele muses about the line between what allows a person to pursue their genius and what makes them toxic. Richardson, for example, “made a lot of amazing art and has done a lot of fucked up shit.”

Rachele further explores entertainment industry abuse on “Hollywood,” a moody exploration of the territory between rock’n’roll and country twang. “This industry is pretty vain,” muses Rachele. The song recounts Rachele’s relocations from L.A. to New York to Nashville. “It’s about the destruction of traditional music and distribution platforms. I mean, so much is different now and visual media is hip, but good art work is the great equalizer across platforms.”

Scorpio Sun proves that Rachele is a survivor who will create on her terms -- no matter what. She’s taking her record label, Angrygal, to the next level in 2020, having recently purchased an abandoned church outside of Nashville in Granville, TN. Inspired by Ani DiFranco’s Babeville in Buffalo, Rachele plans to use the church as the label’s headquarters, expanding its roster, and providing a recording and event space for her fellow artists and community.

Rachele grew up a studio rat and folk child. Working for free, cleaning out the cupboards at famed Atlanta acoustic hotspot Eddie’s Attic, she met countless musicians and writers, and fell into bands as a side player before she’d even written a song of her own. She released her debut LP, Diamond Street, in 2014, and followed with a swoony 7-inch cover of Cracker’s “Low.” The latter was dubbed ‘sublime’ by SPIN magazine, and began to chart on commercial radio. Rachele’s 2016 sophomore LP, Motel Fire—recorded with her repurposed punk band The Skintights—was imagined in Joshua Tree, Calif., with help from pedal steel player Chris Unck (Butch Walker, Lisa Loeb). Rachele then released April Fool in 2017. Dedicated to her late grandmother, the album is a collection of bluegrass and folk songs Rachele cut in East Nashville with guitarist Johnny Duke (Little Big Town, Mary Chapin Carpenter). She recorded her 2019 LP, Scorpio Moon with Binky Griptite and other members of Amy Winehouse & Sharon Jones’ former backing band The Dap-Kings for all of the full live band recordings to 2” Tape. Bust magazine wrote, “Rachele’s angelic voice channels Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton, and she has a gift for telling tales of hope and disappointment in classic troubadour fashion.”

Country-folk artist Spencer Burton has officially released a new single titled “Hard Times” following the announcement of fifth studio album Coyote, and first via Still Records, out on February 19, 2021. Premiered by Glide Magazine, “Burton offers an achingly tender wail that features Gram Parsons’ desert harmonies mixed with the contemplative twang of Jason Molina. From the crackling onset, there is a lonesome prairie sound that rises, making Burton a foremost story-teller.”

“It’s a song about how we can get through the hard times,” conveys Burton. “For me, that ‘how’ is love. It always has been. Love is a strong feeling and its ability to heal can help all of us get through the difficulties that life presents.”

Coyote represents both the excitement and fear surrounding solitude and creating art. Recorded with Andrija Tokic and in the comfort of friends on true analog equipment down in Nashville, the album is full of dualities, necessary stops, and questions on the long journey of self-discovery that is life. “Every song I’ve ever written is a place to keep a memory,” says Burton.

Burton has always been strongly connected to the natural world, carrying with him an insatiable wanderlust and deep respect for nature. Fittingly, he has partnered with Ontario Nature. $10 from the sale of every eco-friendly, Canadian-made fleece crewneck sweater will be donated to the Ontario-based conservation organization. This item can be purchased on its own or as a bundle with the vinyl pre-order. Also available is an exclusive Dine Alone version of the LP, and an original artwork test press. Purchases can be made through the Dine Alone Store HERE.

Coyote is self-reflective, a journey of finding oneself again through a soul-healing connection to nature and within the confines of being a parent, with Burton continually challenging himself to put out the best record he’s ever made. “I've been sitting well with the name Coyote because they're something I love and hate. I am intrigued and I fear them. The epitome of survival, never settling. Moving its lonesome self through cities and fields alike. Sometimes finding comfort in a pack, until the pack changes. Something that is constantly a part of my life, especially here on the farm. They give and they take, bringing excitement and also destruction. They represent family, and protection, and creation, and on top of all that, they symbolize the jokester. Which I've been told I can be. More and more these days I've been seeing them. Whether it's because I'm out in the wild more often, or something more spiritual. People say that when a coyote makes itself known to you, it's because you've lost your way in some shape or form. I've changed so much from the last album to this one, it's tough to know who I am anymore, so the songs themselves are about all of these things, including growth.”

The official videos are out now for ode to Alberta “Nothing’s Changed” with legendary Lloyd Green (Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Paul McCartney) playing lap steel; ballad-esque slow jam “Memories We Won’t Soon Forget” about loss, greed and change; and lead single “Further” which is “a composition steeped in feelings of hope and faith” (American Songwriter). From his punk rock roots as part of Attack in Black to the darker country-inspired sound of his two first solo albums under the name Grey Kingdom, Burton’s multifaceted musical trajectory has branched into indie and rock aesthetics while maintaining his folky sound. In 2012, Spencer dropped Grey Kingdom in favour of his own name, moving towards a more natural country folk sensibility.

Hailing from Southern Ontario, Burton has toured nationally, and in the United States, with City and Colour, Daniel Romano, Jenn Grant, and more. After years of living mostly in the city between long touring stints, Burton was feeling drained and uninspired. The constant hum of the city promoted a lifestyle that was entwined with work and networking, an energy that could easily push oneself into the ground. Coupled with the transient existence of a touring musician, he felt the need to plant roots. That pull led him to ‘flee the city’ for a quieter existence in the country. This simpler reality led him even closer to the earth and to the powerful freedom solitude brings. His move to Niagara coincided with his becoming a father, a shift that has permanently shaped his life and his music. 2019’s The Mountain Man is a children’s album created with his family in mind. “Making art feels pretty selfish, in a way. Having kids makes you forget about yourself, makes you care about them above anything else. It’s this insane sense of perspective—these little sources of the most intense love and happiness, but also worry and fear.” With his hankering for hankering for travel, farm life and the great beyond, Burton’s upbringings are as sincere as his demeanor.

“Oh, you were in Deep Wound?”: an FAQ for punk roots thrasher Scott Helland, whose prolific songwriting has yielded over 30 records since the ‘80s, ever since that fateful flyer fell into the hands of lo-fi heroes, J Mascis and Lou Barlow.

No stranger to DIY venues and seedy dive-bars, Helland once had a gun pulled on him and his brother Vis, who went to settle up with the owner at the venerable punk rock club Electric Banana in Pittsburgh, ca. 1984. At the time, he was in Outpatients, opening up for Battalion of Saints. The hard-luck dues paid off later for Helland, who has since opened for many great rock bands, including Hüsker Dü, Black Flag w/ Henry Rollins, Cro-Mags, COC, 7 Seconds and more.

Growing up with parents who were deeply entrenched in the world of academia, Helland was accustomed to frequent visits to jazz concerts and art museums. “I remember the first music concert I ever attended: it was The Count Basie Orchestra. I had a great relationship with my father, and my mother too. They were both very progressive,” says Helland. “I recently inherited my dad’s 400-album jazz record collection.” 

Harking back to freshman year in high school, Helland’s father passed suddenly, after enduring an ongoing headache that plagued him for two days. “My brother took him to the hospital while I was in school, and about an hour later, he was in a coma. The next day he died from an aneurysm, just like that,” Helland recalls. 

“It was a huge shock and we were torn apart - an empty seat at the table - and I thought, ‘wow, life is gonna be tough… maybe let’s not let people in too much.’ So punk rock pushed me through, just going crazy on stage, thrashing around with this sort of exorcism of stress and sadness and anxiety,” says Helland. 

Further immersed in the open arms of like-minded, yet big-hearted thrashers, Helland kept up with Outpatients in ‘84, as Deep Wound morphed into Dinosaur Jr. Helland became obsessed with the ever-important aspect of getting lost in a space where one feels unique kinship.

From one extreme to the next, Helland jettisoned punk rock and thrash metal in the ‘90s, picking up an acoustic that he began strumming and chasing after atmospheric melodies and the songs that came with it. Helland relied on looping and self-sufficiency, which eventually led him down a path of spy-noir instrumentals, inspired by The Rockford Files, The Man from Uncle, I Spy, and others from childhood immersion. 

In the tight-lipped, complex, and solitary characters celebrated in those shows, Helland finds an analog for his own go-it-alone forays into stylish post-punk guitar composition. “I like the thought of providing music for a movie inside someone’s head,” says Helland. Thus, his solo career under the moniker, Guitarmy of One, was born. 

"The title ‘Overtones of Hercule and Holmes’ is a tipping of the hat to those classic detective characters. Hercule Poirot is from the Agatha Christie series and Holmes of course is from Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series. I took my perception of those characters and wrote a soundtrack for them. This song fits with the rest of the album The Spy Detective Collective, which is inspired by spy and detective shows from the 60s and 70s. The album has an all instrumental spy noir feel, with driving acoustic-electric melodies over propulsive electro beats."

On his forthcoming LP, The Spy Detective Collective, Guitarmy of One looks to the crime and intrigue of shows of the ‘60s and ‘70s for inspiration as well as for dashes of melodic and cultural source material. In a bit of coded intrigue, Guitarmy of One’s song titles all contain the word ‘one’ buried in them. Some songs are dedicated to singular heroes of the genre: the ominous riffage of “Perry Mason Exoneration” and the moody, Eastern-Euro tinged spy rock of “Emma Bella Citronella,” an homage to Emma Peel of The Avengers. Other songs conflate multiple titles and characters, leaving a referential riddle for the listener: the shimmering, tuneful “Overtones of Hercule and Holmes,” the brash and driving album opener, “I Spy the Prisoner.”

Described by The Big Takeover as “an accomplished ex-punk who has made the striking transition to atmospheric soundtracks,” Helland weaves his mysterious and generous acoustic-electric melodies over propulsive spy riffs and electro beats, layering and building patiently toward engrossing payoffs.

Helland hasn’t ditched his punk roots altogether though, still going strong in Euro-American acoustic alternative, post-punk cabaret duo Frenchy and the Punk, with Samantha Stephenson. He’s also been keeping up with J Mascis in an all-covers band called The Growers, which also features Kurt Fedora (guitar), Mark Mulcahy (vocals) and Don McAulay (drums). 

“About 70% of these songs were written over the last few months during this pandemic,” he says. “Engulfing myself in the writing process has helped me to deal with the strange reality of not being able to tour and play shows, which has been my livelihood for so long. The confusion and uncertainty of this time may very well be what birthed the whole spy theme. It gives me the chance to be serious about being silly, and vice versa.”

Guitarmy of One’s The Spy Detective Collective is due out March 26. 

Austin, TX bluegrass/indie-folk duo The Armadillo Paradox are preparing to release their new LP, Out of Gas in Oil Country, out March 26th. Since announcing the album, the duo has released two new singles: "Your Eyes Are Like Stars," which Glide Magazine says, "Combines the effortless lyrical charm of John Prine alongside the indie rock unpredictability of The Mountain Goats," and the latest, "Can't Hold A Job," out everywhere today.

Sol Chase and Jared Huskey have always found Texas’s “thing” for armadillos to be a little paradoxical.

“They’re kind of glorified here,” Huskey explains. “Supposedly, their shells represent our state’s strength. But nine times out of ten, you see them dead on the side of the road.”

Chase, a Bluegrass aficionado, and Huskey, a self-described rambler with hip-hop roots, join forces to address this enigma on a macro-level. The dynamic pair make their debut as The Armadillo Paradox with their brilliant LP, Out of Gas in Oil Country. The Armadillo Paradox gallivants between country, Americana, folk, bluegrass and alt-rock with soft lyrical styling and experimental acoustic instrumentation. Eddie Dickerson and Kimberly Zielnicki’s sweeping fiddle solos, along with a full horn section and marching-style drums, pioneer a sonic pathway through a peculiar moment in history. They hang their proverbial cowboy-style hats on the fact that they are among the only bands to ever pair a mandolin with a synthesizer. Kym Warner, Robert Earl Keen’s Grammy-nominated mandolinist, lends his skills on a custom electric, redefining roots music on the record.

Like many indie projects, the album’s inception involved fate. After sneaking into an industry party, Huskey connected with Charles Godfrey. Something about their chat struck a chord with the acclaimed sound engineer (Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, Beach House, Portugal. The Man, The Mountain Goats). Within weeks, The Armadillo Paradox joined Godfrey at Scary American Studio in East Austin. Mixed by Godfrey and mastered by Dan Shike (Lumineers, Cody Jinks, Third Eye Blind), Out of Gas in Oil Country is a satirical vignette of a culture blinded by its own purview.

For Chase, most of his songs’ stories exist outside of his lived experience. He’s a fiction writer with a journalism background. He says his story-driven style has become a therapeutic process.

“I put my characters into hardship, imagining someone in a tough spot,” says Chase. “Then I will either write them out of it or deeper into that hole. It’s a way to work out emotional distress in my own life. I write about something that is so much worse than anything I’m going through to put things in perspective.”

Standout track “Drive All Day,” introduces a misfortune that puts most adversity to shame. A man pushed to murder is on the run. Throughout the song, he’s reflecting on the choice he made and a fast-grass orchestra embodies his caffeine-induced mania. But it dwindles into the third verse, and once he comes down from his high, he finds himself broken down, rotting in Travis County jail--deeper down the hole Chase wrote him into.

Huskey takes a more grounded approach to songwriting, bred from realism. His personal life serves as a wellspring of inspiration, and his influences run the gamut from Johnny Cash to Kanye West. In another recent project, he collaborated with Houston rapper Mike Jones. Huskey draws parallels between the ethos of hip-hop and country music, noting similar themes of hardship, evading the law, and unsatisfying love. When he and Chase joined forces, he settled into a new musical home in Americana beside some of his favorite storytellers. Their stylistic blend creates a story that is intimate yet approachable. This fusion of tangible emotion and broad-stroke analytics exemplifies the band’s artistic identity.

Together, they capture the catch-22s of romantic reckonings (“I Wish I Had More Exes,” “July”), mortality (“The Thinker & The Sage”), commercial oppression (“Austin”), and the post-grad blues (“Can’t Hold a Job”). But it’s not just everyday hardship that strikes an emotional chord on the record. In “American Defeat” Chase leads listeners through 100 years of US history and lays bare the systemic racism that lands the song’s main character in jail for a much different reason than “Drive All Day”’s protagonist.

Elsewhere on the record, “Austin” harps on the hollowness between romanticism and reality. The duo critiques the capital city’s evolutionary direction on the song Huskey admits he wrote “as a bit of a ‘fuck you.’” Ragging on the waves of naïve newcomers, Huskey sings: “They all heard that the scene was good /And wanted to come and see / So they signed some leases for apartments/ Right over where the scene used to be.”

The common thread here? Disillusionment. But not in the typical gut-punch way. The album takes stories of hardship and spins them into narratives of growth.

“Whether it’s with a person you’ve broken up with, a city you’re living in, or a society you’ve grown up in—it’s a positive thing,” Chase insists. “You were disillusioned by what once was, but now you’re able to see what really is and make something better from that.”

Reflecting on the album with a new perspective, Huskey invokes the archetypal Western wanderer and asks whether the wanderlust typical of country music stems from a grass-is-always-greener view of the world.

“You see it played out over-and-over,” he explains. “They’re never satisfied. I’ve been moving around a lot this year and finally realized it’s the same wherever you go, so you should just try to make the most of it.”

Out of Gas in Oil Country is about accepting flaws and seeking silver linings. Like much of 2020, their entire project bears a big question mark. The continuity of their day jobs, whether Huskey will remain in Austin, and the future of live music are all up in the air.

“If this is our one-and-done art statement as a band, we would be happy,” says Chase. “It’s a snapshot of who we are this year and where our city and country are during a wild time.”

A longtime champion of guitar-driven rock & roll, Kurt Deemer responds to the modern moment with World Upside Down. Recorded during the Covid-19 era, it's an album about resolve, resilience, and relationships, laced with power-pop hooks and the anthemic songwriting of a frontman who's been sharpening his craft for more than two decades.

"Just keep looking up," he sings during the album's opening line, introducing a sense of battle-tested optimism that weaves throughout World Upside Down's eight tracks. Apart from a cover of Lloyd Cole and the Commotions' "From the Hip," he wrote the songs alone, taking inspiration from the seismic changes that have shaken American society since Donald Trump's inauguration.

"When I wrote the title track, I was thinking about the moment I sat in front of the TV, watching Trump being announced as the winner of the 2016 election," he remembers. "I thought about the school shooting at Stoneman Douglas, and the way those students got out into the street to protest. Given everything that's been happening lately — the political environment, the pandemic — I knew the album needed to be called World Upside Down."

Rather than write exclusively about the forces that drive us apart, Deemer also wrote about the experiences that bind us together, turning tracks like "Real Deal" and the heartland rock anthem "Rain" into amplified love songs. Inspired by his own ongoing recovery from addiction, he turned "From the Hip" into a rallying cry for those fighting their own daily battles. The result is an album that nods to those who came before him — including fellow melody-driven rockers like Tom Petty, Neil Young, and the Replacements — while exploring new territory, turning Deemer's classic influences into something singular.

Years before he released solo records like 2016's Gaslight and 2018's Antenna Like a Lightning Rod, Deemer grew up in inner-city Baltimore. The FM radio was always on, filling the family home with a diverse soundtrack of rock, pop, folk, and soul. "My sisters and I listened to the radio 24/7," he remembers. "It was playing in the house all the time. We'd sing along with the songs we knew, and whenever I saw bands play live, I instinctively knew I wanted to do that." Before long, Deemer was making his own music, graduating from the noisy clatter of his earliest recordings — which he strummed on a three-string guitar discovered in the back of his sister's closet and recorded with a cassette player — to the focused sounds of his first professional bands, including the Shadowmen and Vulgaria.

Vulgaria gradually morphed into his current project, the Kurt Deemer Band, whose material highlights the singing, songwriting, multi-instrumental, and production talents of its namesake frontman. Even so, World Upside Down is far more than a showcase for Deemer alone. Drummer Steve Rose and guitarist John Christensen have been playing with him since Vulgaria's heyday, fine-tuning the chemistry of a road-tested band whose members are both familiar with one another's instincts and willing to challenge their sonic boundaries. That familiarity came in handy during the recording of the self-produced World Upside Down, which began at Sheffield Studio in North Baltimore. Joined by their bassist, Kris Maher, and their live sound engineer, Keith Nachodsky, the group spent several days at the studio before the global pandemic forced everybody into quarantine. Deemer and company finished the rest of the album in isolation, with a number of guests — including solo artist Andy Grimm (who contributes lap steel to tracks like the cinematic "Kalamazoo"), Dave Hadley (who adds pedal steel to "Don’t Look Down" and "Take a Chance"), and vocalist Ellen Cherry — adding their own nuances. The result? The most focused album of Deemer's career, laced with electric guitar, organ, gang vocals, driving grooves, and harmonica.

Created during a time of global instability, World Upside Down chooses hope in the face of hopelessness. Love in the face of loss. Focused rock & roll in the face of noisy cacophony.

An American songwriter living in London, Emily Moment spent much of the 2010s championing Americana music in the UK — not only as a member of acclaimed bands like The Savannahs and Mahoney & The Moment, but also as one of the organizers behind the long-running concert series Chalk Farm Folk. Originally launched as a monthly residency for Emily and her longtime collaborator, Steve Mahoney, Chalk Farm Folk quickly turned into a monthly showcase for roots music of all stripes, bringing free multi-band shows to a legendary music venue in Camden.

For Emily, Chalk Farm Folk wasn't just about the music. It was about the communal circle of artists and fans who showed up every month. "It's where we met most of our friends today," she explains. "It became such a strong community." A similar kind of supportive spirit fuels The Party's Over, a collection of literate Americana ballads and gentle folk songs that mark Emily's first solo release in nearly a decade. Recorded with collaborators she met during Chalk Farm's six-year run, it positions Emily not only as a rallying force, but as a force worth rallying around, too.

Born in Marblehead, Massachusetts, Emily left her mark stateside before heading to England in 2012. She was a member of New York City's anti-folk music community for years, cutting her teeth at iconic venues like Rockwood Music Hall and The Sidewalk Cafe between gigs as a working actress. By the time she left town, she'd built a network of personal champions that included songwriting legends like Elvis Costello, who featured the singer on the cover of his album Cruel Smile.

Ten years separate Emily Moment's solo debut, Never Enough, from The Party's Over. During the interim, she whittled her skills to a fine point, appearing on BBC One as a member of alt-country harmony group The Savannahs and releasing three collaborative LPs with Mahoney & The Moment. Her voice — lilting one minute and elegant the next, laced with a quick vibrato that recalled the Greenwich Village folk singers who filled New York's coffeehouses decades before her — was always a show-stopping instrument. But it was her songwriting that truly made her different.

The Party's Over puts that songwriting on full display. Filled with references to literary masters like Murakami, Bukowski, and Joan Didion (all of whom are thanked in the album notes), it's an album about hitting a wall — about coping with life's physical and mental struggles when it seems as though things can't possibly get any harder. Many of the songs were inspired by Emily's time working at a counseling center, while others find her mixing autobiography with unique character studies, tackling supplementary themes like the universal struggle to find a sense of home, happiness, and belonging. "Santa Maria" is a waltzing, western-inspired folksong about migrant caravans, delivered from the perspective of a mother who's nearing the end of her journey. "Josephine" is a barn-burning blast of bar-band blues, laced with harmonica and thick harmonies. The sparse shuffle of "The Angel's Share" finds Emily weighing the comfort of a stable relationship against the freedom of the single life, while "The Bottom" is, as she explains, "a happy song about depression." Throughout it all, Emily pulls triple duty as the album's producer, front-woman, and multi-instrumentalist.

One of the final albums recorded at Urchin Studios — the London-area studio where Laura Marling tracked Short Movie several years earlier — The Party's Over also features a cameo from Marling's drummer, Matt Ingram, and mixing from Dan Cox (Laura Marling, Tom Odell, The Staves). On an album filled with heavyweights of London's folk-rock community, though, it's Emily Moment who confidently fills the spotlight. She's an unsung hero of the genre, and The Party's Over marks her overdue inauguration as a transatlantic troubadour. 

With harmonies derived only from the genetic intricacies of a brother-sister duo, Zak and Lena Kendall have evolved from homespun, family-oriented folk music to deliver roots-revival styled sophistication for a hyper-conscious generation. The Kendalls, beloved within their quickly expanding fandom as GoldenOak, were raised in part by the western Maine landscape.

GoldenOak began as two children playing around backyard bonfires and was more firmly established with their 2016 debut, Pleasant St. In response to their coming-of-age chronicle, Dispatch Magazine coined the duo "one of Portland's most important upcoming bands." As purveyors of age-old tradition sharing contemporary messaging, the pair has landed spots on stage with Lady Lamb, The Dustbowl Revival, The Ghost of Paul Revere, and The Mallett Brothers Band.

Following their most recent project, Foxgloves—named 'EP of the year' by the Portland Music Awards—their sophomore full-length, Room to Grow is GoldenOak's most cohesive collection yet.

Creating Room to Grow felt like a research project. Instead of turning research into a critical analysis, Zak produced an analytical work of art backed by empyreal folk music. As a student of human ecology in college, his songwriting contains front-line accounts of the current situation.

"Art isn't a dumbed-down version of climate issues," he says. "It's okay that I'm not writing a book. There's a place for music and art in climate conversations, and turning research data into art still does these ideas justice because that's an important way to convey information and knowledge to push these issues to the forefront and make positive change."

"Falter," Zak's pride-point as a songwriter, details the uniquely human quality of corruption. Reminiscent of a late 1960s protest tune, the track perpetuates the irony of political money etching its name in geological history and the implications of the most privileged people continuing to expand their carbon footprint, endangering less responsible populations in more fragile ecosystems.

"It was a crazy process of learning and rethinking my songwriter knowledge, avoiding a crutch," says Zak. In that vein, his approach developed in a new way, putting himself in the path of inspiration rather than his previous practice of awaiting a brilliant spark to overcome him. This meant reshaping an intentional process-focused style of songwriting.

"I had this romanticized view that the song would take me to where it wants to be rather than me pushing the song to where it should be," he explains. "I think I almost had too much faith in the song."

Zak and Lena recorded the album at Monico Studios—a repurposed barn situated between rolling farmland outside of Portland. GoldenOak began wrapping up sessions the week Maine saw its first case of novel coronavirus. They did not return to the studio until June to add vocal overdubs, leaving several weeks for contemplation.

"It was an interesting time to bring my mind back to that place we started when the pandemic now consumed everything," says Zak. "I had difficulty not writing the pandemic into the record. As much as I thought about that, it wasn't the path that we started on, so it shouldn't be where we ended."

The product is an inclusive call to action. Putting fears and facts to song, rather than tucked away in private corners of academia, provides greater accessibility to the public, those more vulnerable to the implications. Engineered by Ryan Ordway and Dan Capaldi, mixed by Ordway and Sam McArthur, and mastered by Adam Ayan, GoldenOak's second studio album is a kinetic tribute to the untamed nature of climate change.

"Only One" encapsulates climate anxiety. An anthem for the people on the front-lines of the fight for our planet tackles burnout and feelings of helplessness or solitude in battle. At the end of the bridge, the track glistens with Forrest Tripp's trombone-induced kaleidoscopic imagery. Lena hopes the delicately balanced soundscape reminds friends and listeners of what they're fighting for.

Bassist Mike Knowles and drummer Jackson Cromwell add levity to Zak's guitar and Lena's clarinet. The orchestral set paints an ethereal portrait of nature's beauty, offsetting the impending doom behind their lyrical findings.

Lena's brazen vocal offerings from "Little Light '' upend the 'Doom's Day' darkness of the album, alleviating the defeatism that threads throughout the diagnostic tracklist. Zak and Lena sat down on the last night of the project to pen one of the few songs they co-wrote on the album. Dan Capaldi's chugging percussion suggests the journey is just beginning, but Christian Bertelsen's bright trumpet contribution celebrates the distance covered and hope ahead.

"It sheds light on both ancient answers, looking to the past and how can we move forward, and to the future at things like renewable energy," says Lena. Zak adds, "Indigenous people in the US have been living sustainably for forever. And we need to look to them to be the leaders of this because they have a lot of answers."

The album closes with the title-track, which hits home for the mid-twenty-something artists as a more frequently discussed topic. "It's an intense feeling when you find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, somebody you want to have children with," Zak explains.

"But with this research or the social justice issues highlighted this year, and the pandemic, sometimes I feel like 'how could you even think about bringing kids into this world?' I probably will not die from climate change because I'm privileged and I live in the United States, but it will seriously impact my children's lives."

Somewhere, buried in damning data, is a glimmer of hope—despite the present challenges, society is still looking for room to grow. Zak says, "I'm never going to give up looking for hope, for an answer to this question. I'll always seek that space for my unborn child to thrive in a world."

GoldenOak’s new album is due June 25th. GoldenOak hopes to reconnect with their fans in the New England festival circuit this summer, the hallowed ground where the duo first found their footing. Their entrance single, "Islands," will introduce the concept collection on April 2nd, setting the tone ahead of symbiotic duo’s Room to Grow.

"This record contains several reasons to fight climate change," says Lena. "But overall, it's about continuing to find the reasons why, and here are the stories we can learn from. Room To Grow reminds us that there is a way forward."

Between the dusty, desert noir of its verses and its cascading post-rock chorus, Two Cent Revival’s single “Crow” transitions suddenly from a Southwestern border feel reminiscent of Calexico or Ennio Morricone to the pulsing, arena-ready art-rock of Radiohead, The National, and Arcade Fire. In that way, “Crow” is a perfect orientation for a listener embarking on Demons, Two Cent Revival’s 11-song collection of surprising, narrative folk rock.

There’s a lot going on under the hood of Matt Jones’ unlabored Americana songcraft and his baritone delivery. Adopted from Brazil and raised primarily in Houston, Texas by American parents, Jones’ perspective as a Latino-American is ever-present in his writing, as is the looming specter of Jones’ lifelong struggles with depression and anxiety. Throughout Demons, Jones explores both the nuances of his multicultural identity and his mental health issues, while stylistically maintaining a balance between haunted old-world source material and a contemporary sense of selfhood and style play. The end result is an organic, complex, and unpredictable sound all his own.

The guiding light of Tom Waits hovers over Demons as it does over essentially all progressive roots music of the last 35 years. Jones, however, approaches his subjects with a gravity and formality more in line with the raw narrative finesse of Nick Cave than the carnivalesque surrealism of Waits. Magical realism and mystical imagery pervade these stories of outlaws and obsessions. Dramatic personae and unfiltered confession take turns at the microphone until finally they are indistinguishable. Demons conjures a timeless, insular world of dark folk myth without conceding to the stylized and the retro. Sonically, Jones takes influences ranging from Langhorne Slim and Shovels & Rope to Beirut & The Decemberists, wringing out their most affecting qualities and distilling them into a unique, powerful blend of expressive folk-rock.

The spare and restrained, “Candy” rocks in ways moody and raw as it introduces Demons recurrent themes of obsession and compulsion. With its Biblical parallelism and its aching prettiness, “Happy Hell” advances the thematic dualities that lie at the heart of the record. The stumbling saloon swing of “It Looks Like Blood to Me” (a stylistic sweet spot revisited on “Violins”) disguises one of the record’s most topical and pointed songs.

Demons is a record of musical and lyrical paradoxes—light and dark, design and chance—embodied in the title of the lavishly produced centerpiece “I’m Being Used,” where the meaning of “used” pivots between “exploited” and “put to a higher purpose.”

Two simple and elegant love songs provide Demons’ purest affirmations—the gentle, spacious brush groove of “Julia” and the soaring, roots-ethereal anthem “Dose of Grace.” But it is the brass quintet hidden in the album-closing, Klezmer-inspired title track that epitomizes the paradoxical aesthetic of this collection—unwaveringly solid and thematically focused songcraft shot through with extravagant moments of musical imagination and development.

Balancing earthy simplicity with flights of baroque chamber-folk is much easier said than done, and much credit goes to the team Jones assembled for the sessions. The wizardly keyboard work of Brain Axford provides many of Demons’ sheerest moments of musicality. Bassist Tom Welsch and electric guitarist Elijah Tucker play with moody restraint, melodic imagination, and an on-point sense of style and reference throughout, while producer Dan Davine keeps things grounded on drums. It’s a strange world where a guy you meet on the street in Kingston just happens to have an album like this in the can, a work of startling maturity, depth, and acute musical imagination. It is indeed a strange world.

Americana quartet Lake & Lyndale have been paving a path of their own. The group (singer Channing Marie, guitarist Jonathan Krentz, bassist Eric Clifford, and drummer Tyler Kloewer) moved to Nashville a few years back from MN, where their name comes from. The band, noted for live shows and acclaimed singles, “There’s a Weight” and “Still Here” found themselves limited like everyone in the pandemic; kept both offstage and out of their usual studio. Doing what they could during 2020, the group made a wise decision; they’d put out a stripped down EP, releasing some songs in their truest forms.

Marie says, “We started working on this project and fell in love with it, leading us to decide that this will be Vol. 1 with more projects like this to come.”

In the Nude Vol. 1 is due out June 25th. Working with producers Alex Kiel and Jon Estes, Lake & Lyndale shaped their songs into lovely, spare renditions that highlight the group’s songwriting skills without sacrificing any musicality.

Although the move to this sound may be surprising, Marie points that these songs are not only largely road-tested, but have also been worked through multiple formats. “We’ve been playing these songs out for awhile from writer’s rounds to full band shows,” she says. “For this project in particular we tried to keep things simple while serving the song.”

The group didn’t necessarily pick the songs to develop a common theme, but a nice focus developed all the same. The four originals reveal a willingness to intelligently engage the past in order to move forward.

“Crooked Path” (written by Marie)  and “First One” (written by Krentz, Marie, Davis Corley) most explicitly look at personal history. Whether it’s looking back understanding things you’d do differently, or looking back and finding yourself laughing about a “first” you may have had- they’re all about appreciating the journey.

“Dancing with Your Ghost” (written by Krentz, Marie, and Kloewer) deals with the fallout of a relationship that you can’t quite let go of. The memory of a love gone wrong can be somewhat of a haunting feeling, which is captured in this song. “Worth Saving”, written by Marie and Kayley Hill visits different scenarios and knowing “that there are times to repair and sometimes to let go”- says Marie.The song moves from lighthearted concerns about a pair of jeans, to an old car, to a relationship. For anyone concerned, Marie’s old Firebird with its duct-taped headlight still sits in her parents’ yard.

Always full of surprises, the group closes the EP with a “lullaby-esque” cover of Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”

Marie says- “Queen has always been a huge influence on us. “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” came up very organically. Jon was playing the song with this haunting halftime feel and I immediately loved it. We wanted to put our own twist on a classic, without completely disregarding the original.”

Even with the EP yet to be released, Lake & Lyndale have plans in place for upcoming projects. Their full-length album debut should come up next, and then they intend to do another stripped-down EP (Vol. 2). “It’s a good way to keep moving forward and to keep the songwriting wheels turning”- Marie says.

That fire and flexibility serves the band well. While first receiving attention on local radio in both Nashville and the Twin Cities, the group’s also gained national attention with music in ads and tv shows, including Top Chef.

With In the Nude Vol. 1, Lake & Lyndale prove themselves to be a versatile group, showing both their thoughtfulness and their humor in a new setting. “Worth Saving” tries understanding when you may be letting go of things too quickly- but it's clear that these musicians have found something to hold onto.

From the opening lines of “Ease Me Into Dying,” the leadoff track from Ross Adams’ latest album Escaping Southern Heat, Adams’ vivid poetry paints a picture of love lost, wanderlust, and the gritty reality of working-class America. Atop jangling guitars and a pulsing rhythm section, Adams evokes images of run-down Southern industrial mills and grimy New York subway stations as he sings of the ghosts of romances gone-by, laying the beautifully wistful foundation upon which Escaping Southern Heat is built.

Sonically, Escaping Southern Heat runs the gamut of Americana influence, from distorted Southern rock to melodic folk ballads and barroom country shuffles, brought together by the most prestigious backing band in the genre, The 400 Unit.

Adams first met The 400 Unit over a decade ago while sneaking backstage at Jason Isbell shows to help load gear and talk shop with bassist Jimbo Hart. Ten years later, Hart and Adams teamed up to record Escaping Southern Heat at East Avalon Recorders in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, with Hart recruiting the remainder of The 400 Unit to round out the sessions: Chad Gamble on drums, Derry Deborja on keyboards, Hart on bass and Sadler Vaden on guitar alongside Adams. As if the group weren’t powerful enough, Adams tapped former American Aquarium alum Whit Wright to add his signature pedal steel flourishes throughout the album, helping to create a record as musically powerful as it is thematically thoughtful. “We recorded everything in about three days,” says Adams. “I had about twelve songs all written out and we did about three takes of each with the guys and they just banged it out. I don’t think I’ve played with a more talented band in all my life.”

As his core, Adams is a narrative storyteller, and throughout Escaping Southern Heat, his stories revolve around volatile relationships, civil unrest, and the forgotten communities in America. “Every song I write has a narrator that’s not me,” says Adams. “It’s obviously influenced by my life and experiences, but it’s never truly me in these songs. I just love creating characters and telling stories.”

The album’s title track explores the changing South—and its resistance to change—in the wake of the Civil Rights Act, specifically inspired by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the Heart of Atlanta Motel VS The United States Supreme Court case, and the Orangeburg Massacre, during which South Carolina Highway Patrol officers opened fire on African-American protestors demonstrating against racial segregation at a local bowling alley. “I’ve just been getting tired of the heat down here,” says Adams. “The racism and the way things haven’t changed enough. We’re still seeing this shit daily, and people are reflecting on the past but still having to go through the same terrible shit today.”

Reckoning with the history of the South is a complicated task, and on Escaping Southern Heat, Adams makes no attempt to justify the hatred that colors the South’s history. On “Tobacco Country,” however, he does allow himself to reflect romantically on the working-class region that he calls home singing, “We might have got a bad rap or two / But there’s good people down here / One who believes in equal rights and freedoms / And for that old southern reputation to disappear.”

“I don’t plan on staying in the South forever,” says Adams. “I have this dream of moving out West, but ‘Tobacco Country’ was me sorta remembering my roots, but still wanting to get out and see the world.”

Many of the songs on Escaping Southern Heat address institutional issues, such as the reflective, atmospheric country track “Teach Me How To Moune,” where Adams takes the story of a PTSD-addled soldier returned from war and forgotten by the government, and crafts an emotional character study that doubles as a poignant anti-war anthem. Elsewhere on the album, however, Adams tells some more personal issues. On the Dylan-channeling “4th Street Up,” Adams addresses the anxieties and inner demons that can keep you from moving forward and making progress in your life. Meanwhile, on the shuffling “30 Days,” he sings about quitting drinking and pledging allegiance to your love, and shouting out Johnny Cash and June Carter in the process.

Adams’ ability to blend both micro- and macro-level distillations of American life throughout Escaping Southern Heat are a product of his literary passion and genre-spanning influences that have defined his career. As a young preteen, Adams’ was tuned into the confessional and emotive grunge poetry of Kurt Cobain before finding the world-weary narrative lyricism of Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and, eventually, Drive-By Truckers. Eventually, songwriters in the Charlotte, N.C. scene started to take notice of Adams’ talent and he spent years cutting his teeth on tours up and down the East coast and throughout the midwest United States, performing songs off his 2014 LP, Ross Adams, 1952 and his 2018 record, Songs from an Ancient Terrace. 

Now, with The 400 Unit backing him on his most poignant, expansive collection of songs thus far in his career, Adams is poised to make a name for himself as one of the premier songwriters in modern Americana.

Escaping Southern Heat is out on September 10th, 2021.

Between the two of them, Megan and Shane Baskerville have played just about every kind of American music you can imagine. Born in Wisconsin and based in the Southwest—with a lot of rambling in between—they’re veterans of punk scenes, bluegrass circuits, ska bands, even hip-hop acts, all of which informs their work with the School of Rock franchises they operate in Arizona. But nearest and dearest to their hearts is country music, which allows them a unique opportunity to meld all these disparate interests, and to air their darkest secrets. Defined by Megan’s force-of-nature vocals and Shane’s inventive guitar playing, Daughter of Country is a memoir set to music, every word the God’s honest truth, as the husband-wife duo re-create the sounds pioneered by their heroes, while putting their own personal spin on the genre.
 
“I’m a daughter of country, raised my whole life,” Megan sings on the barn-burning title track. As her husband provides a hand-on-shoulder guitar solo, she recounts a rough childhood and a broken family, but the song also conveys the solace and wisdom that country music offered her. It’s clear they’ve both taken such lessons to heart, as she channels the grit and integrity of Loretta, the heartache and dignity of Patsy, the clarity and self-possession of Tammy. Growing up, she saw those women as mothers. “Patsy Cline in particular, she’s just so strong,” says Megan. “Her voice didn’t have that country twang, but it was booming and powerful. She embodied strength to me. That was something I wanted to be. She helped me daydream of a different life.”
 
Country, in other words, raised her right. Megan & Shane don’t simply recount those hard lessons, they enact them with every note and every chord on Daughter of Country, turning their tribulations into triumphs. After spending her adolescence skipping school to see DIY punk shows in Chicago, Megan lit out to South Carolina, where she apprenticed herself to a pair of bluegrass musicians named Roger Bellow and Bob Sachs. If Patsy was a mother figure, those two guys “were my musical dads. They helped me believe I could do something.” Meanwhile, Shane was touring with a series of punk bands before a mysterious illness sidelined his career. “One doctor said I had six months to live, but I never gave up. Instead, I packed up and started a career out in L.A.” Many years later, he relocated to Minneapolis and used his experiences to teach kids at the School of Rock (one of his first students was Jake Luppen of Hippo Campus).
 
It was through that organization that he met Megan, who applied to teach vocals. Instead of asking her out, he invited her to start a ska band. Their first real date was a Motorhead show at the legendary Minneapolis venue First Avenue. The attraction was romantic, but also musical, as they realized they complemented each other in every way. Not long after that, they split for Arizona to open and operate a School of Rock franchise in the Southwest. In 2013, they flew to Memphis, booked sessions time at Sun Studio, then got married the next day at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music.
 
The School of Rock has been important to them both as educators and as artists. “We love what it does for kids, and that is really, really special to us,” says Megan. “We love that we can employ other musicians, too. But something was missing. We weren’t feeding ourselves creatively.” When Covid slowed their work with the school, the couple found themselves with extra time on their hands, so they started writing a batch of new songs—deeply personal, deeply harrowing songs about hard upbringings, death scares, true love, and what looked to them to be a world falling apart. It was a creative breakthrough. “We had realized our songwriting was skating around what the actual story was and the real emotion behind it,” says Shane. “We weren’t really digging in. So we just ripped off the BandAid and let it all fly out. When we wrote these songs, we felt like they were different.”
 
So they wanted to treat them differently, with a bit more care and consideration. Megan and Shane were so committed to these new songs that they sold their house to fund the creation and promotion of an album that would serve as their defining statement. First and foremost, they wanted to hire an outside producer—someone who could bring a different perspective to the music. After considering candidates all over the country, they finally settled on somebody just down the street: Bob Hoag, who runs Flying Blanket Recording in Mesa, Arizona, and has helmed albums by Courtney Marie Andrews and the Gin Blossoms, among many others. To capture both the sound and the spirit of the country music they loved, they recorded to tape rather than digitally, often using first takes to preserve the spontaneity of the performances. One area where they took their time, however, was with Megan’s vocals. “Every time we’ve recorded before,” she says, “my vocals always got pushed to the end and I never got to spend the time to get the perfect take.”

“Megan’s such a stronger singer, and her rough tracks would be pretty solid. She wouldn’t be giving it her all on the rough tracks, but nobody understood that because they were so good. They just assume it can’t get any better,” adds Shane. When Hoag suggested they use her first takes, she put her boot down. Megan insisted she could do better, and that she did, pushing herself to capture those moments perfectly. That was especially important on the standout “Scars,” on which she tells the stories behind the wounds to her body and to her heart. There’s a moment toward the end when the instruments all fall away to leave just her voice confessing unspeakable tragedy: “This one’s when I lost that little baby, Lord how I cried and how I cried.” It’s devastating, but the clarity and steadiness of her performance show just what it takes to survive such heartbreak.
 
On that and every other song on Daughter of Country, Megan & Shane strip away everything that might stand between them and their listeners. It takes a lot of guts to show those scars to the world, but that’s what country is. That’s what makes it so relatable to listeners looking for musical mothers and fathers. “It’s a sad album,” says Megan, “but it needed to happen.” Shane agrees: “I don’t think we even had a choice. It all just came out. We had to bare our souls to put those things to bed and move on with our lives.”

“We can play a country church in Mississippi, or we can draw a crowd at a hipster club in Brooklyn. We connect with a wide-ranging audience,” says veteran musician Walter Parks, speaking of the music on his forthcoming album, The Unlawful Assembly (out Sept. 10 via Atomic Sound). “The joy, gratitude, pain and yearning in these songs is universally felt.”
 
After studying guitar under jazz guitarist Robert Conti, Parks was a sideman to the legendary Richie Havens for 10 years. He was part of a folk duo called The Nudes, with cellist Stephanie Winters, and has been part of an on-again, off-again band for several years now, called Swamp Cabbage.
 
Parks is known for his swampy style and gravelly vocals, as well as being an astute music historian. In 2020, he was invited by The Library of Congress to archive his research on and perform his arrangements of music made by homesteaders in the Okefenokee Swamp. Now living in St. Louis, MO, Parks originally grew up in Northeast Florida (or what he calls “the Georgia part of Florida”). “That was during the Woodstock era, and in spite of the peace and love aspects of that movement, I was bullied for being tall, skinny, short-haired, and also playing the ‘very uncool’ viola,” says Parks.
 
At the start of the pandemic, Parks created a Sunday morning radio series called “Hymns & Hollers” to explore a powerful and strange paradox about origins of spiritual music that he believed could unify and heal. The show has no religious agenda per se, but is more historical and philosophical in nature.
 
“As a way of enduring hell on Earth and yearning for a better life from the cruel bonds of slavery, African Americans created and sang spirituals, field hollers, code songs and work chants that often borrowed from the Biblical narratives and hymns of their oppressors. Those same spirituals, chants and hollers would soon inspire the great American roots music that followed – blues and jazz which would later inspire gospel, rhythm and blues, soul, folk and rock and roll. Ironically, as if coming full circle, more than a century after emancipation, I and millions of American youth would learn of the blues only because of rock and roll interpretations emanating from England – the country that was once command central for the slave trade and the source of many classic Christian hymns, which influenced the spirituals.”
 
Parks regards spirituals as a common denominator – an undeniable sonic glue born out of the bonds of slavery, now binding us all together for the common good as reimagined by The Unlawful Assembly, with collaborator/drummer/producer Steven Williams, Ada Dyer on vocals, Paul Frazier on bass, Michael Bellar on organ, and Andrae Murchison on trombone.

“Steal Away,” an Underground Railroad spiritual of Biblical origin, tributes The Mighty Clouds of Joy from the early 60’s. Inspired by Richie Havens’ version of “Follow The Drinking Gourd,” a “code song” reminded runaway slaves how to find and use The North Star. The requisite hymn “Amazing Grace” is a slave ship captain’s redemptive plea upon acknowledging the horrors that his chosen line of work had enabled. “Early In The Mornin''' tributes Alan Lomax’s original field recording of a Parchman Farm chain-gang chanting in order to strike a piece of track rail in unison.
 
“Georgia Rice'' is based on an Okefenokee Swamp folktale: During the years when Florida was Spanish, if a slave could escape the rice plantations along the southeast Georgia coast, outrun bounty hunters while heading southwest, evade the natural perils of The Okefenokee Swamp, and then find passage across The St. Mary’s River, they could then make a deal for freedom in exchange for converting to Catholicism, and serving in the Spanish army. Many runaways found their way to Fort Mose, near St. Augustine, to live amongst other former slaves who had endured escape odysseys of their own.
 
European families - mostly of Scottish descent - began inhabiting islands in the Okefenokee during the mid-1800’s. They imported festive fiddle reels and they developed their own relationship with the banjo – an instrument of African origin. They brought spiritual music in the form of shaped-note and sacred harp singing. And they brought hollers - beautiful rolling, yodel-like melodies sung by hunters - through the piney woods, to make notice of an approach to home, after having spent several days out in the wilderness.
 
“Georgia Rice” begins with a holler, but the lyrics are sung from the perspective of a runaway slave who, being pursued by bounty hunters, hears a white man hollerin’ far off in the pineywoods. A great risk, the slave heads towards the white man figuring that no slave tracker would be hollering. “Georgia Rice” overlays two periods in history to convey the hopeful premise that when no one’s watching, we do the right thing. In this case, the white swamper, also at great risk, helps the runaway find The St Mary’s.
 
“Shoulder It,” Parks’ co-write with Stan Lynch, the original drummer for Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, addresses a core obstacle to societal progress – the convenient perspective that the challenges of any one culture, demographic or race are solely its own to overcome.
 
The American imagination pictures the realm of spirituals, blues and jazz in Mississippi or Louisiana but Parks’ inspiration for The Unlawful Assembly comes from southeast Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp. A hundred years after the first slaves fled into the swamp from coastal rice plantations, their descendants returned to lay railroad tracks for The Hebbard Lumber Company. Walter theorizes that during this time, the lyrics of work chants sung in unison by black men while arduously hammering steel, began to find their way into the “old-fashioned songs” and hollers sung by white swampers.
 
Jacksonville, in northeastern Florida is regarded by many as the epicenter of southern rock because The Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd formed there. Walter believes that there is a subtle black-influenced “funky” feel (as it was labeled in the seventies) in southern rock that differentiates it from country music and he believes that the music of the nearby Okefenokee was probably a significant factor in this distinguishing aspect.
 
Parks’ gifts are not only limited to music: “It’s really not possible to just focus on one form of art in the modern age. When sometimes the balance tilts too far away from music, I find refuge in woodworking, studying French, acting and painting in a modern-art style. My wife and I also present concerts.”
 
He’s a storyteller and yet, himself, an immovable character. He’s the real deal. He’s Walter Parks.

Hailing from Hammond, Indiana and currently based in Nashville, Tennessee, Americana artist Kiely Connell blends working-class Rust Belt grit with Southern charm, defying regional classification and painting a detailed portrait of a life in modern America. On her debut LP, Calumet Queen, Connell pays tribute to her hometown near the Calumet River that shaped her personality while reflecting on the struggles one must endure to thrive in a harsh and often isolating world. “A lot of the songs on this album are about overcoming my struggles with depression and anxiety,” says Connell. “But it’s also a collection of stories about self-medicating with alcohol, and things I’d been observing in people close to me.”

Throughout Calumet Queen’s ten tracks, Connell plumbs the depths of Americana influence, combining breezy indie-folk with heavy swamp rock & roadhouse country twang. All of the tracks are supported by her dynamic vocals and poetic lyricism in a style that has been described as “Western Gothic.” Song to song, Connell’s sound is beautifully restrained, never overproduced or bombastic in its presentation, a product of Connell’s steadfast vision and confidence in her songwriting.

To record Calumet Queen, Connell teamed up with her longtime collaborator & guitarist Drew Kohl as well as producer Don Bates, recording live out of Bates’ home studio to preserve the spirit in which the songs were written. To round out the sessions, Connell brought in drummer Taylor Jones, bassists Jess Perkins and Cameron Carrus, steel guitarist John McNally, cellist Chris Perdue, and fiddle player Lauren Saks. “We recorded everything live in Don’s house, mostly with me and Drew in the same room, and then we’d only dub in things like cello or steel guitar,” says Connell. “I wanted the record to sound how I sound at my shows. I feel like because a lot of my songs are very personal, it’s something that I don’t feel like I can capture emotionally if I hadn’t been just playing it all with my guitar and my friends.”

Calumet Queen kicks off with its title track, a jangling Americana track that showcases Connell’s expressive vocals as she likens her life’s path to the river she long called home. The calumet river flows through an industrial area and despite man's best efforts to contain it, it follows its own course. The upbeat, triumphant atmosphere of “Calumet Queen” stands out in the context of the record as it lures listeners into a false sense of calm before shifting towards the darker content of the rest of the album, paralleling the unpredictable nature of the Calumet River itself.

The bluegrass-tinged “Clear My Mind,” explores abusive relationships and the cycles of fear and manipulation that keep victims from being able to escape. Meanwhile, “Blues That Really Burn,” serves as an intimate, moving portrayal of a depressive episode after working so hard to pull yourself out of the last one. “It’s frustrating to know that depression isn’t something you can really control,” says Connell. “Sometimes you find yourself back in certain situations and are frustrated with yourself because you finally got to a point where you felt like you were going to be okay, and then you’re knocked right back where you started again.”

Elsewhere on the album, the roadhouse country ballad “Nobody’s Business But Mine” takes an honest look at self-medication and society’s voyeuristic obsession with those who are struggling with alcohol abuse. “People love to judge you when they have no idea what you’re going through,” says Connell. “You can be self-aware that you’re at a low point, but everyone around you makes it worse by judging and looking down on you.”

The Celtic-tinged indie-folk track “Disappear” closes out Calumet Queen with a vivid portrayal of the overwhelming, spiraling thought patterns that accompany a panic attack, Connell’s somber poetry and brooding vocals spinning terror into beauty as she sings, “I’m not afraid to die, I’m afraid to disappear” in the album’s final moments.

Although Calumet Queen is Connell’s first LP as a solo artist, her musical journey began shortly after birth. Her mother, a professional singer and actress, taught Connell to recognize and repeat melodies as an infant, a head start that found Connell leading church choirs throughout her childhood. As a teenager, Connell picked up her first guitar from a pawn shop and immediately set to work, first learning Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” before beginning to write songs of her own, honing a craft that would ultimately lead her to Nashville to embark on a solo career.

With Calumet Queen, Connell officially enters the next phase of her career, establishing herself as an emotionally resonant lyricist with an exceptional, unique vocal delivery that sets her apart from the sea of modern Americana artists. It’s only a matter of time before Connell claims her crown.

In the wake of recent press at The Bluegrass Situation, Americana UK, Glide Magazine, Ditty TV, and the Billboard Country Update, Nashville Americana / folk-blues artist Bill Filipiak will release his new record, Medicine I Need, this Friday, Oct. 1 on Vidlicity Records.
 
As a producer for the most hallowed of Nashville roots-music institutions, the Grand Ole Opry, Filipiak has had a chance to not only brush elbows with, but really get to know and learn from, some of the finest Americana artists around. Which, of course, has been a major influence on his own work. With his latest—and most fully realized—record to date, Filipiak taps the inspiration and wisdom of these artists, honing his lifelong passion for music and songwriting into an impressive, thoughtful and healing folk-blues journey, the aptly titled Medicine I Need.

“When you have the opportunity to talk songwriting with these people and watch them perform—I’m talking about folks like Larkin Poe, Sarah Jarosz, Molly Tuttle, Bryan Sutton and Allison Russell; artists like Lera Lynn and Maggie Rose, who insist on finding their own path while staying true to who they are; or maybe you spend a couple days with a legend like Keb Mo, George Thorogood or Ray Wylie Hubbard—after that,” Filipiak says, “it's hard not to pick up your instrument, try to emulate what they've done, then come up with your own idea and follow through on it.”

And that’s exactly what Filipiak has done with Medicine I Need. The album—his third full-length—features a unique palette: the gritty blues power of a Gretsch Honey Dipper resonator guitar, mellowed by a splash of Beach Boys surf and a healthy dose of Wurlitzer electric piano. Filipiak—who recorded, engineered, produced and played every sound you hear on this singular vision of a record—simmers these ingredients into a potent and satisfying stew of downhome country-blues, folk and Americana.

“I'm a rhythm guitarist,” Filipiak says. “For me it’s all about finding a groove, and that’s where the Honey Dipper comes in. Getting my hands on that guitar really turned the tables for me. It was a sound I’d been wanting for years—the rough, raw, hollow sound of a resonator. I started learning slide for this album, and from there the riffs and songs just started flowing. Around the same time, my son got into the Beach Boys—Brian Wilson and that echoing electric surf-guitar sound. I started experimenting with it as a backdrop, then I brought in the Wurlitzer as a counterpoint to balance the edge of the resonator, and it all started to meld.”
 
Much of it written in the throes of the pandemic," Medicine I Need's title and subject matter were driven by the deep introspection of quarantine. “I think covid brought all these feelings and realizations to the forefront,” Filipiak says. “We rarely slow down, and we’re often overwhelmed. I think as a culture, we learned a lot about the need to take a step back and look inside, about giving ourselves time to recharge, and that it's okay to be alone sometimes, which gives us a chance to learn about ourselves.”

For Filipiak—who lost his mother last year, his father five years ago, and his brother-in-law just before that—the reflective time, the powerful medicine of solitude, was much needed. He wrote sweet, heartfelt Americana ballad “My Prayer” as a tribute to his mother, and shell-shocked blues shuffle “Fearing the Dawn” about coping with the reality-shaking revelations that came in the wake of his Father’s death. “Looking back at all the things that happened with my family the last five or six years,” Filipiak says, “there was a lot I needed to work through. This new album gave me the opportunity to do that.”

Family is an essential part of Medicine I Need, and not just the grief and loss. To balance it, there’s the encouragement Bill received from his wife Kristi to make the record, and the inspiration and influence of his five kids—their passion for music and the arts, their zest for life; one daughter’s ideas about the importance of personal space even became a key lyrical focus on Medicine. And most directly, there’s Bill’s collaboration with his sister-in-law, poet Kara V. Leinfelder, who provided the lyrics for “Hope in Your Heart” as well as the album’s title track. “I love Kara’s writing,” Filipiak says. “A couple of her poems really spoke to what I was trying to accomplish with the overall theme of the record, which was, ‘Yeah, the blues are coming, and it's just part of life.’ We all want to be happy all the time, but that's just not reality. And she also touched beautifully on the idea of healing your heart through solitude. Introspection—it’s how we combat the blues. We embrace them and acknowledge they're a part of who we are and what life is about. But we also look for ways to encourage ourselves and find the positive.”
 
Throughout his journey, music has always been a constant for Filipiak. As a kid, he was obsessed with the eclectic set of 45-rpm vinyl singles he inherited from his older sisters—records by the Stones & Small Faces, Bubble Puppy & The Strawberry Alarm Clock, Willie Nelson & Waylon Jennings and so many others. A natural, young Bill learned the piano by ear at age three, and went on to play keys and guitar in bands throughout high school and college. “As long as I can remember, I was just enamored with music,” he says. “My sister was playing The Doors’ ‘Hello, I Love You,’ I heard it and that was my first word—“hello.” Most kids sleep with their stuffed animals—I slept with my records. I still have them to this day.”

When he finally struck out on his own, Bill ended up working in radio, including a stint recreating popular tracks piece-by-piece for on-air parodies, an excellent musical education. Years down the road, as his career in the industry took off, he began producing music videos for Americana artists. It put him on the path to his current gig at the Opry, and to the music he’s been making as a solo artist since the laidback blues-folk of his 2016 debut, Put the Top Down, and 2020’s roots-centric Brand New Me. Now, with the blues-injected Medicine I Need, Filipiak, 55, continues his creative journey in earnest.

“I have such profound respect for the artists I work with—how dedicated they are to their craft,” he says. “I learn something every day being around them. You know, Allison Russell released her first solo album at 41, and Ray Wylie Hubbard made his Opry debut at 72—even in their later years, they’re still achieving new goals and putting themselves out there. And that’s motivation for me. Plus, my kids are all brilliant and creative, and I want them to see that I’m still pursuing this thing that feeds my soul. You’ve got to keep that fire alive. When I was growing up working on our dairy farm with my Dad, whenever we’d be digging or cutting or lifting something, he’d always say, ‘C’mon, just one more push.’ He said it all the time. And through my life it has reverberated in my head. ‘One more push’—it all comes back to this idea that the blues can keep knocking us down, but if we embrace them, and learn from them, and recognize how strong we can be, the blues can become the fuel we need to keep moving forward.”

Nashville roots/Americana artist Kiely Connell is preparing to release her new LP, Calumet Queen, out everywhere November 12th. Today, Connell released the album's second single "The Blues That Really Burn," which Americana UK called "Full of grit...combines breezy indie-folk with heavy swamp rock & roadhouse country twang." "The Blues That Really Burn" is out now.
 
Hailing from Hammond, Indiana and currently based in Nashville, Tennessee, Americana artist Kiely Connell blends working-class Rust Belt grit with Southern charm, defying regional classification and painting a detailed portrait of a life in modern America. On her debut LP, Calumet Queen, Connell pays tribute to her hometown near the Calumet River that shaped her personality while reflecting on the struggles one must endure to thrive in a harsh and often isolating world. “A lot of the songs on this album are about overcoming my struggles with depression and anxiety,” says Connell. “But it’s also a collection of stories about self-medicating with alcohol, and things I’d been observing in people close to me.”
 
Throughout Calumet Queen’s ten tracks, Connell plumbs the depths of Americana influence, combining breezy indie-folk with heavy swamp rock & roadhouse country twang. All of the tracks are supported by her dynamic vocals and poetic lyricism in a style that has been described as “Western Gothic.” Song to song, Connell’s sound is beautifully restrained, never overproduced or bombastic in its presentation, a product of Connell’s steadfast vision and confidence in her songwriting.
 

To record Calumet Queen, Connell teamed up with her longtime collaborator & guitarist Drew Kohl as well as producer Don Bates, recording live out of Bates’ home studio to preserve the spirit in which the songs were written. To round out the sessions, Connell brought in drummer Taylor Jones, bassists Jess Perkins and Cameron Carrus, steel guitarist John McNally, cellist Chris Perdue, and fiddle player Lauren Saks. “We recorded everything live in Don’s house, mostly with me and Drew in the same room, and then we’d only dub in things like cello or steel guitar,” says Connell. “I wanted the record to sound how I sound at my shows. I feel like because a lot of my songs are very personal, it’s something that I don’t feel like I can capture emotionally if I hadn’t been just playing it all with my guitar and my friends.”
 
Calumet Queen kicks off with its title track, a jangling Americana track that showcases Connell’s expressive vocals as she likens her life’s path to the river she long called home. The calumet river flows through an industrial area and despite man's best efforts to contain it, it follows its own course. The upbeat, triumphant atmosphere of “Calumet Queen” stands out in the context of the record as it lures listeners into a false sense of calm before shifting towards the darker content of the rest of the album, paralleling the unpredictable nature of the Calumet River itself.
 
The bluegrass-tinged “Clear My Mind,” explores abusive relationships and the cycles of fear and manipulation that keep victims from being able to escape. Meanwhile, “Blues That Really Burn,” serves as an intimate, moving portrayal of a depressive episode after working so hard to pull yourself out of the last one. “It’s frustrating to know that depression isn’t something you can really control,” says Connell. “Sometimes you find yourself back in certain situations and are frustrated with yourself because you finally got to a point where you felt like you were going to be okay, and then you’re knocked right back where you started again.”
 
Elsewhere on the album, the roadhouse country ballad “Nobody’s Business But Mine” takes an honest look at self-medication and society’s voyeuristic obsession with those who are struggling with alcohol abuse. “People love to judge you when they have no idea what you’re going through,” says Connell. “You can be self-aware that you’re at a low point, but everyone around you makes it worse by judging and looking down on you.”
 
The Celtic-tinged indie-folk track “Disappear” closes out Calumet Queen with a vivid portrayal of the overwhelming, spiraling thought patterns that accompany a panic attack, Connell’s somber poetry and brooding vocals spinning terror into beauty as she sings, “I’m not afraid to die, I’m afraid to disappear” in the album’s final moments.
 
Although Calumet Queen is Connell’s first LP as a solo artist, her musical journey began shortly after birth. Her mother, a professional singer and actress, taught Connell to recognize and repeat melodies as an infant, a head start that found Connell leading church choirs throughout her childhood. As a teenager, Connell picked up her first guitar from a pawn shop and immediately set to work, first learning Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” before beginning to write songs of her own, honing a craft that would ultimately lead her to Nashville to embark on a solo career.
 
With Calumet Queen, Connell officially enters the next phase of her career, establishing herself as an emotionally resonant lyricist with an exceptional, unique vocal delivery that sets her apart from the sea of modern Americana artists. It’s only a matter of time before Connell claims her crown.

"I like sad songs," says Canadian songwriter B. Knox, whose second studio album — the tellingly titled Far From Folk — blends cosmic Americana, left-field honky tonk, rugged country-rock, and woozy roots music into its own melancholic mix. Far From Folk roots itself in the modern struggles we all endure, replete with vignettes about romance, estrangement, and the long journey toward hope. There are sad songs here, to be sure, but there's also an overarching sense of optimism, with B. Knox moving past the breakup songs that filled his debut — the acclaimed Heartbreak & Landscape — and focusing on something brighter.
 
A former schoolteacher, who has since turned to music to deliver life lessons, B.Knox hasn’t forgotten his roots. Even his stage name pays tribute to the family members who shaped him  - particularly his grandmother, whose maiden name was “Knox”, and his grandfather, Billy, who loans his first initial to the moniker - and his early years on the eastern shores of  Newfoundland clearly permeates his work. “I grew up in an area that was entirely Irish Catholic,” he laughingly explains, “before the age of ten, I didn’t know that anything other than Irish traditional music existed. That Celtic spirit is fairly rebellious, and they have these long ballads with sad narratives and undertones.”
 
Even so, Far From Folk expands beyond the singer/songwriter's folk foundation. Released on the heels of B. Knox's 2020 debut, Heartbreak & Landscape, and his four-song live EP, Hindsight is 20/20, the album makes room for electric guitar, organ, and swooning strings, with collaborator Aaron Goldstein pulling double duty as the record's producer and pedal steel player. From the sampled loops that run throughout the opening track, "Messy," to the blues-rock riffs of "Bullets Blades and Rope," Far From Folk embraces both electricity and experimentation, with B. Knox still anchoring each track in nuanced song craft. "Little Wars" mixes Telecaster twang, fiddle, and bar-band bombast with sharp insights about the human condition — "We all wanna live forever, we all wanna write our name in the stars, we all wanna play the hero in our little wars," he sings during the anthemic chorus — while "If I Break" finds him weighing the desire to succeed against the potential cost of failure.
 
These are rallying cries for those who, like B. Knox, are in the trenches, battling their way toward a brighter horizon. "If you made it through the first album alive," he writes in the album's liner notes, "my wish is that this one finds you less bitter and leaves you with a little hope." Playing an integral role in the album's hopeful tone is Aaron Goldstein, whose production adds ambiance and atmosphere to the songs B. Knox originally wrote alone in a cottage on Georgian Bay, Lake Huron. Raised roughly 2,000 miles east of Georgian Bay on the Atlantic coast, Knox developed an appreciation for the sea at an early age. He salutes that longtime interest in "Coastal Poetry," whose pounding chorus not only channels the feeling of waves against the shore, but doubles as a more carnal metaphor.
 
Double meanings run throughout Far From Folk, whose very title nods not only to the album's genre-crossing sound, but also its creation during the social distance regulations of the Covid-19 era."Let's try and be civil, let's try and be friends / If that doesn't work, let's burn it all down and start over again," Knox sings during "Only Words," a love song whose lyrics apply not to a relationship, but also to a society in need of a serious reboot.
 
Although largely recorded by Knox and Goldstein, Far From Folk makes room for horn players and background singers, with an outside rhythm section apearing on two tracks, as well. The result is an album that channels the lush, layered sound of a full band, while still emphasizing B.Knox's singer/songwriter sentiments and literate lyrics. Appropriately, everything comes to a close with an acoustic reprise of "Only Words" that channels the sparse sound of 2020's Heartbreak & Landscape. The song serves as both a nod to B.Knox's past and a reminder of just how far he's grown beyond his folk roots, highlighting an artist in eclectic evolution.
 
Far From Folk is out April 8, 2022. 

Singer-songwriter Jim Keaveny could be a character out of a Mark Twain novel, born on the Missouri River before traveling through the country with a railroader's restlessness. Ostensibly, he's settled in the hard yet beautiful Texas desert where he lives off-the-grid in a house he built with his bare hands, surviving on rainwater he can't waste, but his picaresque lifestyle still takes him around the world. Keaveny's off-the-beaten-path lifestyle is featured in Chase Peeler's new book On The Porch: Life and Music in Terlingua, Texas.

Keaveny's traveling ways helped him develop a distinct Tex-Americana musical style that integrates influences from cosmic country to mariachi. Throughout the years, he has garnered praise from Austin to the Netherlands and was chosen to play the prestigious Kerrville Folk Festival. His regular comparisons to Bob Dylan and John Prine make sense with his rich, down-to-Earth vocals and smart lyrics.

Years after the release of his acclaimed LP, Put it Together, Keaveny reveals the benefits of patience in his songwriting with “Sunrise” and “Golden Carmen,” a digital 7-inch highlighting his more romantic side.

“Sunrise” began decades ago during his childhood piano lessons, but his instructor didn't care about his attempts at songwriting.

“She's was a nice woman but very strict. She just wanted me to learn the classics,” Keaveny says. “So, I did. I won trophies and things like that, but when I showed her something I wrote, she'd kind of push it aside. She wasn't interested. I composed a song on piano that became 'Sunrise' back in those days. The whole melody, the changes, everything except the lyrics. I've had it with me for many years, that particular song, and then I turned it into a completely different thing.”

Over the years, Keaveny built "Sunrise" from a childhood piano melody, to a straightforward folk tune, to a full-band love song that embodies the spirit of the Southwest. Keaveny was reeling from his divorce. It was one of the darkest times in his life. He was fighting off a heavy depression, when he met a woman who became a shining beacon of hope—to pull him from the darkness and into the light.

"She helped me heal from my divorce," says Keaveny. "It's like the sun set and it was gone for a year and a half. Sitting there wondering what I did wrong. Am I a bad person? She gave me the attention and love I needed. It ended up not working out, but she had a big impact on me at that moment. Just to have someone say, 'Hey, you're fucking awesome.' I had this moment of I'm back. I'm back on the scene. I'm alive again! This song was a euphoric experience."

"Sunrise" starts off mellow and dreamy, before bringing listeners along for the ride of coming out of a depression as horns kick in during the final bridge in an exaltation of joy. This song feels like you're on a beach, with palm trees blowing in the wind, and realizing that you've fallen in love with the person you're dating and you can't wait to tell them.

“Golden Carmen” began when Keaveny had a psychedelic encounter with a woman named Carmen. They only exchanged a few words, but in that moment, he experienced love at first sight. It's a song that thrives on desert sensibility while introducing more lysergic musical elements to amplify Keaveny's psychotropic experience.

"The idea of this golden woman on a beautiful summer day stuck with me," Keaveny says. "Years later I met this woman in Colombia with something golden about her and suddenly this song came out of me. That’s the way I write songs. Sometimes it takes a long time.”

It makes sense that Keaveny’s songwriting would focus on these specific moments of his unique life. He's a lover and a troubadour. He's a searcher and a drifter. He lives to experience life away from the social norms the rest of us are slaves to. He can see Mexico from his Terlingua, Texas, solar-powered homestead and regularly travels to Colombia, but – while those areas might influence his work – it's hard to predict what Keaveny might produce next.

He began this recording project with his longtime collaborator Bill Palmer (bass, guiro) as they bounced from Howlin Dog Studio (Alamosa, Colorado) to Studio Torreón (Santa Fe, New Mexico) to Kevin Zoernig's studio (Las Vegas, New Mexico), and mastered by Christian Wright (Radiohead, Arcade Fire, The National) at Abbey Road Studios in London. When recording, Keaveny always gets by with a little help from his friends and brought in Justin Lindsey (electric guitar), Jim Palmer (drums), Kevin Zoernig (harpsichord, piano, hammond 3C, wurlitzer), Eric Ortiz (trumpet), Stephanie Hatfield (backup vocals), and Bella Palmer & Abbey Wolf for the handclaps in "Sunrise."

“I just evolve the way I evolve,” he says. “I just go with whatever comes in my head. It's just inspiration, and I'm changing just like everybody else on the planet. Every day is something new. We evolve. Music has always been with me. My whole life, even as a child, music has been in my head. It comes to me. I don't overthink it. I just feel it. The music comes to me and I am very compelled to record it.”

As "Sunrise" & "Golden Carmen" are heart-on-his-sleeve love songs, Keaveny remains drawn to the craft he began pursuing long ago as he continues his artistic travels, finding inspiration in the people he meets along the way. "I think about Carl Jung and the intersection of music and the collective unconscious," Keaveny says. “I believe that we're all connected by music very much.”

Austin, TX indie/folk-rock trio Under The Rug are preparing to release their new LP, Dear Adeline, out everywhere February 25th, 2022. Today, the band released the album's third single, "As Long As You're Here," which Spill Magazine called, "An expressive, Shakespeare-inspired, piano and vocal-led ballad." "As Long As You're Here" is out now.
 
A change in perspective can paint a picture in a whole new light. Austin, TX trio Under the Rug took this idea to heart when creating their stunning LP, Dear Adeline, a ten-track collection of emotive, dynamic indie rock that chronicles grief, tumult, and healing after the loss of a loved one and simultaneous dissolution of a romantic relationship. Like Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, Dear Adeline was written and self-produced in real time over the course of five years, each track capturing a specific moment in time that, when put together, creates a beautiful, three-dimensional portrait of the grieving and healing process. “If you’re not surprising yourself or learning something through the songwriting process then your songs will probably be boring,” says vocalist Casey Dayan. “The first few songs we wrote for Dear Adeline were written right after my mom died and my relationship ended and are really reactionary, and then the rest I wrote as I was figuring things out over the last few years. Each song on the album is a different stage of dealing with those events.”
 
Since forming over a decade ago, Under the Rug have cut their teeth as songwriters and engineers, writing and recording dozens of projects, amassing a dedicated fanbase, garnering praise from major publications like American Songwriter and independent tastemaker blogs including Mystic Sons, Two Story Melody, Comeherefloyd, LA On Lock and more, and even receiving a co-sign from The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle.
 
In addition to the natural growth that comes with the passage of time, Dear Adeline was written in part during a major shift for Under the Rug, as the trio—Dayan, guitarist Sean Campbell, and drummer Brendan McQueeney—relocated from Los Angeles to Austin, Texas. That change spurred their creativity in a new direction, pulling them out of a self-described rut that was the result of staying in one place for too long. “There’s something exciting about being in a new area and experimenting in a new space,” says McQueeney. “We had no idea how anything was going to sound in our new studio, so we were like kids, just trying things and playing around and it gave us this new energy.”
 
Stretching out such an emotionally raw project over a period of years, however, took an understandable toll on the group and Dayan in particular, whose own experiences are the primary inspiration for Dear Adeline. “Making this record was hard!” says Dayan. "There were times when I felt done with it—I’d moved on and was happy—but I’d started this years’ long project that was asking me to keep putting myself back in that headspace.”

Listeners will find that the group’s trust in one another and willingness to lay themselves emotionally bare results in an album that is as emotionally resonant as it is sonically compelling. At its core, Dear Adeline is a stadium-ready indie/alt record, but it continuously twists in different directions, dipping into prog, bluegrass, and folk territories throughout its runtime.
 
Dear Adeline kicks off with its title-track, a reflective folk/rock song written immediately after Dayan’s mother passed away and his relationship dissolved. It finds the vocalist attempting to write from the perspective of his future self, a self-penned reminder that one day things will be better. “I was in a really dark place when I started writing,” says Dayan. “But what was harder was trying to figure out how to end the saga, trying to see ahead. The way it finally ended is way more mature than it started, more of an observation about relationships in general rather than just the immediate anger I was feeling. In songwriting, you kind of have to be empathetic towards your characters, which is hard when it’s someone who hurt you. But I’m definitely better for it.”
 
Elsewhere on the album, the group takes a more high-concept approach to examining the grieving process. “Go To Sleep” is a mesmerizing ballad about the weight of insomnia, while “Eating Carrots” is a raw, somewhat humorous depiction of desperation in the throes of emotional distress.
 
To hear Dear Adeline as it is being released is to hear an empathetic chronicle of the healing process, but also an impressive exercise in restraint when it comes to editing. “These songs were all written at a specific moment in time,” says Campbell. “When we look back at them it’s easy to judge them and want to update them, post-healing, post-closure, but you have to leave them alone.”
 
“Some of these songs are just downright salty, if I could now, I would go back and edit some of them,” adds Dayan, “Be a little more mature, maybe, but I think that vulnerability is where the magic is. Just gotta let them sit and be what they are.”

Portland, Maine's genre-bending indie group SeepeopleS have officially released their latest single & video "Two Silhouettes," out everywhere today. "Two Silhouettes" is an emotive indie/freak-folk track that finds songwriter/bandleader Will Bradford examining moments of love and the way they ripple outward into something omnipresent. The single was co-produced by Bradford and Will Holland (Pixies, New Pornographers) at the legendary Chillhouse Studios in Boston, MA, and features guest vocalist Sparxsea and the famed Cowboy Eddie Long (Taylor Swift, The Allman Brothers, Hank Williams Jr.) on pedal steel. The accompanying video was created by Jack Powell (Opus Thimble, Hot Mustard) and features gorgeous paper cut-out animation of human-animal hybrids longing for moments of connection.
 
The anti-genre indie pranksters SeepeopleS have been a band for 22 years.  The band, which is the brainchild of bandleader/songwriter/producer Will Bradford, has released 5 full length albums and 2 EPs on their own imprint, RascalZRecordZ. It would be an accurate statement to say that there isn't a single band on the planet that covers as much ground musically, or traverses through as many musical universes as SeepeopleS does. Musicians have long since taken notice and members of Morphine, Spearhead, Dave Matthews Band (Tim Reynolds), and even members of Parliament/Funkadelic are featured on previous albums. All seven records were co-produced by Will Holland (Pixies, New Pornographers, Dead Can Dance). The band has toured ceaselessly, playing over 1500 shows in 46 states during their long career. Most importantly, SeepeopleS features songwriting that is the definition of timelessness and lyrically have been busy writing the most important musical anthems of our generation. It may be long after our lifetimes before this band gets their due, but they certainly will. Nothing this good can remain hidden forever.
 
SeepeopleS was previously nominated for "Best Live Act" for the 2016 New England Music Awards as well as Relix Magazine Awards' "Best New Artist" in 2007. The band has shared bills and toured with such acts as Death Cab for Cutie, Franz Ferdinand, Cracker, De La Soul, The Pharcyde, Ben Harper, Kula Shaker, Presidents of the United States and have even had Jon Fishman (Phish) join the band for a SeepeopleS set during a Bernie Sanders rally.  They have been featured in Paste Magazine, Datyrotter, PopMatters, Magnet, Exclaim, High Times, Relix. DRUM Magazine and more, and their music has been used on Judging Amy (TNT), The Gates (ABC), and in feature films such as Canvasman and Wheels Over Paradise, as well as on the Discovery Channel and NASCAR broadcasts. They provided most of the music for the Headcount (voting registration) documentary Call To Action and have played CMJ, SXSW, as well as festivals like Wakarusa, Trinumeral, Bear Creek, Smilefest and Allgood Music Festival.  In 2017 SeepeopleS released the "New American Dream" music video animated by Pete List (Celebrity Death Match/MTV, Marilyn Manson). The video would end up being nominated for "Best Video" for the Independent Music Awards in 2018, and won a Pixie award for the animator for "Best Short Video," in the same year. Also in 2018, unfortunately, Facebook and Instagram banned the video and removed the video from their platforms, sealing the band's place forever as a true underground cult favorite and confirming their role as artistic provocateurs. Currently, SeepeopleS are back in the studio working on their eighth studio release entitled Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World (RascalZRecordZ, 2022).

SeepeopleS Tour Dates 2022

May 3 - Nashville, TN - Cobra
May 4 - Atlanta, GA - Smith's Olde Bar
May 5 - Knoxville, TN - Preservation Pub
May 6 - Raleigh, NC - Pour House
May 7 - Asheville, NC - Salvage Station
May 9 -  New York, NY - Mercury Lounge
May 10 - Boston, MA - O'Brien's
May 11 - New Haven, CT - Cafe Nine
May 12 - Littleton, NH - Loading Dock
May 13 - Portland, ME - Portland House of Music
May 14 - Newmarket, NH - Stone Church

SoCal singer/songwriter, Emmy-nominated TV writer-producer & novelist James Kahn’s seventh album, By the Risin’ of the Sea, turns our expectations of traditional sea shanties on their heads by confronting our modern environmental struggles. The album was a finalist in the International Acoustic Music Awards, and the music video of the title song has won several film festival awards, including Best Music Video at the Global Film and Music Festival.

As an ER doctor, Kahn was recruited by Steven Spielberg to be a med tech advisor/writer on ET: The Extraterrestrial, leading him to write the novelizations of many great films, including Return of the Jedi, Poltergeist, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and The Goonies. From there he segued into writing for many series including Star Trek: The Next Generation & Xena:Warrior Princess, and writing-producing Melrose Place and Star Trek: Voyager.

Kahn has entertained us for years as a writer & producer of Star Trek, bringing us stories of a utopian future, but on By the Risin’ of the Sea, he now shows us apocalyptic visions of our actual future of climate change induced rising sea levels, Covid-19, refugee crises and extinction, all with a charming delivery. These gentle songs make our impending doom feel cozy and warm as we all huddle together and let it wash over us.

“Climate change is the biggest existential crisis facing us,” says Kahn, “resulting in drought, fires, floods, species die-offs, crop failures, and of course, rising seas. Maybe we can still mitigate some of the ruin. ‘The Risin’ of the Seas’ is the core song on the album, and lays the problem out in a plaintive, melancholy shanty that comes from – and speaks to – the heart.”

Album opener and title track “The Risin’ of the Sea” is a testament to the power of the human voice in its five part harmonies and the melancholy brought by Brian Mann’s poignant accordion accompaniment. It’s followed by the foot-stomping, dance-with-death pub ballad “In the Covid Times,” where Kahn’s response to the pandemic, unemployment, police violence, social isolation, floods, drought and immigration issues is to raise a glass and hope we can all just make it through the mayhem. But there’s still this contingent of pandemic deniers, mask deniers, vaccine deniers, climate deniers, racism deniers and science deniers that he addresses in “2020: Ship of Fools,” who are all doing their best to sink the ship that we all have to live on.

Not all doom and gloom, By the Risin’ of the Seas’ more lighthearted offerings still touch on the macabre. “No More a’ Whalin’” is a gorgeous and loving anti-whaling tale in the style of traditional whaling folk songs. “We never stopped to listen to the beauty of their tune / We was so wrapped up in the romance of the sail and the harpoon.” The parody song “Bucket o’ Bones” puts a 17th century pirate to work on a modern day cruise ship, with fiddle from Gabe Witcher (Punch Brothers, Paul Simon). In the context of the album, one is reminded of the many quarantined cruise ships at the start of the pandemic. “We caught a touch of plague / but all the medicine we had was cabernet / We got no Wifi bars / we were belayed by our cell phones / The days were dark / and chilly with unknowns / But the day we started coughin’ / well I knew we’d all end up / Just a bucket o’ bones.” The tongue-in-cheek “Island of Dreams” speaks of treasure while actually referring to the five-mile trash island of plastic debris permanently floating in the Pacific Ocean.

“O the Ocean Rolls” tackles the refugee crisis. “The Vast Infinity,” played with actual bones by Sharon Turmondt, is about coming to terms with the “final come what may.” “On the Other Side” follows suit as the narrator waxes nostalgic in his twilight years with only a guitar, mugs, stomps, silverware, hoots and claps as instruments. “Cast on the Water” finds album producer David West on hammer dulcimer as Kahn sings the tale of a lost soul finding his way through the world.

Album closer “Sundown” bookends By the Risin’ of the Sea with a final five-part a cappella lament inspired by Kahn’s eco-biologist friend who said, “You know, people talk about rising temperatures globally, but it’s happening so gradually, we just keep adjusting, which lets us ignore the realities. The reality is, different species have different inflection points, so one day we’ll wake up, and – no more bees.” Kahn ends the song with a note of hope, “If we’re wise / ‘twill be fine.” Getting wise is the challenge for all of us.

The antidote to all of this may be in his four part a cappella track “Landfall,” about finding stability in a world that seems to be spinning out of control. Building on the recent revival of interest, By the Risin’ of the Sea brings sea shanties into the modern age, addressing contemporary themes with classic folk musical strains. It’s alternately moving and poignant, funny yet angry, while remaining hopeful throughout.

“We’re all looking for landfall,” says Kahn, “the place we feel whole and at home, where we can rest.”

Hailing from the melting pot of New Orleans, Shawn Williams makes music that's every bit as diverse and hauntingly soulful as her hometown. Williams approaches Americana with a punk attitude, carving out an atmospheric sound that blends amplified guitars, rawly honest lyrics, and nocturnal arrangements into her own brand of Americana-noire. Wallowin' in the Night, her fourth full-length record, adds a new dimension to that musical mix, unfolding like a soundtrack to the long, lonely hours after midnight.
 
"I've always been drawn to dark themes," she explains. "Maybe it comes from being in New Orleans. Maybe it comes from my love of the desert. It just flows out of me from somewhere else."
 
Wallowin' in the Night shines its light on the darkness of the human experience, its songs detailing Williams' experience with heartbreak and hangovers, breakups and booze, vices and vulnerability. Released on the heels of 2020's The Fear of Living, The Fear of Loving, it's an album about the people who leave and the hard habits that stick around, written and produced by a songwriter who isn't afraid to shine a light on the skeletons in her own closet. 
 
"A lot of these songs have a nighttime atmosphere," explains Williams, a former radio programmer who launched her songwriting career with 2017's Shadow and its acclaimed follow-up, 2018's Motel Livin'. "The nighttime is when we're mostly alone by ourselves, stuck with whatever's going on, whether that's sadness or happiness. When I was writing some of these songs, it was mostly sadness."
 
From country ballads laced with pedal steel ("Don't Go") to angry, alt-rock standouts with overdriven guitar solos ("Everything You Stood For"), Wallowin' in the Night explores the universal theme of heartbreak with Williams' singularly genre-jumping approach. The sexually-charged "Buzzed" begins like a haunting folk song, its acoustic guitar chords punctuated by Williams' invitation to a would-be lover to come spend the night, then builds into an anthemic, full-band salute to the carnal desires that keep us awake after hours. "Fireworks'' finds her channeling Neko Case — another country-adjacent rock & roll siren who traffics in the nocturnal and the nuanced — while "So Tired" mixes fuzz guitar riffs and stomping percussion into a proudly pissed-off declaration of hard living and inebriation. Williams mixes humor with heartbreak, too, delivering biting lines — "I really do hope that you two live happily ever after, but who am I kidding? I was never good at telling jokes," she snaps in "Someone Else" — with the stinging swagger that's already made her a hometown hero in New Orleans. 
 
Other hometown heroes appear on Wallowin' in the Night, too, with Williams reconvening her studio band of regional all-stars. John Fohl, a veteran of Dr. John's band, plays guitar. Casey McAllister (Langhorne Slim, Hurray for the Riff Raff) handles keyboard duties and plays guitar on a few tracks as well. NOLAmericana solo artist Lynn Drury sings harmonies, NPR-celebrated instrumentalist Dave Easley makes a cameo appearance on pedal steel, and The Iguanas — longtime staples of New Orleans roots-rock scene — serve as the rhythm section, matching Williams' sharp songwriting with deep grooves. Working with engineer Tom Stern at Blue Velvet Studio, Williams produced the recordings herself, spotlighting the combination of creative vision and do-it-yourself drive that's earned her shows alongside fellow roots-music mainstays like Wanda Jackson and Sarah Shook.
 
"The unbridled Williams sings of lust and longing at the dark end of the street," gushes The Advocate, alternately describing the songwriter's sound as "hillbilly-post-punk-goth-rock" and "Hank Williams meets The Smiths meets Siouxsie and the Banshees." Defying categorization, Shawn Williams wears her broken heart on her sleeve with Wallowin' in the Night, unafraid to detail the lengths to which she'll go — from quick fixes to long benders, from last calls to first moves, from self-examination to boozy self-annihilation — to get some much-needed relief. It's an album of dynamic shifts, its full-throttle highs and lonely lows mirroring the rollercoaster ride of heartbreak itself, and Williams sings each song in a voice flecked with both the twang of alt-country and the pissed-off power of alt-rock. She makes her home there, in the gray area between genres, planting her flag in territory that runs beside her influences, yet is still distinctly her own. 
 
Yes, there's darkness at the end of that street. But there's also melody, guitar-driven muscle, and the cutting insights of a songwriter who, like her New Orleans home, isn't afraid to embrace both the wild thrills and dangerous possibilities that come with a life lived after sundown.

If Jake Reeves’ clients had to occasionally wait a bit longer to see their attorney(which, he is quick to point out, none of them ever complained about!), that’s a small price for them to have paid to help him create music as his alter ego Silver People. “Once the day’s primary lawyering was done,” he says, “I would close my office door and just get onto YouTube, taking these deep dives on all these amazing free tutorials that are out there,” he says of that period, as he started dabbling in music production on the side of his full-time job as a lawyer.

A few years down the road, what began with that simple research has now come to full fruition in the wondrous album Gnome Country. Part singer-songwriter exploration, part production wizardry, and every bit an homage to a somewhat-forgotten era of music, the album is striking in such a way that you’ll wonder how all those disparate sounds came out of what was largely a one-man operation by the Atlanta-based musician.

“I started doing a little bit of that production stuff and started recording and got an idea to make a humble, acid-folk record,” Reeves explains of his inspiration for Gnome Country. “Also, I’m a big sci-fi fantasy nerd. I thought it would be really fun to do an album that had those touches, in a tongue-in-cheek way. There was this period from about 1969 through 1972 when all of these British musicians discovered and became fascinated with The Lord of the Rings. I wanted to do something with that influence, kind of an otherworldly, mystical kind of thing.”

“That was the original concept. As I got into it, I was learning how to produce, trying to make the stuff as professional as I could. And I was also mixing it as I went, trying to focus on the songcraft without becoming too overwrought.”

The music drives the bus on this album, as instrumentals like “Dosed” and “And The Clocks Were Striking Thirteen” feature a heady mélange of Eastern-tinged guitars, spy movie keyboards and swaggering rhythm sections that keep the music eternally groovy. Closing track “Gnome Country For Old Men” sounds like the processional music for some very cool yet dangerous Middle Earth regent.

At times, Reeves considered adding lyrics to those instrumentals, but ultimately liked them the way they were. “I thought it would be challenging,” he says of the decision. “I know people love lyrics and I know that’s how some people connect to the music emotionally. I didn’t want to have that. I wanted to challenge myself and the listener. It’s like there’s no added sugar.”

What words there are on the album, found on enchantingly retro folk tunes like “Fiddler’s Bill” and “Sons Of Avalon (The Wind Was On The Weathered Heath),” hew to aphorisms that suggest that listeners (or, perhaps more likely, Reeves himself) keep the ego in check, live for today, and, as Reeves puts it, “Eschew petty bullshit and focus on what really matters.”

While you can hear the influences of trippy rock bands such as Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd and Pretty Things, as well as the echoes of early British folk heroes such as Nick Drake and Bert Jansch, Reeves’ innate originality keeps the music from sounding too indebted to any one source. “I didn’t want it to sound pastiche,” he explains. “I didn’t want it to be mimicry. I wanted it to be loving and influenced by those genres, but I didn’t want it to sound like a tribute band.”

Although Silver People is mostly Reeves playing the instruments and twiddling the knobs, he does get some help from his friends, most notably Nicole Chillemi providing ethereal vocals. She figures on two of the record’s three, out-of-left-field cover tracks: A desolate version of Jackson Frank’s “Milk & Honey” and the strangely compelling “Flower Of Love,” originally by Turkish musician Bariş Manço. A blink-and-you’ll-miss-it take on Twink Alder’s “Gandalf’s Garden,” which opens the album, rounds out the surprising selection of cover material on the album.

As eclectic as the album is, it could have been more so, if someone close to Reeves hadn’t intervened as he tried to include even more of his favorite sounds. Reeves says, “My wife Kimberly said, ‘You’re going to have a 30-song album that’s going to be unwieldy in all different places. I think you need to get back to where you started.’ I pared things down and decided to get back to the original idea.”

Considering the sci-fi leanings on the record, it’s fitting whom Jake Reeves credits for his overriding philosophy on letting these tracks live in all their unkempt glory. “George Lucas said, ‘Art is never completed, it’s abandoned,’” Reeves explains. “So a guiding principle was to not tinker with this thing and turn it into something hyper-produced or obsessively polished. It just wasn’t going to be one of those records.”

Portland, Maine anti-genre act SeepeopleS are preparing to release their sixth LP, the brilliant Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World, on October 7th via frontman Will Bradford's own RascalZRecordZ. Today, SeepeopleS released the latest single from the album, "Lots of People," a pulsing alt-pop track that takes its sonic cues from the 90s electronic scene and lyrically explores the fear of living in an increasingly paranoid world. The accompanying video, created by Jack Powell (Opus Thimble, Hot Mustard) is an evocative depiction of fear and anxiety told through exceptional paper cut-out animation. Earlier this week, "Lots of People" premiered at Beats Per Minute who praised the track, calling it, "An anthem for whatever cause contours to your heart, a walloping rush of sound that blasts away all hesitancy." "Lots of People" is out now.

Will Bradford is worried about the future. For 22 years, Bradford has toured the country as SeepeopleS’ bandleader, songwriter, and producer, bringing his defiant, politically-charged music to the masses, challenging audiences to question the world around them creating a community of misfits hellbent on speaking truth to power. Now, on Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World, Bradford has created an empathetic, emotionally intelligent collection of songs that serve as both a documentation of personal struggle and a companion in a world that seems edging closer to collapse.

“Everything I’ve written for SeepeopleS has been about how our world exists and breaks down around us,” says Bradford. “But if this world, our world, is ending, how do we survive it together?”

SeepeopleS’ music has always been characterized by Bradford’s staunch refusal to abide by genre conventions, and Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World continues in that spirit, though Bradford’s talent and decades of experience have allowed him to blend 90s inspired electro, expressive indie-folk, and avant-garde pop into something musically diverse yet wholly cohesive.

“It’s all about connection,” says Bradford. “I’ve always been making an effort to connect everything and everyone, that’s why there’s no genre for SeepeopleS. This is my one project that I’ll always have where I can incorporate everything I love and say whatever the hell I want.”

Bradford started working on Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World in 2017 and was set to release the album and embark on a 20th anniversary tour in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and suddenly the end of the world seemed closer than ever. With plans for the anniversary indefinitely sidelined, Bradford continued to work on the album and, in an effort to foster a sense of community in isolation, decided to make Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World a collaborative effort. Teaming up with his longtime recording partner Will Holland (Pixies, Dead Can Dance, New Pornographers), Bradford performed more than a handful of instruments on the album, and pulled in a variety of collaborators including saxophonist and bass clarinetist Dana Colley (Morphine, Vapors Of Morphine), drummers Nikki Glaspie (Beyoncé, The Nth Power, Maceo Parker), Jerome Deupree (Morphine), and Dan Capaldi (Sea Level), bassists Ian Riley (Cadaverette) and Nate Edgar (The Nth Power, John Brown’s Body), guitarist Tim Reynolds (Dave Matthews Band), pedal steel guitarist “Cowboy” Eddie Long (Taylor Swift, ZZ Top, The Allman Brothers, Hank Williams Jr.), bassoonist Jason Ward (Rustic Overtones), upright bassist David Yearwood (Forêt Endormie, Snap! Thee Asparagus, HX Kitten), cellist Devon Colella (QUAD) and a murderers’ row of backing vocalists including Brooke Binion (theWorst), Courtney Peare, Griffin Sherry (The Ghost of Paul Revere) Sparxsea, who also performed flute to several tracks on Field Guide.

“One of the few good things about the pandemic was that it was really the first time, as musicians, that everyone had time off the road to reconnect with each other,” says Bradford. “I was so depressed at the time, having my friends come to the rescue and get me pumped about the record again was, creatively, exactly what I needed. Also, in some ways, the convenience of the world ending while we were already making an end of the world album, certainly helped motivate us to follow through on finishing this record, and ultimately, this statement”

“This Dying World,” serves as an overture to the album, a dark experimental-pop meditation on social collapse and anxiety for the future laced with pulsing vocals and expressive strings, setting the stage for both the musical and thematic throughlines that propel Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World. The following track, “Blink,” serves as a counter to the anxiety and impending doom of “This Dying World,” instead offering reassurance that suffering is only temporary.
 
Elsewhere, the shimmering indie-rock of “Path of Least Resistance” perhaps best encapsulates all that Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World stands for as Bradford explores the toll that navigating the pressure of modern life takes on us and while simply trying to find a way to live. Meanwhile, on the muted and shuffling bedroom-pop track “Shame,” Bradford examines the fear and pain of living in a country under constant threat of violence, where safety can not even be guaranteed in schools.
 
“I started writing ‘Shame’ right after Sandy Hook, when my son described the mass shooter drills they do at school,” says Bradford. “It’s all about what it means to be innocent and young and afraid, and how vulnerable to violence we are.”
 
Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World does not so much offer answers for the ills of modern life, as it provides reassurance that no one suffers alone. It is neither a bible nor a roadmap, but a present companion and a shoulder to lean on through trying times.

For Richmond, VA psychedelic rock & roll collective Piranha Rama, there’s always room for more. After their formation in 2017, the genre-bending outfit’s numbers quickly grew, developing a spirit of community that drives their brilliant experimental-pop endeavors. On their exceptional third LP, Omniscient Cloud Cover, Piranha Rama dive headfirst into maximalism with a rotating cast of twelve different players performing eight psych-pop tracks that defy categorization while exploring humanity’s need for connection and the importance of community.

Sonically, Omniscient Cloud Cover runs the gamut from festival-ready indie-pop earworms to big band jazz-tinged psychedelic rock and hazy bedroom-pop, constantly shifting in a way that feels simultaneously meticulous and unpredictable. Though the band plays jump rope with genre-lines, their masterful arrangements and pop finesse keep the songs from ever feeling disjointed.

“This record started during quarantine as an instrumental meditation, stuff to kind of space out to,” says multi-instrumentalist and producer John Sizemore. “Once I brought it to the band, everyone wanted to jump on it and was really excited, so we just decided to see where we could take it.”

The core trio of Piranha Rama—Sizemore, vocalist & lyricist Chrissie Lozano, and drummer Tim Falen—started tracking Omniscient Cloud Cover at Sizemore’s studio, The Bat Grave, while under shelter-in-place orders during the COVID-19 pandemic, utilizing Sizemore’s production prowess as a means to experiment with song structures and sonic landscapes, before eventually relocating to Richmond’s Virginia Moonwalker to finish up recording.

“Doing all of the production in-house was a kind of different approach than what we’d done before,” says Sizemore. “We really took things way farther out in the sonic spectrum than we probably would have if I had just brought these songs to a live practice; there was so much room to experiment.”

“When we went to Moonwalker, instead of doing building-block recording from scratch, we got to focus on layering on top of something that was already mostly done,” adds Falen. “We went at it kinda crazily, it really gave us a fresh perspective on the record.”

In addition to Sizemore, Lozano and Falen’s contributions, Omniscient Cloud Cover also features performances from a cadre of Richmond’s finest including trombone player & vocalist Reggie Pace (Bon Iver, No BS! Brass), trumpet player Bob Miller (The Mountain Goats, Matthew E. White, Foxygen), saxophonist Gordon Jones (Black Masala), pedal steel guitarist Stephen Kuester, twelve-string guitarist Kyle Harris, flutist & vocalist Lauren Serpa, harmonica player & vocalist Russell Lacy—who also co-engineered alongside Sizemore and Falen—and vocalists Kenneka Cook & Kelli Strawbridge.

“Having all these different players in town is great, you can just call people up with an opportunity and they’re like ‘Tell me when and where,’” says Falen. “It’s really non-restrictive, we can kind of do anything.”

Omniscient Cloud Cover opens with the jangly guitars and chiming synthesizers of “Daylight,” a grooving psych-pop track that showcases Lozano’s emotive vocals atop atmospheric swells of pedal steel as she sings an ode to the friendships that make it possible to overcome life’s obstacles. Next, the lilting 60s pop melodies of “A Door” create a hypnotic atmosphere for Lozano’s pensive musings about escaping to alternate realities, inspired in part by Alix E. Harrow’s acclaimed novel The Ten Thousand Doors of January.

“At the start of the pandemic, when I realized I was going to be stuck inside for a while, I bought all the recommended fiction from a local bookstore and became fascinated with the idea of other worlds,” says Lozano. “It became a kind of overarching theme in my writing and really informed a lot of the material on the record.”

Elsewhere on the album, “Golden Blues” finds the band at their most danceable, with prog-inspired guitar riffs and steady backbeat drums punctuated by stings of brass and woodwinds as multiple vocalists explore the paradox of isolation in a hyper-connected world.

“I kept thinking about how odd it feels to be so sad in a time when you’re so removed from everything around you, but you’re also more connected than ever,” says Sizemore. “It’s weird not being able to communicate in the ways you need when you can technically communicate so easily.”

Now, with touring a once-again viable option, Piranha Rama are preparing to bring their musical collective to those across the country. There are multiple tours in the works in the wake of Omniscient Cloud Cover’s release, including dates with 90s indie-rock legends Pavement, whose multi-instrumentalist Bob Nastanovich has championed Piranha Rama for years and who will be releasing Omniscient Cloud Cover on his vinyl-only record label Brokers Tip Records. It’s only a matter of time before Piranha Rama’s community becomes much, much bigger.

From the recent Grammy successes of Jon Batiste and Lost Bayou Ramblers to the explosion of Chapel Hart onto the national stage and the rising chatter around emerging artists Lilli Lewis and Joy Clark, the Americana music of New Orleans-based and  Louisiana-born performers is commanding attention. The Crescent City is exporting  more than the funk and jazz music it’s known for, and the birthplace of America’s music  is ripe with unique Americana voices.

New Orleans-based multi platinum-selling songwriter Jim McCormick says “Americana music is always pushing the boundaries of received definitions of genre.” Grammy and  CMA-nominated McCormick has celebrated three #1 songs on the Billboard Country Airplay chart, placing songs with the likes of Tim McGraw, Keith Urban, Kelly Clarkson,  and Jeff Tweedy. McMormick continues, “...New Orleans music has always done [that],  so today’s sounds of New Orleans are an exciting fit with the rich and textured  multiplicities of the current Americana music world.”

With 11 nominations and five wins (including Best American Roots Performance and  Best American Roots Song), New Orleans native Jon Batiste placed the city on music’s  highest stage. Meanwhile, Chapel Hart hit the Golden Buzzer on America’s Got Talent, earning an invite to the Grand Ole Opry and high praise from country legend Dolly  Parton. A new name earning national acclaim is Joy Clark, whose singing, guitar work,  and songwriting have landed her time in her own spotlight and in that of Allison  Russell’s band currently on tour with Brandi Carlile.

Established Americana artists like Hurray for the Riff Raff and 2022 Americanafest showcasing artists Leyla McCalla and The Deslondes are all touring with exceptional  new albums, as is Lilli Lewis, whose 2021 album titled Americana earned high praise  from Rolling Stone and claimed a Top 10 spot from NPR’s All Songs Considered.

“Americana artists in New Orleans often feel we’re swimming upstream thanks to the  perception that the main thrust of Louisiana music exports centers around funk, trad  jazz, blues, and Mardi Gras music,” says Lewis. “But after spending eight years running  a Louisiana label centered around that, I realized it could all be viewed as Americana with a widened lens. I’m excited that those of us who claim that moniker are forming a  community, and it only makes sense to bring our scene to Nashville.”

Building on recent successes, Lewis—along with artists Jeremy Joyce and Ever More  Nest—are launching “NOLAxNashville,” the first New Orleans-focused showcases  during Americana Fest. Performers include Lewis, Joyce, Ever More Nest, Mia Borders, Lynn Drury, Shawn Williams, and Loose Cattle (fronted by cult-podcaster Kimberly Kaye  and Tony Award-Winner / HBO’s The Gilded Age actor Michael Cerveris).

The diverse lineup shows just how seamlessly New Orleans’ music scene increasingly  integrates intersectional identity. Borders— both a performer and entrepreneur—organized an expansive PrideFest this year that included Lewis, Borders, Ever More Nest and Loose Cattle, all queer-identifying artists. Earlier this spring, Offbeat Magazine highlighted the city’s blooming Americana star power with a feature centered on the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival performances of Lilli Lewis, Joy Clark, and Mia Borders, all black, queer frontwomen.

NOLAxNashville: Crescent City Meets Music City

These shows are open to the public. 

Thursday, September 15, 2022

Vinyl Tap (2038 Greenwood Ave., Nashville, TN 37206) 

1pm – 4pm  

Lilli Lewis 

Ever More Nest 

Lynn Drury 

Shawn Williams 

Loose Cattle 

Jeremy Joyce w/Carolyn Broussard  

Sunday, September 18, 2022 

Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge (102 E. Palestine Ave., Madison, TN 37115)

1pm – 5pm 

Shawn Williams 

Mia Borders 

Lynn Drury 

Jeremy Joyce w/ Carolyn Broussard

Portland, Maine anti-genre act SeepeopleS are gearing up for the release of their sixth LP, Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World, out October 7th via frontman Will Bradford's own RascalZRecordZ. Since announcing the record, SeepeopleS have been steadily releasing singles, and today the group releases their latest, the shimmering indie-rock track, "Path of Least Resistance," on which Bradford explores the toll that navigating the pressure of modern life takes on us and while simply trying to find a way to live. "Path of Least Resistance" is out everywhere today.

Will Bradford is worried about the future. For 22 years, Bradford has toured the country as SeepeopleS’ bandleader, songwriter, and producer, bringing his defiant, politically-charged music to the masses, challenging audiences to question the world around them creating a community of misfits hellbent on speaking truth to power. Now, on Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World, Bradford has created an empathetic, emotionally intelligent collection of songs that serve as both a documentation of personal struggle and a companion in a world that seems edging closer to collapse.

“Everything I’ve written for SeepeopleS has been about how our world exists and breaks down around us,” says Bradford. “But if this world, our world, is ending, how do we survive it together?”

SeepeopleS’ music has always been characterized by Bradford’s staunch refusal to abide by genre conventions, and Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World continues in that spirit, though Bradford’s talent and decades of experience have allowed him to blend 90s inspired electro, expressive indie-folk, and avant-garde pop into something musically diverse yet wholly cohesive.

“It’s all about connection,” says Bradford. “I’ve always been making an effort to connect everything and everyone, that’s why there’s no genre for SeepeopleS. This is my one project that I’ll always have where I can incorporate everything I love and say whatever the hell I want.”

Bradford started working on Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World in 2017 and was set to release the album and embark on a 20th anniversary tour in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and suddenly the end of the world seemed closer than ever. With plans for the anniversary indefinitely sidelined, Bradford continued to work on the album and, in an effort to foster a sense of community in isolation, decided to make Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World a collaborative effort. Teaming up with his longtime recording partner Will Holland (Pixies, Dead Can Dance, New Pornographers), Bradford performed more than a handful of instruments on the album, and pulled in a variety of collaborators including saxophonist and bass clarinetist Dana Colley (Morphine, Vapors Of Morphine), drummers Nikki Glaspie (Beyoncé, The Nth Power, Maceo Parker), Jerome Deupree (Morphine), and Dan Capaldi (Sea Level), bassists Ian Riley (Cadaverette) and Nate Edgar (The Nth Power, John Brown’s Body), guitarist Tim Reynolds (Dave Matthews Band), pedal steel guitarist “Cowboy” Eddie Long (Taylor Swift, ZZ Top, The Allman Brothers, Hank Williams Jr.), bassoonist Jason Ward (Rustic Overtones), upright bassist David Yearwood (Forêt Endormie, Snap! Thee Asparagus, HX Kitten), cellist Devon Colella (QUAD) and a murderers’ row of backing vocalists including Brooke Binion (theWorst), Courtney Peare, Griffin Sherry (The Ghost of Paul Revere) Sparxsea, who also performed flute to several tracks on Field Guide.

“One of the few good things about the pandemic was that it was really the first time, as musicians, that everyone had time off the road to reconnect with each other,” says Bradford. “I was so depressed at the time, having my friends come to the rescue and get me pumped about the record again was, creatively, exactly what I needed. Also, in some ways, the convenience of the world ending while we were already making an end of the world album, certainly helped motivate us to follow through on finishing this record, and ultimately, this statement”

“This Dying World,” serves as an overture to the album, a dark experimental-pop meditation on social collapse and anxiety for the future laced with pulsing vocals and expressive strings, setting the stage for both the musical and thematic throughlines that propel Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World. The following track, “Blink,” serves as a counter to the anxiety and impending doom of “This Dying World,” instead offering reassurance that suffering is only temporary.

Elsewhere, on the muted and shuffling bedroom-pop track “Shame,” Bradford examines the fear and pain of living in a country under constant threat of violence, where safety can not even be guaranteed in schools.

“I started writing ‘Shame’ right after Sandy Hook, when my son described the mass shooter drills they do at school,” says Bradford. “It’s all about what it means to be innocent and young and afraid, and how vulnerable to violence we are.”

Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World does not so much offer answers for the ills of modern life, as it provides reassurance that no one suffers alone. It is neither a bible nor a roadmap, but a present companion and a shoulder to lean on through trying times.

There’s a lot of power in not taking yourself too seriously. On Used To Be The Next Big Thing, the sophomore LP from Northern Vermont Americana/roots-rock act Maple Run Band, vocalist/songwriter & multi-instrumentalist Trevor Crist spins yarns of lost love, shattered dreams, and lost potential with a wry wit and a tongue-in-cheek lyricism that would make John Prine proud. The stories Crist pens rarely come with happy endings, but there’s an intangible glimmer of positivity that radiates throughout the album, keeping the mood from ever getting too dour. “Nowadays it feels like you have to either be super earnest, or be a novelty act,” says Crist. “But guys like Roger Miller and Buck Owens, and John Prine nailed that middle ground. I wanted to really explore that middle ground with these stories.”
 
Used To Be The Next Big Thing is a ten-track collection of Americana vignettes that primarily highlight Crist’s evocative lyricism and storytelling prowess. Rather than acting as a confessional, the album serves as a work of fiction, a collection of short stories about the average everyday woes that wear us down as we progress through life, but with a playful irreverence that reinforces the idea that things just might be okay in the end. Vocalist and drummer Nicole Valcour takes the wheel on a few songs as well, with her expressive but ambiguous lyricism playing the foil to Crist’s direct storytelling style and giving the album a sense of balance.
 
To record their sophomore LP, Maple Run Band—comprised of Crist, Valcour, guitarist Bill Mullins, and bassist John Spencer—retreated to Crist’s home studio in Northern Vermont, hunkering down through the Winter to arrange and track the album, with Crist acting as the primary producer. The band then brought in their longtime collaborator Joe Egan to mix the album, as well as Grammy Award winning mastering engineer Emily Lazar (Beck, Haim, Foo Fighters) to put on the finishing touches. To round out the record, Crist and Valcour tapped banjo player David Kammerer and cellist Nelson Caldwell, their former bandmates in the ‘90s alt-country band Construction Joe. “Recording at home, and producing everything ourselves, is perfect for us because we have all the time in the world and a ton of freedom,” says Crist. “We’ve got the time, we’ve got the gear, and Joe [Egan] is really collaborative with us on the mixes. We knew what we wanted and how we wanted it to sound when it was complete, and we knew we had the right people for the engineering and mastering to help us get to that point.”
 
Used To Be The Next Big Thing follows Maple Run Band’s debut self-titled LP, released in July 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. With no option to tour in support of the album, Crist decided to take the time to branch out and experiment with new instruments and genres, which would ultimately come to shape the overall sound of their sophomore effort. “Over the lockdown portion of the pandemic, I really spent a lot of time playing the Rhodes piano and the Hammond organ,” says Crist. “Our first album was very acoustic guitar driven, but this one was really built on keyboards. We wanted to really tap into that retro-vintage country sound, but produce it almost like a 70s soft-rock album.”
 
Used To Be The Next Big Thing opens with its title track, a driving, jangly roots-rock ripper about a Nashville musician on the brink of success that never comes, an expertly woven tale of the tragedy that occurs when the commodification of art takes the place of expression. From there, the record moves to the stripped-down acoustic country ballad “Loretta,” a eulogy for a lost companion inspired by The Louvin Brothers and Billy Joe Shaver that showcases Crist’s ability to blend genuine emotional expression with clever witticisms.
 
Elsewhere on the album, such as on the honky-tonk piano-led “Tears of a Fool,” Crist channels artists like Ray Price and Roger Miller to create a classic country barroom shuffle about regret and self-loathing. Occasionally, Maple Run Band do wade into the pool of sincerity, like on the album’s sweeping, seven and a half minute long closer, “Sunny Day,” which finds Crist singing in earnest about the need for support through dark days and belief in a brighter future. “‘Sunny Day’ was the quintessential pandemic song,” says Crist. “I literally wrote it to make myself feel better and to be like, ‘This shit is going to be over someday…right?’ But even with that, I wanted to write it more from the perspective of a character, not just my own perspective.”
 
Much of Used To Be The Next Big Thing is buoyed by Crist’s ability to create three-dimensional characters and rich, emotional narratives in just a few words. Each song stands on its own as a narrative poem, rather than as a chapter in a novel, and the characters in each are developed to help explore different perspectives and experiences through fiction. “Most of the songwriters that influence me typically aren’t confessional,” says Crist. “So as a result, I’m almost never the protagonist of my writing. I always try to find the voice of the character and let them speak in the song. Our last album had a number of storytelling songs but that were based on actual experiences or places that I’d been, but for this one I wanted to push it to be pure fiction.”
 
In the years since Crist and Valcour stepped away from Construction Joe, they’ve continued to hone their craft, pushing their songwriting to new heights and, with Used To Be The Next Big Thing, setting up Maple Run Band to be the next big thing once again.

Will Bradford is worried about the future. For 22 years, Bradford has toured the country as SeepeopleS’ bandleader, songwriter, and producer, bringing his defiant, politically-charged music to the masses, challenging audiences to question the world around them creating a community of misfits hellbent on speaking truth to power. Now, on SeepeopleS’ brilliant sixth LP, Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World, Bradford has created an empathetic, emotionally intelligent collection of songs that serve as both a documentation of personal struggle and a companion in a world that seems edging closer to collapse.

“Everything I’ve written for SeepeopleS has been about how our world exists and breaks down around us,” says Bradford. “But if this world, our world, is ending, how do we survive it together?”

SeepeopleS’ music has always been characterized by Bradford’s staunch refusal to abide by genre conventions, and Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World continues in that spirit, though Bradford’s talent and decades of experience have allowed him to blend 90s inspired electro, expressive indie-folk, and avant-garde pop into something musically diverse yet wholly cohesive.

“It’s all about connection,” says Bradford. “I’ve always been making an effort to connect everything and everyone, that’s why there’s no genre for SeepeopleS. This is my one project that I’ll always have where I can incorporate everything I love and say whatever the hell I want.”

Bradford started working on Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World in 2017 and was set to release the album and embark on a 20th anniversary tour in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and suddenly the end of the world seemed closer than ever. With plans for the anniversary indefinitely sidelined, Bradford continued to work on the album and, in an effort to foster a sense of community in isolation, decided to make Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World a collaborative effort. Teaming up with his longtime recording partner Will Holland (Pixies, Dead Can Dance, New Pornographers), Bradford performed more than a handful of instruments on the album, and pulled in a variety of collaborators including saxophonist and bass clarinetist Dana Colley (Morphine, Vapors Of Morphine), drummers Nikki Glaspie (Beyoncé, The Nth Power, Maceo Parker), Jerome Deupree (Morphine), and Dan Capaldi (Sea Level), bassists Ian Riley (Cadaverette) and Nate Edgar (The Nth Power, John Brown’s Body), guitarist Tim Reynolds (Dave Matthews Band), pedal steel guitarist “Cowboy” Eddie Long (Taylor Swift, ZZ Top, The Allman Brothers, Hank Williams Jr.), bassoonist Jason Ward (Rustic Overtones), upright bassist David Yearwood (Forêt Endormie, Snap! Thee Asparagus, HX Kitten), cellist Devon Colella (QUAD) and a murderers’ row of backing vocalists including Brooke Binion (theWorst), Courtney Peare, Griffin Sherry (The Ghost of Paul Revere) Sparxsea, who also performed flute to several tracks on Field Guide.

“One of the few good things about the pandemic was that it was really the first time, as musicians, that everyone had time off the road to reconnect with each other,” says Bradford. “I was so depressed at the time, having my friends come to the rescue and get me pumped about the record again was, creatively, exactly what I needed. Also, in some ways, the convenience of the world ending while we were already making an end of the world album, certainly helped motivate us to follow through on finishing this record, and ultimately, this statement”

“This Dying World,” serves as an overture to the album, a dark experimental-pop meditation on social collapse and anxiety for the future laced with pulsing vocals and expressive strings, setting the stage for both the musical and thematic throughlines that propel Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World. The following track, “Blink,” serves as a counter to the anxiety and impending doom of “This Dying World,” instead offering reassurance that suffering is only temporary.

Elsewhere, the shimmering indie-rock of “Path of Least Resistance” perhaps best encapsulates all that Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World stands for as Bradford explores the toll that navigating the pressure of modern life takes on us and while simply trying to find a way to live. Meanwhile, on the muted and shuffling bedroom-pop track “Shame,” Bradford examines the fear and pain of living in a country under constant threat of violence, where safety can not even be guaranteed in schools.

“I started writing ‘Shame’ right after Sandy Hook, when my son described the mass shooter drills they do at school,” says Bradford. “It’s all about what it means to be innocent and young and afraid, and how vulnerable to violence we are.”

Field Guide For Survival In This Dying World does not so much offer answers for the ills of modern life, as it provides reassurance that no one suffers alone. It is neither a bible nor a roadmap, but a present companion and a shoulder to lean on through trying times.
 
Tour Dates:
9/22 O'Briens - Boston, MA
9/23 Funk N' Waffles - Syracuse, NY
10/19 Volcanic Theatre Pub - Bend, OR
10/20 Mission Theater - Portland, OR
10/21 Substation - Seattle, WA
10/22 John Henry's - Eugene, OR
10/23 Local 31 - Ashland, OR
10/24 Sirensong - Eureka, CA
10/25 Bottom Of The Hill - San Francisco, CA
10/26 Frog & Peach - San Luis Obispo, CA
10/27 Winston's - San Diego, CA
10/28 Harvelle's - Santa Monica, CA
10/29 Cactus Jack's - Phoenix, AZ
10/31 House Of Bards - Tucson, AZ
11/3 Ponyboy - Oklahoma CIty, OK
11/4 TBA
11/5 The Pershing (Private) - Austin, TX
11/7 Preservation Pub -  Knoxville, TN
12/9 Webster Hall - New York, NY
12/10 Deep Dive - Ithaca, NY
12/31 Bayside Bowl - Portland, ME

From his Austrian Alps forest home, Americana songsmith Prinz Grizzley is releasing a series of singles leading into 2023. These songs of finding hope, revenge and eventually serenity will make you look for your own secluded mountain town to settle down in, get drinks with friends and maybe even start a family.

Chris Comper doesn’t overthink it when it comes to changing up genres in the music he releases via his alter ego Prinz Grizzley. “It’s all about the songs,” the Austrian musician explains. “I like writing songs. It’s just which dress you put on them. If it works on acoustic guitar, it’s a good song, and if it doesn’t work on acoustic guitar, it’s a shit song. And then when you go into production, if there’s a synthesizer or pedal steel, if the song asks for it, give it to him.”

It’s an ethos that’s served Comper well throughout his career, which included indie-rock success with his band Golden Reef and a brief foray into synth-pop. As Prinz Grizzley, he veered into the Americana lane with two critically-acclaimed albums that lead to playing festivals around the world, recording with Erin Rae, and sharing bills with folks like Yola, Tyler Childers, Molly Tuttle, Charley Crockett and many more.

His new original singles, “I Keep On Searching” and “Payback Day (I’ll Give No Warning)," barrel ahead with bluesy abandon. Coupled with a doleful take on the CCR classic “Proud Mary,” the songs represent another new direction taken by Comper, albeit with the same authenticity in place.

“The most honest music I’ve made,” Comper says to sum up what separates his Prinz Grizzley output from past records. “I’m not interested in ‘What’s the single?’ I don’t care. It’s just that’s my record, do with it what you want. I’m glad it’s turned out this way.”

For the new singles, Comper did a bit of archaeology, digging through past recordings he had made as far as eight years back and stumbling upon a pair of firecracker tracks he had completed with bassist Claude Meier and drummer Andy Wettstein. “I Keep On Searching” kicks off with a siren-like riff and doesn’t stop to take a breath, as Comper wails and whoops over a four-on-the-floor beat. “You keep looking for something, and when you’ve got it, it’s not quite as you imagined it,” Comper says. “Maybe you’re playing with the idea of giving up looking for happiness, contentment or what feels like unreachable dreams, because it might be easier to just leave it.”

“Payback Day (I’ll Give No Warning),” a vintage blues-rock banger with honkytonk, roadhouse bar fight vibes, keeps up the momentum as the narrator drinks and plots his revenge. As was the case with “I Keep On Searching,” Comper only had to do a few touch-ups to what was already on tape to ready the track for release. He’s learned the hard way about dismissing unfinished material. “I used to just write tons of songs and I never finished them,” he says about his days with Golden Reef. “When you give it a second look, sometimes it’s a great song.”

As much as “Proud Mary” has been covered, Prinz Grizzley’s version, featuring his lovely banjo work, coaxes wistful beauty out of it anew. It captures what Comper hears in the protagonist’s plight: “Having hope and having no hope at the same time.”

Comper, a longtime Creedence fan, found inspiration for his take in a YouTube video of John Fogerty playing a solo concert while at odds with his former band. “I thought he looked really cool, like ‘I don’t give a fuck, I have enough hit singles, just leave me be,’ Comper explains. “My version is like John Fogerty at 40 when he had a lot of lawsuits against him and was depressed. Maybe if he would have played the song then, that’s how I think it might have sounded.”

Comper cites Sturgill Simpson as an influence, particularly in his willingness to keep changing things up, even at the risk of defying audience expectations. “What shall I change to make it interesting to me again?” is how he approached the new singles. “With these releases, it’s a bit to show another side of me.”

Comper will be back in the studio shortly to complete the follow-up to his first two Prinz Grizzley albums, 2018’s Come On In and 2020’s To My Green Mountains Home. In fact, he says that the new record will complete his trilogy.

“A trilogy,” Comper laughs. “It’s out of fashion now, but when I started it, it was just fucking in fashion.”

Los Angeles folk & roots outfit Diane Hubka & The Sun Canyon Band releases new single "Baton Rouge," out today. Hubka's charming vocals lure you into dancing along to this feel-good Guy Clark cover. It's like a sunny walk through a swampy town in this song about picking up your life and starting somewhere new. Something we can all relate to in this post-covid world. New Orleans-born drummer Lynn Coulter (Leon Russell, Carole King, Rita Coolidge) takes zydeco and african beats and melds them with legendary guitarist Albert Lee's (Emmylou Harris, Eric Clapton, The Everly Brothers) one-of-a-kind guitar sounds.
 
Their debut album You Never Can Tell (out Jan. 20) dances from '60s folk, delta blues and lilting ballads to Texas swing and heartland country rock. Co-producer/arranger and bassist Chad Watson (Ronnie Milsap, The Burrito Brothers, Janis lan) brings together Hubka's honey-toned vocals and rhythm guitar, Rick Mayock's melodic vocals and expressive guitar work and Albert Lee's exceptional mandolin picking and standout guitar prowess.

Hubka is known across the country as a jazz artist. She fell for the style in college while taking guitar lessons from “a jazz guy,” she said. That’s where she first heard influential vocalist Carmen McRae sing. “I knew then I had to be a jazz singer.” Hubka said.

She moved to Washington D.C., where she soaked in the city’s jazz scene, and then to New York City, where she studied voice, piano and guitar, received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and became an integral part of the city’s jazz scene for two decades.

“I really do believe in on-the-job training when it comes to music,” she said. “There's something about playing in front of an audience that’s so rewarding. It ups your game.”

Hubka recorded three albums in the Big Apple, including one with legendary saxophonist Lee Konitz, before moving to Los Angeles in 2005, where she recorded three more albums, and even made it big in Japan, touring the country multiple times.

In early 2017, however, everything changed. Upset by the outcome of the U.S. Presidential election, Hubka turned away from a lifetime of jazz and went in a new direction – one that just felt right.

“I wanted to sing protest songs, and union songs,” she said. “And I think I was just ready to try something different. After all those years playing jazz, I suddenly felt a calling to get back to my acoustic and folk roots.”

Before her time in D.C., NYC and L.A., Hubka grew up in the Appalachian mountains of Western Maryland. A child of the ‘60s folk revival, with a mother who sang in a folk group, she was a big fan of Peter, Paul & Mary, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. So she tapped into those roots, bought an acoustic guitar and started performing her new Americana repertoire at a coffee shop a couple blocks from the Pacific Ocean.

Five years later, Hubka and her Sun Canyon Band are releasing their debut album You Never Can Tell, a sprightly and seamless blend of breezy Americana, Western swing and California folk-pop that recalls the work of ‘70s country-rock icons Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris. The album is split between originals (written by Hubka and Mayock) and covers of classics by artists like Bob Dylan, Randy Newman, Chuck Berry and Guy Clark, and it features the playing of legendary English guitarist and mandolinist Albert Lee, best known for his work with Harris, The Everly Brothers and Eric Clapton.

“I’m happy to pay homage to this great American music that I love, while putting my own spin on it,” Hubka said. “I like bringing life to songs that I think are great.”

You can hear her and the Sun Canyon Band doing exactly that on tracks like Guy Clark’s “Baton Rouge,” dressing it up with kitchen-sink percussion and Zydeco vibes, or “Albuquerque,” an instantly hummable ode to clean air and small-town life. Written by Rob Carlson, it’s a Western swing song that gives Hubka plenty of space to flex her jazz chops.

Similarly, the band seems to comfortably inhabit “Shady Grove,” steering the traditional song into a deeply rooted groove. “We did it more like the Grateful Dead version, rather than the Doc Watson version,” Hubka said. “It’s fun to take bits of inspiration from everywhere and come up with my own.”

The most affecting song on You Never Can Tell, however, may just be Hubka’s original, “Home,” which uses images of blue skies, lush fields and rolling hills to evoke the personal freedom and warm memories of her Appalachian home. It’s a sweet, easygoing folk song that spotlights Hubka’s talent for drawing beauty from simplicity.

“I get my spirituality through nature, and ‘Home’ is about leaving the city and getting back to nature,” she said. “It’s about the simple values that I grew up with in the ‘60s & '70s– anti-commercialism, anti-materialism. I’m inspired by those values and I feel them coming out in this music.”

Now, it’s time for Hubka and her band to share that music with others. They’re planning to play live as much as possible, both at conferences and on tours of the West coast, with an eye toward recording and releasing more music soon.

Making You Never Can Tell, Hubka said, has freed her up to rediscover her musical roots and reconnect with the sound that resonates deep within her soul.

“I’m a stronger singer now. I’m more physically and emotionally connected to these songs. And, I’m a more mature musician because of this project,” she said. “It’s been an important part of my journey to completely reinvent myself!”

Bellingham, Wash. folk duo Raveis Kole released their new meditative psychedelic-folk single “Glacier,” a treatise on climate change and the shrinking glaciers. Written after a trip to Glacier National Park, this droning and ethereal journey to the top of Logan's Pass is about contemplating ourselves, our world and the glacier itself. The song is a visceral and elegant experience as it lyrical paints an emotional picture of a beautiful vista of our changing world.
 
Raveis Kole have charted on Billboard, participated in Folk Alliance and AmericanaFest, shared bills with Justin Townes Earle, The Wailers, Cory Henry, and more. "So Nice" is the first single off of their upcoming LP, In the Moment (out Apr. 28), an album about being present, not taking life for granted, and making loving connections with yourself, others and our planet.

Laurie Raveis and Dennis Kole met by jamming together at a music festival in Montana a decade ago. So it made perfect sense that the pair, now married and comprising the singing-songwriting duo Raveis Kole, should get back to the simplicity of playing and singing together on their effortlessly engaging new album In the Moment.

Playing everything on the album themselves, the duo worked with producer Matt Smith in Austin to add texture through instrumental experimentation—embellishing their songs with banjo, ukulele, lap steel, harp guitar, cavaquinho, tambourine, shakers and foot drums. They whistle and mimic horns with their voices to up the colorful ante.

“It’s exciting for the two of us to create this full sound,” Raveis explains. “It’s a challenge to be able to do all these things, to bring in different colors, textures and harmonies to create the right vibe for the lyrics and still be locked in."

Penning pandemic-inspired tunes started to lose its luster for Raveis Kole. “The times are what they are,” says Kole, “but we didn’t want to focus on feelings of loss and isolation; and we wanted to go back to celebrating other people, instead of looking at them as potential disease vectors,” Kole jokes. “Let’s celebrate the importance of other people in our lives, that feeling of being connected to something bigger than yourself.”
 
The pair decided to create the rhythmic pulse with their acoustic guitars instead of with traditional bass and drums. “The thought was let’s make it more vulnerable, more intimate, less about big production,” Kole says. “Let’s make it about us two. What would it sound like if you came to see us at a concert or event? Sort of the stripped-down version of things. This album, as a whole, is our most authentic, unfiltered, intimate work to date. We are out there exposed. We aren’t relying on session musicians to come out there and give us protection.”

Raveis Kole also kept things lively on In the Moment, their second full-length LP, by changing up styles and moods from song to song. There’s a light-hearted feel to songs like “Sticky and Sweet,” which harkens back to acts like The Roches with its whimsical lyrics juxtaposed against earnest music, and “Kismet,” which might be the funniest duet to celebrate marriage since John Prine & Iris DeMent’s “In Spite Of Ourselves."
 
Raveis Kole can turn on a dime from cute jokes to moments of breathtaking beauty. “So Nice,” with its soaring melody and gorgeous harmonies, was inspired by a performance the duo did shortly after the pandemic shutdown ended and the gratitude they received from that crowd.

"I couldn’t help but reflect on the simplicities of life unfolding,” Raveis says, “that sense of expanded joy because people hadn’t been able to participate fully in life and were almost glowing with excitement to be out, to be together, enjoying live music."

Their scenic hometown of Bellingham, Washington seeped into the songs as well. “Everything here is on a grander level and it’s quite stunning,” Raveis says. “The connection with nature helps ground you and helps you appreciate the present moment, which does flow through many of our songs. That theme of loving connection, of being present and willing to pause and think openly by paying attention, opens up a potpourri of inspirations and seeds the feelings of being a part of something greater than yourself, something shared and universal."

If you listen to Raveis Kole long enough, you might start to feel your own kinship with both nature and other human beings intensified, which is the goal. “While it’s fun to see your name on a Billboard chart, at the end of the day, it’s there and it’s gone and just a nice memory,” Kole says. “What really satisfies me, and the whole reason I got into music in the first place, is that it helps me feel connected to other people. I love music. Music satisfies my desire to be creative and stimulated and challenged, and also gives me the chance to meet other people. Evidence of that was I met Laurie and we connected.”

When the key-changing, boisterous sing-along “Wherever You Go” fades out at the end of In the Moment, don’t be surprised if you feel like you’ve heard something truly unique that stands out in a musical landscape full of derivatives. Kole sums it up best: “We try to be the best version of ourselves and not the second-best version of somebody else.”

Americana literary songsmith Karen Jonas’s sixth LP, The Restless (out Mar. 3), is a dark alt-country exploration of vulnerability. Each song is a confession that lands somewhere between nostalgia and doom. This mix of playful longing and earnest heartbreak crescendos into B-side opener “Rock the Boat,” which leaves Jonas prepared to walk straight into a river. The Restless is a visceral experience: you can feel the “lace and velvet” and taste “the bite of bourbon” on your lover’s tongue.

“The record tells a story, but it isn’t linear,” Jonas says. “There are throughlines: this collection of dreamy, raw, romantic, and ill-fated stories. It’s important to me that the songs don’t judge the stories, they just dig in, leaving you to draw your own conclusions.”

Album opener “Paris Breeze” sets the tone with a mysterious tryst in a Parisian hotel: “it grows suffocating here with you near enough to touch me in the bedsheets / we’re breathing lavender and jasmine and the dust that’s fallen off of some great painting.” There’s desire in the magic of the city, and throughout the record.

The Restless invites us into a new world with each song, weaving between cursed magic and the throes of star-crossed love. Delightfully twangy, “The Breakdown” finds Jonas in a grocery store, in the midst of an inconvenient infatuation. Jonas croons, “this morning out shopping I saw your ex-wife / but I’m not even sure what she looks like / so just to be careful I hid in the frozen food aisle / and I guess I don’t know how you left it with her / but I assume you went through with the divorce / now she’s buying waffles and I’m looking for dessert.”

Provocative piano rocker “Lay Me Down” invites us into an intimate moment. Over wailing guitar solos, Jonas chooses love despite her awareness of what’s to come: “This isn’t gonna be a casual romance,” Jonas sings, “it’s gonna be heartbreak / but maybe lay me down / oh baby / see what I can take / I’m just a little nervous to love you / but I want to anyway.”

With “Elegantly Wasted” she’s come up with an intoxicating midnight lullaby, set again in Paris, followed by the foot-tapping, honky tonk wit of “That’s Not My Dream Couch.” Adorable and with a gauzy echo, “Forever” should be the first dance at every wedding this year or added to the next playlist you send to your lover.

There’s a brazenness to key track “Rock the Boat,” haunted by sound fog and tumultuous percussion. Its snarling drama feels as reckless as an old murder ballad, but it’s more slogging than a shootout. “Sometimes it’s hard to unpack where the narrator and I begin and end,” Jonas reflects.

There is a deceptively upbeat melody in “Drunken Dreamer,” written in the aftermath of Justin Townes Earle’s death, a sympathetic song that continues Jonas’s theme of doomed dreamers. The breathless “We Could Be Lovers” combines Joni Mitchell’s charm with Al Green levels of sensuality.

The late-night country dobro and snap of “Throw Me To The Wolves” brings closure and acceptance as the last official track of the record. “So throw me to the wolves then / go find someone new / the stars always said / I wasn’t meant for you,” Jonas sings.

Together with her band – the core being long-time guitarist and musical partner Tim Bray, bassist and co-producer Seth Morrissey, drummer Seth Brown, plus multi-instrumentalist Jay Starling – Jonas set out to create a sound that was more dense, organic, and layered than her previous records. They worked at Cue Recording Studios in Falls Church, Virginia across almost eight months while continuing to play a grueling schedule of live shows, including their first European tour.

“I’m glad we took our time on this record,” says Jonas “I needed to listen and reflect. Last year I wrote a book of poems called Gumballs with the help of my best friend, editor and lyrical co-writer Andie Burke. It was cathartic and confessional, and I wanted to bring that energy to this album. Andie, Seth Morrissey and I worked as a team to get comfortable with these stories and bring them to life.”

Jonas’s fate was determined when her father played Joni Mitchell’s Miles of Aisles at her childhood home in Damascus, Maryland. “I was 16. I remember sitting next to the turntable and thinking, ‘I don’t really know what she’s doing, but whatever it is, I want to do that.’ I got a guitar and I’ve been trying ever since.” She moved to Fredericksburg, Virginia after graduating from the University of Maryland with a degree in English.

Jonas and her band tour non-stop. They were awarded Best Country/Americana artist by the Washington (DC) Area Music Awards three times, featured at SXSW and UK Americanafest, and nominated for an Ameripolitan Award.

This album ends with a bonus: an intimate revisiting of “Lay Me Down.” After the final chord dies, Jonas says, “okay, I’m happy now.”  It was said as a throwaway line when leaving the studio, but it feels extremely apt to conclude the seductive and foreboding The Restless with that sentiment of hope.

Nashville Americana singer-songwriter and virtuosic guitarist Jax Hollow manages to refine the heavier, rock ‘n’ roll machismo of previous work with producer Michael Wagener (Metallica, Mötley Crü), distilling a more distinctive sound that yields progressive Southern rock and country twang, as well as expert songwriting on her sophomore album Only the Wild Ones (out May 5). Hollow has been featured on Lightning 100’s “Artist of the Week” and opened for Peter Karp (Mick Taylor, Sue Foley)  and Marco Mendoza (Thin Lizzy) on her 2022 European tour.

Recorded at The Sound Emporium and Music Row’s Sienna Studios with some of Nashville’s finest musicians, Only The Wild Ones’ lineup consists of drummer Matt King (Maren Morris, Brothers Osborne), bassist Lex Price (k.d. lang, Miranda Lambert) and Tim Galloway (Joshua Hedley, Cody Johnson) on rhythm guitar and banjo. “What an incredible experience, in one of the best studios in the world. Juanita Copeland pulled me aside, telling me stories of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’ session in there, and then next thing I know she’s introducing me to Jason Isbell in the break room. I was over the moon.”

Still high on all the excitement and positive output from the sessions, Hollow took the next logical step: “I headed to the Smoky Mountains to camp out for a little while, and that’s where I landed on Only the Wild Ones,” says Hollow. “I wasn’t planning on naming the record after my song, but the title just clicked. There’s radical freedom when you’re trying to make it as an independent artist. It’s a bit feral. Sleeping under the stars, hopping from town to town… there were so many highs and lows to dive into artistically.”

Hollow’s sense of adventure and exponential growth as a songwriter show up in spades on Only the Wild Ones, spanning from rollicking country and scorching guitar solos (i.e. “Ethereal Emerald” & “Renegade Season”) to shimmering folk pop balladry in “Stepping Stone” and “Wallflower Girl In Bloom." Though there’s a warmth to the album, with Hollow’s crisp guitar tones, bright and crackling, there are undertones of darker notes, where the artist dives into life on the road. “Everyone’s experienced seismic life changes since 2020,” says Hollow.

“Wolf in Sheepskin'' is a fine example, with an undercurrent of something more sinister to this sentiment brewing in the chorus: “Sunrise, waking up with my .45,” sings Hollow. “There’s a beautiful numbness in the midst of chaos,” she adds. "Like the scenes in movies where everyone is frantically running around, while the camera zooms in on the main character, ears ringing and silent, lost in thought.” The grim reality of the lonely existence that comes with perpetual touring is not lost on Hollow - who performs on commercial cruise ships without a permanent residence. The artist makes light of personal affronts (“I’m too feral for your heart / It’s just a waste of time”) and then leans into a more cathartic proclamation, belting, “I’m better sleeping alone!”

Hollow’s tenacity and unrelenting journey as a songwriter continues on “Wallflower Girl in Bloom.” The percussive energy of Hollow’s acoustic guitar work and Galloway’s tuneful banjo underscore the beauty of witnessing a loved one's transformation. “The essence of that song is being so excited about seeing somebody come into who they’re meant to be. Witness, watch, and you just wanna bask in that glow,” says Hollow.

Jax Hollow proves she’s not just a shredder, but a damn strong songwriter, too. An artist who truly takes life as it comes, Hollow is a conscious rambler on Only the Wild Ones, in an ongoing quest for authenticity and true-to-form artistry. Look no further for evidence than the accompanying visuals for “Wolf in Sheepskin” - where Hollow can be found donning a wolf hat and happily shedding all her soul-baring truths - and “Wallflower Girl in Bloom,” shot in Arizona beneath the fresh blue sky, and grounded by cacti and mountains, as Hollow stomps with snakeskin boots and undeniable expressiveness. One thing that will always be at the forefront for Jax Hollow is the undeniable power of a song.

As the Only the Wild Things comes to a close, Hollow gets self-referential: “The Colt in the pasture, intrepid, untamed / A thundering heart’s gotta take on the reins.”

Bellingham, Wash. folk duo Raveis Kole have charted on Billboard, participated in Folk Alliance and AmericanaFest, shared bills with Justin Townes Earle, The Wailers, Cory Henry, and more, and today they release their new LP In the Moment (out Apr. 28), an album about being present, not taking life for granted, and making loving connections with yourself, others and our planet.

Laurie Raveis and Dennis Kole met by jamming together at a music festival in Montana a decade ago. So it made perfect sense that the pair, now married and comprising the singing-songwriting duo Raveis Kole, should get back to the simplicity of playing and singing together on their loving and enchanting new album In the Moment.

Playing everything on the album themselves, the duo worked with producer Matt Smith in Austin to add texture through instrumental experimentation—embellishing their songs with banjo, ukulele, lap steel, harp guitar, cavaquinho, tambourine, shakers and foot drums. They whistle and mimic horns with their voices to up the colorful ante.

“It’s exciting for the two of us to create this full sound,” Raveis explains. “It’s a challenge to be able to do all these things, to bring in different colors, textures and harmonies to create the right vibe for the lyrics and still be locked in."

Penning pandemic-inspired tunes started to lose its luster for Raveis Kole. “The times are what they are,” says Kole, “but we didn’t want to focus on feelings of loss and isolation; and we wanted to go back to celebrating other people, instead of looking at them as potential disease vectors,” Kole jokes. “Let’s celebrate the importance of other people in our lives, that feeling of being connected to something bigger than yourself.”
 
The pair decided to create the rhythmic pulse with their acoustic guitars instead of with traditional bass and drums. “The thought was let’s make it more vulnerable, more intimate, less about big production,” Kole says. “Let’s make it about us two. What would it sound like if you came to see us at a concert or event? Sort of the stripped-down version of things. This album, as a whole, is our most authentic, unfiltered, intimate work to date. We are out there exposed. We aren’t relying on session musicians to come out there and give us protection.”

Raveis Kole also kept things lively on In the Moment, their second full-length LP, by changing up styles and moods from song to song. There’s a light-hearted feel to songs like “Sticky and Sweet,” which harkens back to acts like The Roches with its whimsical lyrics juxtaposed against earnest music, and “Kismet,” which might be the funniest duet to celebrate marriage since John Prine & Iris DeMent’s “In Spite Of Ourselves."
 
”Raveis Kole can turn on a dime from cute jokes to moments of breathtaking beauty. “So Nice,” with its soaring melody and gorgeous harmonies, was inspired by a performance the duo did shortly after the pandemic shutdown ended and the gratitude they received from that crowd.

"I couldn’t help but reflect on the simplicities of life unfolding,” Raveis says, “that sense of expanded joy because people hadn’t been able to participate fully in life and were almost glowing with excitement to be out, to be together, enjoying live music."

Their scenic hometown of Bellingham, Washington seeped into the songs as well. “Everything here is on a grander level and it’s quite stunning,” Raveis says. “The connection with nature helps ground you and helps you appreciate the present moment, which does flow through many of our songs. That theme of loving connection, of being present and willing to pause and think openly by paying attention, opens up a potpourri of inspirations and seeds the feelings of being a part of something greater than yourself, something shared and universal."

If you listen to Raveis Kole long enough, you might start to feel your own kinship with both nature and other human beings intensified, which is the goal. “While it’s fun to see your name on a Billboard chart, at the end of the day, it’s there and it’s gone and just a nice memory,” Kole says. “What really satisfies me, and the whole reason I got into music in the first place, is that it helps me feel connected to other people. I love music. Music satisfies my desire to be creative and stimulated and challenged, and also gives me the chance to meet other people. Evidence of that was I met Laurie and we connected.”

When the key-changing, boisterous sing-along “Wherever You Go” fades out at the end of In the Moment, don’t be surprised if you feel like you’ve heard something truly unique that stands out in a musical landscape full of derivatives. Kole sums it up best: “We try to be the best version of ourselves and not the second-best version of somebody else.”

The Handsome Family’s new record began with a scream in the night. “It was a bleak winter during the middle of the pandemic,” says Brett Sparks. “One night around 4 a.m. Rennie started screaming in her sleep. She screamed, ‘Come into the circle Joseph! There’s no moon tonight.’ Scary as it was, I thought, man, that’s a good chorus!”

The Handsome Family (songwriting and marriage partners Brett and Rennie Sparks) have been defining the dark end of americana for over 30 years. Brett writes the music and Rennie writes the words. Their work has been covered by many artists including Jeff Tweedy, Andrew Bird and most-recently Phoebe Bridgers. Their song “Far From Any Road” was the opening theme for HBO’s True Detective season one and still receives thousands of Shazams every week from all over the world.

Handsome Family songs take place under overpasses and inside airports. Historical figures like George A. Custer and Nikola Tesla appear alongside a flying milkman and the whisper of an air conditioner against a plastic tree.

Their eleventh studio album, Hollow (out Sep. 8, 2023) delves into the natural world at the edges of the man-made. It is a record lush with leaves and shadows and echoing with occult mystery. It begins with the dream-inspired “Joseph”— full of Mott the Hoople swagger and electric guitar so overdriven it sounds like an organ run through a vacuum cleaner. Next is the haunting “Two Black Shoes” which filters a Portishead groove through the highway motels, homeless encampments and McMansions of post-pandemic America.
 
“I wanted to get an electronic feel with organic drums, “says Brett, “So I chopped up our drummer’s takes into little bits, quantized the beats, and ran those through an Echoplex. I really like that hybrid of real and fake.”
 
“The King of Everything,” brings Brett’s harpsichord background into the mix plus Rennie’s time on the back porch taking muscle-relaxants and watching the white-winged doves.
 
“Squirrels in the basement / Raccoons in the walls / Centipedes with stingers,” Brett sings on the mischievous and mysterious “Skunks.” The spooky Beethoven-inspired piano and Brett's eerie whooping create a jingle for an increasingly desperate business. “Call us anytime at night,” Brett sings. “Call us day or night.”
 
“The Oldest Water” is the real story of a primordial sea found deep in a Canadian mine. Dave “Guts” Gutierrez’s trilling mandolin gives the song an old-timey parlor elegance and the rushing feel of flowing water.
 
“Mothballs” is a simple hymn for voice and piano. “A buddhist friend of Aleister Crowley’s always wore this old purple coat,” says Rennie, “and moths were continually flying from its pockets. The man refused to harm even the tiniest wool moth and I think that’s something we should all aspire to.”
 
The softly-strummed “Shady Lake” is based on a real fishing hole hidden in the cottonwoods outside of Albuquerque where soft waves lap the reedy shores as turtles dive from wet rocks into the murky glory.
 
“To The Oaks,” sings of the shady groves of ancient mystery cults while Alex McMahon’s overdriven guitars conjure up more modern tones. Brett sings, “Phantoms fly the forest / Twist up dripping ferns / Spirits in the shadows / In root and dirt and bone.”
 
The album closes with “Good Night,” a lullaby that at once soothes and threatens. Over a lazy honky tonk Brett sings, “Time for Santa to sharpen his claws / Time for skinwalkers / Time for the saw…” This song has instantly become the band’s favorite live-show closer.
 
Asked to describe their music Brett says, “Western gothic.” It is music inspired by the abandoned strip malls of desert America where cracked pavement shimmers with heat and thorny weeds slowly reclaim the land.
 
Handsome Family songs may be dark, but there’s always laughter on stage. Rennie sings as well as plays banjo and bass. She often introduces songs with seemingly unrelated stories. Brett, with his deep baritone and stentorian presence, is the undeniable center of stage. The two are often joined by multi-instrumentalists Alex McMahon and Jason Toth as well as fans, new and old, some returning again and again to see them live over the decades.
 
“We’re astonished to be breathing,” Rennie says about the band’s longevity, “Let alone still be inspired to write songs and sing together. There’s been a lot of smashed coffee cups in our house over the years, but we’re still unable to resist the urge to make music.”
 
Track List:

1. Joseph
2. Two Black Shoes
3. The King of Everything
4. Skunks
5. The Oldest Water
6. Mothballs
7. Shady Lake
8. To The Oaks
9. Strawberry Moon
10. Invisible Man
11. Good Night
 
Hollow LP Credits:
Brett Sparks wrote and recorded all the music and played all the instruments (except as noted).
Rennie Sparks wrote all the words and added a stray vocal and a bit of banjo.
Alex McMahon played guitar on “To the Oaks,” “Invisible Man,” and “Good Night.”
Dave “Guts” Gutierrez played mandolin on “The Oldest Water.”
Jason Toth played and recorded most of the percussion.
Mastered by Dave Trumfio.

Midwest Americana family-driven band Shannon Clark and the Sugar’s new album This Old World (out Sept. 8th) paints a sharp, heartfelt portrait of modern American life told through country, soulful folk & roots, and heartland rock with the blend of blood harmonies. It balances that hard line of being radio-friendly and emotionally resonant with its catchy hooks and relatable lyrics that aren’t afraid to tackle tough subjects. The band will be touring heavily this year. Having shared the stage with the likes of Tim McGraw in 2022, you can find them in 2023 at places like Fort Loramie’s Country Concert on July 8 alongside Luke Bryan, Jelly Roll, Dierks Bentley, and more.  

The band consists of married couple Shannon (vocals, guitar) and Brittany Clark (percussion), their daughter Navie (vocals, piano), and their cousin through marriage Joey Howard (guitar, vocals). The band's origins (minus Navie) started when they were teens playing in rock bands, even playing notable events like Warped Tour. The band split after Joey moved away to South Carolina. Years later he returned to their hometown of Greenville, OH, where they rekindled their friendship during the quarantine era and wrote this new album.

The title track “This Old World” kicks the album off with an empathetic and reflexive look at who we are as a nation while tackling the huge issues of gender identity, anxiety, depression, war, and gun violence. Its gently lolling country verses move into the beautiful pop of a Tom Petty or Sheryl Crow heartland rock chorus, with hints of Tracy Chapman’s bluesy-soul and her sense of compassion. Its tragically simple message tells us to look for the silver lining no matter how dire the circumstances.

As people, nations, and families seem to be divided more now than ever, "Like the Stars” is a song about stubbornness and the discomfort of waiting for people to change. “I was like the dark and you were like the stars,” Shannon sings as a metaphor for two things that exist together yet separately. It meshes the early alt-rock jangle guitar of R.E.M. with Joey and Navie’s Fleetwood Mac-inspired vocal harmonies.

A bright gem on the record is “Cool Waters,” a song of youthful exuberance, big crushes, adventurous first loves, and maybe even skinny dipping in South Carolina in September with someone you just met. The heavy Hammond B3 organ, swinging guitar licks, and its syrupy romantic chorus give “Cool Waters” the same summer love vibes as Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl.”

Drenched in Deep South grit and soul, “Good Woman” gives the solution to all of life’s ills, despite whatever personal struggles you're dealing with. This swampy, Louisiana blues rambler finds Cactus Moser (Wynonna Judd’s Husband) contributing the odd but interesting Tom Waits-esqe percussion fills.

“Everyone has a good person in their life to get through the hard times,” says Shannon. “For me, that’s my wife. She’s my best friend. She encourages me in music and in our family. My problems are typically my own doing, and she’s always there to give me perspective and keep me on the good path.”

“The Way I Am” is about the desire to be a religious person while struggling to connect the dots. What does it mean to ask hard questions when you were brought up in a particular faith? Its echoey guitar and heart-on-your-sleeve lyrics are reminiscent of Emmylou Harris’ “Wrecking Ball” and thematically in line with “God’s Song” by Randy Newman.

“Change Everything” is a piano ballad of regret. It deals with hometowns and time passing in a classic Springsteen way, but with a modern production near Bon Iver. Staying in that Springsteen feel, “Never Grow Old” was a promise that Shannon and Brittany made to each other when they first started dating. Its gentle finger-picked guitar mingles with the satisfyingly verbose verses and mellow, romantic chorus.

The beautifully stripped-down waltz “Thistle” deals with abuse and shows the effects of a bad man taking too much from a good woman. The old adage “hurt people hurt people” is apt for the protagonist of this song. A thistle is a pretty flower, but it might puncture you with its spikes if you touch it. It’s a song for lost souls on the edge.

The Shannon/Navie duet “Jackie” is a love song about Brittany’s aunt who lost her fight against cancer. Sung from the perspective of her husband coming to terms with their life together, her slow descent, and finding closure after her death. Brittany’s brushed drums, the funereal cello, soft bells, and the spectral backing vocals give the song a noble dignity for the lifecycle of this love story.

Shannon and Brittany lost an infant daughter to a rare heart condition. During the aftermath, they found it hard to deal with the grief and a house filled with reminders of their pain. Their dark country song “Burn Down” could easily be taken as a relationship song if you didn’t know the truth. It's a song for anyone who’s wanted to burn everything down and start over from scratch. Its eerie and intimate sonic palette is laid down through a capo’d acoustic guitar. The track adds a ghostly space echo machine feel, and we’re brought back to reality by Navie harmonizing with her father’s vocals. “This song helps relieve a burden I felt as a father. What if I did this or that? You just wonder if you could’ve done something different. This song’s about a man who’s losing his grasp on reality."

The death of their infant daughter in 2009 made writing music feel like a distraction from the pain they were going through. Years later, when Navie turned 14 and showed an interest in singing, Shannon began writing again—using music as an emotional tool to reach some semblance of catharsis. They began writing and recording singles like “Carry Me” which was the first song Shannon started writing for this new project with his wife and daughter. The music video for “Carry Me” garnered attention from multiple film festivals, even winning best music video award from The Peak City International Film Festival.

They brought Grammy-winning producer Mark Howard (Bob Dylan, U2) to their hometown to record their 2021 album Marks on the Wall. The title track, about not forsaking your family, convinced Mark to take on the project. Shannon had four songs ready, and Mark wanted 15.

Shannon got to writing songs that function as an autobiography of his family, like marking the height on a wall as children grow. The group rented an old farmhouse for the month where they worked out each song in a circle as a band, embracing the room tone and leaving imperfections to underline the honesty of the recording and lyrics.

“Mark helped us get out of our comfort zone,” says Shannon. “We were still trying to find our voices as artists. We didn’t think about genre or where we were headed. We found this great swampy Americana vibe. For this next record, I wanted to find a producer to help me hone that voice.”

While in Nashville to play a show, Shannon booked time with producer Justin Weaver (The Judds, The Chicks) and engineer Jeremy Bernstein at Welcome to 1979 studio. They cut a version of “Jackie” in one day. That version didn’t make the record, but Shannon was inspired and booked another trip where they recorded six songs in three days. They came down a third time and finished up the songs that became This Old World.

Weaver also contributed guitar, vocals, LinnDrum, accordion and banjo. Then, they brought in ringers to pad out the album: keys from Billy Justineau (Luke Combs, Brothers Osborne, Eric Church), drums from Cactus Moser (Wynona Judd, Cass McCombs, Engelbert Humperdinck), Cello and bass from Michael G. Ronstadt (nephew of Linda Ronstadt), bass from Chris Autry (Josh Turner), and keys from Phil Towns (Brent Cobb, Anderson East). The record was then mixed by Mitch Furr (Keith Urban, Devin Dawson) and mastered by Adam Grover (Willie Nelson, Zach Bryan, Dolly Parton).

This Old World is a record about the importance of family and having a support network. The down-home notion of being kind to one another is brought to bear through Shannon Clark and the Sugar’s modern take on American roots music. It’s comfort food in that it’s easy to digest, but you notice that it’s also good for your soul and mental well-being when you look at the ingredients. They’ll continue to tour heavily and are already working on the next album.

“Working with Mark on the last record was the first time I felt validated as an artist,“ says Shannon. “We were readjusting how we look at the world throughout the pandemic. Now, we matured in our presentation of the material with Justin on this new record. We’re tighter as writers and playing as a band. This is more who we really are musically and as a family. This record is a new spiritual path for us.”

Southern gothic Americana outfit Bonnie & the Mere Mortals release their new album Live & Unplugged at the Club Cafe on Aug. 4. It’s a showcase of alt-country swagger and fellowship around live music. It delves into relationships, mental health, occult mysticism and folklore, putting forth the idea that you can make your own destiny. It was filmed and recorded in front of a live studio audience in Pittsburgh, encapsulating the intimacy of the live experience following the Covid lockdown era.

Frontwoman Bonnie Ramone is a queer-identifying, tattoo artist, Dolly-Parton-meets-Elvira kind of character who writes literary songs about people who need to feel seen. “I write sad songs with happy lyrics and vice versa,” says Bonnie. “Like how Steel Magnolias is a sad film that keeps you laughing the whole time.” Though not in her full Bowie-meets-drag regalia for the relaxed atmosphere, the evening still has its elements of glam, like glitter that hangs on after several washes, still catching the light under moody stage lighting.

The album kicks off with “Tennessee,” off of their 2019 EP of the same name. “The Tennessee EP was about me discovering the kind of sound I wanted,” says Bonnie. “I was in Nashville doing my first tattoo guest artist residency, staying in this lousy hotel with horseshoes above every door. Mine was upside down of course. I wanted to challenge myself to write a simple song like this after playing all these really technical metal parts that were making me unhappy. We did that first EP to show that this idea had legs, but now this live album really shows we have whiskey on our fingers.”

The alt-country rambler “Carry Me Home'' is a love letter about finding meaningful time in relationships. This duet between Bonnie and guitar player Matt Elias is a big step from its goth-darkwave beginnings, and a half-step from punk-tinged rockabilly.

Continuing the legacy of great storytelling country artists like Lucinda Williams and Jason Isbell comes “Trouble,” a vulnerable duet sung by Bonnie and Nashville-based artist Sophie Gault (who wrote and recorded this song). They alternate verses and share amazing harmonies on the chorus as they sing about a break up happening right in front of us. Originally sung as a classic man/woman breakup song, Bonnie and Gault’s new rendition throws this classic trope on its head, showing that great songwriting transcends all types of relationships.

“Sophie is a friend where I was a fan of her work first,” says Bonnie, “and I want to support her as a friend. She’s the Lucinda to my Dolly or Reba. She has a quiet wisdom about her. She's like the girl next door who’s seen a thing or two.”

In the lesbian bar scene song, “Evaline,” a woman tries to pick up the protagonist’s girlfriend. It’s a gentle song about feeling worthy and secure. It deals with Bonnies’ queer and millennial anxiety—that imposter syndrome where we question why somebody would want to be with us. “Evaline / You know you're no queen,” Bonnie sings. “You quit making eyes at my girl so fine / You're not getting her under your spell / No, no, no.” The verses have the eeriness of a Lynchian honkytonk and lead into the fun of a chorus reminiscent of ‘70s pop hit, “Brand New Key.”

“I wanted to write a song that was like a reverse ‘Jolene,’” says Bonnie. “There are plenty of big-moment queer relationship songs, but I wanted something that deals with an everyday problem. We don’t get enough of that.”

The Bonnie and Gault duet, “It’s All Fine,'' is a powerful tongue-in-cheek ballad about learning to be alright with yourself. “You’ll have up days and down days,” says Bonnie, “and there are parts of life that are just waiting rooms.” “Call of the Void” is that overwhelming voice in your head that is destructive to you. Bonnie has dealt with different mental disorders throughout her life that would frequently lead to powerful panic attacks. This song is about existential crisis, suicidal ideations and ultimately conquering and controling your mind and body.

From Appalachian witches to the haints that inhabit the lowlands forests of The Southeast, “Curses” finds Bonnie strumming away on her banjo in a call and response with Elias’ guitar as she passes out small and silly curses to those who cross her. “The Crone, The Holler, The Mystic” moves from a beautiful waltz with ethereal harmonies between Bonnie and Gault, to a hypnotic vocal cacophony. It embraces the folklore of Baba Yaga or succubi drawing you deeper into the woods like a narcissist love-bombing you into a terrible relationship.

“Without Me,” in the tradition of Johnny Cash’s “Long Black Veil” or Pearl Jam’s “Last Kiss,” finds a man and a woman driving on a road trip. She finds out he’s cheating, goes to wring his neck, and dies in an accidental vehicular homicide. The song is sung from her perspective as a ghost cursed to haunt him.

Based on one of Bonnie’s actual friends and her hometown, the murder ballad, “Sarah,” finds the song’s fictional main character killing her father and dumping his body in the river. Beautiful Clapton-esque guitar chords move up and down the neck as the pedal steel holds the song together. There’s a lovely masculine vs. feminine dichotomy between the rhythmic bass and percussion work by Andrew Roulston intersecting with the guitars and vocals. One can imagine calloused hands finger-picking beautiful guitar melodies in a dirty old coal town, like a rusted out car with a beautiful piece of wildlife sitting on it.

“I have mixed feelings about my hometown,” says Bonnie. “On one hand it’s dying, there’s nothing to do and people in these beat up modular homes from the ‘50s. People can be very bigoted and unwelcoming towards outsiders. There's no jobs, just a bunch of junk coal. But on the other hand, it's beautiful country. There's so many hidden gems there… and that includes some of the people.”

Bonnie grew up on a farm on the border of the West Virginia panhandle in a fundamental Presbyterian home. She grew up with George Jones, Reba McEntire, and Johnny Cash playing in her house, but she rebelled against all of that when she attended an arts high school with kids who “had sidewalks.” She tried to hide her Appalachian accent and dove head first into teen goth culture. After high school she began tattooing and touring with her first metal band.

“I was always great at drawing,” says Bonnie. “I started my tattoo apprenticeship before I was 18-years-old, and have been tattooing for over 12 years. It’s taken me around the world. It allows me to tour and play music. It’s such an intimate thing to lead people on this journey about themselves. Physically touching them. Giving them something they’ll have for life that makes them feel better about themselves.”

After a particular existential crisis, she started revisiting her old country music roots. Gillian Welch stuck out to her in particular, reminding her of goth standards.

“It started reminding me of the not terrible parts of home,” says Bonnie. “I noticed these country records were using the same guitar tone as Robert Smith and The Cure. I was listening to Depeche Mode’s “Dream On” and thought, why isn’t there a band doing this? Southern Gothic music in the literary tradition focusing on the themes I love. Like Dolly Parton with synths, or The Cure with slide guitar. I wanted to create these Appalachian goth nights for other people like me.”

Bonnie’s first EP Tennessee was her transition from metal to Americana. The LP Southern Gothic was her thesis statement of Americana meets darkwave songwriting and arrangements. She released dancy remixes from dark-genred collaborators to lure in the goths, and now Live & Unplugged is here to lure the Americana crowd into her web.

“I’m proud of this album in a completely different way,” says Bonnie. “These songs have scars and a life of their own. I’m the caretaker of these songs. I road-tested these songs, toured them for a year. They’ve changed me as well. While the first EP and album were studio creations, Live & Unplugged is the work of a full band that has collaborated together and grown with these songs since the shut down. I wrote these songs, but touring with Matt and Andrew has brought them to life in a whole new way.”

C.S. Lewis said, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”

Track list:

1. Tennessee - featuring Sophie Gault (live & unplugged)

2. Carry me Home (live & unplugged)

3. Trouble (Sophie Gault cover) - featuring Sophie Gault (live & unplugged)

4. Curses (live & unplugged)

5. Sarah (live & unplugged)

6. It’s all Fine - featuring Sophie Gault (live & unplugged)

7. Without me (live & unplugged)

8. Evaline (live & unplugged)

9. Call of the Void (live & unplugged)

10. The Crone, the Holler, the Mystic - featuring Sophie Gault (live & unplugged)

Nashville via Detroit songwriter Stephie James’ debut full-length album, As Night Fades (out Mar. 1) exudes sparkly, starlit evening motifs, shot through the lens of dreamy doo-wop and romantic Americana rock n roll. James overturns Nashville’s hat and boot culture with her own Iggy Pop-meets-Judy Garland panache. She borrows the storytelling tradition of writers like Townes Van Zandt & Guy Clark but fuses it with 60's girl group sounds, echoing The Shirelles and The Marvelettes’ “Please Mr. Postman.” James presents us with a record that’s subtly subversive—at one turn familiar and nostalgic, while simultaneously evoking the dawn of something new.

James has been a steadfast musical powerhouse since her teens. She’s toured with Anita Baker and Nikki Lane, worked production for Buddy Miller and Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, has written with John Bettis (songwriter for Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, The Carpenters and more) and even shared the stage with Michael Bolton. As Night Fades was produced/engineered/mixed by Andrija Tokic who also produced the platinum, Grammy-nominated Alabama Shakes’ album Boys & Girls. John Baldwin (The Rolling Stones, Lou Reed, Nancy Sinatra, The White Stripes) mastered the album.

As Night Fades opens with the cinematic and sultry “Company,” an autobiographical narrative through a smoky, late night scene. Its romantic, symphonic balladry elevates the classic Hollywood scenario that we’re gifted through James’ endearing vocal delivery—all enchantingly wrapped in the modern setting of a seedy East Nashville dive bar. The Phil Spector-esque, “Spanish Harlem,” latin percussion contrasted with a gentle acoustic guitar leaves the perfect amount of space for multi-instrumentalist Billy Contreras (Béla Fleck, Hank Williams III, Sunny War) to layer a myriad of violins.

“Billy came in with like 13 different violins,” says James, “all in different tunings and octaves. And each one of them has a name. He would call the violins out by its individual name before each take. He could replicate a line or melody sung to him, stacking layers of strings above and below it. I don’t know how he does it. It was wild to watch him work, in the best way.”

The shimmering “Party Doll'' builds imagery of popping champagne inside a classic Cadillac, shiny chrome cruising the neon-lined city streets and partying until dawn. It's a joyous melody with melancholic undertones as James sings, “Out on the town, I’m his pretty party doll.” It was conceived as a straightforward honky tonk song, but ended up sonically more akin to Blondie’s “Heart of Glass.”

“ ‘Party Doll’ is about the way we mask heartbreak and the way we wear different faces,” says James, “just to get along—to get by. At the time, I was listening to The Stones ‘Dead Flowers’ a lot, thinking about how they tried to write a tongue-in-cheek country song, and it turned into one of their many masterpieces. Oddly enough, when I began writing 'Party Doll,' I thought I was just writing a song that played on cheesy honky tonk cliches, but quickly realized that it hit closer to home than I had intended. It felt very relatable. So I just followed that path by writing from a chapter in my life that I knew all too well.”

Rock n roll treat “Steve McQueen” isn’t so much about the actor who epitomized cool for the post James Dean generation, but a mere backdrop for a time when James was living with “an old cowboy singer” who'd always watch McQueen marathons. Co-written with guitarist Nick Bourgeau, the song adopts a straight Velvet Underground backbeat, rollicking guitars, a big organ solo and her gorgeous backing oohs and ahhs all embrace James’ lyrically poetic imagery. “I like Steve McQueen but you’re the man of every hour for me / So it seems / while His marathon is on the TV / you watch while I iron your blue jeans / Isn't this the real American Dream,” James sings.

During the pandemic, James and guitarist Matt Menold engaged in a Dick Dale deep dive, which birthed their instrumental “Surf.” James, a singer, wanted to write a piece where she wouldn’t sing at all. She originally composed the lead part specifically for Menold to play. He eventually talked James into playing lead guitar, and the song was taken to new and exciting heights when Contreras added strings. The result is a grindhouse-cool interlude of surf rock majesty.

Co-written with Menold, “Hard Place” is about self-doubt, the struggles of continuing to create art in this modern climate, drowning in all the noise, and feeling as if you’ve knocked on every door. It’s a dark, ominous tune with a chord progression reminiscent of Ray Charles’ “Unchain My Heart,” but with an exciting and surprising bridge. It feels in line with one of Leonard Cohen’s cautionary tales.

According to James, a “Five & Dimer” kind of guy is someone who’s charming, with a twinkle in their eye, but maybe not the most trustworthy or reliable—someone exciting, but not unlike Bette Midler’s “Daytime Hustler.” The upbeat “Five & Dimer” is the kind of song that immediately feels as if you’ve known it your whole life. It'll win you over with its Frankie Valli percussion, warbling organ and James’ 60s girl-group vocals.

Set against an iconic “Be My Baby” heartbeat, “Silent Film” is a song of deep longing, a lyrical standout on the record. “Will You Be” is a somber break-up ballad that's swimming in reverb. It asks the question, “will you be lonely when I leave?” Her mind's already made up that she's leaving, but the lingering questions echo.

The laidback rocker “Losing Side” is an anthem for the misfits and the outcasts, with its lazy Keith Richards-style guitars, relaxed drum fills and a spirited bass line contributed by, bassist and collaborator, Jack Lawrence (The Raconteurs, Greenhornes, Dead Weather). There’s a touch of sadness in its resignation that everything will eventually be fine…while playing the underdog in the meantime. One imagines James and her friends day-drinking and commiserating in local dive bars—James happily sipping her ginger ale. “My bar tabs are free / I’m the soda pop queen / But it’s only a matter of time / until me and mine are riding high,” she sings.

The beautifully dreamy album closer “Night Fades” is about those memorable nights that slowly blur into early morning, wandering home as the sun rises, finding someone on your mind. Recorded primarily live, you can hear the instruments bleeding into each other, Lawrence’s long legato bass notes resonating. James pairs a talk box with her opening guitar line and melts into misty vocals. Its gentle artistry paints a picture of a woman embracing uncertainty and optimistically looking ahead. It resolves in a way that makes you want to play the record over again.

“You’re heading home,” says James. “You’re feeling alright, even though you realize tomorrow might be rough. But I wanted to capture this specific feeling in that moment, as the sun comes up after you’ve been out all night. So I wrote this open ended, repeating line, slowly leading somewhere, trailing through the empty streets. It comes to a resolution in the last line, ‘as night fades into morning…there’s nobody but you.’ The one thought you find yourself returning to as you finally arrive home.”

As an ambitious 15-year-old, James opened up a coffee shop with her brother, as an excuse to have all ages shows where she and her friends could perform and build a local music scene. This DIY nighttime operation of mismatched furniture, posters of Bob Dylan and coffee as a secondary excuse to create a community led to her meeting legendary singer Anita Baker and eventually touring with her during the summers as a teenager.

“I went from fancy touring with Anita Baker,” says James, “rubbing elbows with celebrities and playing beautiful theaters, to touring in a van with smelly guys once I started my first band, Blue Mountain Belle. But I knew I wanted to work on my own project.”

James started an indie-folk project with her friends and they quickly became a go-to local act for the burgeoning scene of cool midwest Americana, regularly opening locally for larger touring acts like Leon Russell. She began working with legendary songwriter John Bettis, who introduced James’ music to Michael Bolton. Bolton included James’ single “Silent Film” in his documentary American Dream: Detroit, and the two performed at the film’s premiere. Her ambitions soon drew her from the Motor City to Music City U.S.A.

In Nashville, she navigated to Auerbach’s recording studio, Easy Eye Sound, where she worked as a second engineer to Detroit pal, Collin Dupuis, who'd just worked with Auerbach on Lana Del Rey’s Ultraviolence and the preceding Black Keys albums. Dupuis brought James in to help with Easy Eye projects and introduced her to artists that Auerbach had been producing, including Nikki Lane.

James and Lane hit it off, and soon they were touring together. James was playing in Lane’s band and occasionally opening the shows with her own material—sometimes solo acoustic, sometimes backed by the rest of Lane’s band. Clear Plastic Masks were the opening band on one Nikki Lane tour, and would become James’ close friends and collaborators on both her 2020 These Days EP and As Night Fades.

“They were the coolest rock n roll band I had ever seen live,” says James. “The first time I heard them, I realized something really special was happening in that room. I remember thinking that if they never had any huge commercial success, they’d be like the Velvet Underground or something—an underappreciated band that would inspire all the other bands and artists and tastemakers around them. We bonded really hard on that tour and spent lots of time together, in different cities. Eventually, they became the backing band for my solo stuff. Everything on this record is Charlie on drums and Matt on guitar and keys. Matt heard something in the music I was writing and was the real catalyst to working on my own project. I don’t think it would have happened without his involvement and encouragement.”

The These Days EP and As Night Fades were both recorded at The Bomb Shelter in Nashville and produced, engineered and mixed by Tokic. These Days exemplified James’ autobiographical, heart-on-her-sleeve songwriting while hitting us with classic pop meets Americana rock, all with a sheen of cinematic coolness. Particularly with the EP’s title track and “Lost With You,” which has the heart of a crooner ballad, boasting shiny rock & roll guitar lines and a noir doo wop feel.

Rock and roll happens at night. It’s dangerous. It’s mysterious. That’s why we’ve been drawn to it since the 1950’s. On As Night Fades, James takes us on a cinematic tour through her world of late night soirees, loves lost and loves found, all the while unafraid to embrace the uncertainty of the world. Her lyrics are charming, tender, vulnerable and incredibly vivid. It feels like black and white, 35mm celluloid, shot by Jim Jarmusch and dreamt by David Lynch. As Night Fades' soulful rock & roll feels timeless and essential.

“When I listen to this album,” says James, “I imagine hearing it in that theater from Mulholland Drive, ideally with an audience of eccentric weirdos and misfits. A room filled with true music lovers who dig the b-sides. Cinephiles who embrace the weird. Mercurial lovers. Lyrically these songs are more honest and direct than anything I’ve written before. It’s the first time I’ve ever made a record without trying to fit into a certain category and without compromising or molding the sound to appease others. And I feel good about that. I’m proud of what we’ve made.”

–

DIGITAL TRACK LIST
01 Company
02 Party Doll
03 Steve McQueen
04 Surf
05 Hard Place
06 Five & Dimer
07 Silent Film
08 Losing Side
09 Will You Be
10 Night Fades

PHYSICAL (vinyl/CD) TRACK LIST
01 Company
02 Party Doll
03 These Days (physical format)
04 Steve McQueen
05 Surf
06 Hard Place
07 Five & Dimer
08 Lost With You (physical format)
09 Silent Film
10 Losing Side
11 Will You Be
12 Night Fades

CREDITS (As Night Fades)

All songs written by Stephie James (S Hamood)
except “Steve McQueen” written by Stephie James and Nick Bourgeau; “Surf” and “Hard Place” written by Stephie James and Matt Menold

Produced by Andrija Tokic
Engineered and mixed by Andrija Tokic
Mastered by John Baldwin

Vocals and guitar - Stephie James
Guitar, piano, organ, keys - Matt Menold
Bass guitar - Jack Lawrence
Bass on “Company” - Dennis Crouch
Drums - Charlie Garmendia
Strings - Billy Contreras
Additional vocals - Alexis Saski, Kyshona Armstrong, Vaughn Walters

ATL cinematic psych-country duo Andrea & Mud release new single/video "This Time" today. Its a tragic ballad whose lyrical ultimatum of “choose the bottle or me” is carried by Colburn’s mournful vocals and her near-duet with Smoking Brett Resnick’s emotive pedal steel. Glide Magazine writes that it "takes you down the road of where The Cramps and The Meat Puppets jam with Gram Parsons and the Fallen Angels. The video for 'This Time' illuminates with a stunning simplicity of timeless country, a classic bar setting where dreams are often lost but new ones are later imagined."

“This Time” is a tragic ballad whose lyrical ultimatum of “choose the bottle or me” is carried by Colburn’s mournful vocals and her near-duet with Smoking Brett Resnick’s emotive pedal steel. This song stands toe-to-toe with Neko Case or Loretta Lynn at their most sorrowful. “I had a bad drinking problem in the relationship,” says Colburn.”It sounds like I’m singing it to a lover, but I’m really singing about myself.” Like the Hank Williams III modern classic “Country Heroes,” this song interweaves its own winking homages to the greats who came before them: Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and George Jones.

In the “This Time” video, directed by Pouya Dianat of Beam Imagination, Andrea plays a waitress in a dive bar where Mud is performing.When her lousy boyfriend acts up, she dreams of joining Mud on stage and a better life.

Andrea & Mud (Andrea Colburn and Kyle "Mud" Moseley) found themselves living in a converted barn in the middle-of-nowhere northern Georgia. There they wrote the songs that make up their new album Institutionalized (out Apr. 19). On this record, they dig into their deepest, darkest cores to mine the essence of what made classic country great—putting their relationship and mental health issues front and center.

“I come from a generation where we didn't take medication,” says Colburn. “We didn't go to therapy. We were supposed to just smile and get through it. I think a lot of people still live like that. Music is therapy for some people. I know it is for me.”

Their honesty, originality and extraordinary songwriting chops has garnered them coverage at American Songwriter, Glide, Ditty TV, and more. You can hear their music in the Rian Johnson series Poker Face, and the Sean Baker feature film Red Rocket. They’ve been nominated for an Ameripolitan Award, Independent Music Award, and won the Georgia Music Award for Best Americana Band. They’ve shared stages with legends like Ronnie Spector, Marty Stuart, Jimmie Vaughan and The B-52's, and newer Americana darlings like Sierra Ferrell, Lost Dog Street Band, Pokey Lafarge, and The Red Clay Strays.

The album kicks off with the honky-tonk fun-time title-track, “Institutionalized.” Here, the duo effortlessly mesh the Bakersfield Sound with Stax soul to create their own delirious country shuffle. Its galloping bass line, big horns and rowdy surf guitar makes this song feel like a joy, even though its catalyst was an argument with tempers flaring. “I’m committed / To loving you,” Moseley sings in his charming baritone, “I may have lost my marbles / My screws are loose / The pain inside I can no longer hide / From the things you’ve done to me / I’m Institutionalized / Won’t you set me free.”

“Me and Andrea got into a fight,” says Moseley. “I went outside and came back in with this song written in like 20 minutes. My friend had sent us this playlist called Psycho Country which was a big inspiration on this whole album. Porter Wagoner’s song ‘The Rubber Room’ was on it, and we were listening to it all the time. Between the isolation of the pandemic and living in the barn, I felt like I was losing it.”

The Bakersfield meets spaghetti Western “Welcome to Blue Skies” is an epic airline commercial that never was. It glorifies the freedom that flying represents while embracing escapism. Moseley understands this fantasy as he sings “the grass is always greener,” a sentiment accentuated by triumphant mariachi horns and the call and response vocals of the chorus.

“You can run,” says Moseley, “but maybe physically escaping from life’s problems isn’t the best option. You can try with mental health problems, but you're just covering it up and waiting for it to blow up again.”

The videos for “This Time” and “Welcome to Blue Skies,” directed by Pouya Dianat of Beam Imagination, combine to make a short film with bouts of action and a classic love story. In “This Time,” Colburn is a waitress in a dive bar where Moseley is performing. When her lousy boyfriend acts up. Moseley sweeps her off her feet and together they deal with the boyfriend. Then, in “Welcome to Blue Skies,” Andrea & Mud escape in a classic pickup truck to gorgeous, open fields of freedom, a mariachi serenade, and a better life together.

The rockabilly classic “Psycho” is a murder ballad written from the killer’s perspective. Originally written by Leon Payne, aka “The Blind Balladeer,” Andrea & Mud reimagine the song as a cinematically psychedelic romp through a lens of Santo & Johnny’s "Sleep Walk" and Angelo Badalamenti’s Twin Peaks soundtrack. The vocal duet continues a lineage of murderous lovers like Bonnie and Clyde, Natural Born Killer’s Mickey & Mallory or Terrence Malick’s Kit and Holly in Badlands.

Andrea & Mud’s take on “Mama He’s Crazy” is a far step from the 90’s version made famous by The Judds. This dark rhumba sounds like Patsy Cline and Tom Waits got together to write a James Bond theme song, or the music that plays just before a gun fight at high noon. Their Johnny Cash deep cut “Committed to Parkview” works as a metaphor for the album’s theme, where everyone in the institution is an artist in some way. Some will make it out, and others won’t.

The bluegrass foot-stomper “Trouble’s Gone” is a fun, light-hearted romp about Andrea & Mud selling their house at the beginning of the pandemic, living in a camper, and then the infamous barn. “I was glad to get rid of all the stuff and start somewhere new with the love of my life,” says Colburn. “I didn’t care if it was a cardboard box, because for us it would be a mansion.”

“Bankman” may be the sexiest song that takes on the class war. It has a va-va-voom cadence with its bluesy guitar licks, ‘70s Elvis-karate-kick Vegas horns, and general Rat Pack swank. “We were over living in the barn,” says Colburn, “and looking to buy a house. I don't know why I planned this so poorly, but this song literally came out when we were applying for loans to get a house. They’d say, ‘oh, I looked up your music.” I can’t say that this song isn’t why we lost our first lender, but we did end up getting a house back in Atlanta… even with the bad timing.”

Darker times in the barn are epitomized in songs like “A World Just You and Me,” about feeling trapped and making it through the hard times. And, the Amy Winehouse-esqe counterpart “Kitchen Floor,” a Stax girl-group saga in which Colburn sings, “I ripped open my heart / Laid it on the concrete just for you / Found out the whole time / You were sad too.”

The haunting duet “Hard Life” combines the pop sensibility of The Beatles with the intimacy of Neutral Milk Hotel. Here, Andrea & Mud commiserate on the state of the world through strings, finger-picked guitars and a singing saw. The cinematic cautionary tale “Devil Got Me Down” is a social commentary on the state of politics of that era.

“We made it out of that barn intact,” says Colburn. “Kyle was probably on the porch writing ‘A World Just for You,’ while I was writing ‘Kitchen Floor.’ Me and my friends were out of work, not able to gig. I’d look at that red sunset overlooking the farm and think about death. Is this the end? The last sunset?”

The album ends with a psychedelic country one-two punch. “Just Dropped In” is a late ‘60s LSD song made famous by Jerry Lee Lewis, then Kenny Rogers & The First Edition. It was then brought to a new generation with its inclusion on the Big Lebowski soundtrack. Andrea & Mud’s version is a mind-bending spy thriller with Resnick playing the pedal steel like a talk box whispering occult secrets from beyond our plane of existence. Trippy album closer “Blue Skies Reprise” is a joyous experiment of tape speed that leaves us wanting more—like a film that doesn’t wrap up the story threads in a nice bow, and allows the listener to make decisions on how Andrea & Mud’s story will turn out.

Colburn started playing guitar at 14 as a midwesterner, but didn’t get serious about music until she moved to Atlanta. She fell in with the local music scene and started writing and performing solo.

Moseley, a Georgia native, came from a musical family. His dad played in classic rock cover bands and his childhood home was filled with guitars. He was brought up on a steady diet of Dwight Yoakam, Junior Brown and Jimmy Martin. He cut his teeth playing bass in metal bands before getting back to his country roots with Colburn. They first formed a duo titled Andrea Colburn and Her Low Standards, then Andrea Colburn and Mud Moseley, then simply Andrea & Mud.

Outside of music, Moseley got the nickname “Mud” because of his passion for making handmade pottery. Andrea & Mud have a studio and kiln in their new home and are firing up new earthenware that you can find at their merch table and Etsy.

Their debut album Easy, Sleazy & Greasy (2018) leans towards classic rockabilly sounds on “Bad with You,” and haunting spaghetti Western ballads with tracks like “Bones” and “Full Moon over Georgia.” This album found Colburn nominated for the Ameripolitan Award’s Outlaw Female alongside Summer Dean and Nikki Lane. Then nominated the following year for Outlaw Group next to Rhyolite Sound and Pinehill Haints.

They honed these songs live for years before getting into the studio with Damon Moon to record their sophomore album, Bad News Darlin’ (2020). The result is a cinematic ode to Ennio Morricone-inspired honky-tonk surf, big slapping bass, and the delightful use of mariachi horns. They hit outlaw country softspots with songs about drinking till the sun comes up, diabolic crossroad trades and tragic ballads.

The collection of songs that make up Institutionalized represent a time of claustrophobia, isolation and terror. It’s their story, told through classic country, honky-tonk shuffles, psychedelic Westerns and soulful ballads. It’s the kind of record that asks the question, what if Buck Owens grew up on punk rock and idolized Dick Dale? Andrea & Mud have moved on from this time in their lives. They now have a home to call their own with horses and a pottery studio on an acre of land just inside Atlanta.

“We were together non-stop when we wrote this album,” says Moseley. “Now we do other things and can tour. We plan on touring as much as we can this year, and getting back into the studio as soon as possible. We need to keep up with Charlie Crocket!” He laughs.

“Since leaving the barn, our songs are nicer,” says Colburn. “We’re looking forward to touring, but we’re also here to help rebuild Atlanta’s county scene after the pandemic. Star Bar has county dance lessons. We’re packing out Honky Tonk Saturday night at Lloyd’s. We want people to know there’s good country music, and good country music in Atlanta.”

TRACK LIST

Institutionalized 3:25
Mama He’s Crazy 5:03
Bankman 4:15
Trouble’s Gone 3:00
Psycho 4:19
A World Just You and Me 2:27
Kitchen Floor 3:28
Committed to Parkview 3:31
Hard Life 3:03
Devil Got Me Down 3:20
This Time 4:06
Welcome to Blue Skies 2:54
Just Dropped In 4:33
Blue Skies Reprise 1:13

Tour Dates:

2.22 Over Yonder-Savannah, GA
2.23 Burns Alley-Charleston, SC
3.07 Mosey's Downtown-Panama City, FL
3.08 The Juke Joint-Ocean Springs, MS
3.09 Enoch's Pub-Monroe, LA
3.10 Ki Mexico-Shreveport, LA
4.19 Star Bar-Atlanta, GA
4.26-4.27 Burns Alley-Charleston, SC
4.30 American Legion Post 82-Nashville, TN
6.21-6.22 Burns Alley-Charleston, SC
8.01 Panama City Beach Summer Concert Series-Panama City, FL
8.02 Mosey's Downtown-Panama City, FL
8.03 The Shed BBQ-Ocean Springs, MS
8.03 The Juke Joint-Ocean Springs, MS
8.10 Star Bar-Atlanta, GA
8.21 The Double Crown-Asheville, NC
8.23-8.24 Burns Alley-Charleston, SC
9.20-9.21 Burns Alley-Charleston, SC
10.18 Burns Alley-Charleston, SC
10.19 Over Yonder-Savannah, GA
11.19 American Legion Post 82-Nashville, TN
11.20 The Double Crown-Asheville, NC
11.22-11.23 Burns Alley-Charleston, SC
12.12 Over Yonder-Savannah, GA
12.13-12.14 Burns Alley-Charleston, SC

Atlanta singer/songwriter and guitarist Parker Smith’s new album opens with “Air Stream,” referencing the iconic mobile home. The Bluegrass Situation writes that it's "music we’re very excited to bring to your speakers and earphones... so much to enjoy," and Roadie Music writes that Smith is "a great artist and composer... 'Air Stream' is simply infectious and engaging... you'll certainly love it too."
 
"Air Stream" reflects Smith’s storytelling motif and Poco-like lilt. On it, he recounts a camping trip where the chilly temperatures forced his family to the warmth of the titular vehicle. The song takes a longer, more universal lens to that situation as he sings, “The smile on each other’s face / When they hold a warm embrace / At the end of a long day / Dog at their feet.” The tropical rhythm and pedal steel exude a comfy homespun texture that you can visualize as Smith emotes his words with the casual cadence of John Prine, letting them float through the laconic vibe.
 
His breezy third studio album Short Street (out June 7) was made with sensitivity, humor and an innate knack for creating art from life. Its easy-flowing melodies and lilting pedal steel infuse some rural Americana without going full-on country. Smith’s sweet, zephyr-like sound and welcoming everyman vocals continue from the album’s opening lightly strummed guitars, through its eight brisk, yet never blustery, tunes.

He’s the best friend everybody wants, telling stories with the cozy confidentiality of someone you love spending time with—hanging out with a few bottles of wine while hearing their generally optimistic opinions on growing up, chasing true love, absorbing the death of a dog, and even praising terrific mothers-in-law. We all need a Parker Smith in our lives.

Initially meant as an acoustic venture named after his tune “Friend Ships,” the collection gradually took a different vibe. As it progressed, Smith re-worked his vocals and shifted towards the more Atlanta-centric title, Short Street. This album, including the title track, references neighborhoods in his city. His previous two releases, Garden Hills and Underground, are also named after Atlanta areas.

The heartland rock “Mothers” turns every outdated mother-in-law joke and stereotype on its head. This tribute to Smith’s mother-in-law is also an accolade to other moms who are frequently criticized by songwriters. “She might not be my mother / But she’s a mother to me,” he sings before complimenting his wife with the sentimental, “You’ve got your mother’s eyes and that’s alright with me.” It should be a perennial Mother’s Day favorite with its buoyant folk-rock vibe and Tom Petty-esque down-to-Earth relatability.

“Seeing my wife become a mother this year has given me greater insight into the connection between a mother and their child,” says Smith. “It's crazy man. I have a six-month-old now. Breastfeeding and providing for her, it's just a totally different type of bond between my wife and our baby. We’ve been together for eight years, and now we get to grow into this together. It's nice to see this new side of her, you know?”

The gorgeous ballad “Anna Lee” is a filigree of acoustic and electric guitar, groovy keys and Smith’s familial vocal delivery. This love song to his wife describes the difficulties and triumphs of working through life’s twists with a partner you’re in sync with. “This journey is my own, but I don’t have to walk alone / We can walk it side by side / It’s on your shoulders I’ll get by,” he sings with a solemn yet knowing half-smile, implying ultimately everything will work out. The dreamy, loungy electric guitar solo dancing among the simplified drums and super-chill organ is a particular treat.

“It’s about being married and going through your own shit,” says Smith. “We all have our own journeys and difficulties. We need to be able to lean on each other in tough times.”

“Waves” embraces the glorious triumph of being able to let go of material things. It has a Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer” vibe. Its gentle verses, bombastic choruses and a series of transcendent, jangly guitar solos help us embrace ego death and take stock of what’s important.

“I lost my wedding ring in the ocean during a bachelor party in Mexico,” says Smith. “A few months later, my wife lost her wedding ring in the ocean. Both rings were family heirlooms, belonging to each of Smith’s parents. We took it as a sign that we weren't meant to have those. Material things come and go, but you want to hold onto what’s really important.”

“Oscar” is a sweet, laid-back, loping offering as Smith looks back on losing his beloved, longtime dog companion. Its lyrics could easily be applied universally to anyone you’ve lost. It’s a song about giving thanks to those who’ve made an impact on your life and are no longer with us.

The title track “Short Street” reflects on the annual Chomp and Stomp festival in Atlanta’s famous Cabbagetown neighborhood—equal parts chili cook-off, beer bash and Bluegrass fest. It’s a zydeco-adjacent honky-tonk party song about good times with good people. It’s a love letter to his hometown, while recognizing that it isn’t perfect. “Friend Ships” is a song that reminisces about his hooligan friends growing up (shoplifting, drugs in a mailbox, all night drives to meet a girl), and how he turned out alright through all the mayhem.

Album closer “Surround Sound” is an intimate, acoustic ode to taking time to appreciate the world around you. His relaxed vocals and songwriting pedigree land in the realm of Paul Simon and Mark Knopfler, epitomizing Smith’s ability to capture small moments that can be extrapolated to larger ones. He takes the ordinary (listening to the school bus, the garbage truck, the train tracks, the children laugh), and makes it extraordinary, like a subdued whisper of wisdom.

Smith first picked up a guitar at age twelve after experiencing an Allman Brothers Band show at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre, but didn’t get serious about practicing until 15. Smith then took music business courses and Bruce Hornsby’s songwriting program at the University of Miami, followed by moving to Austin and attaining a Masters of Education degree, before returning to Atlanta to start a music school.

Smith is a Renaissance man of sorts. Not only is he an acclaimed singer/songwriter and guitarist, but a successful entrepreneur as well. He started Guitar Shed in 2015 with four pupils. It has grown into a major business boasting 30 instructors and over 400 students learning a variety of instruments, not just guitar. He claims to be a “bad employee” but an entrepreneur at heart and loves that his job has never felt like work.

That gracious, affable sentiment translates to his songwriting and the dedicated supporting musicians he surrounds himself with. Most, like mixer/producer/drummer Colin Agnew, keyboardist Christopher Case, bassist Trygve Myers (who’s work on “Mothers” and “Oscar” is exceptional), and especially pedal steel/six-string wizard John Kingsley whose presence helps set the deliberate mood, contributed to Smith’s earlier work.

Smith’s debut, Garden Hills, was followed by Underground in 2021. That year also saw a cover of the Grateful Dead’s “Bird Song,” (recorded for a Dead tribute project), then 2023’s Live Bandwith, Vol. 1, a concert recording with his group affectionately, and humorously, called The Bandwith (note the intentional lack of a second “d” in the spelling).

Short Street is his most illuminating, engaging and personal statement yet. The sinuous melodies and instrumentation coalesce around his deep, affecting vocals and insightfully personal lyrics. His wry humor mingles with profound honesty as he crafts narratives of the world around him. It’s an album of poignant yet cheerfully light songs that shimmer with the touch of a craftsman; one creating a treatise on traversing the victories and challenges that come with living a full life.

Track List
01 Air Stream
02 Mothers
03 Anna Lee
04 Waves
05 Oscar
06 Short Street
07 Friend Ships
08 Surround Sound