Sir Woman
Sir Woman is the new musical project from Wild Child/Glorietta singer Kelsey Wilson. Started in 2019 as a way for Wilson to write and record the styles of music that inspire her – Soul, Funk, RnB, Gospel – the project quickly garnered massive attention around their homebase of Austin, TX. In 2020, after just a handful of shows and single releases, Sir Woman was dubbed “Best New Act” at the Austin Music Awards.During the pandemic, Sir Woman released a five song EP (appropriately) titled Bitch. With the massive lead single “Highroad,” the collection has already passed 14.5 million streams on Spotify, and led to radio airplay across the U.S. Now that concerts have resumed, Sir Woman has also cemented their status as one of the funnest shows anywhere with sold out club dates and festival appearances around Austin as well as tour dates opening for Black Pumas and Shakey Graves.Now the band is ready to introduce the rest of the country to the party. The Sir Woman self-titled full-length was released in April 2022, and tour dates throughout the U.S. are planned for the next several months.Links: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Mipso
Since making their acclaimed debut with 2013’s Dark Holler Pop, North Carolina-bred four- piece Mipso have captivated audiences with their finely layered vocal harmonies, graceful fluency in the timeless musical traditions of their home state, and a near-telepathic musical connection that makes their live show especially kinetic. On their self-titled sixth album and Rounder Records debut, fiddle player Libby Rodenbough, mandolinist Jacob Sharp, guitarist Joseph Terrell, and bassist Wood Robinson share their most sonically adventurous and lyrically rich work to date, each moment charged with the tension between textural effervescence and an underlying despair about the modern world.Mainly recorded at Echo Mountain in Asheville, North Carolina, Mipso finds the band joining forces with Sandro Perri (a musician/producer known for his work with acts like Great Lake Swimmers, as well as his own post-rock/experimental-electronic material). In overseeing the production process, Perri guided Mipso toward their goal of shaping a sonic landscape that was expansive and atmospheric yet surprisingly personal, even playful. To that end, the band dreamed up Mipso’s resplendent textures by stretching the limits of their acoustic instruments, rather than employing outside musicians to create new sounds. The result is a body of work with spacious arrangements that gently illuminate the idiosyncratic details and refined musicianship at the heart of every song.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Mipso
Since making their acclaimed debut with 2013’s Dark Holler Pop, North Carolina-bred four- piece Mipso have captivated audiences with their finely layered vocal harmonies, graceful fluency in the timeless musical traditions of their home state, and a near-telepathic musical connection that makes their live show especially kinetic. On their self-titled sixth album and Rounder Records debut, fiddle player Libby Rodenbough, mandolinist Jacob Sharp, guitarist Joseph Terrell, and bassist Wood Robinson share their most sonically adventurous and lyrically rich work to date, each moment charged with the tension between textural effervescence and an underlying despair about the modern world.Mainly recorded at Echo Mountain in Asheville, North Carolina, Mipso finds the band joining forces with Sandro Perri (a musician/producer known for his work with acts like Great Lake Swimmers, as well as his own post-rock/experimental-electronic material). In overseeing the production process, Perri guided Mipso toward their goal of shaping a sonic landscape that was expansive and atmospheric yet surprisingly personal, even playful. To that end, the band dreamed up Mipso’s resplendent textures by stretching the limits of their acoustic instruments, rather than employing outside musicians to create new sounds. The result is a body of work with spacious arrangements that gently illuminate the idiosyncratic details and refined musicianship at the heart of every song.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Fleece
“If two men just ain’t right, then I’m living in a world that’s upside down,” Matt Rogers, lead vocalist and songwriter of Montreal-based LGBTQ indie-rock band Fleece, croons on “Upside Down”, a song on their gorgeous new LP, Stunning and Atrocious. On this album, the band isn’t holding back on sharing their roadmap for how they see the world.In fact, Fleece has never paused, even for a moment, to define themselves or add labels to their experience, instead opting to open up and be. This band is au naturel and it shows, right from their earliest days and rise to notoriety through their rice cake- munching “How to write an Alt-J song” viral video (which amassed 12 million views). Since that video, that notoriety has only amplified. Subsequent releases and antics have added fuel to this fire and grown large and dedicated followings on Spotify, Instagram and TikTok, resulting in worldwide audiences and millions of monthly streams. The band’s recent singles “Upside Down”, “Do U Mind? (Leave The Light On)”, and “Love Song for the Haters” have each leapt past the 2-million stream mark. Along the way the band found themselves on tour across North America multiple times, supporting renowned bands Tokyo Police Club, Born Ruffians, Mt. Joy, and others as their demand as a headliner grew in these same markets.While having been focused on the songwriting of lead vocalist Matt Rogers and the relentless energy of drummer and co-founder Ethan Soil, Fleece has always been about being a band. Fleece’s previous music had drawn from musicians no longer in the project, but it was the emergence of Megan Ennenberg (guitar/vocals) and Jameson Daniel (guitar) as members that completed the line up and contributed to the cohesive whole, the final resting place, the rebirth of Fleece.And it is from this new Fleece where their newest emerging musical work, the album Stunning and Atrocious, came to fruition. Said Matt, “I think we’re finally Fleece. In the past, the process was more about bringing my own compositions to the band, but this album is a complete coming together of all of our brains. We played whatever we came up with, stream of consciousness style, and then restructured the songs until they felt right. It was a bit daunting to give up control at first, but the product and process of collaborating made Fleece more exciting for all of us. I definitely grew from it too. Song two (“Like It A Lot”) is about exactly this – letting the power go and feeling good.”Written from the late parts of 2018 until 2020, the album was a first for Fleece in that it was created with a collective focus in mind: songwriting with a strong emphasis on contributions from all four band members. While on tour, the band would write and demo songs, creating oodles of voice-memo-type song skeletons everywhere they went, from rural Texas to the Laurentian Mountains of Quebec to a highway-side rehearsal room in Montreal. The song ideas came together naturally and the singers began weaving in lyrics about the complexities of vulnerability, sexuality, love, depression and anxiety, joy and silliness, honesty, and power. And then, of course, the lens of a pandemic magnified the stunning and atrocious parts of all of these tropes, and they wove in that new intensified insight as well.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Pile – Dripping Ten Year Anniversary Tour
Pile is from Boston, Massachusetts. Started as a solo project by Rick Maguire back in 2007, Pile released ‘Demonstration,’ a 10 song demo and ‘Jerk Routine’ in 2008 before expanding their line-up. Wanting to be able to tour on the material with a band, Maguire attempted to find some other players. After some shuffling, the band found a cohesive line-up with Kris Kuss (drums), Matt Becker (guitar), Matt Connery (bass) and Maguire (guitar, vocals). In the eight years since, Pile has released several acclaimed albums, ‘Magic isn’t Real’ (2010), ‘Dripping’ (2012), ‘You’re Better Than This’ (2015), and “A Hairshirt of Purpose’ (2017), in addition to two highly sought after EP’s and the ‘Odds and Ends’ (2018) collection. Becker and Connery left the band in 2018 and Chappy Hull (guitar) and Alex Molini (bass) joined. They released their most recent album, “Green and Gray,” in May of 2019. Since coming together as a full band in 2009, Pile have toured as much as their lives collectively allow, playing nearly 1000 shows spread out over the US, Canada, the UK and Europe.Links: Bandcamp | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify
Wyatt Easterling CD Release Show
Wyatt first came to Nashville as a folk singer on the verge of signing with CBS Records, but in true industry fashion, Sony acquired the label, and the deal fell through. Undeterred, he signed on as a writer with a new publishing company opened by former CBS label head Rick Blackburn.After a couple of years there, Blackburn brought him on as head of A&R at Atlantic Records where Wyatt signed some of country music’s biggest names including John Michael Montgomery, Tracy Lawrence, Michael Johnson and Neal McCoy. He also began working as a producer, guiding Montgomery’s debut album Life’s A Dance to an impressive three million copies sold. After Atlantic, Wyatt opened Bugle Publishing Group with partner Miles Copeland, where he signed a number of artists, most notably Keith Urban, Paul Jefferson and Paul Thorn. At Bugle, Wyatt also produced Thorn’s debut album Hammer and Nail and got the future superstar Urban his first record deal.During that period, Wyatt and Miles had the inventive idea to turn a chateau in the south of France into a writers’ den they called “The Castle” where they began pairing their Nashville songwriters with big name artists like Carole King, Cher, Peter Frampton and Olivia Newton John. In time, Wyatt was ready to move on from the publishing world, and he signed as a writer with DreamWorks Publishing, API and EMI where he had numerous songs recorded by the likes of Dierks Bentley and Joe Diffie, including the gorgeous title track from Bentley’s album Modern Day Drifter.After all of his time navigating the many facets of the music industry, it turns out his true destination was in fact to be a singer-songwriter. He started touring, including consecutive appearances as a finalist in the prestigious Kerrville New Folk contest, and he’s since recorded his two beautiful albums Where This River Goes and Goodbye, Hello. And now happily we have a third collection of songs by Wyatt Easterling in Divining Rod that we can all listen to it for years to come.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Post Sex Nachos & Similar Kind
Similar Kind is an indie pop band from Norwalk, CT. It originated as just a few friends jamming in a garage and has blossomed into a five piece band playing shows all over the US. Similar Kind has played with acts such as Sunflower Bean, Bad Bad Hats, Hot Flash Heat Wave, No Vacation & more. The band is currently working on a follow up EP to their debut “Faces & Places” a project chock-full of indie pop, reminiscent of The Cure and Talking Heads, described as “dance-ready synth-pop. equal parts R&B, pop, and indie rock, the EP is a highly-polished, thoroughly-confident release.”The band has a pair of new singles “I Don’t Wanna Fight Anymore” and “ There She Was” their latest releases.Links: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | YouTubeFrom the depths of the Midwest alternative scene arises a soulful and passionate quintet, ready to bend genres and produce tunes that will make you jump, shake, and move: Post Sex Nachos.Charging into battle for the love of rock n’ roll, this roller-coaster collective and their irreplaceable sound has shown audiences young and old, from coast to coast, the power of one thing: their music. Breathing new life into genres across the spectrum – from jazz, pop, indie rock, and straight up funk – Post Sex Nachos is here to redefine the term “boyband” forever.With the release of their first two self-produced albums, four original music videos, and the recent release of their third full-length LP, the band continues to pursue one thing: the groove. Collaborating with artists, producers, musicians, and filmmakers locally and globally, Post Sex Nachos continues to reimagine the scope of their music. Where most find a wall, they find a door, in a get-me-a-sledge-hammer kind of way.Who is Post Sex Nachos? We’re glad you asked.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Be Loud! ’22
We’re back for Be Loud! ’22, our 9th annual show! Inspired by our Clash London Calling tribute show in ’21, we decided to ask some of our favorite local musicians to cover truly influential acts of the 1980s. Rob Ladd, Robert Sledge and Brian Dennis (you know them as Preeesh!) stepped up to do The Police. Glam rockers What Peggy Wants are regrouping to perform the music of The Cure. And, finally, The Sex Police & Friends will take on The Ramones. It promises to be an incredible evening of music and community, with all proceeds going to support the Be Loud! Sophie Foundation and the amazing work of the UNC AYA team at UNC Hospitals. Get your tickets now…before they’re gone! Here’s the full line-up with show details: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24TH Doors Open 7:00 pm, Music Starts 8:00 pmIn order of appearance:Special Guest: Secret Monkey Weekend The Police performed by Preeesh! The Cure performed by What Peggy WantsThe Ramones performed by The Sex Police and Friends TICKETS & DETAILS Tickets are $25 and all proceeds will go to the Be Loud! Sophie Foundation. Be Loud ’22 is an all ages show.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Steve Kimock & Friends
Steve Kimock is regarded as one of the great guitar improvisers of his generation inspiring music fans with his signature sound voiced through electric, acoustic, lap and pedal steel guitars for over four decades. His ability to articulate crystal-clear tone, melody and emotion into intricately woven music crafted with technical brilliance is matchless, and his unparalleled ability to embrace and capture his audiences musically is the stuff of legend.A pioneer of the ‘jam band’ scene and the West Coast sound, no one niche has ever confined him. Instead, through the years, he’s explored various sounds and styles based on what’s moved him at the time, whether it’s blues or jazz; funk or folk; psychedelic or boogie; gypsy or prog-rock; traditional American or world fusion. With a reputation as a blazing psychedelic guitarist versatile enough to touch almost all aspects of American music, Kimock continues to evolve creatively and elevate audiences worldwide.After more than 40 years on stage, Kimock is more committed than ever to the spirit of musical diversity and diving deep into his Rock roots. Many classic tunes and tones of his youth that forged his sound and his attitude as a musician will be unearthed with the same spirit that has fed his desire to pursue an authentic relationship with the guitar since the day he realized his calling.Dubbed “The Guitar Monk” by Relix magazine, Kimock is driven by the knowledge that there is always more to discover – that and the fact that he loves guitar too much to do anything else. Like all of us, he’s sick of this pandemic and plans to return to the stage with guns blazing. If you’re a fan of Steve Kimock, you won’t want to miss this side of the artist with his foot on the gas.Steve Kimock & Friends Featuring:Steve Kimock: Guitar, Lap SteelBilly Goodman: Vocals, Slide Guitar (Goodman Brothers, Jorma Kaukonen)John Morgan Kimock: Drums (Oteil & Friends, Mike Gordon)Andy Hess: Bass (John Scofield, Black Crowes, Graham Nash)Jeff Kazee: Keys, B3, vocals (Bon Jovi, Southside Johnny & the Jukes, Roger Waters)Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Wild Rivers
“The more I see, the less I know about it.” It’s one of the first, most prominent lyrics on Sidelines, the much-anticipated full-length album from indie trio Wild Rivers. The phrasing is brief but says everything about adjusting to young adulthood — and beyond. The world places infinite pressure on us to have a plan for the future, but, as Wild Rivers eloquently articulate throughout Sidelines, it’s healthier to acknowledge — and even embrace — the not knowing.Comprising Khalid Yassein [guitar, vocals, keys], Devan Glover [vocals], and Andrew Oliver [lead guitar, synths], Toronto’s Wild Rivers have a gift for penning introspective lyrics and genre-fluid melodies that transmit wisdom beyond their years. The 10-track Sidelines, co-produced by Peter Katis (The National, Interpol, Sharon van Etten) and Wild Rivers and recorded in Connecticut, Los Angeles and Khalid and Devan’s college town of Kingston, Ontario, touches on coming-of-age themes, such as learning how to be more present and coming to terms with life’s unpredictability.In many ways, the group’s own story is one about embracing the unknown. Born in Canada, Khalid, who is half-Egyptian, and Devan, who spent her childhood in London, England before returning to Canada, first connected at Queen’s University in Kingston in 2013. Starting out as an acoustic singer-songwriter project, Khalid and Devan expanded their aesthetic to a more full-bodied sound, adding multi-instrumentalist Andrew, who Khalid calls their “Swiss army knife.”Together, right before their first show, the band decided on the name Wild Rivers “in a Subway restaurant,” laughs Andrew. “Our friends were going to be there and there was a lot of pressure on making a big reveal, just cause we had really left it to the last minute,” adds Devan. “There wasn’t too much thought put into it. We just were like, ‘okay, this sounds cool. I’m going to get a foot-long’”.A portrait of their early post-college years, Sidelines is where Wild Rivers poured their collective impressions about merging into their mid-20s — a strange, liminal age where it’s easy to romanticize childhood. Sidelines, according to Andrew, looks back longingly upon “the time when you are truly present and you’re not having this forward-thinking vision where you’re worried about the next thing.”“A lot of [Sidelines] is about perspective and longing to be somewhere that you’re not, or trying to figure out how to get to a place that you want to be, whether it’s physically, emotionally,” says Devan. “I think we’re all kind of struggling with our sense of identity, in the stage of life that we’re in.”Sonically, Wild Rivers pull from a spectrum of sounds, imbuing pop, rock, indie, and folk into each song’s blueprint. “We all listen to a wide range of music, from hip-hop to indie rock to pop,” Devan says. “We like to pull our favorite parts of every genre and patch them together and see what works and see what feels good.”Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
