The Pink Stones + Teddy and the Rough Riders

Teddy and the Rough Riders are a country rock band based in Nashville, Tennessee, with a keen sense for making songs that are as twangy and electrified as they are expansive and sensitive. Their music is both down-home and far-out; delightfully lysergic and subtly nostalgic, propped up by fine-tuned instrumentation and ingenuity. They’ve got the synergistic groove of The Band, the psychedelic tendencies of New Riders of the Purple Sage, and the rich lyrical imagery and hazy sonic textures of The Flying Burrito Brothers. Their debut studio album Teddy and the Rough Riders, produced by Margo Price and featuring the pedal steel talents of Luke Schneider, is due out Friday, July 1 via Appalachia Record Co. It’s a highly creative country rock record that transitions between barroom anthems and imaginative ballads with ease. Teddy and the Rough Riders are currently on the 2022 Bronco Tour with Orville Peck through May 27, including a homecoming stop on May 13 at The Ryman.“One of the best country acts making music today. Teddy and The Rough Riders combine a beautiful sincerity with their incredible neo-classic country sound,” Orville Peck attests.The group, which consists of Jack Quiggins (vocals, guitar), Ryan Jennings (vocals, bass) and Nick Swafford (drums), has long bridged the gap between Nashville’s rock and honky-tonk scenes. Their sound is the direct product of being born ‘n’ bred in Nashville, steeped in its country music history and mysticism, while coming up in its DIY rock community. Jennings and Quiggins, who pen the group’s tunes, grew up just blocks from Music Row, in Nashville’s West End (where the original outlaw movement came together during the ‘70s), where both the shiny and gritty influences of country music intersected. In the earliest iteration of the band, these influences and experiences distilled into songs over many nights in college of the two writing and playing covers together over whiskey.“Ryan and I had this deal, where whenever we ran out of whiskey, it was the other person’s turn to buy more. We were switch-hitting bottles of George Dickel for months,” says Quiggins of their early days.Swafford started playing percussion for them around this time and, in 2015, they all returned to Nashville where pedal steel player Luke Schneider joined the band. Schneider (who has played in Margo Price and William Tyler’s bands and released a solo ambient pedal steel album through Third Man Records) became an integral part of the group’s foundational musical configurations and overall sound. Since then, they’ve released a home-recorded EP and LP, and several singles including a 7” record from Third Man Records. They’ve shared bills with artists such as Margo Price, The Raconteurs, Jeff the Brotherhood and Soccer Mommy, and have played as the backing band in most of Emily Nenni’s recordings and live shows. Musical collaborators include Skyway Man, Erin Rae, Sean Thompson and David Leonard, among others.Bandcamp | Instagram | FacebookThe 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.Website | Twitter | Facebook

Sarah Borges

One way or another, Sarah Borges connects with casual mastery. Whether it’s with the comrades she’s collaborated with over nearly 20 sparkling years of music-making, or the vivid portraits of people’s lives – and occasionally her own – she’s sketched in scores of emotionally resonant songs. But most of all, Borges has built a loyal following by connecting, through her own charismatic, down-to-earth spirit, with her audience – whether they’re longtime fans from back when she broke through with her terrific “Silver City” debut in 2004, or newcomers just now joining the party with her brand new 2022 album, “Together Alone”, her eighth. “Sarah’s a fearless writer and performer,” says producer Eric ‘Roscoe’ Ambel, “and she’s a very good musician.” As anyone familiar with Sarah’s songs and performances knows, genuinely soulful music that connects with us — and connects us to each other — can simultaneously steal, and heal, hearts. This connection is what has kept Sarah touring and making music for many years, and what keeps us coming back to see her do it.Links: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube

Violet Bell Album Release Party

Hailing from the forests of North Carolina’s Eno River, Violet Bell brings forth the lush and sinuous sounds of Americana-Folk music. Lizzy Ross and Omar Ruiz-Lopez draw on a thread of untamable energy and natural magic passed down through generations of storytelling. As a duo with wildly different backgrounds, Violet Bell has a unique perspective on the roots music traditions that inform their sound. They’re tending to traditions and creating a new way forward for like-minded musical innovators, with their shared humanity at the forefront. With their forthcoming album, Shapeshifter, Violet Bell encapsulates the sound and mystery of Appalachia while unveiling how ancient folklore can connect to modern day life.As a kid, Ross bounced from the Chesapeake Bay to New York City after her parents divorced. The city was magic for her young brain and her divergent families brought a wide array of musical influences – Neil Young, Patty Griffin, 90’s pop-rock – into her life (the latter of which resulted in a very short stint in a Green Day cover band – “yes, really” she says). Fifteen hundred miles away, Panama-born Ruiz-Lopez was growing up in Fajardo, Puerto Rico and soaking up the sounds of Caribbean folk, bachata, traditional salsa music, and the occasional American classic-rock. Nearly an ocean apart, both fell in love with playing music and all it afforded them – creativity, independence, an outlet for excessive energy. In their twenties, they both found themselves in North Carolina where their musical sensibilities were honed, appreciated, and expanded. Their introduction felt serendipitous; the two started playing music together and noticed almost instantly that the connection was real and important. Violet Bell emerged.After a few years of touring, recording, and building a home together, the sound of Violet Bell has mellowed and settled into a rhythm that feels unapologetically their own. Shapeshifter initially began as a re-telling of an ancient Celtic myth. In the story, a fisherman steals the seal skin of a selkie, a mythical creature who is part seal, part woman. Imprisoned on land, the selkie lives with the man for years, even having a child with him, all the while slowly fading away and endlessly trying to find her way back home. While not every song is a direct reference, the selkie myth became a focal point for the duo’s creative process. They found modern questions in the ancient archetype – how do we stay true to ourselves in a world defined by dominating and conformist systems? What does it mean to have – or not have – bodily autonomy? How do we close the gulf between who we are and who we pretend to be? Just as the selkie tries to conform and adjust to life on land, are we all just trying to fit our dreams, aspirations, shadows and wounds into tidy boxes so that we can survive? What would it take to recover our wild souls and a sense of being at home in ourselves?Throughout the entire album, Violet Bell gently reveals their supreme talent of storytelling and prominent gift of transporting their listeners to places deep within each song, divulging intimate moments through the album that feels distinctive to each listener. Letting go of control and allowing the music to lead is what makes the music come to life, as Ross and Ruiz-Lopez breathe life into each song, one note, one tone and one word at a time.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube

Bad Suns

School of Rock Chapel Hill’s End of Season Showcase

Free Show / $10 Suggested DonationNoon – 90’s Alt Ladies1:15 – Best of Yacht Rock2:30 – Best of REM3:45 – Allman Bros. Vs. Grateful Dead5:00 – Best of ReggaeLinks: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

Alejandro Escovedo

Alejandro Escovedo With an All-Star Band of Mitch Easter, Doug Davis, Rob Ladd, and Chris StameyAppearances by Caitlin Cary, Lynn Blakey + surprisesJonathan Byrd + Jess Klein open!A concert for NC musicians’ mental health, benefitting the SIMS FoundationLinks: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube

Plains

Hitting play on the debut album from Plains, the duo composed of Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield and Jess Williamson, we’re immediately teleported into a world of Southern sunsets, wide open spaces, and the unapologetic nature of Country music.Plains began out of Crutchfield’s and Williamson’s mutual love for each other’s music and after trading albums (Saint Cloud and Sorceress, respectively) in early 2020. Feeling that it was time to have a separate project that could reflect a different side of her creative inspirations, Katie felt that Jess was the perfect fit for a collaboration, and they set off to create I Walked With You A Ways.Written between Kansas City, Los Angeles, and Marfa, the album was recorded in Durham, NC with collaborator and producer Brad Cook. The creative magic of only a few vocal takes, tracking with a band comprised of Spencer Tweedy and Phil Cook, gives the album a feel of fresh, on-the-spot conception. The trust and history of Crutchfield and Cook’s collaborations (Saint Cloud, Great Thunder EP) set the tone for this new container of spontaneity and experimentation.With both being from the South, we hear the history of place and story in each song: Texas meteor showers, family ties, and the lineage of songwriters who have come before.As solo practitioners of the craft of song, Williamson and Crutchfield bring a creative permission slip to both the process of songwriting itself but also to the listener. In both of their solo projects you hear a specificity of experience that is so sharp and intimate that it brings the listener into a personal side of the experience of life. With Plains, we are invited into this spaciousness of story, to a shared narrative spanning the beginning of the album to the end.“Summer Sun,” the opening track, greets us with their two voices in perfect unison and sets the tone for the album – “come along with us, we’ll be here for you the whole time.” We’re catapulted into what feels like a small show on the back porch of a house in West Texas. There is an essence of their own friendship that clearly emerges that is just as much about joy and playfulness as it is about two people ushering each other through life’s great journeys.And that’s the thing about Country music, and what so much of this album nods to – from Waylon and Willie, to The Judds, The Chicks, Trio, and beyond – these are groups that are formed out of family and friendship, that lyrically take their listeners on a voyage of sorrow and hope. Crutchfield’s sharp, honest edge of truth telling paired with Williamson’s ability to paint the scene with candles, plains, sunsets, and small Texas towns is one of the strongest parts of this album. “When the summer sun melts candles / I dig out the wick / Honey we’re up against somethin / Our love alone can’t fix / So I won’t see the garden or the figs when they are ripe/ It hurts to be leavin, but I know that stayin ain’t right.”Crutchfield brings us through what we all could stand to strive for: Setting affectionate boundaries and expectations of how we want to be met and loved in relationships. She recalls that in her solo project she might not have kept the lyrics heard in “Problem With It,” but Williamson encouraged her to. It gives the song that directness of sharing our intentions and needs, while also acknowledging the parts of ourselves that get lost when we try to contort ourselves for someone else. “Justified it in my own way / I lost myself in it / If it’s all you got, it’s enough you say / I got a problem with it.”

Birds and Arrows

In 2020 the Birds and Arrows began the creation of their 6th full length record. But recording was cut short due to the first big wave of Covid hitting the US. Like all musicians during the lockdown, the band had to cancel all tours and shows putting their livelihood as musicians and artists in jeopardy. Birds and Arrows also had to put all album production on hold for the foreseeable future.In 2021, the band was able to get back into the studio with new ideas to complete the album which would become “Electric Bones.”The album was recorded live at Dust and Stone Studios as a full 4 piece band with Andrea Connolly on lead vocals, rhythm guitar and synth soundscapes, Pete Connolly on drums and vocals, Ben Nisbet on lead guitar and Gabriel Sullivan on bass and in role of producer. By this time Gabe had partnered with full time engineer Frank Bair. The electricity that happened between the live studio band when they returned from lockdown was palpable. The visceral excitement fueled by pent up creativity is the spark that formed “Electric Bones.”“Electric Bones” the new album by Birds and Arrows out August 5th on Hookworm records is a lush combination of moody soundscapes, throwback 70’s groove and classic “in studio” live band sound.This collection of new songs was written by creative duo Andrea and Pete Connolly and is a wild ride through the psyche of lifelong artists digesting an unexpected pandemic lockdown and processing the communal loss of innocence that came with surviving a world shattering pandemic together.“Electric Bones” is authentic on every level, right down to the band’s energetic core performance that burns bright into the studio microphones and shines direct into listeners psyches. The album is a strong collection of thoughtful compositions, dynamic melody and harmony and stellar vocal performances that hint at despair while still maintaining enough hope to shimmer in the dark.The album also features an ethereal vocal duet with Brian Lopez (of XIXA and Calexico) called “Saviors of this Town” Other special guests include Saul Millan (of Los Esplifs) – Moog manipulation. Daniel Martin Diaz (of Trees Speak) – synth on Truth or Consequence. Chris Pierce (of Katie Haverly and the Aviary) – bass on Radio Shack. Marta DeLeon (of Weekend Lovers) – bass on Saviors of This Town.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube

The Greeting Committee

Comprised of Addie Sartino and Pierce Turcotte, joined by Noah Spencer and Micah Ritchie, the spirit of purposeful sharing has served as something of a lifeline for Kansas City band The Greeting Committee.After making their Harvest debut with the Meeting People Is Easy EP in 2017 and the subsequent release of This Is It, the band spent much of the years to follow on the road, with sold-out headline shows in major markets such as Chicago, Austin, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. To date, they’ve toured with the likes of Bombay Bicycle Club, Tennis, Hippo Campus, and Rainbow Kitten Surprise and taken the stage at leading festivals like Lollapalooza and SXSW, in addition to delivering the I’m Afraid I’m Not Angry EP in late 2019 and appearing in Netflix’s To All the Boys: Always and Forever in 2021. The band’s sophomore album ‘Dandelion’ is out now via Harvest/Capitol Records with a deluxe edition, including tracks with Briston Maroney and Tune-Yards. Sartino and Turcotte are currently working on the band’s next project.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | TikTok

The Wrecks: Back and Better Than Ever Tour

THE WRECKSNick Anderson (Vocals)Aaron Kelly (Bass)Billy Nally (Drums)Nick “Schmizz” Schmidt (Guitar)Hailing from rural Wellsville, New York – almost exactly two hours south of nowhere, it’s not too surprising that there wasn’t much of a music scene. So, in the absence of one, Nick Anderson built one from scratch. In search of like-minded souls who loved the punk and alternative sounds he preferred, Nick turned to the internet. He recruited Aaron Kelley, Billy Nally, and Nick “Schmizz” Schmidt, to road test a new band: The Wrecks. The band’s top five tracks on Spotify have been listened to more than 80 million times, & their first single was a Top 40 Alternative Radio hit. Their most recent single, the post-breakup anthem “I Love This Part” finds the Wrecks’ music evolving as they approach the completion of their second album. Now as they progress towards an even larger reach that far extends above the foundation that they have already built, The Wrecks are poised for a wide-open road ahead of them.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | TikTok

Genre: Miscellaneous