The Ocean Blue
The Ocean Blue arrived as the 1980s drew to a close, and their debut record on the famed Sire Records label in 1989 seemed to summarize the best of the passing musical decade. With the release of The Ocean Blue, the band of four teenagers from Hershey, Pennsylvania quickly achieved widespread acclaim and radio & MTV airplay with top 10 Modern Rock/College Radio hits like Between Something and Nothing, Drifting, Falling, and Vanity Fair. They followed their debut with the dreamy and atmospheric Cerulean, which includes perhaps their most beloved song, Ballerina Out of Control. Their third Sire release and highest charting pop album Beneath the Rhythm and Sound featured the single Sublime, with a video of the band in the sublime landscape of Iceland. The band’s fourth major label album on Mercury/PolyGram, See The Ocean Blue, delved into wider 60s and 70s stylings but with the band’s 80s DNA peeking through.The band left the majors in the late 90s and released several independent records in the ensuing decade, including 2000’s Davy Jones Locker and 2004’s Waterworks. In 2013, after a long hiatus and much anticipation, the band released their first full length record in a decade, Ultramarine, on Korda Records, a label cooperative the band helped launch that same year. The record was a welcome return for both long-time fans of the band and a younger generation of like-minded fans, and it garnered widespread praise as one of their very best albums. In 2015, the band worked with Sire Records to reissue their first three albums on vinyl, and did wider touring in North America and in South America, where some of their most passionate fans reside.In 2019, the band returned with the beautifully powerful Kings and Queens / Knaves and Thieves, and has continued to tour for this release and the newly re-issued vinyl of See The Ocean Blue (2022) and Davy Jones Locker (2023).Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud
A Giant Dog
A Giant Dog is raucous ear candy culled from the hook-driven melodies of Slade, the glammy swagger of Marc Bolan, the morbid fantasy of Killer-era Alice Cooper, and the unpredictable wit of Sparks. These songs are by, for, and about the losers, freaks, and outcasts. The lonely. The terminally horny. Boozehounds and party animals.Website | Bandcamp | Instagram Spotify
Slow Teeth & Friends Perform Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side Of The Moon”
Come celebrate 50 years of Pink Floyd’s groundbreaking “The Dark Side of The Moon” with a unique live performance of the full album, featuring local musicians Robert Chamberlain, Charles Cleaver, Justin Ellis, Jeremy Haire, and many more. Expect full arrangements and sound effects, visuals, and other surprises. Experience one of the most important records of all time like never before.Hailing from the NC Triangle, Slow Teeth Is Robert Chamberlain, Justin Ellis, and Jeremy Haire making original cinematic music inspired by Radiohead/The Smile, Pink Floyd, Sigur Ros, and many more. The band first started playing live in March 2022 and has since extensively toured all over the East Coast. Slow Teeth has shared the stage with such acts as Xiu Xiu, Holy Fawn, Camp St. Helene, and Merci. Notable venues and festivals played include Berlin (NYC), Pie Shop (Washington DC), The Cat’s Cradle (Carrboro NC), The Pinhook (Durham NC), Asbury Park Yacht Club (Asbury Park NJ), the North Carolina State Fair, the Festival for the Eno, and the Carrboro Music Festival. The band released their debut single “Still You Speak” in May 2023, followed by their second East Coast tour, supporting Atlanta shoegaze band Easter Island.Bandcamp | Instagram | Facebook | Linktree | Facebook EventWith only an electric guitar and a small army of pedals, Eddie Garcia builds complex little symphonies of sound, microcosmic devotionals to a world of kaleidoscopic wonder. Garcia woos listeners into an atmosphere of neon, upon which fluorescent melodies dance in tightly scripted patterns. These imaginative instrumentals are entirely absorbing.1970s Film Stock
Nikki Lane
Raised as a Baptist in Greenville, South Carolina, Lane discovered music as an outlet for creative expression at an early age, dropping out of school at 17 to move to Los Angeles, then New York, and then Nashville to launch her songwriting career. She has released three albums — her 2011 debut Walk of Shame, 2014’s All or Nothin’ and Highway Queen from 2017. Aside from steadily releasing new music of her own and touring the world, she was featured on “Breaking Up Slowly” on Lana Del Rey’s 2021 album Chemtrails Over the Country Club and contributed to Spiritualized’s Everything Was Beautiful.Denim & Diamonds was born out of a moment of careful consideration in Lane’s career — when several years of touring behind her last album came to an end and the early days of the pandemic forced everyone inside, Lane knew it was time to find inspiration somewhere new. Lane enlisted Queens of the Stone Age frontman Joshua Homme to help her bring Denim & Diamonds to life, with whom she assembled a studio band of big-budget talent consisting of his Queens of the Stone Age collaborators Alain Johannes on guitar, Dean Fertita on organ and Michael Shuman on bass, as well as drummers Matt Helders of Arctic Monkeys and Carla Azar of Autolux. With Homme’s help, Lane transformed the seeds of ideas she had for years into an album that nods to her wide-ranging influences, from the psychedelia of The 13th Floor Elevators to traditional country stalwarts like Loretta Lynn. Denim & Diamonds was a chance for Lane to take stock of her first decade as a songwriter as she traces her origin story from her religious youth in South Carolina to Nashville Rebel.”Lane is sharpest when she leans all the way into irreverence. She sings with the authority and weariness of someone who’s been through the wringer, the cool insistence of her voice giving her an air of earned wisdom.” – Pitchfork”The result has the rock-country grit of Tanya Tucker and some harder-edged guitars while still keeping Lane’s signature sound fully intact.” – SPIN”It shows Nikki Lane at her best, stepping towards a darker direction while keeping one foot planted in the country and roots music of her past.” – American Songwriter”Her brash kiss-offs, lovelorn pleas, and plenty of that good old-fashioned American grit come out to play with producer Homme’s thrashing rock and roll sensibility — a deliciously satisfying combo.” – No Depression”Nikki Lane spent the last five years since the release of her breakthrough album, Highway Queen, searching for the right combination of confidants to help her realize the vision of the paradigm-spinning outlaw country songs on Denim & Diamonds. And it’s paid off.” – San Francisco ChronicleWebsite | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Briscoe
Briscoe is the Austin-based project of Truett Heintzelman and Philip Lupton. Formed during their time at the University of Texas, the pair released a self-titled EP and are currently working on their forthcoming debut album by Grammy-nominated producer, Brad Cook (Bon Iver, The War on Drugs, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Waxahatchee).This year Briscoe will feature at quintessential Summer festivals including Bonnaroo, Sound on Sound, Catbird Music Festival, FairWell Festival, Iron Blossom Festival, and Wonderbus Music & Arts Festival, which adds to their previous festival appearances at Innings Fest (both Tampa and Tempe events) and Shaky Knees. The band has supported Noah Kahan, Ruston Kelly, CAAMP, and Zach Bryan on tour dates across the country. At home, the band has recently sold out an eight-show residency at Austin’s legendary venues, C-Boy’s Heart & Soul and The Continental Club.Briscoe draws musical influence from what many consider the golden years of music – the late 1960s to the mid-1970s. Artists such as Neil Young, James Taylor, The Grateful Dead, The Beatles, Carole King, and Paul Simon have influenced the pair musically and lyrically. With a variety of instrumentation, Briscoe’s live shows and studio recordings meander in and out of genres while consistently showcasing meaningful songwriting and unique melodies.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube | TikTok
The Modern Age
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¡Tumbao!
¡Tumbao! is a high-energy Latin Fusion band formed by 7 seasoned musicians from various genres and backgrounds — and we mean all different types — that creates a sound reflecting the many flavors, los sabores, of Latin America. ¡Tumbao! offers a taste of Salsa, Bossa, Funk, Cumbia, Latin-Rock, R&B, Jazz, and Brass. Formed in 2019, the band has taken to new heights and popularity rapidly throughout venues in the South Eastern circuit and beyond. Most recently featured on PBS, the NCMA, with performances in festival circuits such as Shakori Hills (and returning Spring 2022) and multiple publications, the electric sound of ¡Tumbao! keeps crossing more and more barriers captivating listeners of every age and every background.“…it’s fun, fast-paced, uplifting and would make even the shyest person in the room want to dance the night away to their rhythmic beat.” -WKNC“Tumbao refers to a clave-based rhythm. It’s also a slang word in the Caribbean and Latin America, meaning vibe, sexy, and swing.” – NC Department of Natural & Cultural ResourcesWebsite | Instagram | Facebook
Mipso
Mipso formed in 2012 as an excuse to play together between classes in Chapel Hill. Joseph Terrell came from a family of banjo-playing uncles and a guitarist grandma, and he’d gotten curious again about the string band music he’d heard as a kid. Jacob Sharp was raised on equal parts Doc Watson and Avett Brothers in the N.C. mountains and was hunting for a chance to sing harmonies. Wood Robinson added a Charlie Haden-esque interest in bridging jazz and grass sensibilities on the double bass, and Libby Rodenbough soon joined on fiddle, unsatisfied by her classical violin training but drawn like a moth toward the glow of old, weird Americana.Their first album, “Dark Holler Pop,” produced by Andrew Marlin (Watchhouse), included Terrell-penned fan favorites “Louise” and “Couple Acres Greener” and turned the recent grads into a full-blown touring band. Although it hung out on the Billboard Bluegrass top 10, its sonic mission statement was in the name: “Dark Holler Pop” was groovier and catchier than its string band contemporaries.2015’s “Old Time Reverie” earned them an invitation to perform in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade wherein they rolled down 5th Avenue on a 12-foot bucket of fried chicken. They doubled down on touring, honing a telepathic, sibling-esque connection onstage.2017’s “Coming Down The Mountain,” produced by Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee), added drums and pedal steel and put the band on bigger stages with an expanded Americana sound, including the Rodenbough-fronted title track, another streaming hit and live staple.Mipso considered hanging up their hats in 2018 while recording “Edges Run” with Todd Sickafoose (Ani DiFranco, Anais Mitchell). After five years of near-constant touring, they had started to wake up in hotel rooms wondering what state they were in; they’d never had pets. The album took off. Sharp’s intimate vocal on “People Change” floated into dorm rooms and coffee shops across America, cementing Mipso as a bona fide streaming success across four albums and placing them in that rarefied strata of bands with three distinct lead singers. 2020’s self-titled start-fresh album on Rounder Records brought experimental Canadian producer Sandro Perri into the mix and minted a collection with moodier landscapes and unexpected textures.Post-pandemic Mipso is starting fresh again with “Book of Fools.” The songs might be their best yet. “Carolina Rolling By” shows Terrell at his most relaxed and confident—it’s a meditative cosmic country-tinged head bopper. “The Numbers” flirts with 60s surf rock while Rodenbough winks and wags a finger at our market-obsessed culture, and “Broken Heart/Open Heart” features Sharp at his most heart-wrenching and earnest. Other standouts “East” and “Radio Hell” will infect you with earworms made of guitar riffs, Robinson’s pretzel-twisted upright bass lines, and saturated “ooohs” drifting in as if on AM radio waves. Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Billy Raffoul
The communion between an artist and a room full of people endures is one of the most sacred forms of connection. As emotion and energy transfer back-and-forth, this interchange of feelings might be the closest thing we have to true magic in our physical world. Billy Raffoul writes music with this moment in mind. Guitar in hand and microphone on, his voice echoes with a graceful grit that comes right from the gut as he tells stories straight from the heart.After generating hundreds of millions of streams and earning acclaim from American Songwriter, Paste, and more, the award-winning Ontario singer, songwriter, and producer continues to captivate on his debut EP for Nettwerk.During 2017, Billy made his debut with the single “Driver.” Following the 1975 EP and The Running Wild EP, he released his debut full-length, A Few More Hours at YYZ in 2020. The single “Acoustic” generated over 60.7 million Spotify streams as “Easy Tiger” surpassed 19.4 million Spotify streams. The same year, he maintained this momentum with International Hotel and shared bills with Kings of Leon, Kaleo, X Ambassadors and more. Reaching another level, 2021 saw him garner the SOCAN Songwriting Prize for the single “Western Skies.”Despite the Pandemic lockdown, he focused on writing and recording as much as possible. He collaborated with longtime creative cohorts Justin Zuccato and Mike Crossey remotely and occasionally in-person, piecing the EP together over these sessions.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | TikTok | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud
The Dear Hunter
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