Kishi Bashi
Kishi Bashi is the pseudonym of singer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter Kaoru Ishibashi. Born in Seattle, Washington, Ishibashi grew up in Norfolk, Virginia where both of his parents were professors at Old Dominion University. As a 1994 graduate of Matthew Fontaine Maury High School, he went on to study film scoring at Berklee College of Music before becoming a renowned violinist. Ishibashi has recorded and toured internationally as a violinist with diverse artists such as Regina Spektor, Sondre Lerche, and most recently, the Athens, Georgia-based indie rock band, of Montreal. He remains based in Athens.Kishi Bashi is also the singer and founding member of the New York electronic rock outfit, Jupiter One. In 2011, he started to record and perform as a solo artist, opening for Sondre Lerche, Alexi Murdoch, and of Montreal. He supported of Montreal on their spring 2012 tour.Shortly after Ishibashi debuted his full-length solo album “151a” on Indianapolis label Joyful Noise Recordings, NPR All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen listed Kishi Bashi as his favorite new artist of 2012 noting that he created “a radiant, uplifting soundscape” with songs such as “Bright Whites.” Kishi Bashi has since been invited to play in major festivals such as SXSW and Austin City Limits and gone on an extensive US tour with supporting acts such as The Last Bison (from his native Hampton Roads, Virginia). In early 2013, Kishi Bashi held a North American tour across the United States and Canada, continuing in EU and UK in spring 2013.In 2014 Kishi Bashi released his own line of coffee through Jittery Joe’s called Royal Daark Blend. Each purchase comes with an exclusive song download. 2016 saw Kishi Bashi release his new album “Sonderlust” live on NPR’s All Songs Considered. His latest album, Omoiyari (a Japanese word for the idea of creating compassion toward other people by thinking about them), was released in 2019. He is currently co-directing a feature length documentary of the same name about minority identity and the Incarceration of Japanese Americans in WWII. In 2020 Kishi Bashi scored the entire soundtrack for the touching Apple TV+ kids show “Stillwater” with composer Toby Chu, and released it as an album featuring 18 tracks of uplifting orchestral tunes.His new Emigrant EP, a very special companion piece to ‘Omoiyari’ is out physically and digitally now. Arranged and recorded over the last year, ‘Emigrant EP’ serves as a time capsule of the 2020 condition and a continuation of the concepts explored in ‘Omoiyari’.Links: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
The Pink Stones, Teddy & The Rough Riders
The Pink Stones deliver a full serving of Peach State picked country-rock from Athens, Georgia with the release of their debut album, Introducing… The Pink Stones, via the New West Records imprint Normaltown Records. Mixing elements of classic cosmic country, raucous rock’n’roll and fresh humor and heartaches, The Pink Stones are authoring a new chapter in the annals of Cosmic American Music.The Pink Stones Links: Website | Twitter | FacebookTeddy and The Rough Riders were born in Nashville, TN. A group of childhood friends who grew up in the spotlight of “music city”, they’ve cut their teeth in the local honky tonk/ country scene, as well as rock clubs across the US. They play their own modern style of Country Rock that sets them apart from the Americana folk scene encompassing New Nashville.TRRs newest release “The Congress of Teddy and The Rough Riders” was recorded at their home in the alleys behind legendary Music Row, and combines heavy hitting rockers full of screaming pedal steel with their Appalachian bluegrass style close harmony. Country-Rock is just a genre, but Teddy and The Rough Riders are able to truly branch both sides of the spectrum, turning Rock fans into cowboys, and hillbillies into head bangers.Teddy and The Rough Riders Links: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
John Craigie
Covid Policy for this show: Upon entry, all patrons must provide proof of vaccination for COVID-19 or a negative test for COVID-19 taken within 48 hours of the show. Purchaser agrees to require all staff to provide proof of vaccination for COVID-19 upon entry. Purchaser agrees to require all staff to be masked at all times while inside the venue. This is a seated show.A lot of life can happen over the course of one record. Lyrics immortalize those characters, exploits, and memories. On his 2020 Asterisk The Universe, John Craigie awkwardly encounters previous flames, mistakes a Catholic School custodian as a saint (and prays to him anyway), pays tribute to modern-day revolutionaries, and explores what it all means to live in the 21st century where infinite possibility does not necessarily equate infinite understanding. He soundtracks these stories with a score of smoked-out soul, tender folk, and American songbook eloquence billowing right from the heart of California. Progressing once more, the interplay of live drums and bass hold the music in the pocket as it simultaneously emanates an acoustic campfire glow.With these ten tunes, his journey unfolds in between organic instrumentation and lyrical observation. “As with any album, I want the lyrics to be heard, first and foremost,” he exclaims. “This is pretty similar to other versions of who I’ve been and who I am. It’s just one with a fresh batch of songs I’ll add to my setlist and new stories to tell from the road.”Those stories from the road have endeared Craigie to the devoted fans he has earned, song by song, show by show since 2009. A Craigie performance is not just a music show, it’s a collective experience. Craigie shines by telling candid stories, humorous anecdotes, and leaving everything on the stage. Fiercely independent, Craigie prolifically unveiled one highly personal album after another while logging enough miles on the road to give The Grateful Dead a run for their money. Venues got bigger and bigger as audiences clamored for more. Capturing that electric feeling on 2016’s Capricorn In Retrograde… Just Kidding… Live in Portland, Craigie wound up on Jack Johnson’s car stereo on a road trip up the coast. Thoroughly impressed by what he heard, Johnson took Craigie on tour during the summer of 2017.2017 would be a watershed year for Craigie. From No Rain, No Rose, “I Am California ” [feat. Gregory Alan Isakov] eclipsed 4.5 million Spotify streams followed by “Highway Blood” [feat. Shook Twins, Gregory Alan Isakov] with 3.5 million Spotify streams. Additionally, he performed everywhere from High Sierra Music Festival, Strawberry Music Festival, and Kate Wolf Music Festival to Burning Man and Summer Camp Festival. He attracted the admiration of not-so secret admires a la Chuck Norris, while earning acclaim from No Depression, SF Weekly, AXS, Seattle Times The Portland Tribune, and The Stranger who christened him, “the lovechild of John Prine and Mitch Hedberg.” 2018’s Scarecrow was originally plotted as a “vinyl only” release, but the diehard fanbase wasn’t having it. An onslaught of emails and social media messages demanded Craigie shared the music online. It appeared on DSPs shortly thereafter.Links: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Sharon Van Etten
Sharon Van Etten’s Remind Me Tomorrow comes four years after Are We There, and reckons with the life that gets lived when you put off the small and inevitable maintenance in favor of something more present. Throughout Remind Me Tomorrow, Sharon Van Etten veers towards the driving, dark glimmer moods that have illuminated the edges of her music and pursues them full force. With curling low vocals and brave intimacy, Remind Me Tomorrow is an ambitious album that provokes our most sensitive impulses: reckless affections, spirited nurturing, and tender courage.”I wrote this record while going to school, pregnant, after taking the OA audition,” says Van Etten. “I met Katherine Dieckmann while I was in school and writing for her film. She’s a true New Yorker who has lived in her rent controlled west village apartment for over 30 years. Her husband lives across the hall. They raised two kids this way. When I expressed concern about raising a child as an artist in New York City, she said ‘you’re going to be fine. Your kids are going to be fucking fine. If you have the right partner, you’ll figure it out together.’” Van Etten goes on, “I want to be a mom, a singer, an actress, go to school, but yeah, I have a stain on my shirt, oatmeal in my hair and I feel like a mess, but I’m here. Doing it. This record is about pursuing your passions.” The reality is Remind Me Tomorrow was written in stolen time: in scraps of hours wedged between myriad endeavors — Van Etten guest-starred in The OA, and brought her music onstage in David Lynch’s revival of Twin Peaks. Off-screen, she wrote her first score for Katherine Dieckmann’s movie Strange Weather and the closing title song for Tig Notaro’s show Tig. She goes on, “The album title makes me giggle. It occurred to me one night when I, on autopilot, clicked ‘remind me tomorrow’ on the update window that pops up all the time on my computer. I hadn’t updated in months! And it’s the simplest of tasks!”The songs on Remind Me Tomorrow have been transported from Van Etten’s original demos through John Congleton’s arrangement. Congleton helped flip the signature Sharon Van Etten ratio, making the album more energetic-upbeat than minimal-meditative. “I was feeling overwhelmed. I couldn’t let go of my recordings – I needed to step back and work with a producer.” She continues, “I tracked two songs as a trial run with John [Jupiter 4 and Memorial Day]. I gave him Suicide, Portishead, and Nick Cave’s Skeleton Tree as references and he got excited. I knew we had to work together. It gave me the perspective I needed. It’s going to be challenging for people in a good way.” The songs are as resonating as ever, the themes are still an honest and subtle approach to love and longing, but Congleton has plucked out new idiosyncrasies from Van Etten’s sound.For Remind Me Tomorrow, Van Etten put down the guitar. When she was writing the score for Strange Weather her reference was Ry Cooder, so she was playing her guitar constantly and getting either bored or getting writer’s block. At the time, she was sharing a studio space with someone who had a synthesizer and an organ, and she wrote on piano at home, so she naturally gravitated to keys when not working on the score – to clear her mind. Remind Me Tomorrow shows this magnetism towards new instruments: piano keys that churn, deep drones, distinctive sharp drums.Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Spotify | YouTube
Del Amitri
Attention Patrons,Due to the increase of the Delta Variant and the danger it poses, we are writing to let you know that starting October 1st, 2021, in additional to masks, proof of vaccination will be required for all attendees of in-person performances at the ArtsCenter.This was a difficult decision to make, however given the risks that the new variant poses to the health of the community, we believe this organizational mandate is the most sensible measure for the safety of the community.Almost two decades on from their last album, Del Amitri easily remember the good old days, when a Glasgow indie band “who never really cut it as Orange Juice and Josef K copyists, which is kinda what we were” became, in effect, overnight successes.Suddenly, after a still-born first album (1985’s Del Amitri), with 1989’s Waking Hours, hit single ‘Nothing Ever Happens’ propelled them to sharing a Top of the Pops stage with Phil Collins, then in the imperial phase of his solo career, newcomer Sinead O’Connor singing ‘Nothing Compares 2 U,’ and the premier of Public Enemy’s ‘Welcome to the Terrordome’ video.Two years later, Del Amitri were still regulars on the nation’s favourite chart show. Promoting 1992 hit ‘Always The Last to Know,’ the band appeared on an episode alongside an En Vogue video (‘My Lovin’), Shakespears Sister (‘I Don’t Care’) and, performing smash US hit ‘Jump,’ adolescent rap duo Kriss Kross, they of the backwards-jeans.”I remember hearing their manager shouting at someone from the BBC,” says guitarist Iain Harvie, “complaining about the sound: ‘Even that fucking Scottish rock band sound better than my guys!'”Del Amitri also remember the other side of the good old days. That happens when being successful enough to bag a stadium support with one of the biggest bands in the world isn’t quite enough success to insulate you from the indignity of a breakfast TV outside-broadcast from Blackpool and being upstaged by a dancing omelette.”We did a gig with REM in Cardiff Arms Park, third on the bill with Belly and The Cranberries,” begins singer/guitarist Justin Currie. “And REM were mingling round the catering area after and invited us to their aftershow. We’re like: ‘Oh yes! We’re going to get to party with REM!'”Alas…”Oh no — we had to get on the bus at midnight, drive through the night to Blackpool, sit outside the beach on the tour bus, waiting on the 5.30am call-time, then got put in a Portakabin, ignored for three hours. What the fuck are we doing here? We could still be partying with REM!”Then at three minutes to nine, Danni Minogue comes in and yells at us to get onstage! So we get up there — as the credits are rolling — and it’s chaos. There’s a Nolan Sister, all these kids waving inflatable toys, us miming, in front of a dancing chicken and egg — I still don’t know who came on first — waving kitchen utensils. Then Frank Carson comes on just as we’re about to down tools. He spots how pissed off I was, so starts dancing behind me, occasionally leaning into my ear going: ‘You’re a wanker! You’re a wanker!'””It was a travesty,” Harvie laughs ruefully. “But at least our tour manager enjoyed it — he was at the side of the stage, pissing himself laughing.”Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Superchunk
Like every record Superchunk has made over the last thirty-some years, Wild Loneliness is unskippably excellent and infectious. It’s a blend of stripped-down and lush, electric and acoustic, highs and lows, and I love it all. On Wild Loneliness I hear echoes of Come Pick Me Up, Here’s to Shutting Up, and Majesty Shredding. After the (ahem, completely justifiable) anger of What a Time to Be Alive, this new record is less about what we’ve lost in these harrowing times and more about what we have to be thankful for. (I know something about gratitude. I’ve been a huge Superchunk fan since the 1990s, around the same time I first found my way to poetry, so the fact that I’m writing these words feels like a minor miracle.)On Wild Loneliness, it feels like the band is refocusing on possibility, and possibility is built into the songs themselves, in the sweet surprises tucked inside them. I say all the time that what makes a good poem—the “secret ingredient”—is surprise. Perhaps the same is true of songs. Like when the sax comes in on the title track, played by Wye Oak’s Andy Stack, adding a completely new texture to the song. Or when Owen Pallett’s strings come in on “This Night.” But my favorite surprise on Wild Loneliness is when the harmonies of Norman Blake and Raymond McGinley of Teenage Fanclub kick in on “Endless Summer.” It’s as perfect a pop song as you’ll ever hear—sweet, bright, flat-out gorgeous—and yet it grapples with the depressing reality of climate change: “Is this the year the leaves don’t lose their color / and hummingbirds, they don’t come back to hover / I don’t mean to be a giant bummer but / I’m not ready / for an endless summer, no / I’m not ready for an endless summer.” I love how the music acts as a kind of counterweight to the lyrics.Because of COVID, Mac, Laura, Jim, and Jon each recorded separately, but a silver lining is that this method made other long-distance contributions possible, from R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, Sharon Van Etten, Franklin Bruno, and Tracyanne Campbell of Camera Obscura, among others. Some of the songs for the record were written before the pandemic hit, but others, like “Wild Loneliness,” were written from and about isolation.I’ve been thinking of songs as memory machines. Every time we play a record, we remember when we heard it before, and where we were, and who we were. Music crystallizes memories so well: listening to “Detroit Has a Skyline,” suddenly I’m shout-singing along with it at a show in Detroit twenty years ago; listening to “Overflows,” I’m transported back to whisper- singing a slowed-down version of it to my young son, that year it was his most-requested lullaby.Wild Loneliness is becoming part of my life, part of my memories, too. And it will be part of yours. I can picture people in 20, 50, or 100 years listening to this record and marveling at what these artists created together—beauty, possibility, surprise—during this alarming (and alarmingly isolated) time. But why wait? Let’s marvel now.—Maggie SmithLinks: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Sierra Ferrell
With her spellbinding voice and time-bending sensibilities, Sierra Ferrell makes music that’s as fantastically vagabond as the artist herself. Growing up in small-town West Virginia, the singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist left home in her early 20s to journey across the country with a troupe of nomadic musicians, playing everywhere from truck stops to alleyways to freight-train boxcars speeding down the railroad tracks. After years of living in her van and busking on the streets of New Orleans and Seattle, she moved to Nashville and soon landed a deal with Rounder Records on the strength of her magnetic live show. Now, on her highly anticipated label debut Long Time Coming, Ferrell shares a dozen songs beautifully unbound by genre or era, instantly transporting her audience to an infinitely more enchanted world.Co-produced by Stu Hibberd and 10-time Grammy Award-winner Gary Paczosa (Alison Krauss, Dolly Parton, Gillian Welch), Long Time Coming embodies a delicate eclecticism fitting for a musician who utterly defies categorization. “I want my music to be like my mind is — all over the place,” says Ferrell, who recorded the album at Southern Ground and Minutia studios in Nashville. “I listen to everything from bluegrass to techno to goth metal, and it all inspires me in different ways that I try to incorporate into my songs and make people really feel something.” In sculpting the album’s chameleonic sound, Ferrell joined forces with a knockout lineup of guest musicians (including Jerry Douglas, Tim O’Brien, Chris Scruggs, Sarah Jarosz, Billy Strings, and Dennis Crouch), adding entirely new texture to each of her gracefully crafted and undeniably heartfelt songs.Sprung from her self-described “country heart but a jazz mind,” Long Time Coming opens on the unearthly reverie of “The Sea,” a haunting and hypnotic tale of scorned love. Its bewitching arrangement is adorned with sublime details like Ferrell’s tender toy-piano melodies and Scruggs’s woozy steel-guitar work. In a striking sonic shift emblematic of the whole album, Ferrell then veers into the galloping beat and classic bluegrass storytelling of “Jeremiah,” a heavy-hearted but sweetly hopeful romp featuring Jarosz on banjo and octave mandolin. Another impossibly charming bluegrass gem, “Bells of Every Chapel” sustains that wistful mood as Ferrell muses on the exquisite pain of “loving someone unconditionally with all your heart, but they don’t receive your love the way you want them to.” Graced with Strings’s nimble acoustic-guitar work and the heavenly harmonies of O’Brien and Julie Lee, “Bells of Every Chapel” reaches its breathtaking crescendo as Ferrell belts out the song’s closing lyrics, effectively twisting that heartache into something strangely glorious.One of the most enthralling moments on Long Time Coming, “Far Away Across the Sea” finds Ferrell serenading her tragically distant beloved, channeling the track’s ardent longing in wildly cascading guitar lines and the fiery trumpet work of Nadje Noordhuis. “Since I’m singing about the ocean in that song, I wanted it to have a calypso vibe — but then there’s also a bit of a tango feel to it, and some Spanish influence too,” Ferrell points out.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | TikTok
Secret Monkey Weekend CD Release Party
Secret Monkey Weekend – All the Time in the WorldFull disclosure: I play keyboards on All the Time in the World, and I have known the principals in this story since I moved back to North Carolina in 2006. If that disqualifies me, so be it. Read this anyway. – Peter Holsapple There are bands that start up, which are most of them. Friends from school, in a garage, in every city on the globe. Then there are bands that grow from beyond the realm of music–a job or maybe a family. Or maybe, as in the case of Secret Monkey Weekend, it’s a combination of the two, and the band’s organic development into unique recording artists is evident on their debut album All the Time in the World, released on Secret Monkey Records, March 18, 2022 and produced by Don Dixon (producer of R.E.M., Smithereens, etc.).Ella Brown Hart, Jefferson Hart and Lila Brown Hart are Secret Monkey Weekend.Jeff’s guitar and songwriting skill made starting a group with his adopted daughters Ella and Lila Brown a natural—he’s been a driving force in Americana music in North Carolina since the 1980s. When he married Laura in 2015, he also began giving her two young daughters instrument lessons, giving rise to a brand-new rock band, Secret Monkey Weekend. Lila follows in her late father Matt Brown’s path on drums and vocals, and Ella holds down the electric bass as her rhythm section partner.Live, they cut a confident profile, locked together musically like a jigsaw puzzle. They’ve played every gig they can, from school carnivals in North Carolina to pubs in England. Along the way, they’ve written some very cool tunes. Secret Monkey Weekend songs are smart, simple and summery, with great grooves like “Honey Num” that feel cozy and familiar, or maybe a tune like “Maybelle” that moves your feet before you know it.Guests like Jeffrey Dean Foster on guitar, Paul Messenger on harp and Tim Smith on Hammond and piano join in, but the star turns are by Lila, Ella and Jeff to be sure. Make no mistake: this is a BAND record. In seven years together, SMW’s focus has been to become ready to record an album, and so they’ve become tight, intense and proficient, and have created All the Time in the World, the solid and sterling debut album by Secret Monkey Weekend. — Peter Holsapple (The dB’s, Continental Drifters)Durham NC, November 2021Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Knuckle Puck
Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | Apple Music
Simon Dunson Quartet Album Release Show
Simon Dunson is one of the most interesting and versatile mandolinists of his generation. His virtuosity, unique lyrical style and compelling compositional voice all combine to create a new exciting sound that throws the mandolin into unknown territory.“Simon is the only mandolin player I’ve ever heard who sounds like he’s really playing Jazz. He’s one in a million!” – John McNeil“Simon is a thoughtful, listening, and aware mandolin player whose music includes the quality of searching for something deeper that connects the listener to the line as it unfolds.” – Bert Seager“Simon has absorbed the world of jazz phrasing and feel so deeply, and transmits that sound so satisfyingly on the mandolin, with more joy and ease than I previously knew was possible. He is as good an argument for the mandolin as a jazz instrument as there as yet been.” – Joe K. WalshA native to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Simon grew up immersed in bluegrass music playing with people like, Andrew Marlin, Emily Frantz, Jon Stickley, Bobby Britt, Hank Smith and Joseph Terrell. Looking to try something new, Simon auditioned and was the first mandolin major to be admitted into Interlochen Arts Academy where he studied classical mandolin repertoire and techniques. During this time, Simon discovered a great love and passion for jazz music and following his graduation Simon came to Boston to attend New England Conservatory as the first mandolin player admitted into their Jazz department. During his time at NEC Simon has been fortunate enough to be able to study with people like Jerry Bergonzi, John McNeil, Brad Shepik & Mark Zaleski. Simon is also a part of numerous musical projects including a progressive duo project Paper Waiter, which explores original music derived from genres such as jazz, western swing and indie rock. Simon exercises his compositional voice in more traditional jazz settings playing original music with his quartet and trio. His distinct compositional voice gained him acceptance into Banff’s Workshop for Jazz and Creative Music in the spring of 2020. Recording and production are also a huge passion of Simon’s and a recent collaboration with Roop Ghuman on Ghuman’s composition “Shaami Mildi” was featured in Rollingstone magazine. Simon also regularly freelances with various bluegrass bands and maintains an active role performing classical music including recent performances of George Crumb’s Ancient Voices of Children (featuring soprano, Laura Osgood Brown), Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet (NEC Philharmonia), and Carol Barnett’s, A Bluegrass Mass (NEC Concert Choir, The Salisbury Singers). Although Currently studying at NEC Simon frequently returns home to North Carolina where he spends his time teaching, volunteering and facilitating Pinecone run youth music camps and jams as well as serving as a band coach and mentor for the youth band, the Carolina Pinecones. In the fall of 2018 Simon placed 2nd in the National Mandolin Championship. Simon also is an active educator, teaching private lessons in person and over Skype.Links: Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
