Spring Summer (aka Jennifer Furches)

San Francisco-based artist Spring Summer, otherwise known as Jennifer Furches, is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist who spent much of the aughts playing with artists like Cass McCombs, Coconut Records, Sea Wolf and Ben Lee. After taking a decade off to raise her three young children, she’s returned to music, with a forthcoming album produced by Jenny Lee Lindberg (Warpaint) and James Iha (Smashing Pumpkins).Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | Vimeo

S.G. Goodman

“No one escapes the marks left behind when it comes to love or the absence of it,” says singer-songwriter S.G. Goodman, describing the inspiration behind her sophomore album Teeth Marks. “Not only are we the ones who bear its indentations, but we’re also the ones responsible for placing them on ourselves and others.”When the Kentucky native released her debut album, Old Time Feeling, she was rightly coined an “untamed rock n roll truth-teller” by Rolling Stone. The roots-inflected rock n’ roll record saw Goodman lending her gritty, haunting vocals to narrate the dual perspectives of her upbringing as the daughter of a crop farmer, and a queer woman coming out in a rural town.Now with Teeth Marks, co-produced by Drew Vandenberg (Faye Webster, Drive-By Truckers, Of Montreal) in Athens, Georgia, she picks up the threads of Old Time Feeling. But where her critically acclaimed, Jim James-produced debut zeroed in on the South, reframing misconceptions in slough water-soaked tones, her latest album pulses with downtown Velvet Underground electricity, shifting its focus inward – though never losing Goodman’s searing and universal point of view. Teeth Marks is what you might get if Flannery O’Connor and Lou Reed went on a road trip.Drawing influences from the aforementioned Velvets, as well as Pavement, Karen Dalton, and Chad VanGaalen, Goodman brings 11 powerful vignettes to life, with a sound that ventures deeper into indie rock and punk territory than she ever has before. Though Teeth Marks is a love album, Goodman doesn’t aim her focus on romantic relationships alone. Instead, she analyzes the way love between communities, families, and even one’s self can be influenced by trauma that lingers in the body. Teeth Marks is about what love actually is, love’s psychological and physical imprint, its light, and its darkness. It’s a record about the love we have or don’t have for each other, and perhaps, more significantly, the love we have or don’t have for ourselves.Links: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud

Boris

Links: Website | Bandcamp | Instagram | Spotify | YouTube

Kelsey Waldon: No Regular Dog Tour

On her new album No Regular Dog, singer/songwriter/guitarist Kelsey Waldon shares a gritty and glorious portrait of living in devotion to your deepest dreams: the brutal self-doubt and unending sacrifice, hard-won wisdom and sudden moments of unimaginable transcendence. Revealing her supreme gift for spinning harsh truths into songs that soothe and brighten the soul, the Kentucky-bred artist ultimately makes an unassailable case for boldly following your heart—a sentiment perfectly encapsulated in No Regular Dog’s raw and radiant title track.“I wrote ‘No Regular Dog’ at a time when I was gone so much and working so hard and starting to wonder if I had the staying power to keep it going,” says Waldon, who now lives in Ashland City, Tennessee. “After putting in my time in the van on the road, after all the blood, sweat, and tears and the crying in parking lots, I’d finally gotten to where I wanted—but it was also a moment when I really started questioning myself. In the end I came around to answer my own question and realize that, yes, I can do this. I won’t be put down so easy. I am no regular dog.” Waldon’s fourth full-length and the follow-up to 2019’s White Noise/ White Lines—her debut release for John Prine’s Oh Boy Records—No Regular Dog came to life over the course of many charmed and freewheeling sessions at Dave’s Room Studio in Los Angeles, with production from kindred spirit Shooter Jennings (Brandi Carlile, Tanya Tucker). “I’d never recorded an album anywhere but Nashville or back home, and it felt good to get outside my bubble,” Waldon says. “We were able to hunker down and work till late into night, doing what we could to catch lightning in a bottle.”In a departure from the more guitar-heavy approach of its predecessor (a critically lauded album that landed on NPR Music’s Best of 2019 list), No Regular Dog unfolds in a lush yet understated sound that lets the singular character of Waldon’s songwriting and voice shine through each track. Featuring her longtime band members, Brett Resnick (pedal steel), Alec Newnam (bass), and Nate Felty (drums), along with musicians like famed guitarist/dobro player Doug Pettibone (Lucinda Williams, Keith Richards), the album also illuminates the immense depth of her musicality, mining inspiration from such eclectic sources as mid-century bluegrass, ’60s soul, and ’70s country-rock. “Everything’s in there, all the music I’ve ever known and loved,” says Waldon. “I wanted to show my whole color scheme and create something that’s less of a honky-tonk thing and more like a big, beautiful picture of everything I see in country music.”After opening on the luminous strings and pedal steel of its title track—in which Waldon self-identifies as a “prisoner of my mental cages, my own worst enemy”—No Regular Dog kicks into a much punchier mood on the brightly rambling “Sweet Little Girl.” “It’s about a girl who’s lost her way and now she’s trying to find it,” says Waldon. “I was inspired by real-life incidents, like all the thoughts that go through your head when you’re dealing with addiction and feeling like you’ve got this rage inside that you don’t know what to do with.”Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube

Melt

Merci, My Kid Brother

Clem Snide and Jill Andrews

“The last ten years have been a rollercoaster of deep despair and amazing opportunities that somehow present themselves at the last possible second,” says Eef Barzelay. “During that time, the band bottomed out, I lost my house, and I had to declare bankruptcy. The only way to survive was to try to transcend myself, to find some kind of deeper, spiritual relationship with life. Once I committed to that, all these little miracles started happening.”‘Forever Just Beyond,’ Barzelay’s stunning album under the Clem Snide moniker, may just be the most miraculous of them all. Produced by Scott Avett, the record is a work of exquisite beauty and profound questioning, a reckoning with faith and reality that rushes headlong into the unknown and the unknowable. The songs here grapple with hope and depression, identity and perception, God and the afterlife, humanizing thorny existential issues and delivering them with the intimate, understated air of a late-night conversation between old friends. Avett’s production is similarly warm and inviting, and the careful, spacious arrangement of gentle guitars and spare percussion carves a wide path for Barzelay’s insightful lyrics and idiosyncratic delivery.“I look up to Eef with total respect and admiration,” says Avett, “and I hope to survive like he survives: with total love for the new and the unknown. Eef’s a crooner and an indie darling by sound and a mystic sage by depth. That’s not common, but it’s beautiful.”Named for a William S. Borroughs character, Clem Snide first emerged from Boston as a three-piece in the early 1990’s, and the group would go on to become a cult and critical favorite, picking up high profile fans from Bon Iver to Ben Folds over the course of three decades and more than a dozen studio albums.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube Acclaimed singer-songwriter, Jill Andrews gives the unsung moments the voice they have always deserved. From her days fronting lauded Americana group, the everbodyfields, to her successful solo career as a writer and performer, Andrews’ music has taken her far from her East Tennessee home. She has collaborated and shared the stage with countless celebrated artists including the Avett Brothers, Langhorne Slim, Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors, and the Secret Sisters. Her music has been featured on Grey’s Anatomy, This is Us, The Good Wife, Nashville, and Wynonna Earp to name a few. After the success of her critically acclaimed 2020 album and book, Thirties, Jill decided to dig back into her songwriting catalog. Her October 2021 release, Ellen, is one that feels as if it lives in a middle space between where she has been and where she is going as a musician, songwriter, mother, wife, and friend. Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube

Bayside

Links: Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Spotify

flor: The Future Shine Tour

No matter how far away it may seem, tomorrow glows with possibility and promise. Even the darkest night always breaks at dawn. flor finds light in the promise of a new day. The Hood River, OR quartet—Zach Grace [vocals, guitar], Dylan Bauld [bass], McKinley Kitts [guitar], and Kyle Hill [drums]—excavate unshakable melodies from jubilant synths, buoyant beats, and lush guitars as they relay a coming-of-age story all their own. The group tell this story on their third full-length album, Future Shine [Fueled By Ramen].“I was thinking about people who present solutions for today’s problems to help ensure a brighter future,” observes Zach. “I wanted to emulate that energy, optimism, and desire for a better world. The album is us chasing the goal we’ve been after since high school: to share our art, bring joy, and connect with as many people as possible.”They started chasing that dream back in their hometown of Hood River, OR as high school kids in McKinley’s garage. The band quietly generated hundreds of millions of streams in the wake of their 2016 debut come out. you’re hiding. In 2019, ley lines only accelerated their momentum buoyed by tracks, including “white noise,” “slow motion,” and “dancing around.” Critical acclaim followed from Nylon, Billboard, Paste, and Ones To Watch who hailed the album as “an exhilarating balancing act.” They concluded a successful headline tour at the top of 2020 only to face the harsh reality of the Global Pandemic with the rest of us. The boys promised they’d continue writing, but the isolation of quarantine and its ensuing malaise got in the way. They needed to get back in the same room…”In the past, I would write songs by myself, bring ideas to the guys, and we’d piece them together from there,” Zach reveals. ”Future Shine didn’t happen that way. When I was back home in quarantine, I wasn’t inspired to write. So, we actually ended up writing all of these songs together during a few separate sessions. We were really more collaborative than ever.”Once it became safe enough to do so, the musicians congregated back in Los Angeles at Dylan’s studio for a series of writing sessions. This time around, they built the bulk of the songs face-to-face together inspired by favorite records from the likes of MGMT, Phoenix, The Killers, and M83.”We’re very lucky to have a producer in the band with his own studio,” smiles Kyle. ”Dylan really stepped up. So many bands couldn’t just go and make a record during the Pandemic. That’s not lost on us, and we’re really grateful.”“I thought of it as a great reset,” states McKinely. “There was so much strife in the world politically and socially. So, for the first time, we sat in a room—just the four of us—thought about what we wanted to say, and crafted the songs in a totally new way. There was immediate magic. Imagine if we went back in time to my garage, but we had all of this experience writing songs and touring together? That’s what it was like. All of these years culminated in feeling like kids again.”“We needed to make a new and exciting record,” adds Dylan. “We had a purpose. We tapped into what flor is meant to be.”Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | TikTok | YouTube

Doug MacLeod

This is a seated show.”Like all great blues men, MacLeod lives his music, and the songs are not just on the tips of his fingers and tongue, they are one with his being.” – Blues Music Magazine”One of the great blues artists……period!” – Jorma KaukonenMacLeod is known for his superb songwriting, guitar wizardry, warm soulful vocals, wit, and unforgettable live performances. At the heart of a Doug MacLeod performance is his knack for storytelling, bringing characters-from the faceless to the legendary-to strikingly real life.Doug is a multiple Blues Music Award winner, including the 2020 Blues Music Award for Acoustic Artist Of The Year and the 2018 Blues Music Award for Acoustic Album Of The Year ‘Break The Chain’. He was recently nominated for the 2022 Blues Music Award for Acoustic Artist Of The Year.In March of 2022 he co-authored with Debra Schiff the blues murder mystery book MURDER AT THE CROSSROADS.In April of 2022 A SOUL TO CLAIM produced by Jim Gaines was released.Doug is an international touring artist who writes and sings original songs that are based on his own life and experiences. He learned from the old masters and carries forward a valuable tradition. As a youth, Doug overcame abuse and a crippling stutter by turning to music. After picking up a guitar, and singing – he found his voice.MacLeod’s playing landed him sideman gigs with George ‘Harmonica’ Smith, Big Joe Turner, Pee Wee Crayton, Eddie ‘Cleanhead’ Vinson, Lowell Fulson, and Big Mama Thornton. Over 30 years, 22 studio albums, several live records, compilations, a blues guitar instructional DVD, and a live performance DVD, MacLeod has consistently earned raves. His songs have been covered by many artists including Albert King, Albert Collins, Joe Louis Walker and Eva Cassidy. MacLeod’s songs have been featured in many TV movies and the hit show In the Heat of the Night. August Wilson requested his soulful slide guitar playing in the Los Angeles opening of “Gem of the Ocean”.From 1999 to 2004 Doug hosted Nothin’ But The Blues, a very popular weekend blues show on Los Angeles’ KLON-KKJZ. He has also been the voice for The Blues Showcase on Continental Airlines. For ten years he penned “Doug’s Back Porch,” a regular feature column in Blues Revue Magazine in which he shared his humorous and insightful stories with thousands of readers. He is one of the four featured artists in the movie “Resonate: A Guitar Story”, the feature documentary on the making of National Guitars.Like the old masters who taught him, MacLeod’s music expresses life and times through an intangible, elusive quality that may simply be a keen sense of what matters most. Doug’s music, stories, and philosophy provide a healing that has helped others overcome the hardships of their lives.Doug says the most important lessons he learned as a young musician came from Ernest Banks a one-eyed country bluesman from Toano, VA.”Never play a note you don’t believe” and “Never write or sing about what you don’t know about.”As Blues Hall Of Fame artist Pee Wee Crayton’s widow Esther once told Doug, “You have a message and you’ll send that message mainly to the people who don’t go to church.” Amen.Links: Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify

Genre: Miscellaneous