The Marías Present: CINEMA
Please note – this show has been rescheduled to Haw River Ballroom in Saxapahaw, NC.The Marías are the psychedelic-soul lovechild of Puerto Rican-bred, Atlanta-raised María Zardoya and Los Angeles native, Josh Conway. A smooth rendezvous of jazz percussion, hypnotic guitar riffs, smoke-velvet vocals and nostalgic horn solos, there’s something undeniably sensual in their dreamlike fusion of jazz, psychedelia, funk and lounge. Drawing inspiration from both their vastly diverse backgrounds and the intimacy of their mystic Hollywood Hills commune, Josh and María write, record and produce within the walls of their own home with their dog, Lucy. In their live show, with María on lead vocals and Josh on drums, the couple is joined by their closest friends. On guitar, Jesse Perlman, born and bred of LA, with ‘tones that can melt steel,’ say his bandmates. On keys, Edward James. And on trumpet, Gabe Steiner. Bio written by Carlotta HarlanLinks: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
Senses Fail
Having a kid changes you. Ask most new parents and they’ll say that when you bring a child into the world it instils in you a previously unimagined perspective on existence. Some even go so far as to say that it makes life make sense, that it gives it a purpose. For Buddy Nielsen, the sole remaining founding member of Senses Fail, it’s also made him think about his own mortality more than ever before. That started during his wife’s pregnancy, but it’s persisted ever since. As such, he’s found himself staring directly into the black abyss of his mortality a lot recently. It’s that heightened sense of his own impending doom that’s at the center of Hell Is In Your Head, the band’s eighth studio album.“My wife had a pretty serious childbirth,” he says. “I don’t want to say she almost died but it was pretty scary for a minute. And the relationship you have to have with your child is just a constant letting go of yourself in ways that you didn’t necessarily perceive you needed to. I’ve had to start to come to terms with my own death because my daughter, who’s now four, keeps asking about it. So this felt like an opportunity to maybe address grief and how we process being – how do you have a kid, how do you be alive, how do you continue to live a meaningful life while also knowing that you’re going to die?”It’s those questions and more that Hell Is In Your Head explores and attempts to answer across its 11 dark, brooding songs. It does so in two very distinct halves. Five of the first six tracks – “The Burial Of The Dead”, “A Game Of Chess”, “The Fire Sermon”, “Death By Water” and “What The Thunder Said” – take their titles from the five parts of TS Eliot’s “The Waste Land”. They aren’t based on the 1922 poem per se, but they’re set in its world, and use that setting as a foundation to explore those topics in a more philosophical, abstract and timeless sense.Nielsen, in fact, says he views these six songs “more like a play”. That’s why the portentous, gloomy, atmospheric opener has “references to exiting and entering the wings of a stage.”“What’s the answer to the inevitable trap of the fact that you’re going to die?” asks Nielsen. “This record attempts to go to the dark place of ‘What is it that we’re so afraid of death?’ We’re afraid of death because of grief. Are we truly afraid of death because of death? Through my own therapy, I’ve learned you don’t even really have a clear understanding of death because it’s unknowable. And since you literally can’t die and come back, I tried to place the record in a much darker fictional place to help talk about those unanswerable questions.”Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Town Mountain
Hailing from Asheville, North Carolina, Town Mountain is the sum of all its vast and intricate influences — this bastion of alt-country rebellion and honky-tonk attitude pushed through the hardscrabble Southern Appalachian lens of its origin.“For us, it’s all about the interaction between the audience and the band — doing whatever we can onstage to facilitate that two-way street of energy and emotion,” says mandolinist Phil Barker. “Whether it’s a danceable groove or a particular lyric in a song, we’re projecting what we’re going through in our daily lives, and we feel that other people can attest to that, as well — it’s all about making that connection.”Amid a renewed sense of self is the group’s latest album, Lines in the Levee, a collage of sound and scope running the gamut of the musical spectrum in the same template of freedom and focus found in the round-robin fashion of the musical institution that is The Band — a solidarity also found in the incendiary live shows Town Mountain is now revered for from coast-to-coast, this devil-may-care gang of strings and swagger.“This is the sound we’ve been working towards since the inception of the band,” says guitarist Robert Greer. “We realized we needed to do what’s best for us. We’re being true to ourselves. It isn’t a departure, it’s an evolution — the gate is wide open right now.”“We’ve always had such a reverence and respect for those first and second-generation bluegrass bands, and it was that sound that initially inspired all of us to get together,” Barker adds. “And that will always be part of our sound. But, we also need to grow as artists, and as individuals — for us, that means bringing in a wider palette of sonic influences.”Formed by Greer and banjoist Jesse Langlais over 15 years ago on a ridge high above the Asheville skyline, the sturdy foundation of Town Mountain came into play with the addition of Barker not long into the band’s tenure. From there, the group pulled in fiddle virtuoso Bobby Britt and bassist Zach Smith. And though the road has been long, it’s also been bountiful.“It’s definitely been a slow climb. But, it’s been a climb nonetheless, where each new opportunity is filled with a sense of gratitude — to be able to make music, to be able to play music with your friends,” Barker says. “And to be able to bring music to the people, and have them want to show up and listen to it? Well, we’re thankful for that every single day.”Lines in the Levee also marks the band’s debut album release for famed Nashville label, New West Records. Well-known and championed as a fiercely independent act, the members of Town Mountain felt an immediate kinship with the record label — this genuine bond of creative fulfillment and sustained artistic growth to ensure the long game for the ensemble.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Old Sea Brigade
Ben Cramer describes 5 AM Paradise, his vivid and moving third album as Old Sea Brigade, as a coming-of-age record: ten songs that balance youthful abandon with maturity and restraint, full of imaginative flourishes, evocative textures, and graceful melodies that lend magnitude to mundane moments.Cramer first introduced Old Sea Brigade with his debut EP Love Brought Weight followed by his 2019 debut album, Ode To A Friend. He toured with artists like Julien Baker, Joseph, Lewis Watson, and Luke Sital-Singh, developing an undeniable chemistry with Luke that carried over to the studio on the collaborative All the Ways You Sing in the Dark EP. At the same time, Cramer was establishing himself as a sought-after producer to artists from around the world who stopped by his Nashville home studio, including Australians Angie McMahon and Lawson Hull, London’s John Joseph Brill, Montreal’s The Franklin Electric, and rising talent from his local community like Braison Cyrus and Paul McDonald. His 2021 sophomore album, Motivational Speaking, was called “some of the best quarantine art” (Consequence) and “sharply written and infectiously propulsive.” (Uncut)5 AM Paradise builds on those successes, as he revels in new sounds and ideas and explores the textures of everyday life in songs that make space for doubt and worry alongside joy and pleasure. He leaves his songs unresolved—posing more questions than he answers—so that they reveal more and more of themselves each time you hear them.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Weyes Blood – In Holy Flux Tour
Transcendent and sometimes wistful, the folk-pop of Weyes Blood (a.k.a. LA-based Natalie Mering) explores everything that drives us, divides us, and destroys us. This sounds like heavy stuff, but Mering is an effortless guide. Though burdened by doubt, sheis also buoyed by hope —her music unfurling with stunning nuance and ease. “Bob Seger meets Enya” is how she once described her work. When you consider Weyes Blood’s otherworldly expansiveness and hook-laden melodies, you realize that she isn’t exaggerating.Weyes Blood’s breakout album on Sub Pop, Titanic Rising(named one of 2019’s best by Pitchfork, NPR, The Guardian), was an observation of doom to come. Its follow up, And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow, finds her in the thick of it, searching for an escape hatch, away from algorithms and ideological chaos. After five albums and years of touring, Mering has a lot on her mind.Mering grew up singing in gospel and madrigal choirs, before prodigiously picking up guitar at age 8. That —mingled with herlove of jazz, filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, and scholar Joseph Campbell —has shaped her music, which tells stories of both ancient and modern myths. Why, you ask? Because, she says, “Shared myths are part of our psychology and survival.”And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglowis out November 18th, 2022.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Leven Kali
Born in the Netherlands and raised in Santa Monica, it doesn’t take more than one song to feel the soul and love deeply embedded in Leven Kali’s inspirational sound. His soothing voice and signature background harmonies have been making waves since his first independent single release “Joy” in 2017. Leven introduced himself to the music industry through a string of incredible collaborations and solo singles that year. Not bound by genre or style, he contributed to and was featured on projects such as Snoh Aalegra (Feels 2017), Playboi Carti (Self-Titled), Skrillex (HOWSLA), and Drake (More Life). Staying true to his roots, he remains surrounded by his hometown friends and family, crafting his unique and heartfelt sound with the people that he loves.Leven signed with Interscope in the winter of 2017. In January 2018 he released his first single “Do U Wrong (feat. Syd)”. Critically acclaimed and culturally adored, the track amassed over 50 million global streams and served as the leading single for his debut project “LOWTIDE” in 2019. “LOWTIDE”, in conjunction with the forthcoming “HIGHTIDE” serves as a two-part project which reflects on Leven’s life in the past two to three years, precisely on the time period immediately after his signing. The highly anticipated “HIGHTIDE” was released on May 1st, 2020. Produced and written by Kali, with the help of his band mates from The Moon, it was a development on the energy of “LOWTIDE”, another chapter in the story of Leven Kali, and features from Ty Dolla $ign and Syd from the Internet.In 2021 Leven became an independent artist, something he had always wanted to do. He spent much of his time that year writing and producing for other artists including Tinashe, Jazmine Sullivan, Yuna, Super Duper Kyle, and LoLo Zouai, to name a few. He also produced and wrote on 4 songs on Beyonce’s latest album, “RENAISSANCE”, including “Virgo’s Groove”, “Alien Superstar”, “Plastic off the Sofa”, and “Summer Renaissance”. In 2022, he signed to Independent Co. as his label and began releasing music again. His new EP “Let It Rain” drops in October before he heads out on his first headlining US tour.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | TikTok | YouTube
5 Years of Get Sad Y’all: An Emo & Pop Punk Party
Links: Instagram | Facebook
Special Interest
On every level, Special Interest is uncompromising: in their adventurous sound, their high-energy live performances, and their convictions. Dance music and punk culture have flirted in the warehouse before, but Special Interest’s desire to dismantle genre is informed by a larger abolitionist worldview that resists constraint, category, and conformity. Their music is a soundtrack to dancing the pain away as much as raging against injustice.Brought together by New Orleans’ inventive DIY scene, Special Interest finds a new way of defining the “rock band,” a true collective unit rather than the dictated vision of a single member. Their sound is ever-fluid and continues to evolve — Special Interest actually began as the duo of Alli Logout and Maria Elena with guitar, drum machine, and a power drill, before Nathan Cassiani and Ruth Mascelli filled out its current line-up.2018’s Spiraling and 2020’s widely acclaimed The Passion Of further articulated the group’s style, driven by dance grooves and electronic textures as much as hardcore riffs, but Special Interest expands the vision with Endure. The writing of their latest album was informed not just by the bleakness of the pandemic, but the tremendous energy and righteous anger of the summer 2020 uprisings. Endure sets the intensity of that moment — from the gnawing despair of isolation to the euphoria of human contact and connection — to a driving dancefloor rhythm.Special Interest describes the experience of recording Endure as “inverted,” since the pandemic obviously stunted the possibilities of live performance, resulting in a new period of experimentation and sonic exploration in which old rules were cast out. Everything the group writes springs from the same source — a hard-hitting drum machine beat — but the possibilities are endless and the outcome always unpredictable. Ruth Mascelli’s work on drum machines and synthesizers provides a foundation, as varying beats lead the group into different directions: rave-ready drum and bass or ballroom-like house on the more dancefloor-friendly cuts, and marching kicks on No Wave-inflected tracks like “Foul” and “Love Scene.” “Cherry Blue Intention” brings together a sturdy post-punk bassline, shrieking guitar effects, and a jungle breakbeat into a driving anthem of an opening track.New songs like “(Herman’s) House” recall the art rock of Sparks and The B-52s as much as politically-minded punk, and on “Midnight Legend,” the group is more overtly pop than ever before — making something fun during a time of frequent sadness became a central priority. But that doesn’t mean anything is simple or surface-level, with a darkness often treading beneath the smooth production. For as much as the band plays with dissonance, Maria Elena’s expressive guitar work and Nathan Cassiani’s grooving bass lines effortlessly weave together, and shade out the soundscape brought into existence by Alli Logout’s commanding vocal presence. Collaboration is central to the band’s creative process, and it’s difficult to imagine even one element from the whole of Special Interest subtracted from the equation. Their songs are living organisms, open to the possibility of experimentation and interpretation, but also not the property or creation of any one person.Links: Bandcamp
EddieFest
EddieFest was created by the family of the late Eddie Watkins, to honor his memory and bring awareness to suicide and suicide prevention. It’s a day of music and art from many people who knew and loved Eddie. Local acts volunteer to play, and folks donate works for the silent art auction. Please join us for this special day. All proceeds benefit HopeLine, NC’s own crisis intervention and suicide prevention resource.Lineup:Tha MaterialsSecret Monkey WeekendPhineas Nyang’oroNikki Meets the HibachiJAMM Tha NubianZoneOort PatrolWhizthekidDonations for Silent Art Auction welcome!$10 Donation suggested. https://www.hopeline-nc.org/about
The Red Pears
The Red Pears’ founding members, Henry Vargas (vocals and guitar) and Jose Corona (drums), draw their sound from the spectrum between the early 2000s New York indie rock scene and grunge to the cumbia and corridos that soundtracked their childhoods in El Monte, a sleepy suburban town just east of Los Angeles. After cycling through an assortment of lineups, mutual friend and bassist Patrick Juarez stayed on and expanded their operation. Now a solid three-piece band, these emerging alt-rockers, have come a long way from meeting at a local Battle of the Bands, practicing in their garages, and naming themselves after their favorite color and a pun on the word “pair”— a subtle nod to sonic inspirations The White Stripes and The Black Keys.The Red Pears first got on the map with self-releases For Today, For Tomorrow, For What Is, For What Could’ve Been and We Bring Anything to the Table… Except Tables We Can’t Bring Tables to the Table, touring behind them and learning the ins-and-outs of being on the road. In 2019, the band delivered their sonically and emotionally diverse heartfelt EP Alicia, named after Corona and Vargas’ mothers, that showcased a polished alt-rock sound without sacrificing the band’s roiling, fuzzed-out garage spirit. The Red Pears North Star continues to be their undying honesty and commitment to the craft. “It all boils down to effort and humility,” says Vargas. “We just want to do our best and make the music we want to make. Now we have more help and resources, but it’s about continuing to push and keeping that humility.”In 2021, Henry, Jose and Patrick introduced and solidified a new era for the band with their latest album You Thought We Left Because The Door Was Open, But We Were Waiting Outside. The album marks a matured reinvention of their nostalgic indie attitude as their early sounds, sonic inspirations and revives the rebellious spirit of garage rock take on a fully realized form in the name of friendship, growth and timeless rock ‘n’ roll. Channeling the tenacious fervor and reception of the album, the band has utilized the momentum to relocate their moxie to stages nationwide, selling out venues as they go alongside Beach Fossils, Wild Nothing, as well as on their own headlining routes. The Red Pears will continue to tour in 2022, anticipating a return to their biggest headlining run yet.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify
