Parthenon Huxley & His Ridiculous Band
Parthenon Huxley calls himself a “mid-20th Century artist.” His music avoids trends and reliably delivers guitar-centric rock with beautifully harmonized vocals and aspirational lyrics. Renowned North Carolina producer Don Dixon: “P. Hux has a way of drawing inspiration from the best songs of the 60s and 70s while creating recordings that are clearly his own.”Huxley’s music has been loved and lauded since his very first single, “Buddha, Buddha” (released in 1983 when he was known as Rick Rock) was named one of the Ten Best Records Ever Produced in North Carolina by the Greensboro Record. Rolling Stone raved about Huxley’s music, “You could land a marlin with these hooks.” His first major label album, Sunny Nights, was called “a monumental debut” by Rolling Stone and declared Album of the Year by Creative Loafing. 1995’s “Deluxe” was voted Album of the Year by Audities magazine. His Lakeshore Records release Homemade Spaceship was named Tribute Album of the Year by Just Plain Folks. JPF went one further and named Huxley’s LP Thank You Bethesda College Rock Album of the Year in 2018. “I Loved Everything” from Huxley’s Purgatory Falls, reached #1 on Rolling Stone’s Exclusive Download Chart in 2001.Parthenon Huxley & His Ridiculous Band are touring in Spring 2022 to support a soon-to-be-released Best Of collection on a major indie label. Huxley’s magical two-hour shows showcase his latest originals and jaw dropping covers played without mercy by keyboardist Daniel Clarke (kd lang) plus Baltimore legends Ricky Wise and David Phenicie on drums, bass and vocals.Apart from his original music, Huxley tours the world with The Orchestra Starring ELO Former Members, a band he joined in 1999 when it was called ELO Part II.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Dry Cleaning
Dry Cleaning’s guitarist Tom Dowse, drummer Nick Buxton, and Lewis Maynard had been friends and musical collaborators for years; at first Dry Cleaning was simply their latest project, formed after a karaoke night and based out of the miniscule garage next to the house of Maynard’s mum. One day, however, after a mutual friend’s exhibition, Dowse played some snippets of what they’d been working on to Florence Shaw, a visual artist, picture researcher and drawing lecturer. A few days later, she came to his flat armed with a copy of Michael Bernard Loggins’ ‘Fears Of Your Life’ to read out over the music, and later still started contributing words of her own. Before long she was the group’s frontperson, her dryness, wit, and linguistic acrobatics acting as the perfect counter to the musicians’ taut instrumentals. Eventually they produced two thrilling EPs, 2019’s Sweet Princess and Boundary Road Snacks and Drinks. Buoyed by the universal acclaim they received, the foursome spent more and more of their lives on tour, refining their craft even further. The intensive time they spent together meant they developed a near-psychic knowledge of how to leave the right amount of space for each other in their songs. On stage, the contrast between the stillness of Shaw and the emphatic energy of Dowse and Maynard became even more pronounced. They swapped influences from Black Sabbath to Augustus Pablo to Yuzo Koshiro as they travelled. “It all absorbed,” says Dowse. “Then when we got back to writing, we felt like we were drawing very organically from a collective palette.” New songs began to emerge that were bigger, more ambitious and more complex than before, early iterations of what would eventually make up their exceptional debut album New Long Leg. Take ‘Every Day Carry’’s psychedelic meltdown for example, or the lurching and dramatic ‘Unsmart Lady’, or the dizzy melancholy of ‘Leafy’. “We’ve grown in confidence, just the reassurance of knowing there’s an audience interested,” says Shaw. When the coronavirus pandemic hit in March, forcing a swift end to their US tour, they had their new songs demoed, but had to bide their time before they could enter the studio. Shaw spent time refining her lyrics. “I found the lockdown played into some of the themes I was interested in anyway, living in a small world, a feeling of alienation, paranoia and worry, but also a joyful revelling in household things,” she says. They contributed two new recordings of ‘Scratchcard Lanyard’ and ‘New Long Leg’ to Sea Change Festival’s virtual edition, passing a Tascam four-track cassette recorder to one another from the window of Maynard’s car, cleaning it with antibacterial wipes before recording their parts one by one. Facilitated by the unexpected time apart and the introspection of lockdown, Buxton started experimenting with drum machines, Dowse with a noisier, more deconstructed guitar sound, Maynard with subtler and more flexible basslines. By June John Parish had emerged as the perfect producer and was keen to explore these creative developments. He asked them to bring along the Sea Change recordings, as well as their other demos. “From the very first conversation we had on Zoom it was pretty clear how serious he was about it,” says Dowse. The band holed up with him at Rockfield Studios in rural Wales for two weeks, finding this isolation from the outside world “liberating,” as Buxton puts it. Links: Bandcamp | Instagram | Facebook
WXYC Presents Stir the Embers: A Punk Rock & New Wave Revival Dance Party
Free for UNC students with ONE-Card Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Jon Ward Beyle
A compelling songwriter and natural performer, Jon Ward Beyle expertly draws on the sounds of acoustic Americana and folk as well as the energy of rock & roll to back his honest, cut-to-the-bone lyrics. Having honed his craft through live performances the past four years, Beyle’s debut full-length album Worth Stopping For is set to bring him into the folk-rock spotlight. Worth Stopping For, released on December 2nd, 2021, shows Beyle’s versatility as both a songwriter and a performer. Armed with an eclectic mix of foot-stomping, thought-provoking, intensely transparent songs and a backing band of strong local musicians, Beyle never hesitated to push the envelope while exploring various themes and musical styles throughout the recording process. Beyle has become a staple of the Triangle, NC music scene playing such venues and festivals as Cat’s Cradle, Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival, The Pour House Music Hall, The Pinhook, and The Station. Additionally, Beyle is the host of the popular weekly music series Beer & Banjos in Carrboro, NC aimed at highlighting traditional and acoustic music from the state of North Carolina. Links: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
River Whyless
In August 2019, the four members of River Whyless – Halli Anderson, Ryan O’Keefe, Daniel Shearin and Alex McWalters – secluded themselves for thirty days deep in the hills outside Asheville, NC. Their intention was to make a record, the band’s fourth full-length effort, and first without a producer since their 2012 debut A Stone, A Leaf, An Unfound Door. Back then, that constraint was a matter of necessity. This time, it was deliberate.Using mostly gear from Shearin’s recording studio, the band converted McWalter’s house into a multi-level homemade recording space. The basement became the control room and drum world. The main level, with its high ceilings and pine floors, was well-equipped for acoustic guitars and violin. They didn’t know yet where the vocals would be tracked. In truth, they didn’t know much except that they had the gear they needed, some time, and a collection of very rough-hewn demos they hoped could be shaped into something honest and cohesive.Accustomed to arriving at the studio well-rehearsed, for Monoflora, Shearin, Anderson, O’Keefe and McWalters came intentionally unprepared. They wanted to capture ideas at their source, in the very moment of their creation. They would start the tape and let it roll until they could let their conscious minds forget they were recording. Then they could simply create. Arrangements were fleshed out and captured on the spot. The foundation of songs were often recorded with the singers in a room together with a guitar, writing harmonies and lyrics as they went. Many of the vocals were finished within the first few takes, or even with the scratch take. Early experimental drum ideas were slowed down and pitched-shifted to blend with a changing vision of a song.Of course, opting for this freedom of experimentation in lieu of a well-rehearsed outfit did come with a cost. “I think we were all unpleasantly surprised by how short a month suddenly felt as soon as we started grappling with the challenge we’d created for ourselves,” O’Keefe says. There were many, long days and nights, especially for Shearin, who, by virtue of his experience in the world of recording, was wearing at least two hats at all times: that of artist and engineer. O’Keefe, Monoflora’s defacto assistant engineer, could relate. “It’s an intensely immersive and romantic experience to be wearing all the hats at once,” he says. “It’s empowering, exciting. But it’s also exhausting. We knew this, and yet…we were determined to put our years of experience to the test.”On Monoflora the band has, in some ways, returned to its more acoustic origins, this album shed of the hard-driving, electrified and/or synthesized outwardness that propelled 2018’s Kindness, A Rebel. But while Monoflora certainly features more acoustic guitar and violin than both Kindness and 2016’s We All The Light, it would be inaccurate (or oversimple) to say that it harkens back to River Whyless’ earlier, “folksier” efforts, like 2012’s Stone and/or its eponymous 2015 EP. The arrangements on Monoflora are, in many cases, more intricate and dynamic than any of the band’s previous work, the instrumentation more eclectic and expansive, the members’ roles as individual musicians more fluid and diverse.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud
Kelsy Karter
The debut album from Kelsy Karter, Missing Person is a thrilling introduction to a truly singular musical mind. Like all the most electrifying artists, the New Zealand-born singer/songwriter invites the audience into a beautifully strange world of her own making, a fantasia that’s equal parts rock-and-roll grit and wildly theatrical grandeur. Fueled by the mesmerizing vocal work first displayed on her breakthrough single “Harry”—a 2018 track that went viral after Karter turned up with a fake tattoo of Harry Styles blazoned across her face—Missing Person arrives as a stunning showcase for her intricate storytelling and uncompromising outlook on life, love, and self-liberation.Despite the defiant spirit that shines through nearly every song on Missing Person, the album took shape from a period of tremendous pain and self-doubt for Karter, a time that included the death of a loved one and a devastating breakup. “I was so depressed and broke, and probably at the lowest point in my whole life,” says Karter. “For a while I sort of lost myself, which is why the album’s called Missing Person. But through the process of making the record I found myself as an artist and an individual—I stopped giving a fuck about what anyone else thinks, and finally felt completely okay with who I am.” Working in the UK and in her homebase of L.A. with producers like Zakk Cervini (Machine Gun Kelly, Poppy) and Chris Greatti (YUNGBLUD, blink-182), Karter set that transformation to a guitar-drenched sound steeped in elements of punk and Britpop and classic glam-rock, giving way to a sonic aesthetic both undeniably timeless and entirely of-the-moment.On the fiercely anthemic single “Love Me or Hate Me,” Karter presents something of a mission statement for living according to your own rules. Co-written with The Struts’ Adam Slack and her longtime collaborator Michael Morgan, the track matches its fuzzed-out riffs and frenetic rhythms with a message especially close to Karter’s heart. “I wrote ‘Love Me or Hate Me’ at time when I was feeling like I wasn’t good enough, and the thing that pulled me through was my fans,” says Karter. “They made me believe in myself again, and so I wanted to write them a song to make them feel the way they made me feel: like I’m a bad-ass, and I can do anything.”Although Missing Person fully embodies an unbridled boldness, Karter never holds back from revealing her deepest vulnerabilities. Built on a furiously pounding beat and hypnotically moody vocal performance, “Devil on My Shoulder” sheds light on her struggles with anxiety and shares her distinct approach to finding peace of mind. “With the state of the world right now, I think a lot of us are suffering from anxiety,” Karter notes. “The way I deal with it is I try to just ride the wave instead of fighting it. It’s a song about becoming mates with the voices in your head.” Meanwhile, “Stick to Your Guns” shifts from piano-laced reflection to full-tilt self-celebration as Karter recalls a particularly maddening moment from her recent past. “Because the ‘Harry’ stunt was so outlandish, there was this perception that I’d do anything for shock value,” she says.Links: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Wolf Alice
Wolf Alice are Ellie Rowsell (vocals, guitar), Joff Oddie (guitar, vocals), Joel Amey (drums) and Theo Ellis (bass). Since forming, the band have seen their 2015 gold-selling debut album My Love Is Cool soar to #2 on the UK charts, their sophomore album Visions Of A Life win the 2018 Hyundai Mercury Prize, and have picked up a GRAMMY nomination for Best Rock Performance. For their Visions Of A Life world tour, the band played a massive 187 shows — including a sold out Alexandra Palace, London and 2 sold out dates at Brixton Academy London. The band have graced the stage at various worldwide festivals including the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury. 2021 sees the band return with their third album ‘Blue Weekend’ to be released on 4th June.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud
Guided By Voices
In 1994, 38-year-old school teacher Robert Pollard & his merry band recorded Bee Thousand in a Dayton, Ohio, basement on a 4-track cassette recorder. This improbable rock classic became an enormously influential album: Pitchfork and Spin have called it one of the best records of the ’90s, and Amazon picked Bee Thousand as #1 on their list of the 100 Greatest Indie Rock Albums Of All Time. A legendary live band with a rabid following, the Washington Post called GBV “the Grateful Dead equivalent for people who like Miller Lite instead of acid!” With 10 studio albums already under their belts in less than 5 years, the band’s present-day line-up is nothing less than a new Golden Age of GBV.”Earth Man Blues could be the band’s best album since 1995’s Alien Lanes. Put this record on and see how long it takes to utter your first joyful expletive.” **** 4 stars – Rolling Stone”Astonishing” – GRAMMY.com“Tremendous. A knockout from start to finish. Earth Man Blues is all killer.” ***** 5 stars – Shindig!”This is their best album in decades. Let these tunes into your head and your heart and you’ll be singing them for weeks.” – The QuietusLinks: Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
The Red Pears
The Red Pears’ founding members, Henry Vargas (vocals and guitar) and Jose Corona (drums), draw their sound from the spectrum between the early 2000s New York indie rock scene and grunge to the cumbia and corridos that soundtracked their childhoods in El Monte, a sleepy suburban town just east of Los Angeles. After cycling through an assortment of lineups, mutual friend and bassist Patrick Juarez stayed on and expanded their operation. Now a solid three-piece band, these emerging alt-rockers, have come a long way from meeting at a local Battle of the Bands, practicing in their garages, and naming themselves after their favorite color and a pun on the word “pair”— a subtle nod to sonic inspirations The White Stripes and The Black Keys.The Red Pears first got on the map with self-releases For Today, For Tomorrow, For What Is, For What Could’ve Been and We Bring Anything to the Table… Except Tables We Can’t Bring Tables to the Table, touring behind them and learning the ins-and-outs of being on the road. The Red Pears North Star continues to be their undying honesty and commitment to the craft. “It all boils down to effort and humility,” says Vargas. “We just want to do our best and make the music we want to make. Now we have more help and resources, but it’s about continuing to push and keeping that humility.”2019’s Alicia, named after both of their mothers, is teeming with this maternal energy. The band’s most tender record yet also proves their most sonically and emotionally diverse, from the Albert Hammond Jr-esque guitar croon “Dreams” to the lush slowburn of opening track “One by One”. The heartfelt EP, named after Corona and Vargas’ mothers, showcases a polished alt-rock sound without sacrificing the band’s roiling, fuzzed-out garage spirit.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify
The Blazers 2022 Summer Reunion
In Memory of Jimmy Weaver & David Robert.With Rick Miller, Lee Guildersleeve, Sherman Tate, Joey Sinreich & Ron Taylor with guests. Links: YouTube
