Blue Cactus + Libby Rodenbough
Blue Cactus, the North Carolina duo of Steph Stewart and Mario Arnez, make Cosmic Americana: a blend of grit, glitz, groove, and twang that evokes a celestial soundscape of mid-century heartbreak.Following their critically acclaimed 2017 debut and a string of singles in 2020 their evolution is made plain on their sophomore LP, Stranger Again, released May 7, 2021 on Sleepy Cat Records. The album has received enthusiastic attention from tastemakers including No Depression, American Songwriter, FLOOD Magazine, Talkhouse, and INDY Week among others.Stranger Again is a deep dive into Cosmic American music, with the band taking their sound into ambitious new planes, where country-rock meets light psychedelia as the soaring vocals meet twangy slide-guitars and propulsive bass-lines. The otherworldliness of the music is a perfect contrast to their distinctly grounded, human storytelling lyrics. Throughout Stranger Again, they explore loss and longing, self-love and reckoning with personal, political and human struggles.Their finest work yet, Blue Cactus resuscitate a fleeting style of honest-to-goodness country music considered valueless to a “new” country music where songwriting is officiated by financial analysts and teams of marketing plutocrats instead of woebegone troubadours. With a high lonesome twang, an Emmylou-like southern drawl, and blistering guitar techniques, Blue Cactus’ new record Stranger Again exercises the honky-tonk muscles to firmly bear the flag for a new generation of cosmic country practitioners. Blue Cactus: Website | Instagram | FacebookIn their own words: “I grew up in Greensboro going to Friendly Shopping Centre to hang out with my friends at the Gap and drink “smoothies” that were like thick Kool-Aid. I got sick on sugar and decided to start sneering more. When I was 19, I went to Chicago to take classes at the Old Town School of Folk Music, where Pete Seeger and John Prine had played, and lost my edge again. I went back to college in North Carolina and abruptly fell in love, swallowed point blank. I joined a folky band called Mipso. My heart broke. I got tired of going to bars and moved to the country. Then I got tired of the country and moved closer to the bars. I traveled all over the U.S. and a few other parts of the world playing songs for people, and they were the type of song people can sing along to, and it felt uncanny when they sang along. I decided voting was senseless, then I tried to get everyone I knew to vote for Bernie Sanders, then my heart broke again real bad. All the time I was putting songs into my back pocket, and eventually it started to feel heavy, so I recorded them, and by then I had a lot of magical friends around to record them with.Half the time it feels silly to be making this stuff, and some of the time it feels like a well-greased wheel, but mostly I’ve just worn in a little path and I keep finding myself coming back to walk it and see what new bugs will catch my eye. It’s a strange time to publish something you’ve made, or that’s a strange thing to do in any time. So much of it feels like spectacle, but then what about the tree that fell in the empty forest? What about how great it is to kiss in public? What’s the point if you’re not doing a little dancing around, wearing blue leather boots, holding a tennis racket and a sprouting onion? ”Libby Rodenbough: Instagram | YouTube | Spotify | Bandcamp
Jon Spencer & the HITmakers
Jon Spencer is back, and he is ON FIRE! Get ready for Jon Spencer & the HITmakers to BURN your playhouse down with their new long-player, SPENCER GETS IT LIT! The incredible, indelible Jon Spencer (Blues Explosion, Boss Hog, Pussy Galore, Heavy Trash, etc) is back with the incendiary HITmakers - and with his HOTTEST record yet!Spencer Gets It Lit is classic Jon Spencer taken to the extremis – electro-boogie, constructivist art pop, a psychedelic swamp of industrial sleaze and futurist elegance. It is an epic master work of freak beat from the world’s weirdest garage. Across brain-boggling layers of fury, fuzz guitar, and a crash-bang battery of phaser blasts, photon torpedoes, and otherworldly zounds, he frantically spits, croons, rhapsodizes, and seduces. Spencer Gets It Lit is his most complex and groovy record in years, a dark, danceable odyssey – both a studied take-down of the early 21st century, and a celebration of the place were electricity meets the mind.Thirteen wicked hot songs of love, loss, lust, life — from the Farfisa-fueled,warped psycho -punk rave-up of “Junk Man,” to the intimate lover’s plea of “My Hit Parade,” to the outer-space end-of-days country funk of “Worm Town,” Spencer Gets It Lit delivers all of the friction, excitement, and post-modern depravity one could ever ask for! Says Spencer, “Send out the Hit Signal! This is the most uncompromising album I’ve ever made!”And the HITs just keep on coming!Links: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Mo Lowda & the Humble
Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Jukebox the Ghost
Piano-rock trio Jukebox the Ghost formed in 2006 and has been a steadily growing cult favorite and a globally touring band ever since. Composed of Ben Thornewill (piano/vocals), Tommy Siegel (guitar/bass/vocals) and Jesse Kristin (drums/vocals), they have played over 1,000 shows across the country and around the world over the course of their career. In addition to countless headlining tours, they have also toured as openers alongside Ingrid Michaelson, Ben Folds, Guster, Motion City Soundtrack, A Great Big World and Jack’s Mannequin, among others. In addition to festivals like Lollapalooza, Outside Lands, Bonnaroo, and Bottlerock, Jukebox the Ghost has also performed on The Late Show with David Letterman and Conan.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Too Many Zooz
The curious thing about being a fan of brasshouse? You’re pretty much talking about being into one solitary but extremely unforgettable band: the amusingly monikered Too Many Zooz.The musical style was “branded” by drummer King of Sludge, who recognized that there was no worthy existing classification for the New York trio, whose other two members are the equally unclassifiable Leo P (saxophone) and Matt Doe (trumpet).”Brasshouse is a high energy musical conversation,” Matt insists. “Though I honestly don’t think there is a good way to describe it in words. It’s about many different feelings and sounds and emotions.”Or as KOS so decisively puts it, “I don’t really care about what’s happening in music — I just make art that I enjoy making.”It’s exactly this indifference to convention and trend that has garnered Too Many Zooz a fanbase that KOS describes as “wide-ranging and fanatical.” One of those fans? In 2016, Beyonce asked them to perform with her at the Billboard Music Awards…and it’s quite possible they got just as much attention as did she.After two years, a gazillion live performances and four EPs, their debut album Subway Gawdz (an unsubtle reference to their birth in the underground stations of NYC), was released to enthusiastic acclaim in 2016. Its sound was truly like nothing else, with inescapable grooves that take in dub, soul, funk and ska, utterly exhilarating horn blasts that shoot right up your spine, and, of course, equal doses of fun and attitude.And right now, TMZ are riding higher than ever, surely poised for the leap into genuinely widespread international recognition that was likley inevitable since they first set foot in an NYC subway station. Indeed, following a deal with Ministry of Sound, their single “Warriors” racked up major play on Radio One (if you think you haven’t heard it, when you hear it, you’ll quickly realize you already have), followed by high-profile remixes from the likes of Armand Van Helden and KDA.Then, UK sensation Jess Glynne penned lyrics and added vocals to morph the song into “So Real (Warriors),” which has been generating massive buzz while climbing the European charts. In the meanwhile, a live video for “Car Alarm” has furtively racked up more than 500K views in one week.But surely signaling their mainstream “arrival”? A Canadian KFC commercial featured the band and their songs — so don’t be surprised if listening to their music suddenly makes you hungry.Though they’ve also been up to more serious matters. Leo, in fact, was asked to play at the BBC Proms Charles Mingus tribute at a sold-out Royal Albert Hall in August 2017 — certainly no small honor.Yet for all this, the forward plan for Too Many Zooz, is, as ever, constant touring. The reason is simple: it’s their outrageous, electrifying live performances that consistently continue to add the numbers to their growing worldwide legion of fans. Autumn 2018 will take them coast to coast, from Seattle to Houston to Philadelphia, and across Europe, with stops in Krakow, Strasbourg and Marseille, amongst others.”I don’t think there’s any recording that can do a live performance justice,” reckons Matt. “You’ll see people of all different colors, creeds, genders, ages, sexuality at our shows. I really can’t find a constant between them…besides liking our music — haha.”But for everything that’s happened in the last couple of years, the trio aren’t actually all that surprised by their success.”I always knew we had something special,” Leo enthuses. “Thousands of people everyday loved our music…and I knew it would just continue to spread.”Website | Instagram | Twitter
Can’t You Hear Me Rockin’: A Tribute to The Rolling Stones
$10 suggested donationMichelle Belanger • Nancy Bierman • Thomas Anderson Bookwalter • Adam Brill • David Burney • Art Champagne • Larry Duckworth • Steve Eisenstadt • Pete Gamble • Doug Guild • Taz Halloween • Glenn Jones • Todd Jones • Cyril Lance • Armand Lenchek • Nancy Middleton • Rebecca Newton • Lisa Rhodes • Mike Rosado • T Ruth • Secret Monkey Weekend • Jon Shain • Rob Sharer • David Shore • (This) Tim Smith • (That) Tim Smith • Andrew Snee • Alison Weiner • The Whiskey Honeys • Lance White • Sam White • FJ Ventre • Jeff Wall • Alan Wilson • Kimmie WilsonAll proceeds will go to Ukrainian Relief.
Stop Light Observations
SLO is a 4-piece anti-pop/not rock (but also isn’t not rock) band born and raised in Charleston, SC. SLO is:William Blackburn (lead vocals)JohnKeith “Cubby” Culbreth (piano/guitar/synth)Luke Withers (drums)Will Mahoney (bass)Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Lucinda Williams
“It’s all come full circle,” says Lucinda Williams about her powerful new album, Good Souls, Better Angels. After more than forty years of music making, the pioneering, Louisiana-born artist has returned to the gritty blues foundation that first inspired her as a young singer-songwriter in the late 1970s. And after spending the last year on her sold-out “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” 20th Anniversary tour, Williams has reunited with that game-changing 1998 album’s co-producer and engineer Ray Kennedy, recording Good Souls, Better Angels with her ace touring band at his Nashville studio. Joining them as co-producer is Williams’ manager Tom Overby, to whom she’s been married for a decade and who contributed lyrics to her masterful songcraft. “That’s what I always dreamed of – a relationship with someone I could create with,” Williams enthuses.The result – Good Souls, Better Angels – is the most topical album of Williams’ career. The dangerous world we live in, the constant barrage of a frightening news cycle, depression, domestic abuse, a man without a soul – and, yeah, the devil – figure prominently among its twelve tracks. “The devil comes into play quite a bit on this album,” Williams says. “I’ve always loved the imagery in Robert Johnson songs and those really dark Delta blues that are sort of biblical. I was inspired by Leonard Cohen – he dealt with that in his songs – and Bob Dylan and Nick Cave.” While, Good Souls, Better Angels reflects many dark realities that surround us, the album is tied together with themes of perseverance, resilience and ultimately, hope.As for the topicality of the material, Williams says, “Because of all this crap that’s going on, it’s on the top of everybody’s minds – it’s all anybody talks about: Basically the world’s falling apart – it’s like the apocalypse. That’s where that Old Testament stuff comes from. It’s different from my other albums in that there aren’t the story songs about my childhood and all. It feels exciting.”From the driving blues of the opening track “You Can’t Rule Me” to the ominous gothic “Pray the Devil Back to Hell,” from punk-blues-fueled “Bone of Contention” to fire ‘n brimstone “Drop by Drop (Big Rotator),” Williams has never been more raw and direct, with gut-punching wordplay crossing the Good Book with hip-hop with Ginsbergian beat poetry. The Williams-Overby collaborative songwriting experiment clearly has been a success. “It just happened organically,” says Williams. “Tom and I started working on songs together and he came up with some of the ideas. He gave me lines that he’d written and I took it from there. I love it because it expands things. ‘Man Without a Soul’ was his idea, and he came up with ‘Big Black Train,’ about that big black cloud of depression. When I listen to that track, it makes me cry.”Recording live in Ray Kennedy’s vintage-equipped studio, Williams and her longtime band – guitarist Stuart Mathis, bassist David Sutton, and drummer Butch Norton – cut most of the songs in two or three takes, with the rhythm section’s rock-solid pulse and Mathis’ versatile sonic attacks backing Williams’ distinctive passion-drenched vocals.Website | Facebook | Twitter
Lucinda Williams
“It’s all come full circle,” says Lucinda Williams about her powerful new album, Good Souls, Better Angels. After more than forty years of music making, the pioneering, Louisiana-born artist has returned to the gritty blues foundation that first inspired her as a young singer-songwriter in the late 1970s. And after spending the last year on her sold-out “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” 20th Anniversary tour, Williams has reunited with that game-changing 1998 album’s co-producer and engineer Ray Kennedy, recording Good Souls, Better Angels with her ace touring band at his Nashville studio. Joining them as co-producer is Williams’ manager Tom Overby, to whom she’s been married for a decade and who contributed lyrics to her masterful songcraft. “That’s what I always dreamed of – a relationship with someone I could create with,” Williams enthuses.The result – Good Souls, Better Angels – is the most topical album of Williams’ career. The dangerous world we live in, the constant barrage of a frightening news cycle, depression, domestic abuse, a man without a soul – and, yeah, the devil – figure prominently among its twelve tracks. “The devil comes into play quite a bit on this album,” Williams says. “I’ve always loved the imagery in Robert Johnson songs and those really dark Delta blues that are sort of biblical. I was inspired by Leonard Cohen – he dealt with that in his songs – and Bob Dylan and Nick Cave.” While, Good Souls, Better Angels reflects many dark realities that surround us, the album is tied together with themes of perseverance, resilience and ultimately, hope.As for the topicality of the material, Williams says, “Because of all this crap that’s going on, it’s on the top of everybody’s minds – it’s all anybody talks about: Basically the world’s falling apart – it’s like the apocalypse. That’s where that Old Testament stuff comes from. It’s different from my other albums in that there aren’t the story songs about my childhood and all. It feels exciting.”From the driving blues of the opening track “You Can’t Rule Me” to the ominous gothic “Pray the Devil Back to Hell,” from punk-blues-fueled “Bone of Contention” to fire ‘n brimstone “Drop by Drop (Big Rotator),” Williams has never been more raw and direct, with gut-punching wordplay crossing the Good Book with hip-hop with Ginsbergian beat poetry. The Williams-Overby collaborative songwriting experiment clearly has been a success. “It just happened organically,” says Williams. “Tom and I started working on songs together and he came up with some of the ideas. He gave me lines that he’d written and I took it from there. I love it because it expands things. ‘Man Without a Soul’ was his idea, and he came up with ‘Big Black Train,’ about that big black cloud of depression. When I listen to that track, it makes me cry.”Recording live in Ray Kennedy’s vintage-equipped studio, Williams and her longtime band – guitarist Stuart Mathis, bassist David Sutton, and drummer Butch Norton – cut most of the songs in two or three takes, with the rhythm section’s rock-solid pulse and Mathis’ versatile sonic attacks backing Williams’ distinctive passion-drenched vocals.Website | Facebook | Twitter
Alex G
God Save the Animals opens with a sort of credo: “After all,” sings Alex Giannascoli, the 29- year-old, Philadelphia-based musician best known as Alex G. “People come and people go away / Yeah, but God with me he stayed.” The first two words (which also comprise the song’s title) suggest the inevitability of change and the artist’s passive, if conflicted, relationship to it. Similar sentiments have appeared across Giannascoli’s oeuvre, but here, on his fourth full- length for Domino and ninth overall, he seems drawn to a particular outlet for feelings of helplessness: “God” figures in the LP’s title, its first song, and multiple of its thirteen tracks thereafter, not as a concrete religious entity but as a sign for a generalized sense of faith (in something, anything) that fortifies Giannascoli, or the characters he voices, amid the songs’ often fraught situations.The people in Giannascoli’s songs place faith elsewhere as well, namely in those around them. “You can believe in me,” sings the narrator of “Cross the Sea,” his voice pitched-down, husky. Characteristic in not just its lyrical stance but also its layered production, “Cross the Sea” was the first song Giannascoli wrote for God Save the Animals, starting it in late 2019, after the first tour for his prior album, House of Sugar. The track builds from a quiet pairing of acoustic guitar and autotuned vocals, and subtly introduces new elements—the narrator’s intonation, a complex drum beat, new voices weaving in and out—before dissolving into a haze of synthesizer and piano. Giannascoli credits his approach, in part, to the internalized influence of pop radio, the tendency of current hit songs to cloak the artist’s voice in a range of modifications and levels of fidelity.He wonders, too, if radio-listening habits encouraged him to labor carefully over the sound of God Save the Animals, seeking straightforwardly high-end mixes. As with records since his adolescence, Giannascoli wrote and demoed these songs by himself, at home; but, for the sake of both new tones and “a routine that was outside of my apartment” during the pandemic, he began visiting multiple studios in greater Philadelphia. God Save the Animals consequently features the work of some half-dozen engineers whom Giannascoli asked to help him produce the “best” recording quality, whatever that meant. The result is an album more dynamic than ever in its sonic palette, its thoroughgoing complexity, where tracks like the eerie and unpredictable rock song “Ain’t It Easy” follow logically from “No Bitterness,” which itself transitions midway from a skittering but contemplative ballad to something like hyperpop.Beyond the ambient inspiration of pop, Giannascoli has been drawn in recent years to musicians like Gillian Welch and writers like Joy Williams, artists who balance the public and hermetic, the oblique and the intimate, and who present faith more as a shared social language than religious doctrine. Giannascoli achieves such balance in both text and sound, deploying quotation and varied vocal textures that present the given scenarios as immediate and distant at the same time. The songs “feel confessional to me,” he says, but “they’re not necessarily all true. I convince myself of things.”Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Bandcamp
