Jaguar Sun
Jaguar Sun is a Canadian solo project created by multi instrumentalist Chris Minielly. Weaving together inspiration from bands such as Frightened Rabbit, Youth Lagoon, and Fruit Bats, Minielly creates dreamy, pop centric soundscapes with experimental and folky flair produced entirely in his home. The Ontario based artist allows his instruments to speak equally to his voice urging listeners to get lost in richly layered guitar lines and deep droning synths between soft vocal melodies.Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | TikTok
Wish Queen / MEGABITCH / hollyo
Mystical and moving, Wish Queen takes the intangible feelings of desire and yearning (wishing), and transforms them into poetic melodies, ranging from danceable pop to deliciously introspective bedroom ballads. Blending her rich classic vocals with layered synth-based production styles, Wish Queen Transports her listeners to a myriad of times and places all at once. A hypnotic blend of dream pop, art pop, and indie folk, her debut album, “SATURNALIA,” will be released later this year.Instagram | Twitter | Spotify | TikTok | Soundcloudhollyo is a Brooklyn-based visual artist, musician and filmmaker from North Carolina. Themes ranging from climate change to the art world are featured in her emotive, well humored solo compositions. Blending genres, she adapts classical piano to analog drum machine with sensual vocals. For her 2019 concept album, “The Woman on the Beach”, she created all visual elements including costumes and stage design, music videos, and accompanying art objects.Website | Bandcamp | Instagram | FacebookMEGABITCHBandcamp
Little Image
little image is a Dallas based group that started playing music together for eight years and throughout that near-decade, the band morphed from a group of perpetually online suburban teens who were obsessed with underground indie rock and had no idea what they wanted to be into the tight-knit outfit you see today. While many young artists had their careers derailed in 2020 due to COVID, it actually managed to save little image, which was gearing up to announce itself to the world without realizing the members needed more time for reflection.The Dallas-based alt-pop trio released their debut album SELF TITLED earlier this year via Hollywood Records. Produced in partnership with Chad Copelin (Sufjan Stevens, 5 Seconds Of Summer), the album featured songs “LUNGS BURN,” “BLUE,” and “OUT OF MY MIND,” the latter garnering millions of streams ahead of the album’s release and broke the Top 20 on Alternative Airplay, was featured in a Hulu add, and secured the group for On The Verge – ALT, iHeart’s premiere breaking artist program. After opening for Panic! At The Disco, Colony House, and more.Instagram | Twitter | Spotify | YouTube | Website
Colony House
The music of Colony House—an indie rock band made up of brothers Will and Caleb Chapman, as well as Scott Mills and Parke Cottrell—is playfully self-described as “landlocked surf rock.” Their personal genre designation is as much inspired by their hometown of Franklin, Tenn., as their new album The Cannonballers is: within 11 tracks, the band delves into where they come from and how a place, and its memories, have made them.The Cannonballers signifies the carefree times of childhood past, with its beautiful naivete, while simultaneously encapsulating an alter ego—a character speeding down the open road, racing the clock in their rearview. The band is often caught in the duality of the reckless and the innocent. The album is an apt addition to the band’s catalog, staying true to what Colony House does best and expanding on what their fans have gravitated to for the past decade: hope and light in the midst of it all. No frills, no gimmicks. Just heart-level rock and roll music.Their three previous studio collections take listeners on a journey through stories of loss, grief, and heartbreak while welcoming them into the hope that comes on the other side. Their song “Silhouettes” was the #1 most-played track on Sirius XM’s Alt Nation for four months straight, and the surf-rock hit “You Know It” went viral on Tik Tok, amassing 100 million streams across all platforms to date after being featured as the soundtrack to Samsung Mobile’s nationwide ad campaign.Their full-length feature film, “Everybody’s Looking For Some Light,” was an official selection at the Nashville and Knoxville Film Festival. The project debuted at a two-day drive-in event where 2,000 people (in over 600 cars) showed up to watch the film and see Colony House perform.The band has performed their songs for worldwide audiences with two appearances on both Late Night with Seth Meyers and CONAN, as well as The Today Show, VH1’s “Morning Buzz,” and MTV Live. They have also been part of several festival lineups, including Shaky Knees, Austin City Limits, Firefly, WonderBus, and Lollapalooza.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | TikTok
Mapache
On their dynamic and ambitious fifth album of cosmic-folk, Swinging Stars, Sam Blasucci and Clay Finch decided to take a trip and hunker down somewhere particularly special. Located in Stinson Beach in Marin County, California, the Panoramic House has recently hosted acts like My Morning Jacket, the War on Drugs, and Cate Le Bon, and was the ideal combination of scenic beauty and self-imposed confinement to allow Mapache to settle in for their most cohesive album yet. “That environment yields itself to a higher level of focus because everybody’s together for a week,” says Finch, explaining that the band stayed there during the process, sharing every bit of their time and energy on a shared vision. “We were all captive. No one could escape,” he laughs. Swinging Stars, an album of calm, second-nature swagger, is the natural result of a band that’s existed in one form or another for its founders’ entire adult lives. Finch and Blasucci first met as students at La Cañada High School, just north of Los Angeles, where they both had a guitar class: “There wasn’t much supervision or anything,” remembers Blasucci. “It was really nice. And we got to just play guitars together.” Many of the songs on Swinging Stars are the result of a significant amount of group work on the road, sharpening and refining them, getting them just so before hitting the studio with their trusted collaborator Horne, who produced the set. Swinging Stars is also notable for its introduction of drummer Steve Didelot as a formal member of the band, with him playing on every track, and contributing an original song as well—“Reflecting Everything,” a cowboy-chord ballad sparkling with Finch and Blasucci’s guitars, and with Horne’s impeccable slide guitar. There are also two special features: one from the Allah-Lahs’ Spencer Dunham, who plays bass on “French Kiss,” and another from David Rawlings, who graciously took the call to play acoustic guitar on the album’s finale, “Where’d You Go,” recording his part remotely. “He’s someone who Sam and I look up to in a pretty serious way,” Finch says. “So it was cool to have him.” Mapache is so easygoing that their vibe belies their prolificness at times. Swinging Stars is their fourth album in as many years, and they show no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Blasucci chalks it up partly to the fact that, when you have two principal songwriters in a band, “the songs come in quickly and they stack up quickly.” It helps, too, that they’re just in the right place to be making music. “We’re just trying to make hay while the sun shines,” as Finch puts it. “None of us have any babies or anything and we’re all pretty committed to playing as much music as we can. And really focused on making something beautiful.” Website | Instagram
The Astronomers
The Astronomers are the band you can’t help but root for. Led by frontman Michael Stensland and producer Ben Baker, the duo boasts a dynamic and energy-filled performance that blends pop, rock, and electronic elements, resulting in a sound that’s uniquely their own. Formed in 2019 and proudly independent the duo write, produce, mix, and master tracks from their home studio in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.Their music gained momentum in 2020 with the release of single “Overthinking,” which received support from top 40 radio station; 101.1 WIXX, hitting #1 on Christmas Eve of 2020. Subsequent singles “Bad Type” and “Hotel Rooms” also received full rotation status, with “Hotel Rooms” charting at #88 on US top 40 radio and hitting #1 on 101.1 WIXX.The Astronomers began 2023 with their first headline tour across the Midwest in support of their debut album, “The Occasion”, culminating in performances on The Rock Boat XXII festival at sea. The festival, which set sail from Miami to the Dominican Republic, and the Bahamas saw The Astronomers playing alongside national acts American Authors, LIT, Neon Trees, and more.Following the release of the first two singles from their fourth chapter of music, “Orange Afternoon” and “Last Call” the Wisconsin-based duo is set to kick off their West Coast tour in June of 2023.With their undeniable talent, captivating live performances, and authentic sound, it’s only a matter of time before The Astronomers become household names.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Spotify | YouTube | TikTok
Chris Stamey Group, Skylar Gudasz
With Rob Ladd (drums), Robert Sledge (bass), & Matt McMichaels (guitar). Special Guests include Brett Harris, Millie McGuire, Charles Cleaver, Nathan Golub, and Laura Thomas.On his new album, The Great Escape, Chris Stamey—known for his work in The dB’s, the Big Star’s Third concerts, and numerous solo recordings including recent forays into jazz and neo–Tin Pan Alley—returns to the electric guitar sounds and melodic lyricism that informed his classic ’80s solo records It’s Alright, Fireworks, and 2004’s Travels in the South—but with a twist!This time out, alongside adroit pedal-steel aces Eric Heywood (Jayhawks, Pretenders, Alejandro Escovedo) and Allyn Love, Mipso’s Libby Rodenbough, and Chatham County Line’s John Teer and Dave Wilson, he’s found a distinctive spin on the ’70s Southern California country-rock flavors of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Soaring harmonies from Brett Harris (Big Star’s Third), Peter Holsapple (The dB’s), and Matt McMichaels (Mayflies USA, Surrender Human) fill out the picture on many tracks. And there’s an A-team of Caitlin Cary (harmonies), Don Dixon (acoustic bass), Will Rigby (The dB’s, drums), and Rodenbough (fiddle and background vocals) on “(A Prisoner of This) Hopeless Love.”There’s also a vibrant version of a lost classic, the Alex Chilton / Tommy Hoehn composition “She Might Look My Way,” remembered fondly by Stamey from his late ’70s live performances with Chilton and the (unreleased) studio recording of it they did together for Elektra Records at Todd Rundgren’s studio. Here, it features two world-class fellow producers: Mitch Easter (Let’s Active, R.E.M.) on drums and Terry Manning (Ardent Studios producer/engineer/guitarist; Staples Singers, Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top) on bass, guitar embellishments, Mellotron flutes, and harmonies. Most tracks, however, are expertly anchored by Rob Ladd (The Connells) or Dan Davis (Six-String Drag) on drums, often accompanied by co-producer Jeff Crawford on bass.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | “She Might Look My Way” | “(A Prisoner of This) Hopeless Love”Growing up with a musical family in rural Ashland, Virginia, Gudasz first found her affinity for music by learning to play flute at age five, and soon started writing songs of her own. She later taught herself to play piano and guitar, drawing inspiration from use of alternate tunings in developing her own distinct style. Although she spent time in folk and rock bands after heading to North Carolina for college (where she studied Acting and Creative Writing), Gudasz has continued to strike off on her own with her lushly textured, sculpted singular sound. In the past few years alone, the Durham, North Carolina-based singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist has shared stages with the likes of Ray Davies, Cat Power and Sharon Van Etten as part of the Big Star’s Third tribute concerts, opened for Television and toured from the US with Teenage Fanclub to Europe with the Mountain Goats, and appeared as a background vocalist on albums by Superchunk and Hiss Golden Messenger, making her TV debut with the latter on Late Night with Seth Meyers.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Hank, Pattie & The Current
This is a seated show.Bluegrass visionaries Hank Smith (banjo) and Pattie Hopkins Kinlaw’s (fiddle) innovative twist on traditional bluegrass music is a soulful brew flavored with classical, Motown, jazz, and pop influences. Joined by Billie Feather on guitar and Stevie Martinez on bass, this dynamic, North Carolina based group is performing in support of their fifth album, LETTERS, out now on Robust Records.Website | Twitter | Instagram | Spotify | Apple Music Ashes and Arrows — 2023 MerleFest Band Competition WinnersFrom the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina to the peaks of Arrowtown, New Zealand, Ashes & Arrows captivate audiences around the country with their stunning vocals, thoughtful lyrics, and on-stage charisma. Website | Facebook | TikTok | Instagram | Spotify | YouTube | “Gold In The Mountains” | “Born To Love” | “Cover Me Up”
Spafford
Spafford is known for their astonishing improvisational ability and off-the-cuff extended jams, Spafford paints a picture in real-time each night with a musical palette known only to each other. It’s a private language comprised of both their talent as musicians as well as their formidable catalog of influences, spanning 90’s alt-rock radio hits to Steely Dan and The Crystal Method. Each Spafford show is a sonic pilgrimage, the journey of a team of musicians so in tune with each other that a single note communicates intent and purpose. Spafford is amongst the most creative and hard-traveling bands on the contemporary jam scene, performing countless sold-out headline dates along with high profile festival sets at Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, Firefly Music Festival, and many others.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Taylor Swift Laser Dance Party
The Taylor Swift Laser Dance Party will feature a two-hour Taylor Swift LIVE DJ Set with a National Touring Laser Light Show. Swifties, you know what to do: Report to the dance floor!
