JD McPherson – SOCKS: A Rock N’ Roll Christmas Tour
Acclaimed singer, songwriter and musician JD McPherson will embark on his fifth-annual “SOCKS: A Rock n’ Roll Christmas Tour” this December with confirmed stops at NYC’s Bowery Ballroom, Nashville’s Basement East, & Minneapolis’s First Avenue, among several others. Tickets are available now via www.jdmcpherson.com/tour. These performances celebrate McPherson’s breakthrough debut Christmas album, SOCKS, which was released in 2018 on New West Records. The album features 11 all-original Christmas songs, the album has been the best-reviewed holiday record receiving overwhelming critical praise. Website | Facebook | Instagram | Spotify | YouTube
MAKE, Tacoma Park
MAKE – Website Tacoma Park – Website Spookstina – Website
Porch Light
Porch Light is an indie-rock group based out of Minneapolis, consisting of members Zac Fogarty (guitar), Jackie Uhas (vocals), Henry Hughes (bass), Kyle Siemon (guitar) and Isaiah Trimbo (drums). The project quickly came together in the Summer of 2024 with a mission to break the barriers that they have been accustomed to in the Indie world. Leaning into a raw and authentic live process “Porch Light’ creates a sense of relatability and intimacy for anyone experiencing this group. Inspired by blending the sounds of ’90s Radiohead with Hayley Williams’ Paramore, Slow Pulp, Big Thief and many more. The organic content with their signature ‘basement rock’ vibe has amassed them over 450k combined followers on socials. With just 3 songs released, be on the lookout for their debut EP arriving on April 11th, 2025! Website | Instagram | YouTube | TikTok | Soundcloud | Spotify
Watchhouse
Watchhouse, the North Carolina based duo of Andrew Marlin & Emily Frantz, have announced a new studio album called Rituals, due out May 30, 2025 via Tiptoe Tiger Music / Thirty Tigers. The collection marks the pair’s first release of all new, original songs since their 2021 self-titled album, which earned praise from Rolling Stone (“pristine acoustic picking collides with hazy, dream-like psychedelia”) Mojo, NPR Music, American Songwriter and more. Starting over a decade ago playing coffee shops and local restaurants around North Carolina, Watchhouse is a grassroots success story that’s been driven by Marlin’s poignant songwriting. With sold-out shows at legendary venues like Red Rocks and the Ryman Auditorium, and hundreds of millions of streams, they’ve earned a reputation for creating music that “redefines roots music for a younger generation” (Washington Post). The duo – now with a family of their own – are two singers and musicians with profound chemistry, performing earnest yet masterfully crafted songs that encompass the unknowable mysteries, existential heartbreak, and communal joys of modern life. The forthcoming album is no exception. Website | Facebook | Spotify | TikTok
Robert Lester Folsom
Sunshine Only Sometimes: Archives Vol. 2, 1972-1975 continues Anthology Recordings’ excavation, and exploration, of southern singer, songwriter, and psychedelic serviceman Robert Lester Folsom’s bountiful archives. Recorded across Georgia in various bedrooms, a barn, and a motel room with a reel-to-reel and a revolving cast of whip smart studio musicians in the first half of a dazed and confused decade, Sunshine Only Sometimes furthers Folsom’s place in the canon of long lost but eventually found independently spirited, high-flying American folk rock. When Anthology’s reissue of Music and Dreams, the sole contemporaneous album released in 1976 by Folsom, surfaced in 2010, little else was known of Folsom’s nearly five-decade deep archive of unreleased demos and fully formed studio recordings. Born and raised in Adel, Georgia — both then, and now, a sleepy hamlet with a population of less than 5,000 — Folsom was fortunate to be minded after extremely supportive parents. Exhibiting a precocious affinity for music, things went widescreen when he observed the same ferry from ‘cross the Mersey as many others of his generation, carrying the four musical moptops to their paradigm shifting appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. Soon thereafter, Folsom began religiously absorbing every morsel of musical output The Fab Four offered, as well as that of their contemporaries. Yet, it wasn’t long before observation transformed into a motivation to create. Even a children’s record player bought by his parents as a gift to him was traded off to a neighborhood friend for a stringless, disheveled guitar (which Folsom’s father shined to prime and function for him in short order). As time went on, Folsom’s innate drive and field of vision broadened; he began enlisting neighborhood friends, classmates, and family members to fulfill his small-scale musical dreams, which would increase in weight with the passage of days. Over the next several years, while employing ingenious, home brewed over-dubbing techniques with his “love at first sight,” a Sears 3440 two-track reel-to-reel tape recorder, Folsom served as the de facto producer/arranger for any and all scrappy garage band or aspiring singer songwriter in the radius of Adel. Abetted by his mobile recording unit, across a number of unusual locations, and assisted by guitarist and collaborator Hans VanBrackle, this period produced the bounty of Folsom’s self-penned compositions which make up Ode to a Rainy Day and Sunshine Only Sometimes. And eventually, this period of woodshedding led to the formation of his rural-tinged, progressive, southern rock outfit Abacus. Though carrying Folsom’s own singular sound and vision, Music and Dreams, in equal measure, chartered the seas of smooth West Coast AOR before the yachts to come, while tracing the distinctly Californian sound of Laurel Canyon singer-songwriter soft rock Americana, which tussled on the waters before the large vessels overtook the big blue. Folsom’s earlier compositions found on Sunshine Only Sometimes reflect a darker-hued mixture of mellow folk, downer vibes, and rural tones, revealing his talent for melody and hook was intact far before Music and Dreams, with a keen sense of introspection making the dark and light equally resonant. Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | TikTok | Soundcloud | Spotify
Drink The Sea
This is a seated show. Drink The Sea began three years ago in 2022, when Alain and Barrett jammed at Barrett’s studio in Olympia, WA just to see what kind of magic they could conjure together. Two years later, Barrett and Duke toured together in England and Iceland, before recording additional songs in Reykjavik. After that, Barrett, Duke, and Peter met in Sao Paulo to record more songs, which continued with Alain joining them in Joshua Tree, and then some additional recording at Alain’s studio in Santiago, Chile. Final production happened at Barrett’s studio in Olympia, WA, and mixing took place in Barcelona, Spain. The two debut albums the band recorded were literally recorded around the world. Taking their name from a lyric that Duke wrote, the albums are produced and mixed by Barrett and Alain and reflect the members vast experience as songwriters, arrangers, and singers. It also shows a strong world music influence that permeates the music, because although the songs are built around traditional guitar, bass, and drums configurations, the songs also shimmer with the sounds of Arabic oud, Indian sitar, Indonesian gamelans, and various exotic percussions like Brazilian surdo, frame drum, vibraphone, marimba, and kalimba. The band will begin touring in October of 2025, and the first single will be released on May 23rd with new singles following every two weeks. The two albums will be released on September 19th and October 3rd, respectively.
Watchhouse
Watchhouse, the North Carolina based duo of Andrew Marlin & Emily Frantz, have announced a new studio album called Rituals, due out May 30, 2025 via Tiptoe Tiger Music / Thirty Tigers. The collection marks the pair’s first release of all new, original songs since their 2021 self-titled album, which earned praise from Rolling Stone (“pristine acoustic picking collides with hazy, dream-like psychedelia”) Mojo, NPR Music, American Songwriter and more. Starting over a decade ago playing coffee shops and local restaurants around North Carolina, Watchhouse is a grassroots success story that’s been driven by Marlin’s poignant songwriting. With sold-out shows at legendary venues like Red Rocks and the Ryman Auditorium, and hundreds of millions of streams, they’ve earned a reputation for creating music that “redefines roots music for a younger generation” (Washington Post). The duo – now with a family of their own – are two singers and musicians with profound chemistry, performing earnest yet masterfully crafted songs that encompass the unknowable mysteries, existential heartbreak, and communal joys of modern life. The forthcoming album is no exception. Website | Facebook | Spotify | TikTok
Michael Shannon & Jason Narducy and Friends play R.E.M.’s Lifes Rich Pageant
Michael Shannon & Jason Narducy And Friends are thrilled to announce a spring 2026 U.S. tour celebrating the 40th anniversary of R.E.M.’s iconic album, Lifes Rich Pageant. After the pair’s rapturously received run earlier this year honoring the band’s famed 1985 album Fables of the Reconstruction, which saw the four original members of R.E.M. join Shannon & Narducy on- stage at their two shows in Athens, GA, the extensive Lifes Rich Pageant tour will take Shannon & Narducy to stops in Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia, and more. Additionally, they will return for two shows in R.E.M.’s hometown of Athens, GA. Kicking off Wednesday, Feb. 11 at Summit in Denver, CO, the tour will see Shannon & Narducy— alongside Jon Wurster (drums), John Stirratt (bass), Dag Juhlin (guitar), and Vijay Tellis-Nayak (keyboards)—playing Lifes Rich Pageant in full each night in addition to many other beloved R.E.M. classics. Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
Love Plus One – An All Vinyl 80’s Dance Night
Speed Stick
The Carrboro, NC supergroup Speed Stick is an ever-evolving project among a group of friends—Ash Bowie (Polvo), Charles Chace (The Paul Swest), Laura King (Bat Fangs), and Thomas Simpson (The Love Language)—whose musical achievements reach back as far as the 1990s. But as its live shows attest, the band does not want to rehearse old accomplishments. On stage, Speed Stick wants to shatter epochs. Step into a world of thunder where lighting strikes rewire nervous systems. Ride waves with peaks that precede disquieting calms. Float in spaces where dark and light collide to set blood afire. To participate in a Speed Stick show is to enter a space of bodily and psychological endurance. Off-kilter guitar riffs shadow the raging intensity of drums; blistering drum beats dance to the feedback of guitars.The songs for Volume One were created in unusual fashion over the course of a year. Initially, Speed Stick only consisted of two drummers. They distributed nine studio tracks and a single live track to select musicians. The musicians’ task was simple: draw inspiration from the beats in order to create music that spreads laterally and horizontally like a rhizome. Indeed, Volume One has utterly discarded the yoke of genre by instead tethering intricate, interlocking drums to myriad creative personalities: Mac McCaughan (Superchunk), Kelley Deal (The Breeders, R. Ring), Mike Montgomery (R. Ring), Stuart McLamb (The Love Language). But no one can stop with just the album. Your ears will yearn to see the shapes of sound and your eyes will beg to taste color. For what Volume One heralds is that the supergroup Speed Stick is the super show of shows.Bandcamp | Facebook Saul Goode spent the better part of a decade navigating the music industry in Seoul, South Korea with rap duo Part Time Cooks. The international duo became the first foreign hip hop act to be signed to a major Korean label, and released music and performed alongside some of the biggest names in South Korea and Japan. Following a successful run to the semi-finals on Jay Park’s TV show ‘Sign Here,’ the pandemic landed Saul back in his hometown of North Carolina. It was there in Chapel Hill, NC where he began writing music in his native tongue again and finished recording his second solo album entitled ‘Sebastian.’ Bursting with introspective lyrics on the difficulties that came with returning home after things didn’t turn out quite as planned, the project is definitely his strongest to date. Produced by e.m.p.c, ‘Sebastian’ is one of the most complete offerings in recent memory. The album features New York emcee The Musalini, as well as instrumentation from Saul’s brother and father, talented jazz musicians also living in the triangle area.
