Briscoe
If Briscoe’s debut album was a coming-of-age soundtrack set against the backdrop of the Texas Hill Country, then its follow-up, Heat of July, is the sound of a fully-formed duo chasing down a broader horizon. Inspired by marriage, landscapes, and the cross-country tours that took the band across America, these new songs were written on the road, as eclectic and evocative as the terrain that unfolded just outside the van’s windshield. Once again, Briscoe teamed up with Grammy-nominated producer Brad Cook to bring the songs to life, collaboratively creating a record that expands Briscoe’s folk-rock sound in all directions. There are bigger arrangements, sharper vocal harmonies, and enough top-tier guest musicians — including members of Houndmouth, Hiss Golden Messenger, Bon Iver, Mipso, and Watchhouse — to form their own supergroup. The result is a cinematic, widescreen version of American roots music, created by two lifelong friends who’ve learned to distill the thrill of the open road — and the challenges of growing up — into an ever-evolving soundtrack. Website | Facebook | Instagram | Threads | YouTube | TikTok
The Floozies + Too Many Zooz: Too Many Flooz Tour
Brothers Matt and Mark Hill are the sonic visionaries behind electronic-funk powerhouse The Floozies. Certified heavyweights in the world of jam and future-groove, the Kansas City-based tandem champion authentic funk in the digital age. Familiar with sold-out shows across the country including their annual hometown Funk Street festival, prominent festival appearances at Bonnaroo, Electric Forest, High Sierra, Summercamp, Wakarusa, Camp Bisco, Summerset, Bumbershoot, and headlining Red Rocks shows, their formidable sound is continuously celebrated from coast to coast. Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | TikTok Self-described “Brass House” trio Too Many Zooz make manically kinetic instrumental music that combines avant-garde jazz, EDM, punk rock, and sundry other traditions into their own distinctive brand of high-energy dance music. A viral sensation since they first emerged as New York subway buskers in 2013, Too Many Zooz have evolved into a globally recognized phenomenon who tour often and produce YouTube videos that have garnered millions of views. Formed in 2013 in New York City, Too Many Zooz features the talents of baritone saxophonist Leo “Leo P” Pellegrino, trumpeter Matt “Doe” Muirhead, and drummer David “King of Sludge” Parks. Pellegrino and Muirhead initially met while students at the Manhattan School of Music where they studied jazz. They eventually joined forces with percussionist Parks, whom Pellegrino had played with in a separate busking outfit. They began playing live at various New York subway stations and quickly attracted crowds with their aggressive instrumental sound and Pellegrino’s ability to dance and hype the audience like a DJ while playing. In 2014, a video of the band went viral and helped set the stage for the group’s meteoric rise. In 2016, the trio released their debut full-length album, Subway Gawdz, which featured guest spots from Kreayshawn, Armani White, members of Galactic, and Beats Antique. That same year they were featured on Beyonce’s Lemonade album, and performed with Beyonce and The Dixie Chicks at the CMA’s. Over the course of the next several years, Too Many Zooz continued to release EP’s and singles – including ZombiEP (2019), a concept album about a fictional band playing a music festival during a zombie outbreak, plus collaborations and remixes with The Floozies, Beats Antique, Spencer Ludwig, Moon Hooch, Dot Cromwell, Nitty Scott, Lester London, and RoRo. All of that set the stage for the band’s 2024 sophomore album Retail Therapy – a 13-song chronicle of auditory subway cinema that features appearances from Moon Hooch, Thumpasaurus, Lucky Chops, and Too Many T’s. Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | TikTok
Skullcrusher
And Your Song is Like a Circle, the second album from New York-based artist Skullcrusher, a.k.a. Helen Ballentine, winds its way into an everchanging, unstable core. Recorded piecemeal over a period of years following the release of her celebrated 2022 debut, Quiet the Room, And Your Song is Like a Circle does not capture experience – it gestures toward the imprint of an experience that is uncapturable. Swaying between vaporous folk and crystalline electronics, landing somewhere in the snowfields shared by Grouper and Julia Holter, Circle probes the ways that grief turns itself inside out. Loss itself becomes as real and substantial as what’s been lost. Ballentine began writing Circle after leaving Los Angeles, a city she’d called home for nearly a decade. She ended up returning upstate to New York’s Hudson Valley, where she was born and raised. Several years of intense isolation followed, and Ballentine immersed herself in films, books, and art that reflected the rupture of relocating cross-country and its dissociative aftershocks. Throughout the record, the line between human and machine blurs. On “Maelstrom,” voices crash between echoing drumbeats like water through a cavern. The vocal filigrees on “Exhale” fan out into a haze of synthesizers and strings. “Dragon” lets piano echo over tight, gritted percussion. If Skullcrusher’s first album rendered the detailed intimacies of domestic space, Circle finds itself vaporized across the landscape: swirling, drifting, searching. It skirts an event horizon in long, slow strokes. These are songs that vibrate with the fervency of an attempt to capture a moment, to draw a circle around it. “I like thinking about my work as a collection,” Ballentine says. “Eventually it might form a circle. Each time I make something, I’m putting another line around the body of work. It feels like I’ll be trying to trace it for my whole life.” Website | Facebook | TikTok | Instagram
Susto Stringband, Oliver Hazard
Chatham County Line Holiday Tour 2025
Launched a little more than twenty years ago in Raleigh, North Carolina, Chatham County Line built a devoted local following on the strength of their genre-bending live show—an intoxicating blend of bluegrass, folk, country, and rock and roll—before breaking out internationally with their 2003 self-titled debut. In the years to come, the band would go on to release eight more critically acclaimed studio albums, top the Billboard Bluegrass Chart four times, collaborate with the likes of Judy Collins, Sharon Van Etten, and Norwegian star Jonas Fjeld, earn two gold records in Norway (where they were also twice nominated for the Spellemannprisen, Norway’s equivalent of a Grammy), and share bills with everyone from Guy Clark and Lyle Lovett to Steve Martin & Martin Short and The Avett Brothers. NPR hailed the group as “a bridge between bluegrass traditions and a fresh interpretation of those influences,” while Uncut lauded their “powerful melodies and gorgeous harmonies,” and Pitchfork dubbed their music “timeless.” The band’s latest release, Hiyo, marks the band’s first release since the departure of their longtime banjo player and serves as something of a reintroduction to the roots stalwarts, complete with new sounds, new collaborators, and a whole new lease on life. Recorded at Asheville’s Echo Mountain studio with co-producer/engineer Rachael Moore (Kacey Musgraves, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss), the collection finds the trio—Dave Wilson (lead singer/guitarist), John Teer (fiddle/mandolin) and Greg Readling (bass/pedal steel), embracing change at every turn, experimenting with fresh sonic palettes and innovative approaches to their core instrumentation. The songwriting remains classic Chatham County Line here—rich, evocative tales of love and heartbreak, joy and sorrow, righteousness and revenge—but the settings have evolved to incorporate synthesizers, drum machines, and more electric guitar and percussion than ever before. Given the group’s string band roots and decades spent singing around a single microphone, the results are nothing short of revelatory, taking an enduring sound and injecting it with a thrilling new spirit of discovery and vitality. Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
Idol Talk, Cold Choir, DJ VamPoison, DJ Valefor
Wyatt Easterling
This is a seated show. What folks are saying about Wyatt’s new release: From Where I Stand “Wyatt’s New Project From Where I Stand is a fine example of his world class singing and songwriting chops. He plays these songs with a lot of heart and soul. It’ s a great album, so check it out”- Paul Thorn “Another collection of thoughtfully crafted, honest songs from the heart of Wyatt Easterling”- Robby Hecht, Nashville ” An album of searing honesty and lithe beauty whose songs amplify the emotions and experiences of so many of us—reassessed relationships, self-reflection, and the ultimate search for hope. Its intentions are pure, as are those of Wyatt on this set of ten tunes of loss, resilience and devotion, with determination in the lyrics and buoyancy in the music.” – Alan Cackett , UK “Easterling’s vocal is heartfelt and intimate, the songs are thoughtful and compelling “- Americana UK Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Spotify
Magic City Hippies
We can all take solace in the simple pleasures awarded us through our senses. Imagine, the memorable clink of ice hitting a rocks glass, the scent of muddled limes and mint, the faint crackle as the tipple is poured, the effervescent fizz of soda about to broach the rim, the straw insertion and swirl, the first sip of vacation…Life would be miserable without these gifts, and life would most certainly suck without the perfect soundtrack to the first cocktail of some much needed time off. Pop the cork on some Magic City Hippies.MCH initially floated onto the scene as Robby Hunter Band, yet once their album titled Magic City Hippies dropped, it became clear they had accidentally found their identity through an album title. Renamed in 2015 as Magic City Hippies, the Miami boys tasked themselves with marrying the funk sweat of a mid- afternoon sail with the syncopated shoulder shimmy of a late night out. They quickly gathered steam and took to gracing stages across the planet, from packed night clubs, to sold out concert halls, to earning performances at Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits, and Lollapalooza, Magic City Hippies cater to those simply looking to escape with a welcoming, never-haughty, yet delightfully naughty, thwap.Their Hippie Castle EP (2015) was just the tip of the proverbial ice cube in a cocktail glass of hippie sass. It mixed pool-side melodies and three day weekend grooves with a soulful, upbeat, vacation-heavy inflection of what can only be described as their own brand of musically casual psych-pop. Modern Animal (2019) brought MCH beachside, adding even more sultry swank to an already damp pair of chinos. A few years later, Water Your Garden (2022) brought the world out of a socially isolated pandemic, with a brilliantly shimmering and joyous celebration of dancing on our own, yet now together.While the studio albums have each received both fan and critical acclaim, their engaging and unapologetically energetic live show takes even the most dance-stubborn attendee and persuades a sort of hypnotically voluntary participation. Seeing first timers become lifelong fans is a galdarn tradition when it comes to a live Magic City Hippies experience.Whether this sunshine funk is all up inside your alley, or even if pink neon signs flashing the words SENSUAL AUDIBLE MASSAGE just have you curious, Magic City Hippies deliver a rare blend of musical talent and touring tenacity, with an uniquely cool and pastel fashion sense offering up funky sweaty smiles aplenty.Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud
Margo Price – Wild At Heart Tour
Nearly a decade ago, Margo Price turned Nashville on its head with her breakthrough, beloved debut solo album, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter. Released in the throes of bro-country and before pop stars were crossing over into the genre left and right, it showcased an artist completely unafraid to double down not only on herself, but what she’d always loved: classic country songs written from the intellect and the gut, hell-bent on truth-telling and both timeless and urgent all at once. Respected by her peers, praised by critics and beloved by her fans, Price created a lane where independent-minded, insurgent country music can exist and thrive alongside the mainstream, and became an ardent fighter for her beliefs in a genre where the norm is to shut up and sing. A trailblazer and a champion for the craft, Price redefined what it meant to be a modern country artist. And now she’s back with an exquisite, truly timeless album that reconnects with her roots and pays tribute to the art of the country song, inspired in part by the legends whom she now calls colleagues and friends. Hard Headed Woman is both a look forward and a look back: a way to march forward while staying true to yourself when the path of less resistance is right there in front of us, and short cuts are around every corner. And a way to look back when we need to trim what is no longer working, and to stay connected with where we’re from. It is a promise and a manifesto, a love song to both a city and a genre, and a defiant cry for individuality. In creating Hard Headed Woman, Price brought all of her power as one of our most beloved and respected songwriters to craft a deep exploration of love and America in a time of unprecedented uncertainty. Featuring appearances from Tyler Childers, co-writes with Rodney Crowell and a Waylon Jennings song that his widow, Jessi Colter, urged her to sing, it is country music as only Price can make it: free of rules, cherishing tradition, hard headed to the core but with a delicate, beating heart. Since releasing Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, Price has barely slowed down. She’s made four records, played Saturday Night Live, been nominated for a Grammy, toured the world alongside artists like Chris Stapleton and Willie Nelson, released a lauded memoir (Maybe We’ll Make It, due on paperback September 2nd), became an in-demand producer and was appointed as the first female board member of Nelson’s Farm Aid. And she’s been fearless when it came to genre, venturing into psychedelic rock on her most recent, Jonathan Wilson-produced record, Strays. It would have been easiest to just stay that course, and keep running. But Price doesn’t follow success or comfort. She follows the art. It took a whole lot of hard work and honesty with herself and others to get there, but that’s never stopped Price before. “I made the decision that I had to rebuild everything from the ground up,” Price says. “There’s all this pressure to be pumping out content, and I felt the opposite in the way I wanted to approach this record and my life in general.” Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | TikTok
Jonah Kagen
A Savannah, GA native, Jonah Kagen is the embodiment of raw talent and relentless dedication. At just 25, Jonah has already made waves with over 386 million global streams, 2.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify, and two critically acclaimed EPs—The Roads and Black Dress, featuring hit “God Needs The Devil” which is presently Top 15 at Alternative radio and was chosen as one of Spotify’s Best Pop Songs of 2024. Jonah’s unique artistry extends beyond his deep, universally resonant songwriting. He is also a skilled guitarist and instrumentalist, having played many instruments since childhood. And to round out his self-sufficiency, he has taught himself how to produce every note, most recently in an Airstream that he transformed into his personal mobile studio. The Airstream isn’t just a fun adventure; it’s a reflection of Jonah’s spirit, drawing inspiration from both nature and legends before him like Townes Van Zandt, Jason Isbell, and Andy McKee. Whether touring on his sold-out solo dates or performing alongside the likes of Sam Barber and Chance Peña in the US and abroad, Jonah’s sound is a blend of personal experience and universal connection. Unsurprisingly, Jonah’s balance of grit and musicality make him a festival mainstay having performed at the historic Austin City Limits, AmericanaFest, Summerfest, and RedWestwith and will continue this summer with stops at RiverBeat, Under The Big Sky, Calgary Stampede, Bourbon & Beyond, and more. With his electrifying energy, sincere songwriting, and genre-defying sound, Jonah Kagen is one to watch. Website | TikTok | Instagram | YouTube | Spotify
