Mega Colossus, Children of the Reptile, Swineherd

Started in 2005 this New Wave of British Heavy Metal influenced group shares its inspiration from artist such as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy, and Scorpions. The band is from various parts of North Carolina including Greensboro, Chapel Hill, and Raleigh. The band’s goal is to melt every face out there and drink all your booze.Bill Fisher-guitar/vocalsStephen Cline-guitar/vocalsAnthony Micale-bass/vocalsSean Buchanan-lead vocalsDoza-drumsLinks: Website | Bandcamp | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud

Matthew Perryman Jones

A performing songwriter by trade, Matthew Perryman Jones is actually a seeker, at heart. With each entry in his discography, his musical and moral compass points toward an artistic horizon he has yet to explore. Sometimes, he turns his gaze to examine his own inner world. Other times, he looks to the inspirations found in the letters Vincent Van Gogh penned to his brother Theo, in the idea of duende as proffered by Federico García Lorca, and in the poetic verses of Sufi poets Hafiz and Rumi.Of his most recent release, American Songwriter wrote that, “MPJ’s songwriting acumen could easily be used as a musical template to demonstrate how less can be so much more. [He] sounds cinematic and slowly worms its way inside your brain, feasts upon your emotions, and ultimately burrows down into your soul.” It could be said that Matthew makes soul music — not based on how it sounds, but on where it originates and where it resides.Originally from Pennsylvania, Matthew grew up in Georgia and cut his artistic teeth in the Atlanta music scene before heading north to Nashville. His debut release, Nowhere Else But Here, dropped in 2000, followed by three subsequent albums — Throwing Punches in the Dark (2006), Swallow the Sea (2008), and Land of the Living (2012) — and three additional EPs as well as a handful of singles. Songs from across his catalog have been featured in dozens of film and TV placements, and tours have taken him across the U.S. and abroad to share stages with legends like Shawn Colvin and Patty Griffin, as well as the Ten Out of Tenn songwriter collective of which he is a part.Now, Matthew is gearing up to release his fifth album, alongside producer Josh Kaler, focused on genius loci — the spirit of place. Written across the country throughout 2017, and funded by generous fans contributing to a Pledge Music campaign, the record was finished in early 2018. As he chases the ever-retreating horizon, Jones will stop, listen, and capture when and what the spirit of each place calls out to him.Links: Website | Twitter | Facebook

Sam Weber

Sam Weber’s storied exodus from his homeland of Canada to find new footing and opportunity in America resonates like a classic story of pain, loss, and rebirth. That narrative thread is woven throughout his new record, Get Free, offering a warm, intimate, and multidimensional portrait of the 28-year-old singer-songwriter. With this new collection of material, Weber reaches fresh emotional depths, commanding more expressive personal moments than ever before — at times within the margins of a single verse. Sam Weber has already logged more miles as a gigging musician than most of his peers will in a lifetime, earning enviable accolades along the way (he was featured in Guitar Player a decade ago, by some accounts the youngest artist ever to grace those pages). He first picked up the guitar at age 12 to form a rock ’n’ roll band with his father and brother in the living room of their family home. Sixteen years later, having collaborated with Grammy winners and with extensive international tours under his belt, the Canadian-born Los Angeleno goes forth with the same intention and mantra as when he began: “Music is an emotional conduit between people and allows us the opportunity to share moments of truth and unity. In an age where the ritual of music-making can be a solitary exercise, I want to live my life to remind everyone that playing music as a communal and spontaneous practice can be healing and powerful.” In October 2019, Weber released what he now describes as his only real studio album, Everything Comes True. Though he had released a handful of compelling albums and EPs in the preceding decade, this one distinguished itself because the record was cut live-off-the-floor in the iconic B room at Hollywood’s Ocean Way Studios. From the circular shuffle of “It’s All Happening” to the soaring ramble of “Queen On The Money”, Everything Comes True’s expansive range of grooves and emotions stands tall above Weber’s previous offerings. Featuring hallmark musicianship and personnel from the near and far reaches of popular music and the singer-songwriter’s imagination, the sometimes nine-piece electric-roots orchestra conjure a brassy and joyful feast of sounds. Links: Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Spotify | Apple Music

DL Zene

Zachary Williams (of The Lone Bellow)

ZACHARY WILLIAMSDIRTY CAMARO BIOby Marc MenchacaI heard Zachary Williams play for the first time in 2006. A good friend of mine invited me to his show at Rockwood Music Hall. I found myself in a small room packed shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of other eager listeners. Rockwood started in 2005 as an artist’s room; it expanded in step with Zach’s career incidentally or not, and it still is a place where people flock to listen to music as opposed to a bar where music is secondary. Thanks to everything good for that place and especially for providing a sanctuary for Zach. He commands your attention on stage, and it was, in my opinion, the place where he got the ears he deserved. Needless to say, after seeing Zach play upwards of two hundred shows over fifteen years, I became an early fan of his.His stories come through him with such conviction and beauty that you can’t escape the impact of his writing and his voice, which is informed by those vulnerable parts of a soul baring the most of oneself. I remember telling his wife Stacy after the second or third time seeing him at Rockwood that I’d never smiled so much watching someone on stage. His pure joy in his art was blinding. I also remember telling her that I couldn’t wait because something was going to “hit”. And it did. The Lone Bellow came together and more and more ears caught on. But in hindsight, I misspoke. Zach’s music was hitting in the beginning just as it’s still hitting now…it’s just sometimes hard to see the journey’s process working when you’re in it or witnessing it. One always thinks the next one is going to do it when in reality the one now IS doing it.Fifteen years later I am proud to say I have a friendship I’ll take to my last day, and from it comes music that makes my cheeks hurt, wakes my spirits and changes the rhythm of my day. Dirty Camaro makes your heart do the dance. From soulful crooning about relationships that yearn for transformation and missing pieces to ones that speak of adoration and a love that is anchored in the depths that only love can explain, to everyday happenstance that puts a smile on your face and a laugh in your belly…just listen and let it have you. Because it will. And if you were to ask me, I’d point to influences of the late great John Prine and Guy Clark, Springsteen and Chris Smithers. You’ll find a church where everyone speaks the same language no matter who you are and you won’t want to leave.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

together Pangea

Since they began jamming back in William’s Santa Clarita bedroom, Los Angeles indie band Together Pangea have continually challenged themselves with each subsequent offering. Jelly Jam [2010] poured the gasoline, Living Dummy [2011] struck the match, and Badillac [2014] lit the fire with its revved-up nineties rock-inspired flames. Along the way, fan favorites like “Sick Shit,” “Badillac,” and “Offer” would rack up millions of Spotify streams, while the group received support from Consequence of Sound, Pitchfork, MTV, Stereogum, and more. Following the 2015 release of The Phage EP, produced by The Replacements’ Tommy Stinson, these working class boys embarked on the journey to what would become 2017’s Bulls and Roosters, which evidenced their growth as a tried-and-true rock band with just the right amount of “brattiness,” as they like to say. Together Pangea—William Keegan, Danny Bengston, and Erik Jimenez—return in 2021 having made the most of 2020’s turbulence by writing and recording DYE, an upbeat, undeniable collection of hooks, anthems, and power-pop garage-rock catchiness that is unmistakably the album of their career. DYE is an amalgam of the band’s last three records: the inward looking and self-pleasing experimentation of 2017’s Bulls and Roosters, the frantic and scream-y Badillac with its inspiration from emotionally raw grunge, and the 50’s pop heavy 2011 album Living Dummy. After more than a decade as Together Pangea, the band know how their bread is buttered and made an effort to focus on what they know they do best.Links: Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

Langhorne Slim (Solo)

Langhorne Slim didn’t write a song for more than a year. A battle with clinical anxiety disorder and prescription drug abuse, which came to a head in 2019, had dimmed the light within. The man who once seemed to ooze spontaneity was now creatively adrift, stumbling along in the fog. Knowing he was struggling to write songs and make sense of it all, Slim was finally able to flesh out a throwaway ditty one afternoon. His close friend Mike then suggested he try penning a song a day. Slim didn’t like the idea, but he gave it a shot. To his surprise, the songs came. In a flurry of stream-of-consciousness writing, the new tunes tumbled out, one after another, like little starbursts of joy, gifts from the gods you might say. Slim was tuning out the noise and finding beauty in the madness of a world coming undone. Over the course of a couple of months from March to May 2020, Slim penned more than twenty that were certified keepers. These songs make up his new album, Strawberry Mansion, which is being released this winter on Dualtone Records. The road to Strawberry Mansion, which was recorded at Daylight Sound in Nashville with longtime compadres Paul DeFigilia (Avett Brothers) and Mat Davidson (Twain), began in 2019 with Slim’s decision to get sober. That experience and his ongoing recovery program have given him a framework for grappling with the personal demons that have always skulked in the shadows, and helped him find light in the void.Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Spotify | YouTube

Avail, Hot Water Music

Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

Reverend Horton Heat

Loaded guns, space heaters, and big skies. Welcome to the lethal littered landscape of Jim Heath’s imagination. True to his high evan- gelical calling, Jim is a Revelator, both revealing & reinterpreting the country-blues-rock roots of Ameri- can music. He’s a time-travelling space-cowboy on a endless inter- stellar musical tour, and we are all the richer & “psychobillier” for get- ting to tag along.Seeing REVEREND HORTON HEAT live is a transformative ex- perience. Flames come off the gui- tars. Heat singes your skin. There’s nothing like the primal tribal rock & roll transfiguration of a Rever- end Horton Heat show. Jim be- comes a slicked-back 1950′s rock & roll shaman channeling Screamin’ Jay Hawkins through Buddy Holly, while Jimbo incinerates the Stand- Up Bass. And then there are the “Heatettes”. Those foxy rockabilly chicks dressed in poodle-skirts and cowboy boots slamming the night away. It’s like being magically transported into a Teen Exploita- tion picture from the 1950′s that’s currently taking place in the future.Listening to the REVEREND HOR- TON HEAT is tantamount to injecting pure musical nitrous into the hot-rod engine of your heart. The Reverend’s commandants are simple. ROCK HARD, DRIVE FAST, AND LIVE TRUE.And no band on this, or any other, planet rocks harder, drives faster, or lives truer than the Reverend Horton Heat. These “itinerant preachers” actually practice what they preach. They live their lives by the Gospel of Rock & Roll.From the High-Octane Spaghet- ti-Western Wall of Sound in “Big Sky” — to the dark driving frenetic paranoia of “400 Bucks” – to the brain-melting Western Psyche- delic Garage purity of “Psychobilly Freakout” — The Rev’s music is the perfect soundtrack to the Drive-In Movie of your life.Jim Heath & Jimbo Wallace have chewed up more road than the Google Maps drivers. For twenty- five Psychobilly years, they have blazed an indelible, unforgettable, and meteoric trail across the globe with their unique blend of musical virtuosity, legendary showman- ship, and mythic imagery.“Okay it’s time for me to put this loaded gun down, jump in my Five- Oh Ford, and nurture my pig on the outskirts of Houston. I’ll be bring- ing my love whip. See y’all later.” – Carty Talkington Writer/DirectorRev your engines and catch the ser- mon on the road as it’s preached by everybody’s favorite Reverend. Don’t forget to keep an eye out for the 11th studio album from REVEREND HORTON HEAT, boldly titled Rev, due out January 21st.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

Cursive

Over the past two decades, Cursive has become known for writing smart, tightly woven concept albums where frontman Tim Kasher turns his unflinching gaze on specific, oftentimes challenging themes, and examines them with an incisively brutal honesty. 2000’s Domestica dealt with divorce; 2003’s The Ugly Organ tackled art, sex, and relationships; 2006’s Happy Hollow skewered organized religion; 2009’s Mama, I’m Swollen grappled with the human condition and social morality; and 2012’s I Am Gemini explored the battle between good and evil. But the band’s remarkable eighth full-length, Vitriola, required a different approach — one less rigidly themed and more responsive as the band struggles with existentialism veering towards nihilism and despair; the ways in which society, much like a writer, creates and destroys; and an oncoming dystopia that feels eerily near at hand.Cursive has naturally developed a pattern of releasing new music every three years, creating records not out of obligation, but need, with the mindset that each record could potentially be their last. 2015 came and went, however, and the band remained silent for their longest period to date. But the members of Cursive have remained busy with solo records, a movie (the Kasher-penned and directed No Resolution), and running businesses (the band collectively owns and operates hometown Omaha’s mainstay bar/venue, O’Leaver’s). The band even launched their own label, 15 Passenger, through which they’re steadily reissuing their remastered back catalogue, as well as new albums by Kasher, Campdogzz, and David Bazan and Sean Lane. And like many others, the band members have been caught up in the inescapable state of confusion and instability that plagues their home country, and seems to grow more chaotic with each passing day.Which brings us to 2018 and Vitriola. For the first time since Happy Hollow, the album reunites Kasher, guitarist/singer Ted Stevens and bassist Matt Maginn with founding drummer Clint Schnase, as well as co-producer Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, M. Ward, Jenny Lewis) at ARC Studios in Omaha. They’re joined by Patrick Newbery on keys (who’s been a full-time member for years) and touring mainstay Megan Siebe on cello. Schnase and Maginn are in rare form, picking up right where they left off with a rhythmic lockstep of viscera-vibrating bass and toms, providing a foundation for Kasher and Stevens’ intertwining guitars and Newbery and Siebe’s cinematic flourishes. The album runs the sonic gamut between rich, resonant melodicism, Hitchcockian anxiety, and explosive catharsis — and no Cursive album would be complete without scream-along melodies and lyrics that, upon reflection, make for unlikely anthems.There’s a palpable unease that wells beneath Vitriola’s simmering requiems and fist-shakers. Fiery opener “Free To Be or Not To Be You and Me” reflects the album’s core: a search for meaning that keeps coming up empty, and finding the will to keep going despite the fear of a dark future. The album directs frustration and anger at not only modern society and the universe at large, but also inward towards ourselves. On “Under the Rainbow,” disquiet boils into rage that indicts the complacency of the privileged classes; “Ghost Writer” has a catchy pulse that belies Kasher chastising himself for writing about writing; and “Noble Soldier/Dystopian Lament” is a haunting look at potential societal collapse that provides little in the way of hope but balances beauty and horror on the head of a pin.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

Genre: Concerts