Alexa Rose
On her new album ‘Headwaters’…Headwaters are the source of a river. The furthest point from where water merges with something else. They are not mighty. Just a network of small tributaries, like a creek, not necessarily picturesque, but they’re the most important part of the river. Water is fluid and inconsistent and sacred and indifferent. You can be miles down a river, but you’re still at the origin. And in that way, water feels like it has transcended time. That’s how these songs found me—the way memories find you, in that slivering, elusive water. As quickly as you come across them, you bend in another direction.Headwaters is the sophomore album from Virginian indie folk singer Alexa Rose. A series of minutely-observed vignettes that feel intimate and expansive at the same time. It captures the sweetness of life without avoiding any of the pain, with songs about time and its constraints, peppered with precise details pulled from Rose’s own life that make universal themes seem personal, inviting the listener to make each song their own.A series of rivers, Headwaters is centered on the fluidity of time. After a year where time has seemed to ebb and flow inconsistently and all routine has been dismantled, I found myself writing in the medium of water, says Rose. When I was sitting alone in my room in the southern summer heat, windows open, humidity fuming, a song called Human poured out of me. It was August, and all summer there had been such a tremendous sense of humanity, revolution, justice coming up against division, misinformation, fear. Like most regular, feeling people, I had such a strange mixture of emotions: grief, excitement; solidarity with the ways people across the world were showing up to love and support one another. I wanted so badly to run outside and be a part of it all, right then and there in that moment. But I was stuck at home. And in that strange swelling of simultaneous loss and the richness of witnessing so much kindness, I remember laying on the bed with the guitar, staring at the ceiling, and just singing “I wanna go downtown and look some stranger in the face.” I would be happy to see anyone. I just really want to hug someone. To jump into some icy swimming hole. To feel the surge of aliveness. And I felt so imperfect and raw, but I knew so did everyone else.Recorded over five sessions in Memphis, Tennessee at Delta Sonic Studios, with Bruce Watson producing, with mixing by Matt Ross-Spang and Clay Jones. Rose would sometimes bring songs written the night before and record them the next day with an all-star band, including guitarist Will Sexton, bassist Mark Stuart, drummer George Sluppick, and Al Gamble on organ and piano. The immediacy of being in the studio with freshly-written songs and an excellent band allowed Rose to expand her music in new ways.I feel like this record is the first time I’ve ever let my whole self into the room, says Rose. The parts of me that are angry and wanting to stand up and the parts that want to be quiet. The parts that remember being a kid. Letting myself release all of that in the studio and having all these people back me up and make it work was a tremendous gift.When I turned 27 and felt the weight of a decade in a conversation, I envisioned my present and past self in the form of a frenetic, uneasy current slapping up against a steady boat. I imagined my great grandparents in their garden in the golden embers of some evening and the timeless sensation of change, the colorful sunsets I’ve seen through their own eyes, decades later.Website | Instagram | Facebook
Jeff Rosenstock
Jeff Rosenstock makes increasingly chaotic albums for an increasingly chaotic world. With each passing year, it feels like the temperature of the universe boils five degrees hotter, and with each new album, Rosenstock’s music grows more unwieldy and lawless. Louder, faster, more feral. Which brings us to 2023—a planet on fire, a mere 90 seconds to midnight on the doomsday clock, and the release of Rosenstock’s appropriately titled, anarchic record, HELLMODE (due 9/1 on Polyvinyl Records). “To me, the album feels like the chaos of being alive right now,” Rosenstock says of HELLMODE. “We’re experiencing all these things at the same time that trigger our senses, and emotions that make us feel terrible. We’re just feeling way too much all at once!” But for all its textured turmoil, there are also surprising glimpses of clarity and grace to be found in HELLMODE, when Rosenstock deliberately slows things down in places that are prettier and more delicate, rare moments of shelter in the storm. Which only makes it more rewarding when these moments unexpectedly unravel and spiral back into extreme, manic chaos, like abruptly being flung into a Nintendo game on level 99. HELLMODE marks the fifth studio album the prolific Rosenstock has released in the last ten years under his own name, following the dissolution of his beloved cult projects Bomb the Music Industry! and The Arrogant Sons of Bitches. Also tucked into his rapidly expanding catalog is a live record, a ska reimagining of his 2020 album NO DREAM, and various dumps of stray songs and loose singles. And somewhere on the side, he has found time to score the Emmy-nominated animated series Craig of the Creek. Rosenstock’s rising profile and critical acclaim over the last decade have been something of an anomaly. He’s a proud torchbearer of the punk sonics, aesthetics, and ethos of his youth, leaning into pop punk and ska sensibilities that were deemed Decidedly Uncool by the gatekeepers of the time. (On any given day at a big outdoor music festival, he is likely the only musician who will bust out a saxophone solo.) But when Rosenstock celebrates these styles, he somehow ends up getting praise from tastemakers and landing on prominent year-end lists. Maybe it’s because his appreciation doesn’t feel like cheap nostalgia or surface-level cosplay. Everything he does is just so damned sincere. That success is something Rosenstock has been conflicted about, and fuels some of the anxiety that runs through HELLMODE. “It’s weird feeling success at the worst possible time, while the world falls apart,” he says.To record HELLMODE in summer 2022, Rosenstock once again enlisted his longtime studio collaborator, Jack Shirley, the Grammy-nominated master of heaviness who has recorded all of Rosenstock’s studio albums. But this time, they took a slightly more ambitious approach, booking time at the legendary EastWest Studios in Hollywood. They recorded to tape in Studio 2, the same hallowed ground where System of a Down recorded Toxicity, and where Whitney Houston laid down vocal tracks for The Bodyguard soundtrack. The newfound studio resources produced the biggest and most expansive Jeff Rosenstock record to date. Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
The Milk Carton Kids
Completing their seventh studio album was a hard-won victory for The Milk Carton Kids, but I Only See the Moon was worth the effort for Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan. What started as a three-week recording session in the fall of 2021, with Pattengale producing the contemporary folk duo himself for the first time, stretched into a months- long project that found the pair digging deeper into their craft than ever before. With a new studio of their own in Los Angeles and the realization that they were in no hurry, The Milk Carton Kids took the time they needed to be fully satisfied with I Only See the Moon. The three-time Grammy nominees sound refreshed on 10 new songs distilled to the essence of The Milk Carton Kids: two voices blended together in spellbinding harmony, accompanied by subtly perfect acoustic instrumentation. Turns out that’s a tough sound to get just right, but I Only See the Moon shows just how much Pattengale and Ryan were willing to work for it.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
AJJ
AJJ frontman Sean Bonnette can summarize the band’s new album, Good Luck Everybody, in a single sentence: “Sonically, it’s our least punk record, and lyrically, it’s our most punk record.”And indeed, Good Luck Everybody (January 17, 2020), the Arizona band’s seventh album, stands out in their already diverse catalog. While still rooted in the folk-punk sound AJJ has become known for, the album is unafraid to delve into new territories that test the limits of what the band is capable of.“I think it explores some of the weirder sides of AJJ, the more experimental leanings that we’ve had in the past,” says bassist Ben Gallaty. Good Luck Everybody draws from a wealth of sonic inspirations, from Laurel Canyon folk-rock of the 60s and 70s to avant garde artists like Suicide, as well as some orchestral pop. There is even a piano ballad, the tragic “No Justice, No Peace, No Hope.”Lyrically, Good Luck Everybody is a change of pace from the idiosyncratic songwriting style Bonnette has honed over more than 15 years fronting AJJ. It still features his wonderfully weird turns of phrase and oddball word pairings, but this time, his thematic lens is more directly focused on the inescapable atrocities of the world around him. Longtime fans will recognize the album’s social commentary as a return to their 2011 release, Knife Man, but this time it’s fueled by a more radical urgency.“I usually try for a timeless effect in songwriting, so that you can hear a song and generally not think about the context under which it was written,” says Bonnette. “But for this one, I was trying to write, and all the bad political shit just kept invading my brain and preventing me from writing that way. So I decided to fully embrace it and exorcise that demon.”Much like Woody Guthrie and Phil Ochs pulled their songs straight from newspaper headlines, Good Luck Everybody feels like a long scroll through social media feeds on a particularly volatile day.The song “Mega Guillotine 2020,” for example, came directly from Twitter. It was influenced by Twitter funnyperson @leyawn’s popular tweet depicting a mockup of a French Revolution-style guillotine with one blade and enough headrests for 15 Congress members. Bonnette says the idea inspired him to press record and start playing, and when he did, the entire song came out of his brain fully formed. The final version also features backing vocals by Kimya Dawson.“There’s something that comes along with scrolling through your phone on Twitter or Instagram and seeing a puppy, and then a joke from a comedian, and then a young black person being shot by police, and then another puppy, and then your friends announcing a tour, and then children in cages,” says Bonnette. “There’s something in that that fucks your brain up. I don’t know if it’s made me more of a passionate arguer or just made me confused and numb.”On “Normalization Blues,” Bonnette laments what this never ending deluge of atrocities has done to our humanity: “I can feel my brain a’changin’, acclimating to the madness / I can feel my outrage shift into a dull, despondent sadness / I can feel a crust growing over my eyes like a falcon hood / I’ve got the normalization blues, this isn’t normal, this isn’t good.”Website | Bandcamp | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Eric Sommer and the Fabulous Piedmonts
Eric Sommer and The Fabulous Piedmonts are a roots rock powder keg wrapped around a burrowing bass clef. Huh? Yeah, one that’s headin’ down to 96 octaves below absolute zero. It hit Miami, turned around on a dime, and came back on a red eye.The Fabulous Piedmonts are a unique musical force. Ok, everybody says that, but this is one amazing combination of influences. So much so, it’s a bit of a head-scratcher just trying to describe it… but here goes:It’s like being on a bus driven by Amy Winehouse, with Ray Charles as the Tour Director. Ron Carter and Jacko Pastorius are hanging out the back window smoking cigarettes & Stevie Ray Vaughan is the bartender. David Bromberg and Steve Howe as Tour Managers with Johnny Cash and Dwight Yokum loading baggage and William Shakespeare taking Tickets while acting as Road Poet and Scribe…See what I mean? It’s hard to put this into words that make any sense. But the bottom line is this: gotta hear them live!More than the Sum of it’s PartsIt’s a high-octane mix of rock-steady percussion supplied by Amanda Sycamore, mixed with the bottom-driven bass gymnastics of Jimmy Hauer and the guitar-laced lines of lead singer and songwriter Eric Sommer.Amanda can’t remember a time when she wasn’t playing music. She is the newest addition to The Fabulous Piedmonts, while Bryant takes some time off. She holds both a BA and an MA in Percussion Performance, and has an impressive string of credits, performing with Drum Corps International, Busch Gardens Entertainment and an amazingly diverse list of touring acts like The Irish Tenors, Paul Anka and Kenny G.When not punching above her weight as the rocking’ groove engine of The Fabulous Piedmonts, she is the Principle Percussionist for the Salisbury Symphony!The Fabulous Piedmonts have a few extended acoustic landscapes that feature bass lines wrapped around acoustic stylings in an open-tuning setting… using lap-slap. slide guitar and on-the-fly variations… breathtaking!But this simple collection of words is nothing like seeing this show live.… when the rhythm section kicks in a few bars later, if you are not up and moving around or swinging from the stage lights, check your pulse. You might be dead…or in a state of transitory deprivation while you travel from this world through a sound portal on the nights Plutonian shore…Right off the bat, the slide guitar that opens “Red Dress” will grab you in mid-sentence, and when the rhythm section kicks in a few bars later, if you are not up and moving around or swinging from the stage lights, check your pulse. You might be comatose…A Little Gem in HillsboroughThe band has had a residency in Hillsboro, NC at The Hot Tin Roof which has been extended into January 2023. There is usually a local singer or solo artist in front of the show at 7pm and then things start rocking at 8pm or so.As the engine keeps revving up, The Piedmonts’ musical wall of sound starts to hit you like the hot kiss at the end of a wet fist: a combination of punk, power pop, Motown ballads, Muscle Shoals and blues-based Charlie Musslewhite-type grooves that pick you up, bounce you across the room, put you up on the ceiling and then ease you down slowly while you try to pick your jaw back up.Don’t take anyone’s word for it. Go see for yourself!Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube | Soundcloud
Teeyum Smith Album Release Show
* Opening set by John Saylor* Jon Shain and FJ Ventre* Jim Roberts* Eileen Regan* Orange County Allstars* “Thee” Tim Smith and the Will Play for Teeyum Horns* Other Special Guests Facebook
Ruen Brothers
Ruen Brothers create neo-noir Western gold with their upcoming album Ten Paces, their third full-length and first on Yep Roc Records.“We aimed to create something cinematic and personal, an album that takes listeners out of their world and into the West, like Marty Robbins’ Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs does,” says Rupert.A Western record may seem out-of-place for two British brothers (Rupert and Henry Stansall) raised thousands of miles from the desert landscape from which they draw. However, their hometown of Scunthorpe, England offers more similarities than you might expect.An industrial steel town, Scunthorpe sits amid the vast farmlands of Northeast England. “We tended to horses and often got stuck behind a tractor on the way to school,” recalls Henry. “Mum would play American western films as Rupert fingerpicked a nylon string guitar and I practiced my Howard Keel impersonation,” he laughs.This upbringing gave them the confidence to embrace their love of the genre through this album, having first hand knowledge of saddling up, strumming guitars and spending hours and hours in fields, bars and barns in the middle of nowhere.The experiences combine with the Brothers’ technical prowess – Rupert is a classically trained guitarist; Henry, a choir-trained tenor with a dynamic four-octave range – to create a tour-de-force album that both glorifies and modernizes the Western genre.In addition to ten spectacular tracks, Ruen Brothers have created slick, noiresque images and videos inspired by mid-century films like ‘The Night of the Hunter’ to further immerse the audience in their romantic, haunting vision.Ten Paces was also produced by Rupert who developed the skill after receiving a four-track cassette recorder on his tenth birthday. He’s helmed many Ruen Brothers singles to date including their first UK radio hit “Aces,” and their 2021 album ULTRAMODERN. Ten Paces further showcases his astounding technical ability as he deftly manages to preserve the quality and authenticity of early recording gear and techniques, while achieving a uniquely modern sound.More still, Ruen Brothers had the hurdle of writing and recording Ten Paces while living on opposite coasts. Rupert would craft the base of the recordings from Los Angeles then send them to Henry to lay down acoustic guitar and vocals in Brooklyn.Henry often recorded hundreds of vocal takes to get the delivery and emotion just right for each song. “My approach to the vocal delivery on Ten Paces differs from that of previous records,” Henry shares. “I sang much of the album in a lower octave register than usual to create a grounded and conversational feel, true to the laconic, hard boiled characters of the West.” This lower register – apparent in upcoming single “The Fear” – also reflects his years of covering Johnny Cash songs in their British pub days.Another vocal method Henry used in Ten Paces was “jumping between octaves” in songs where emotions are highest. His love for Orbison and extensive training helped him achieve that balance of power and delicacy in ballads like “Bullet Blues” and “The Good Surely Die.”Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube | TikTok
The Anchor
This is Yours. This is Ours. This is Home.The Anchor is a five-piece, female-fronted, metalcore band from Denver, Colorado. The Anchor and Linzey Rae have made a name for themselves since the viral explosion of their YouTube series, Metal Kitchen. The Anchor prides themselves on making metalcore accessible and fun for people who don’t generally listen to the genre. Ultimately, The Anchor creates music to help others find a voice of understanding and simply be themselves. We write music with the objective of providing an uplifting message, while promoting the value of self worth. Knowing firsthand the refuge that music can offer away from life’s struggles, we hope to be a voice of understanding and provide a place that someone can call their home. This is so much more than a band, it is a family.Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Carolina Waves Showcase & Open Mic
K97.5’s Mir.I.am hosts a special Carolina Waves Open Mic at Cat’s Cradle – Back Room! Early arrival highly suggested. Flash drives only. Bands welcome. Free for all UNC students with Student ID. Email [email protected] with questions
Robbie Fulks / Slaid Cleaves
This is a seated show.Robbie Fulks is a singer, recording artist, instrumentalist, composer, and songwriter. His current release, Bluegrass Vacation on Compass Records, returns him to his bluegrass roots, with a large group of masterful musicians including Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Justin Moses, Ronnie McCoury, Alison Brown, David Grier, Tim O’Brien, Todd Phillips, John Cowan, Brennen Leigh, Randy Kohrs, Sierra Hull, Stuart Duncan, Shad Cobb, and Chris Eldridge. Across 11 new original songs (and one freewheeling interpretation of the Delmore Brothers), Robbie covers themes like small-town blues, the endurance of childhood memory, inebriation, love, divorce, the role of music in strengthening family bonds, losing a loved one to Alzheimer’s, and bluegrass itself.His most recent release, 2017’s Upland Stories, earned year’s-best recognition from NPR and Rolling Stone among many others, as well as two Grammy® nominations, for folk album and American roots song (“Alabama At Night”).Fulks was born in York, Pennsylvania, and grew up in a half-dozen small towns in southeastPennsylvania, the North Carolina Piedmont, and the Blue Ridge area of Virginia. He learned guitar from his dad, banjo from Earl Scruggs and John Hartford records. He attended Columbia College in New York City.In 1983 he moved to Chicago and joined Greg Cahill’s Special Consensus Bluegrass Band. He taught music at Old Town School of Folk Music from 1984 to 1996, and worked as a staff songwriter on Music Row in Nashville from 1993 to 1998.His early solo work — Country Love Songs (1996) and South Mouth (1997) — helped define the “alternative country” movement of the 1990s.Instagram | Twitter | FacebookTwelve new songs amid the 100,000 that get uploaded to Spotify every day (according to hypebot.com). Will any of them rise above the din enough to be heard? So far, a few of them have been hanging out with the likes of young Americana superstars Charlie Crocket and Margo Price on the Americana Music Association album and singles charts, as well as the popular Spotify playlist, The Pulse of Americana. It’s Cleaves’ second release on Candy House Media, which consists of himself and his wife and manager, Karen Cleaves, with hired gun Angela Backstrom promoting to Americana radio. It’s one of the rare self-releases on the charts, and the early success of the first few singles is a testament to the consistent quality of Cleaves’ output over the past 25 years, and to the bond he’s built and maintained with the dedicated music lovers at Americana radio since its inception in the mid 1990s. Slaid teamed up with producer Scrappy Jud Newcomb for the third time in early 2022 to record a new batch of songs, Slaid’s first in five years. Familiar themes of struggle and resilience will be a surprise to no one. TOGETHER THROUGH THE DARK digs into the crucial moments and experiences that shape our journeys. A kind word when it’s needed most, the effort to act honorably in dark and violent times, the wisdom of a barfly, the majesty of rock and roll, the dignity of work and the enduring grace provided by true love. As Scrappy puts it, “This album speaks to the hopeful, the hard working, the battered, confused, and the sad. But above all to the believers in the city of freedom that we heard in the stories of our youth and all those FM radio hits.” Bandcamp | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube
