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 evangelical calling, Jim is a Revelator, both revealing & reinterpreting the country-blues-rock roots of American music. He’s a time-travelling space-cowboy on a endless interstellar musical tour, and we are all the richer & “psychobillier” for getting to tag along. Seeing Reverend Horton Heat live is a transformative experience. Flames come off the guitars. Heat singes your skin. There’s nothing like the primal tribal rock & roll transfiguration of a Reverend Horton Heat show. Jim becomes 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 Exploitation picture from the 1950′s that’s currently taking place in the future. Listening to the Reverend Horton 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 Spaghetti-Western Wall of Sound in “Big Sky” – to the dark driving frenetic paranoia of “400 Bucks” – to the brain-melting Western Psychedelic 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 showmanship, 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 bringing my love whip. See y’all later.” – Carty Talkington Writer/Director Rev your engines and catch the sermon 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. Website · Instagram · Facebook · YouTube · Soundcloud
Devon Gilfillian – Time Will Tell Tour
Forged through the extreme highs and lows that come with living, Time Will Tell is the albumthat Devon Gilfillian has been preparing to make his entire life. His third studio album wasrecorded in Nashville’s legendary RCA Studio A, live to tape on varispeed, with mostly singlevocal takes.Gilfillian wrote and produced with a mighty team including longtime drummer and friendJonathan Smalt and Neal H Pogue (Tyler the Creator, OutKast) as executive producer.Gilfillian carries soul track to track through a sonic journey of rock, funk, and country elements,magnetically vulnerable about his own failure and frailty.No end is ever easy, and what else is there in life than to go through? To get to where we’regoing, we’ve got to suffer a little. Time Will Tell is the sound of Gilfillian doing just that whilerealizing what a blessing it is to be here at all. Website · Instagram · YouTube · Facebook · Spotify · TikTok
Damien Jurado
“Play on, there’s no such thing as better days,” Damien Jurado sings on “Roger,” the sweeping wash of a song that opens Reggae Film Star, his 18th full length album and second release from Jurado’s own Maraqopa Records label. But as he enters his 25th year as a recording artist, it’s clear these are, at the least, very good days for Jurado on the creative front. In these 12 songs, which evoke half-recalled dreams and overheard conversations, the cosmic rushes headlong into the autobiographical and specific moments on the clock fade from past to future to scenes set only in the eternal now. Playing out like a backlot documentary filmed on the location of an unnamed TV or film set—maybe a sitcom taping, or perhaps it’s a low budget science fiction B-movie, or could it be a talk show?—the album is populated by performers awaiting call times, camera operators praying for their shot, and studio audiences rapt with anticipation. The stars here eschew glitz and glamor. Instead, they wander grocery stores and parking lots in the verdant Pacific Northwest and the desert Southwest, looking for payphones and a sense of purpose. Produced by Jurado with multi-instrumentalist Josh Gordon and recording engineer Alex Bush at Sonikwire studio in Irvine,CA, Jurado’s home away from home and musical headquarters, the record’s compositions are among the most musically rich in his vast discography, encompassing romantic AM gold, ‘60s psychedelia, driving rock & roll, Latin shuffles, and left of the dial ambiance. Strings swell, melodic bass bubbles, and piano sparkles, undergirding Jurado’s unmistakable voice, at once intimately present and ghostly, grounded in the here and now but capable, at any moment, of drifting off into the divinatory. Following threads established by 2021’s The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania, the album sees Jurado embracing his auteur era, penning vignettes that arrive with little fanfare and depart quicker than you might suspect, only to linger long after they wrap. Seeking a skeleton key to decipher the action is beside the point—Jurado’s songs are worlds meant to be lived in, not picked apart—but on the beatific single “What Happened To The Class Of ‘65?” the singer imagines himself as both the viewer and the viewed, the eye behind the camera and its subject. This emotional and spiritual transference animates Reggae Film Star. Like a masterful director, Jurado offers motivation to the listener, staring unblinkingly from the mise-en-scène in your mind. “Look into the camera,” he commands on “The Day Of The Robot,” “One more time with anger/And sadness/I believe you.” A quarter-century in, Jurado remains gripped by his visions and driven by an unmatched creative drive. Reggae Film Star is one of Damien Jurado’s finest works to date, a stunning new feature from one of indie rock’s most cinematic figures. Here on this sound stage, you are the camera, you are the scene, you are the setting, and you are the viewer. Please try not to blink. -Jason P. Woodbury Website · Instagram
Shoaldiggers Album Release Show, Hustle Souls
The Shoaldiggers’ nine pieces produce a one of a kind sound that is completely unique, yet familiar enough to embrace. From rolling seascapes to the hollers of the smokey mountains, Shoaldiggers shows are a swamp grass blast! Website · Facebook · Instagram · Bandcamp Hustle Souls, based in Asheville, NC, masterfully blend Retro-Soul, New Orleans Brass, and Singer-Songwriter Americana into a unique and captivating sound. Lauded by American Blues Scene as a “generation-jumping mashup of new school second line funk with old school vintage soul,” and described by Bluestown Music as “intimate soul…with a Curtis Mayfield like warmth,” the band has earned a spot as one of Music Connection Magazine’s “Hot 100 Live Unsigned Artists & Bands” and No Treble shared the band saying “I hadn’t heard them before, but I’m glad I have now… Must See” Overflowing with energy and spontaneity, Hustle Souls features roaring B3 organ and jubilant trumpet and trombone, balanced with three-part vocal harmonies and a passion for songwriting. Their music has been praised by Aldora Britian Records as “worthy of being included in that brilliant soul music canon, a heritage that features some of the greatest performers and writers that have ever graced this earth.” Hustle Souls are featured and endorsing artists with Santa Cruz Guitar Company and Seydel Harmonicas. Website · Facebook · Instagram · TikTok
Slow Pulp
When the members of Slow Pulp discuss Yard, their second full-length record and first for ANTI-, their vocabulary often defaults to synesthetic imagery and sensation. “We have so many visual cues for how we talk about music,” singer and guitarist Emily Massey says as she stops herself in the middle of explaining how the album’s second song, “Doubt,” sounds like wakeboarding. “Doubt is quite dark lyrically, but it is found in this upbeat and almost campy environment.” On Yard, the Wisconsin-bred, Chicago-based four-piece nestles comfortably into pockets of nuance, impressions, contradictions — sonics and lyrics finessed together to bottle the specific tension of a feeling you’ve never quite been able to find the right words for. In that regard, listening to Slow Pulp can feel like being in a room with someone who’s known you so long that they can read your every micro-expression and pinpoint exactly how you’re feeling before you can. Perhaps this spawns from the band’s own shared history and chemistry; in various ways, the four of them grew up — are still growing up — together. Guitarist Henry Stoehr and drummer Teddy Mathews attended elementary school together in Madison. Not long after, they met bassist Alex Leeds at the west side location of the now-closed local music program called Good’nLoud Music. And while Massey didn’t enter the fold until later on in college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Mathews and Stoehr, it turns out she was in the same program on the other side of town at Good’nLoud’s east side location. In fact, the chords to Yard’s addictive track “Slugs” are from a song Stoehr wrote for his crush in the sixth grade. “Imagination,” Mathews immediately chimes in with the name of Stoehr’s original. The album’s iteration of the song is, fittingly, also about a crush: “You’re a summer hit, I’m singing it,” Massey swoons over a warm wave of guitar fuzz and syrupy background vocals. With Leeds attending college in Minneapolis and the other members in Madison, the quartet started recording, playing shows around the Midwest, and eventually released their first EP as a four-piece, EP2, in 2017. It’s an intimate, restless, and decidedly lo-fi 17-minute debut by a band with an obvious knack for creating sticky hooks that tend to stay in the space behind your eyes long after the songs are finished playing. So obvious that, without much promotion on the band’s end, EP2 picked up traction across YouTube channels and blogs, and thanks to the power of the internet, Slow Pulp unexpectedly found themselves amid their first wave of buzz. In September 2018, the band relocated to Chicago and moved in together, writing and recording most of their Big Day EP at a cabin in Michigan the following January. As they put in the hours on stage and in the studio, the buzz continued to grow, they kept refining their work, and by 2019, they were touring with Alex G and working on their debut full-length record, Moveys. Website · Instagram · Facebook · Spotify · YouTube · Soundcloud
First Day Back
Thundering out of Santa Cruz’s thriving and resurgent music scene, First Day Back have spent their final years in college solidifying their place in the emo revival revival. Heralded as the rightful torchbearers of second wave emo, First Day Back recalls the vocal exasperation of Cap’n Jazz, the twinkle of American Football, and the youthful exuberance of Braid, all while reinventing the sound with the organic additions of violin and harmonica. A love letter to the past, Their debut and sole album Forward, self-released in June 2025, was recorded utilizing the acoustics of their Empire Grade house living room, and a muted blue that graces the cover matches the outer panelling of this sentimental domicile key to to the band’s foundations and process. “Forward enchants on first listen, Pitchfork wrote in their 8.1 review “First Day Back play with a transparency usually reserved for private moments: screaming into a pillow in your bedroom, or putting your hoodie up to stress-cry on the bus.” The quintet’s DIY perspective continues in their live show, which began in houses and anarchist bookstores before blossoming with sold out tours opening for Algernon Cadwallader, Everyone Asked About You, and Jejune, where thousands of kids screamed along to every word, wax, and woo. Website · Instagram
Hank Sinatra, Ramona & the Holy Smokes, Charles Latham & the Borrowed Band
After a few years on hiatus, Hank Sinatra—the high-octane rock-n-roll racehorse of the North Carolina music scene—is officially back in the stable and ready to run. The band has announced an upcoming performance in Chapel Hill, marking a bold new chapter featuring a refreshed lineup of Triangle music veterans and a gritty, reinvigorated sound. Known as pillars of the “twang-core” scene, Hank Sinatra has spent years blending hard Southern rock with a signature double shot of sarcasm. This return to the stage isn’t just a reunion; it’s a rebirth. With a brand-new collaborations alongside such artists as Lenny Kaye and Tan and Sober Gentlemen, the band is set to debut music that fuses their classic edge with an exciting new energy. “There’s a different kind of fire in the room with this lineup,” says founding member Jeff Holshouser. “We’ve taken the time to sharpen the sound, and we’re ready to bring that electricity back to the fans who have been waiting.” Website Based in Central Virginia and with family roots in South Texas, Ramona and the Holy Smokes represent a new generation of honky tonk music. With powerful female vocals that cover an emotional range from determined to comic to vulnerable, and a talented backing band steeped in classic country and western styles of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, the band exhibits a “clarity and sincerity that bring Patsy Cline to mind” (Nashville Scene, 2025). Fronted by Ramona Martinez, whose songwriting has earned her recognition from Wide Open Country as one of the “15 Latino Artists Shaping Country Music,” this Charlottesville, Virginia-based band is rooted in the traditional sounds of country music but unafraid of pushing boundaries and highlighting the connections across border cultures. They have appeared at several Americana festivals including Red Wing Roots (2024), Rooster Walk (2025), and Bristol Rhythm & Roots (2025), and has opened for touring artists like Margo Cilker, Colby Acuff, Willi Carlisle, Redd Volkaert, Joshua Hedley, Donna the Buffalo, and Kashus Culpepper. Their self-produced debut album, Ramona and the Holy Smokes, a collection of original songs about heartache and resiliency, was released on September 26. Website Charles Latham is a singular voice in the North Carolina music scene — a bold and imaginative songwriter whose sharp wit, emotional depth, and magnetic performances have earned him comparisons to legends like Bob Dylan, John Prine, and Robyn Hitchcock. After years of crisscrossing the U.S. and U.K., Latham put down roots in Durham, NC, in 2014. His 2017 album, Little Me Time, highlighted his talent for pairing razor-sharp lyrics with compelling melodies and expansive production. To bring his songs to life on stage, Latham formed The Borrowed Band, an ensemble of some of the region’s most respected musicians, including former members of Ben Folds Five, Shooter Jennings, and 6 String Drag. Together, they deliver a captivating blend of ballads and barnstormers, drawing on the chemistry of vintage duets like Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris while adding a modern twist. Website
Rum Jungle
Hailing from the coastal backstreets of a steel city, Rum Jungle craft raw alt-rock anthems and late-night ballads that capture the haze of nostalgia, the chaos of youth, and the strange comfort of letting it all fall apart in style. Their sound pulls from surf-punk grit, indie sleaze swagger, and the kind of hooks that stick like salt on skin after a long summer. The story began with a hand-me-down name from Bennys dad’s 70’s band — a reminder that music was always going to be the family business, whether official or not. For Rum Jungle, being a band isn’t optional; it’s hard-wired into who they are. It’s how they process their world, tell their story, and chase the moments that only exist when you’re plugged in together, pushing the same noise out into the night. Since forming, Rum Jungle have grown from backyard parties to selling out rooms across North America, the UK, Europe, and Australia, while playing The Great Escape, Reeperbahn, and SXSW (Sydney). Their debut album Recency Bias landed at #1 on the ARIA charts, and with new music on the horizon, Rum Jungle are pushing deeper into their pretty-but-gritty world. Instagram · Spotify · Facebook · YouTube · TikTok
The Takes
At the intersection of rock riffs and earnest songwriting, you find The Takes, a folk-rock group hailing from Portland, Oregon. The band – composed of Sumner Rahr (guitar/vocals), Guido Rahr (guitar), and Phoebe Webb (bass) – weaves emotion and escapism through their songs, all while sticking to the roots of rock. On their 2024 EP ‘Lay Hold’ The Takes delved further into their country/blues rock tendencies, led by Sumner’s raw vocals and backdropped by an organic four-piece sound of guitar, drums and bass. This era brought the band debut sets at Bonnaroo, BottleRock, Extra Innings Fest, and on two US headline tours, including sold out dates in NYC (Mercury Lounge), Chicago and Colorado Springs. Summer 2025 saw The Takes release anthemic, summery single “Take My Time”, produced by Jon Gilbert (Mt. Joy, Flipturn, Adam Melchor). The Takes are flipping to their next chapter with their third EP ‘Uprooting Roses’ produced with David Baron (The Lumineers, Michael Marcagi, Matt Maeson) out May 1, 2026. It coincides with dates supporting The Runarounds across the US and sets at Treefort Fest, Calgary Stampede, and more. With over 3.5 million career streams and past support slots alongside Houndmouth, Wilderado, Briscoe, and Penelope Road, The Takes are creating music for the moment and community – wherever in the country that happens to be. Instagram · TikTok · Spotify
Son Volt
After spearheading the alt-country movement with Uncle Tupelo, Jay Farrar pursued his vision with Son Volt, who recorded three landmark albums in the ’90s before the groundbreaking artist put the band on extended hiatus and cut three solo LPs. Missing the free exchange of ideas and the surprises that inevitably occur when a group of simpatico musicians lock together, Farrar assembled a new lineup of Son Volt in 2004 and has since released nine albums. The latest album, Sound Signal Serenades, was released as a special 2026 Record Store Day limited edition LP. Jay Farrar’s work often seeks out the ghosts of America’s discordant or forgotten past, converses at length with them, and writes songs that stake a claim to a better future. Website · Facebook
