Southern Culture on the Skids
Southern Culture On The Skids has been consistently recording and touring around the world since 1983. The band (Rick Miller – guitar and vocals, Mary Huff – bass and vocals, Dave Hartman – drums) has been playing together for over 30 years. Their musical journey has taken them from all-night North Carolina house parties to late night TV talk shows (Conan O’Brien, The Tonight Show), from performing at the base of Mt. Fuji in Japan to rockin’ out for the inmates at North Carolina correctional facilities. They’ve shared a stage with many musical luminaries including Link Wray, Loretta Lynn, Hasil Adkins and Patti Smith. Their music has been featured in movies and TV, parodied by Weird Al, and used to sell everything from diamonds to pork sausage. In 2014 the band was honored by the Southern Folklife Collection at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill with an exhibition featuring their music and cultural contributions. Their legendary live shows are a testament to the therapeutic powers of foot-stomping, butt-shaking rock and roll and what Rolling Stone dubbed “a hell raising rock and roll party.”At Home with Southern Culture on the Skids is the latest full length album from the band and is due to drop into stores on March 12th. The album consists of 11 tracks recorded and mixed in Rick Miller’s living room with some additional tracks recorded at his studio, The Kudzu Ranch.The first radio single off the album is “Run Baby Run”—a rocking number with deep garage roots. SCOTS bassist Mary Huff provides an urgent vocal while the band pulls back the throttle on a full race fuzz fest—cause she’s gotta to go fast! Run Baby Run!The other songs on the album are a combination of the band’s unique mix of musical genres: rock and roll, surf, folk and country—all a bit off-center, what Rick proudly calls “our wobbly Americana”. Rick goes on, “We put a few more acoustic guitars on this one, as you would expect if you recorded in your living room, but it still rocks like SCOTS. So put your headphones on, get in your favorite chair/sofa/recliner, put on “At Home With” and let’s hang out for a while.” Guitar riffs as lumpy as a camel, rough as a jackhammer or smooth and bright as Tennessee sippin’ whiskey, all slung loose and loud over salacious beats – No Depression For over thirty years, Southern Culture On The Skids have played an eclectic range of Americana including rockabilly, surf rock, country and R&B, with a punk edge and heaps of humor. They are known for their legendary live shows and wacky antics…But it’s more than just great fun; they are fantastic musicians to boot. – Elmore Magazine This Chapel Hill-based trio is flat-out amazing. Without resorting to needless flash or attention-hungry showboating, Miller in particular is one of the most spectacularly gifted guitar players I’ve ever seen. He juggles a lot of styles – country, garage rock, surf, rockabilly and soul to name just a few. – Stomp & Stammer Website · Facebook · Instagram
Popsicle
Featuring The Connells, Superdrag, Chuck Prophet, Young Fresh Fellows, The Mayflies USA, The Popes, Jonny Polonsky, Five Eight, Bass Battery. Taking place at Cat’s Cradle Back Yard, Cat’s Cradle, and Cat’s Cradle Back Room.
Ben Quad, Macseal
The story of BEN QUAD is punctuated by moments of randomness: a chance meeting via Craigslist bonding over bands like Microwave and Modern Baseball. An out-of-nowhere name drop from indie tastemaker Ian Cohen lauding their debut album, 2022’s I’m Scared That’s All There Is. A one-off sonic curveball that somehow turned into their biggest song – and, without them realizing it at the time, a brand-new freedom to reinvent themselves. But serendipity has done more than bring Ben Quad here, to the release of WISHER, their first LP for Pure Noise Records: It’s taught them to thrive inside the unpredictable, to harness a no-limits musical mentality and self-effacing sense of humor and turn it into some of the most resonant, captivating emo of today. Well, actually, post-emo. “This is our love letter to the genre,” singer/guitarist Sam Wegrzynski says of the album. “It’s an amalgamation of all the shit emo kids like: screaming, synths, pop sensibilities all mixed with crazy emotional stuff. What’s post-emo if not the next evolution?” The Oklahoma City-based quartet have always been evolving. I’m Scared That’s All There Is cemented them as a force in the modern emo movement, landing them on bills with the likes of Hot Mulligan and Knuckle Puck. The standalone single “You’re Part of It” added a harder, screamo-tinged edge to their sound, while an outpouring of support to a social media shitpost declaring “If ‘You’re Part of It’ gets 10K streams by Wednesday, we’ll put out a screamo EP” took them even further down that road with Ephemera, their 2024 EP. (The song currently boasts more than 4 million streams.) Now, with Wisher, the band deliver a true follow-up to their debut that fully embraces everything that’s followed it since. The 10 songs on Wisher find Wegrzynski, Edgar Viveros (lead guitar), Henry Shields (bass/backing vocals) and Isaac Young (drums) pulling from every corner of their record collections: jagged punk riffs, glassy math-rock, sticky pop hooks and glitchy production that push toward something futuristic. But rather than a scattershot collage, these elements recur as motifs – a melody here, a guitar line there – stitched together with purpose and intention. First single “It’s Just A Title” serves up a groove factory complemented by smooth vocals and lifting keyboards, while the frantic “Painless” rips through speakers with the ferocity and melodicism of They’re Only Chasing Safety-era Underoath, if their guitarists spent more time studying Midwest emo than metalcore. “Did You Decide to Skip Arts and Crafts” welcomes Treaty Oak Revival singer Sam Canty – and a well-placed banjo – onto a genre-blending Tumblr-era throwback, “Classic Case of Dead Guy on the Ground” ascends with a preposterously sublime falsetto hook, and the brooding “West of West” brings things full circle for the band with a cameo from Microwave’s Nathan Hardy. Website · Instagram · Facebook · TikTok Macseal Website · Instagram · Bandcamp · Facebook · YouTube
The Jayhawks
For more than forty years, The Jayhawks have created music that embodies the enduring spirit and soul of classic American songwriting. The Jayhawks emerged from Minneapolis in the post-punk era of The Replacements, Hüsker Dü and Soul Asylum. They pioneered today’s Americana movement through a series of classic albums that introduced rock audiences to their unique musical stew of country, folk, soul, Britpop and rock ‘n’ roll.The band has played most every major music festival, from Farm Aid to Primavera Sound, Pinkpop to Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky. In the tradition of The Band and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, The Jayhawks have toured with and served as backup band for many of music’s most acclaimed visionaries, including Ray Davies, Roger McGuinn, and Johnny Cash.Today, Gary Louris, Marc Perlman, Karen Grotberg and Tim O’Reagan continue to record and tour worldwide. Over 12 studio albums and three live albums, The Jayhawks are still building a legacy of music that stands the test of time.The band once again teamed up with legendary producer Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed) to create their upcoming album entitled Sanctuary Park, set to be released late summer 2026. Website · Facebook · Instagram · YouTube
Frog
Frog is a 2-3 person guitar band from the swamp in New Rochelle, NY. They issued their self-titled debut mini-album “Frog” on Brooklyn’s now defunct Monkfish Records which Gold Flake Paint called “The best American guitar record of the year. Seriously. It’s like every cult band from the past decade bottled into half an hour of music.” The duo returned in 2015 with their highly acclaimed debut LP “Kind of Blah” on the UK’s Audio Antihero Records which included the fan-favorite singles “Judy Garland” and “Photograph.” Frog promoted the album with a tour of the UK, which was later documented in the 2018 film ‘Kings of Blah’. In November 2018, they issued their long-awaited follow-up “Whatever We Probably Already Had It” mini-LP on Audio Antihero. This was followed in August 2019 with the freak-folk opus “Count Bateman,” featuring the sleeper stoner hit single, “You Know I’m Down.” Website · Instagram · Spotify
Russian Circles
Across the span of their previous seven studio albums, Chicago-based instrumental trio Russian Circles traversed a diverse topography of sounds, moods, and approaches with their limited armory of drums, bass, and guitar. It’s difficult to chart an evolution in their sound when their records have always felt like well-curated playlists. It wasn’t uncommon to hear drone-heavy meditations, dazzling prog exercises, knuckle-dragging riff-fests, haunting folk ballads, and tension-baiting noise rock all within the span of one album. Still, it’s difficult to ignore the progression from the pensive and intricate melodies of Enter (2006) to the layered distorted dirges of Blood Year (2019). It’s been a gradual sonic shift owing to the band’s rigorous tour schedule and a predilection towards playing their more authoritative material on stage. But with their latest album, Gnosis, Russian Circles eschew the varied terrain of their past work and bulldoze a path through the most tumultuous and harrowing territory of their sound. As was the case for so many artists in the age of COVID, the obstacles of geography and isolation forced Russian Circles to reevaluate their writing process. Rather than crafting songs out of fragmented ideas in the practice room, full songs were written and recorded independently before being shared with other members, so that their initial vision was retained. While these demos spanned the full breadth of the band’s varied styles, the more cinematic compositions were ultimately excised in favor of the physically cathartic pieces. Gnosis was engineered and mixed by Kurt Ballou. Drums and bass were tracked at Electrical Audio in Chicago to maximize the natural room sounds of the rhythm section. Guitar and synth overdubs were conducted at God City in Salem, MA to take advantage of Ballou’s vast inventory of amps and effects pedals. Despite the entirety of the album being written remotely, the songs were recorded with the full band playing together to retain the live feel of the material. Owing to the climate of the times and a new writing method, Russian Circles created their most fuming and focused work to date—an album that favors the exorcism of two years’ worth of tension over the melancholy and restraint that often colored their past endeavors. Website · Facebook · Instagram
Liana Flores
Liana Flores’ story is one of cultural cross-pollination, unlikely chances, and quite possibly a signpost for the evolution of folk music in the digital age. Raised in rural Norfolk pre-internet ubiquity, the bossa nova CDs belonging to Liana’s Brazilian mother were a first glimpse into a musical world beyond Eleanor Rigby on cassette and Gilbert & Sullivan in the village hall. At 19, she went from building an early listener base with showtune covers in the YouTube era, to penning her own songs. The influences all started coming together, in self-recorded songs combining the harmonic stylings of bossa nova guitar with personal lyrics – often gloomy but persevering, expressing anxieties and depicting the nature in her hometown. Three years later, one of these unassuming songs, ‘rises the moon’, was uploaded to TikTok without the singer’s knowledge and became a surprise hit, spawning countless cover versions before the labels came calling. Nearly a billion streams later, it’s arguably a defining folk song of its generation. After signing to Verve Records, a full-length record, Flower of the soul, followed in 2024. Drawing from sunshine pop, bossa nova and psych folk, and featuring newly polished studio production and a full band, the record marked a metamorphosis from DIY recluse to rising artist with records available in stores all over the world, and a tour spanning UK, Europe, the US, and Asia. Her latest single, “So it goes” is inspired by classic bossa nova in the vein of Burt Bacharach and Astrud Gilberto, reflecting the pace of city life since moving to London. Bandcamp · Instagram · YouTube · Spotify
HARBOUR
Since their formation in 2014, HARBOUR has gone from packing rooms in their native Cincinnati, to selling out venues across the United States. Members Ryan Green (vocals/guitar), Jarett Lewis (guitar), Zack Lemons (guitar), Ryan Sulken (drums), and Devon Turner (bass) have curated an infectious high energy sound that transfers seamlessly into their live shows. During their tenure as a group, HARBOUR has delivered 5 full length albums – the latest of which, entitled Great, Big, Insignificant, was released in October 2025 after much anticipation. After supportings artists such as Bilmuri & Wilderado, HARBOUR successfully completed their first multinational headline tour in 2025. With more shows on the way in celebration of the new album, and even more music in the works, the band’s future is sure to be anything but insignificant. Website
The Hails – Duckpond Tour
Following a string of encounters too strange to be coincidence, Robbie Kingsley, Franco Solari, Dylan McCue and Zach Levy came together to form The Hails. Despite first playing in an insular Miami high school music scene, the band officially formed at the University of Florida in Gainesville, turning the tattered carpeting and beer bottle lined shelves of their shitty college house into a distinct, refined sound that is now synonymous with their name. After graduation, the group made the pilgrimage back to their home of Miami, the city that directly influenced the sound of their early shimmering singles “Younger” and “Stay,” debut EP He Seems Upset (2020), and the subsequent Alive in Strange Ways (2021).After releasing their debut album What’s Your Motive (2023) and gaining international praise, The Hails have created their own unique style of collaboration with band members living in Miami, DC and Brooklyn. Recent highlights of the road include holding court at festivals like Governors Ball, III Points and Okeechobee, interspersed between sold-out headline shows and tour support for The Revivalists, Quarters, The Beaches, flipturn and the moss. This year will see The Hails back out on the road as they ready for the release of their second full-length album later this year. Instagram · Facebook · TikTok · YouTube · Spotify
The Tubs
Upon arriving in the United States for The Tubs’ first tour of the country, frontman Owen Williams told The New Yorker, “We’re here to unite the country. We’re gonna come, like, three times. By that point, I think this place will start healing.” Then, joyously, they did just that, piling into a van and criss-crossing the States, bringing their literary, bleary-eyed, world-weary, night-of-your-life highwire act to the masses when it was needed most. Along the way, they signed to Merge Records, who will release The Tubs’ third full-length album, Hard Life, on September 11, 2026. The Tubs have never lacked for ambition — on Hard Life, theirs is to complicate the Tub-ullar experience. Having perfected their sound across two albums and hundreds of shows, the London-based Celtic jangle boyband — Williams (vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass), Dan Lucas (guitar), Taylor Stewart (drums), and Max Warren (bass) — push themselves even further into the shimmering heart of virtuosic indie rock. They’re joined by frequent collaborators Lan McArdle (vocals), George Nicholls (guitar), and Rachel Kenedy (keyboards), all of whom have orbited various Tubs and Gob Nation-adjacent efforts dating back to Joanna Gruesome, but the secret to Hard Life’s lushness is the addition of fiddle player Chris Haigh, an instructor and session musician who left an indelible mark on British pop on Steps’ “5, 6, 7, 8.” Mirroring Williams’ use of trilling on vocal melodies, Haigh’s fiddle shades the vocalist’s rueful croon like a bruise. On “Stoop to Me,” the folkiest, jangliest pop song on the album, Haigh’s licks complement Williams at his most self-deprecating, the lopsided smile of a guy trying not to let on how wounded he is in unrequited love. On album opener and title track “Hard Life,” it’s the sweetness of the ascending fiddle lines in the mix that weds the harshness of Williams’ lyrics to The Tubs’ fist-pumping anthemics. The hard line Williams takes here and elsewhere on Hard Life further troubles one’s idea of a Tubs song. The persona familiar to listeners of Cotton Crown and Dead Meat — to quote Williams, “navel gazing about romantic abjection, London squalor, and the indignities of grief and OCD” — is still present, but so too is a second voice, steelier and more experienced. “The second persona doesn’t have much time for the first,” Williams explains, “often haranguing him for his self-indulgence and immaturity; sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly.” It’s the scold who takes center stage on lead single “Who’s Gonna Love You Now?” His questions, from the titular one to more concrete concerns like “Who’s gonna pay the rent?” existing in mocking opposition to ideas like moving to the city and really starting to live. Though Williams plays the crank, the song is a raver, guitars ringing out over an organ-brightened horizon. “It’s your life,” Williams sings, the life chugging away beneath him sounding exceptionally keen. He wouldn’t have much sympathy for the lovelorn Williams of “If You Don’t Love Me” — hell, his whole existence seems like a warning that the kinds of romantic entanglements one suffers when they’re young will end in loneliness, failure, and an inbox choked with unread Substacks. Linktree · Instagram · Facebook · Bandcamp · Substack