Bonnie “Prince” Billy

This is a seated show. The human who sings and composes under the name Bonnie “Prince” Billy and acts under the name Will Oldham has, over the past three-plus decades, made an idiosyncratic journey through, and an indelible mark on, the worlds of independent music and cinema. With his highly individualistic approach to music making and the music industry, one that cherishes intimacy, community, mystery, and spontaneity; his brilliance has captivated fans and made Bonny one of our most influential and beloved songsmiths. Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s latest offerings include 2023’s Keeping Secrets Will Destroy You and 2024’s Hear the Children Sing the Evidence (with Nathan Salsburg and Tyler Trotter). He had a cameo role in Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders. BPB’s newest record is The Purple Bird (produced by David Ferguson), and features such giants of American music as John Anderson and Tim O’Brien. Website

Will Wood

Ages 18 and up. In the ten years since the release of his debut album, indie singer-songwriter Will Wood has played the roles of drug-addled shock jockey, cryptic art-rock recluse, self-deprecating chamber-pop balladeer, and storytelling alt-comic with paradoxically equal parts authenticity and theatricality. While it may have served Wood well to fall in line with the demands many artists face when confronted with an unexpected viral moment, the cult singer-songwriter has remained defiantly himself. In the theater, Wood’s emotive storytelling and standup intertwines with his widely varying style of music in a way that refuses to conform to either tradition, and when with his band, his raucous “Tapeworms” concerts are equally unconventional. His upcoming “Mr. Wood is Dead” 10-year-anniversary tour will be bringing both around the country, in front of larger audiences than ever before. Will Wood is a pescatarian, collects stuffed rats, and lives in New Jersey with his girlfriend and a dozen or so rescued stray cats. To inquire about adoptions or donate to help cover their medical needs, visit https://linksta.cc/@SnooterFriends. (In partnership with Atlantic Critters Rescue). Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Spotify | Bandcamp

Stillhouse Junkies

Acoustic adventurers Stillhouse Junkies explore the worlds between roots, bluegrass, Texas swing, blues, and rock. Their free-flowing musical interplay and improvisation make every show unique as they weave their way through high-energy, intricately composed original songs, never taking the same path twice. Based in the Southwestern Colorado town of Durango, the band consists of founder Fred Kosak on guitar and mandolin and longtime member Alissa Wolf on fiddle. They’ve recently been joined by Nederland, CO’s Matt Thomas on upright bass and Nashville, TN’s Eric Lee on mandolin, guitar, and fiddle. Lee and Thomas formerly played together in the award-winning band Man About a Horse. Website | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Provoker – mausoleum tour

By the time Provoker released their 2023 sophomore outing Demon Compass, they were already talking about their next album. The LA synth-pop trio were on a roll, and the songs kept coming. Holed up in an Echo Park attic, frontman Christian Crow Petty began to think of hauntings — him as a specter in his friends’ house, or the apparitions and memories that follow us around. Provoker’s next feat of world-building was underway, with Petty conjuring a landscape full of dead selves, the things we have left behind or dearly wish we could leave behind, all housed in a third album aptly titled Mausoleum. “It did make me feel like I was a ghost,” Petty laughs about his stint in the attic. “You’re the one making the creaks in the ceiling.” But as much as Mausoleum’s thematic content was defined by isolation, the music was the most communal of Provoker’s career. Petty deepened his songwriting partnership with Jonathon Lopez, the synth wizard who originally founded Provoker ten years ago as a solo vehicle to write imagined film scores. While some material was still completed individually, much of Mausoleum came together with Petty, Lopez, and bassist Wil Palacios workshopping ideas in various studio sessions, responding to each other in real time. Having promised new creative approaches for their third album, Provoker also opened themselves up to more collaboration. “Before, we were pretty reclusive,” Petty explains. Mausoleum found the trio working with a host of music scene friends, with production from Elliot Kozell, Simon Christensen, Mikey Heart, and Zach Fogerty — all of it overseen by none other than esteemed producer Kenny Beats. The burst of collaboration and inspiration meant Provoker had around twenty songs for Mausoleum. When they first met up with Kenny Beats, it was intended as a social hang, but after playing him a track he asked if he could rework it. This blossomed into an executive producer role where he took the nearly completed Mausoleum and put everything through a new filter, amping up the bass and drums across the album. “He made it sound like us, but way bigger,” Lopez recalls. With Beats’ guiding hand, Provoker achieved a new sense of grandeur. Their trademark aesthetic — synth shadows, crystalline beats, and smoky vocals equal parts R&B croon and post-punk growl, all influenced by otherworldly horror movies and video games — remains intact, but boasts a different scope and muscularity. Three albums in, Mausoleum finds Provoker at a moment of both synthesis and evolution, their unique sound having grown bolder and sharpened. Where in the past Petty filled Provoker’s music with supernatural creatures and sci-fi scenarios, he explores a subtler vein on Mausoleum — exorcising personal demons rather than fictitious ones, imagining the album taking place in a disgusting, squalid metropolis populated by ghosts sometimes literal but more often spiritual. It’s a distorted version of our own reality. “I like to make mini-movies, where if you listen to the song it places you in this world,” Petty explains. “This one is more of this world, but still haunting.” Website | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube

Kassi Valazza

“Sometimes it takes four or five tries to realize something just isn’t working,” says Kassi Valazza. “I wrote this after my thirteenth try.” She’s referring to the song “Roll On” specifically, but the stagnating pull of repeating patterns — and the brutalizing work of breaking them — inform every song on her new album From Newman Street. “In songwriting and in life, you can’t keep expecting the same thing to work every time.” Valazza grew up between Prescott and Phoenix, Arizona. She penned her first song at age ten but in those early efforts to perform, found herself halted by stage fright of a clinical level. “I’ve gone to therapy for it,” she says, half-laughing. She didn’t stop writing music but she let less paralyzing means of expression lead the way, eventually enrolling in arts school for painting, an illustrative instinct that inevitably reveals itself in her vivid songwriting. It wasn’t until she relocated to the Pacific Northwest as an adult that Valazza picked back up the proverbial — and actual — guitar. “Zach Bryson was kind of like the honky tonk ambassador of Portland when I got there,” Valazza says. “He was so welcoming and encouraging.” She discovered an inspiring, supportive artistic community, a less rigid relationship with musical output, and then — vocal nodules. “It was actually kind of the best thing that could have happened, because I learned about the crossover of physical and mental that takes place in performance.” Recovery entailed recognizing the reflexive functions of the voice in response to anxiety; as is the case throughout the human body, stress reactions can be damaging. “Because I suddenly understood what was happening with my voice, I could handle it, wield it. I felt more confident.” Valazza recorded an album with Bryson in an old-house-turned-studio. It was an informal, friendly endeavor, though not at all small. “I think probably thirty people contributed,” she says. “I listen back to that album and I think ‘this was me learning how to do this.’ I can hear that moment in time.” Valazza’s debut Dear Dead Days fused the Southwest’s rustic romance with the Pacific Northwest’s rocky realism and garnered Valazza a cult following. She landed a deal with Fluff & Gravy, a label known for launching earthy, emerging treasures like Anna Tivel and Margo Cilker, and toured with folk favorites including Melissa Carper and Riddy Arman. Her sophomore album Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing followed, a glimmering set of sonic talismans among Ann Powers’ Favorite Songs of 2023 for NPR and Bandcamp’s Best Country Music of 2023, with praise from KEXP, Uncut, MOJO, and Brooklyn Vegan to boot. By the time Valazza was ready to record her third album, she had spent a decade in Portland — and that, she realized, was enough. “As someone with anxiety, I always want to know what’s going to happen,” she says. “But knowing can be limiting. Getting comfortable with the uncomfortable, that’s growth. That’s what this album’s about, really.” Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Spotify

Daughter of Swords

Daughter of Swords is the solo project of North Carolina singer-songwriter Alex Sauser-Monnig (they/she), who has also released music with bands Mountain Man and The A’s. Their solo debut, Dawnbreaker, was a hushed folk record released in 2019; in the years since, Sauser-Monnig found a new understanding of self, personally and musically. Across the last several years, Daughter of Swords’ music has grown thornier, an unpredictable and knotty tangle of technicolor synths, heady guitar, bubbling rhythms, a sheen enveloping songs about raw human intensity writ large – crushes, desire, anger, alienation, the horrors of late-stage capitalism, the cascading paradigm shifts it seems we’re all hurtling toward. Enter Alex, Daughter of Sword’s sinewy sophomore solo record due out this spring via Psychic Hotline. Recorded at Betty’s, Sylvan Esso’s Chapel Hill studio, Alex was built out by Sauser-Monnig’s longtime friends/collaborators Amelia Meath (Sylvan Esso, Mountain Man, The A’s), Jenn Wasner (Wye Oak, Flock of Dimes), Nick Sanborn (Sylvan Esso, Made of Oak), TJ Maiani (Weyes Blood, Neneh Cherry), and Caleb Wright (Hippo Campus, Samia). There’s a sharp cerebral tension between the stories at the core of these songs and the electrifying, playful buoyancy of the sound, the wink with which Sauser-Monnig can deliver a withering observation. Reckoning with pleasure-seeking, boundary-breaking, and their place in the world, Alex heralds a fresh chapter of exploration and liberation for Sauser-Monnig, yielding the truest representation of their identity via song yet. A reassessment of inner systems, and relationships of all sorts — with art and creativity, with other humans, with gender – happened in tandem with Sauser-Monnig’s interrogation of the late-capitalist culture that makes life for working artists an inequitable grind. Forced out of their habitual ways of thinking and being, Sauser-Monnig found new energy in dissolving old limitations—be they about the music business or their concept of gender—and exploring in uncharted territory. Their priority became maximizing the mood of each track, borne out in Alex’s layers of synthetic textures and unorthodox flourishes. “Alone Together,” the standalone single released this past fall (hailed as “a playful blast of candid indie rock” by Stereogum and “a crushing hum” by Paste), was the first preview from this fresh chapter of exploration and liberation, from the kinetic collection of new work that makes up Alex. Written from the POV of someone freshly single and alone and building a new sense of identity, “Alone Together” follows that confident new sense of self and emotional protection as it bends under the physical need for sex, connection, and closeness. That specifically fresh, raw form of desire – and the peculiar sense of aplomb that comes from newfound freedom– appears throughout the record, stringing together a gritty, kaleidoscopic and unpredictable tilt-a-whirl of high-octane guitar rock colliding with some folk song sensibilities. “I feel strange/But it’s just a natural reaction/To a world coming apart at the seams,” they sing in “Strange.” These personal excavations led Sauser-Monnig to a clear personal mission, which they explain succinctly: “I refuse to let the state of the world deny me the ability to live in joy, while also trying to show up for others.” Website | Bandcamp

The Baseball Project Featuring members of R.E.M. and The Dream Syndicate

The Baseball Project are 5 friends who are veterans of the Alternative / Indie Rock scene (and who in fact helped create it), starting in the early 80’s. The band features members of R.E.M., The Dream Syndicate, The Minus 5, Young Fresh Fellows and Filthy Friends. These are just a FEW of the countless bands that Scott McCaughey, Steve Wynn, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Linda Pitmon perform in. They come together in this “supergroup” to focus on the fascinating stories that baseball spawns – character studies of both the heroic and the oddball variety. You don’t need to be a student of the game to dig them though – often times baseball is just a jumping off point for deeper stories of triumph or failure….or hilarity – all while playing their infectious and rockin’ brand of power pop/ jangle folk / Indie Rock that they do so well! The Baseball Project formed in 2007 when all 5 band members were attending a party for R.E.M.’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Steve and Linda were there as guests of Peter Buck but were only passing acquaintances of Scott, who was a touring member of R.E.M. At some point in the very wee hours of the party, McCaughey and Wynn found themselves leaning against the same bar and struck up a raucous conversation that ricocheted from music talk to baseball. They both confessed a longstanding and hitherto unrequited desire to write and record an entire album of songs that would dig deeper into the game and the psyche of the more eccentric characters that have played it. Linda (drummer in Steve’s band, The Miracle 3) wandered past and heard the promises being made to “maybe one day try to do it”. Being a huge baseball fan herself, she threw down a challenge to the pair to finally do it. They immediately set about writing and sharing tracks long distance (Steve and Linda live in NYC and Scott is in Portland, OR). Within a few weeks the trio of baseball fanatics with killer record collections had booked studio time at Jackpot Studios in Portland. After a couple of short writing and acoustic rehearsal sessions in Scott’s living room (Linda played a peach crate), they commenced recording and in 4 short days completed the 13 tracks that would soon become their first release, “Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails”. The songs came together quickly but they were looking for some fairy dust, so Scott decided to call on brilliant R.E.M. buddy Peter Buck to contribute his famed 12-string sound. Despite being sick as a dog, he braved his 103-degree temperature and came down with Rickenbacker in hand (plus sitar, mandolin, etc.) and laid down tracks on all 13 songs in just over an hour. Little did he know that he’d just been indoctrinated into the band for life, even though the only baseball player he knew was Boog Powell! The subject matter covered plenty of the game’s legends (Babe Ruth and Ted Williams, for example) but also players and stories that have been obscured by time, like Big Ed Delahanty. He was a massive star in the late 1800’s but he was apparently kicked off a train at midnight for being drunk and disorderly…and brandishing a straight razor! He mysteriously went over the International Bridge and was found a week later at the bottom of Niagara Falls. THESE are the stories that really fuel the Baseball Project! Website

Insect Ark & Forn

Courting + Slow Fiction

High June

High June | Greenville, NC | IG High June is fervently engrossed in the creative process, tirelessly crafting a multitude of songs, captivating audiences with their dynamic performances at various shows, and rapidly garnering recognition within the vibrant and dynamic landscape of the rock music scene. Jameson Tank | Athens, GA | IG Hailing from the music mecca of Athens, GA, Jameson Tank is on a mission to continue the legacy of break-out rock bands from the southern college town. Only 3 years into their quest, the quartet has completed 4 tours and 180+ shows, bolstered by the overwhelming support of their Built Different EP. Bringing an incredible amount of energy to the stage, Jameson Tank performs original songs such as Smoke Me Out, No Bad Days, and Fight Fair, which have quickly become crowd favorites across the Southeast. After Selling Out world-renowned venues such as the Georgia Theatre and Smiths Olde Bar – The band has shifted its focus to expanding their territories whilst releasing a new EP that just might answer the much-asked question of… ‘WHO THE F*** IS JAMESON TANK”? Rat King | Chapel Hill, NC | IG Rat King is a rock band based in Chapel Hill, NC. Formed in early 2024, the band has made their mark over the past year all around the local scene.

Genre: Miscellaneous