Yo La Tengo
Yo La Tengo – This Stupid World Time keeps moving and things keep changing, but that doesn’t mean we can’t fight back. Yo La Tengo have raced time for nearly four decades and, to my ears, they just keep winning. The trio’s latest victory is called This Stupid World, a spellbinding set of reflective songs that resist the ever-ticking clock. This is music that’s not so much timeless as time-defiant. “I want to fall out of time,” Ira Kaplan sings in “Fallout.” “Reach back, unwind.” Part of how Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, and James McNew escape time is by watching it pass, even accepting it when they must. “I see clearly how it ends / I see the moon rise as the sun descends,” they sing during opener “Sinatra Drive Breakdown.” In the séance-like “Until it Happens,” Kaplan plainly intones, “Prepare to die / Prepare yourself while there’s still time.” But This Stupid World is also filled with calls to reject time – bide it, ignore it, waste it. “Stay alive,” he adds later in the same song. “Look away from the hands of time.” Of course, times have changed for Yo La Tengo as much as they have for everyone else. In the past, the band has often worked with outside producers and mixers. Yo La Tengo made This Stupid World all by themselves, though. And their time-tested judgment is both sturdy enough to keep things to the band’s high standards, and nimble enough to make things new. Another new thing about This Stupid World: it’s the most live-sounding Yo La Tengo album in a while. At the base of nearly every track is the trio playing all at once, giving everything a right-now feel. Take the signature combination of hypnotic rhythm and spontaneous guitar on “Sinatra Drive Breakdown,” or the steady chug of “Tonight’s Episode,” a blinkered tunnel of forward-moving sound. There’s an immediacy to the music, as if the distance between the first pass and the final product has been made a touch more direct. The songs on This Stupid World were still journeys, though. An example is the absorbing, three-dimensional “Brain Capers.” To construct this swirl, the band blends guitar chords, bass loops, drum punches, and various iterations of Hubley and Kaplan’s voices into shifting layers. Simpler but just as dense is closer “Miles Away.” A dubby rhythm lurks below Hubley’s vocal, which brushes across the song like paint leaving bright blurs. Throughout the album, these touches, accents, and surprises intensify each piece. It’s a rarity – a raw-sounding record that gives you plenty of headphone-worthy detail to chew on. This Stupid World gives your brain a lot to digest, too. All the battles with time drive toward some heavy conclusions. In the gripping “Aselestine,” Hubley sings about what sounds like a friend on death’s door: “The clock won’t tick / I can’t predict / I can’t sell your books, though you asked me to.” In “Apology Letter,” time turns simple communication into something fraught and confusing: “The words / Derail on the way from me to you.” Not everything is so serious, though. The absurdist “Tonight’s Episode” helps McNew learn to milk cows, steal faces, and treat guacamole as a verb. And somehow Alice Cooper, Ray Davies, and Rick Moranis show up in “Brain Capers,” all telling us time isn’t finished yet.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Kelsey Waldon
Last August, just as her album No Regular Dog was about to drop, Kelsey Waldon was preparing to hit the road for the first time since Covid-19 had ground the world to a halt. The acclaimed country singer-songwriter was anxious—and not just because it had been two years since she had last set foot on stage. On top of the new album, she was breaking in a new band.But from the very first show, Waldon realized she was part of something special. Beneath the rhinestones of her trademark tailored suit, her flesh chilled with goose pimples. “I felt like a whole new life with the music,” she says. “Writing a song by yourself in your bedroom or on your back porch is one thing. But then to share it with an audience in a dark, sweaty club is really special. We were just having a lot of fun and the audience would feel it. I think everybody just wanted to be there.”The alchemy of their road show generated buzz on social media and in the pages of The Washington Post, which proclaimed No Regular Dog “easily the best [album] released by any country singer” in 2022. And now, it has been captured in live recordings of each track on a special deluxe version of the album, out April 14th on Oh Boy Records. The extended edition, which also includes live recordings of Waldon’s songs “White Noise, White Lines” and “False King,” features an unreleased studio version of John Prine’s classic “Spanish Pipedream.” That single, along with a live medley of “Season’s Ending/Sweet Little Girl,” was released on March 31st.Onstage, Waldon keeps steady time with her left boot. Her searing voice slices the ears and heart, and is often echoed by a sawing fiddle (courtesy of Libby Weitnauer) or the whine of pedal steel guitar (Muskrat Jones), and the interplay—underpinned by electric and slide guitar (Junior Tutwiler), bass (Erik Mendez) and drums (Zach Martin)—revs up entire rooms. The five of them, Waldon says, know how to “bring the heat up,” which has led to their moniker: Her Hot Band. “Everybody in the band is a heavyweight in their corner. And everybody plays like they got something to prove. I guess I do too.”That notion—of refusing to be counted out—helped to inspire No Regular Dog, and it is also woven into the deluxe version’s recordings. Waldon approaches “Spanish Pipedream” with a glimmer in her eye, tapping into the song’s whimsy and deeper meaning of “breaking away from social and societal norms to pursue true happiness.” She believe it’s just as relevant today as when it was released in 1971. “I think all humans at the end of the day just want to pursue this type of dream and freedom and also, they deserve to live how they want to and be treated just the same. It makes you think without preaching to you, something John was good at.”The live medley of “Season’s Ending/Sweet Little Girl” sizzles with electricity, the two songs fused with a fiddle tune Weitnauer traces to the great Kentucky fiddler John Morgan Salyer. As Waldon concludes the last refrain of “Sweet Little Girl,” Weitnauer reprises the tune, fiddling away as the band breaks out into a frenzied jam. Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
NiiTO, Dylan Innes & the Business, Christian James
NiiTOBased out of Raleigh-Durham, NC, NiiTO has spent the last few years crafting a unique sound while becoming more in tune with themselves and the people of this world. With heavy influences from a variety of genres, they’ve stumbled upon a sound that blurs the lines between R&B, Rock, Pop, Soul, Funk, Jazz, Blues and more. “The more genres we can absorb… the more people we can spread love to” Website | Instagram Dylan Innes & the BusinessDylan Innes believes in making music that is honest, original and that brings feeling to the listener. He is an emerging singer-songwriter, based out of North Carolina. The formation of his independent record label, Unrecordings, as well as leading Boone-based band “80 Unlacey,” provided Dylan with a platform to ultimately pursue his solo work.WebsiteChristian JamesSpotify
Lenny Kaye and Friends: A 50th Anniversary Celebration of Nuggets!
Featuring Lenny Kaye, Peter Buck, Hugo Burnham, Don Dixon, Alejandro Escovedo, Kevn Kinney, James Mastro, Tim Nielsen, Corey Parks, Kelly Reidy, Greg Rice, Luigi Scorcia, Jon Wurster, and Steve Wynn.Join the incomparable Lenny Kaye from The Patti Smith Group and an All-Star band as they celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first Nuggets garage rock compilation at the Cat’s Cradle on Sunday November 12th! Lenny and the band will be playing all the great tunes from the late 1960s Nuggets era, like “Dirty Water” by The Standells, “Pushin Too Hard” by The Seeds and “Gloria” by The Shadows of Knight, plus many, many more. Musicians scheduled to appear include Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Group), Peter Buck (R.E.M.), Hugo Burnham (Gang of Four), Don Dixon (Arrogance), Alejandro Escovedo (Rank & File, The Nuns) Kevn Kinney (Drivin n Cryin), James Mastro (Ian Hunter’s Rant Band, The Bongos), Tim Nielsen (Drivin n Cryin), Corey Parks (Nashville Pussy), Kelly Reidy, Greg Rice (Backsliders, Terry Anderson), Luigi Scorcia (Johnny Thunders Band, The Wise Guys), Jon Wurster (Mountain Goats, Bob Mould Band), Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate, The Baseball Project). It will be an amazing once in a lifetime night as the Nuggets 50th Anniversary Celebration comes to North Carolina and The Cat’s Cradle on Sunday November 12th!
Victoria Victoria featuring Charlie Hunter
Tori Elliott’s deep love of harmony is the driving force that shapes her soul-pop musical endeavor, Victoria Victoria. Her craft in songwriting is the seedbed for intricate vocal arrangements, creating a layered, ethereal experience—one that translates dynamically from her albums to her live shows. 2022 saw the release of Victoria Victoria’s album, “To the Wayside,” a collaborative effort with guitarist and producer Charlie Hunter. “Writing these songs with Charlie was an otherworldly experience,” says Elliott, who engineered and produced her lead and background vocals in her home studio. “Arranging these songs for our live show was even more incredible.” Hunter and Elliott teamed up to write glossy anthems of self acceptance such as “Over My Shoulder” and “Move Right On,” and enticing tunes of invitation like “Really Really” and “Keep Up.” January of 2023 marked Victoria Victoria’s debut tour with Charlie Hunter on hybrid guitar, her brother, Noah Elliott, on keys and vocals, her dear friend and collaborator Maia Kamil on vocals, and renowned Memphis drummer George Sluppik. The rhythm section makes for a sturdy foundation for transcendent vocal performances and inviting banter. The charisma and kinship between the band members left listeners with the sense that each Victoria Victoria show is truly a family affair. Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
The Brummies
Independent artists, The Brummies, made up of vocalists and multi-instrumentalists John Davidson and Jacob Bryant, and drummer Trevor Davis, have been playing together in various incarnations since high school, growing up together outside of Birmingham, AL. The members count the Beatles, Elton John, ELO, Blitzen Trapper and My Morning Jacket among their influences, but also have an affinity for sweeping film soundtracks. Their trademark sound evokes the psych-rock vibe of the Sixties and the soft indie-folk of the Nineties, yet possesses a timeless quality all its own. The band has toured domestically and internationally playing with St. Paul & the Broken Bones, Kacey Musgraves, the Wild Feathers, NEEDTOBREATHE, and BANNERS among others. They have played festivals such as Governors Ball, Austin City Limits Fest, Electric Picnic, Bonnaroo, Sloss, MOTM, and Hangout and to date have logged over 30 million streams organically as independent artists. The Brummies debut album Eternal Reach was recorded at Battle Tapes Recording in Nashville with Grammy award-winning engineer Jeremy Ferguson (Cage The Elephant) and co-producer David Hopkins. The album which Billboard magazine states as “gorgeous,” “lush,” and “…an album to be listened to from start to finish,” includes single “Drive Away” featuring Grammy-winner Kacey Musgraves. The Brummies sophomore album, Automatic World was also recorded at Battle Tapes with Jeremy Ferguson engineering and Austin Jenkins (Leone Bridges, Khruangbin, Orville Peck) co producing alongside Jarrad K (Ruston Kelly, ELOHIM) and finished at the Chateau Noire. There are rhythmic guitar riffs straight out the Seventies, hypnotic Moog passages that evoke the electronica of Giorgio Moroder, & even the bright tones of soul music. It exists in those atmospheric notes that soundtrack our subconscious. Automatic World was released on November 13, 2020. The Brummies are currently in the studio and will be releasing new music in 2022 for the highly anticipated 3rd album that will be a new sonic landscape. Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Sam Grisman Project presents the music of Garcia/Grisman
FOUR FRIENDS — Sam Grisman, Ric Robertson, Aaron Lipp & Chris J. English — PAYING TRIBUTE TO THE MUSICAL LEGACY OF DAVID “DAWG” GRISMAN & JERRY GARCIAA Note From Sam: “The music that my father David Grisman and his close friend, Jerry Garcia, made in the early 90s (in the house that I grew up in) is not only some of the most timeless acoustic music ever recorded, it also triggers my oldest and fondest musical memories. What I find most inspiring about this material is the way their camaraderie and their love and joy for the music, simply oozes out of each recording. It is also impressive how deeply they get beneath their favorite songs—whether they are originals, covers or traditional/old time tunes—and how expertly that material was curated.My goal in starting Sam Grisman Project is to build a platform for my friends and me to showcase our genuine passion and appreciation for the legacy of Dawg and Jerry’s music. By playing some of their beloved repertoire and sharing the original music that our own collective has to offer, we will also show the impact that this music has had on our own individual musical voices. Ultimately, there is nothing that makes me happier than playing great songs with my best friends and my hope is to share that happiness with audiences all over!”Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube
The Hails
Following a string of encounters too strange to be coincidence, Robbie Kingsley, Franco Solari, Dylan McCue, Andre Escobar and Zach Levy came together to form The Hails. Despite first playing in an insular Miami high school music scene, the band officially formed at the University of Florida in Gainesville, turning the tattered carpeting and beer bottle lined shelves of their shitty college house into a distinct, refined sound that is now synonymous with their name.After graduation, the group made the pilgrimage back to their home of Miami, the city that directly influenced the sound of their early shimmering singles “Younger” and “Stay”, debut EP He Seems Upset (2020), and the subsequent Alive in Strange Ways (2021). Recent highlights of the road include holding court at festivals including WonderStruck, Okeechobee and Playground, interspersed between sold-out shows across the state of Florida. The first half of 2022 also saw The Hails join WILLIS for West and East Coast dates.Firing the starting pistol of their next chapter, The Hails released “Exonerate” in October 2022, ushering in a flood of editorial praise from Billboard, Consequence, EARMILK and many others excited by the direction the Miami five-piece is headed in. The same weekend as the single’s release, The Hails took it to the stage of Miami’s infamous III Points Festival, winning the crowd’s energy over with a track that had only been out for 24 hours.In 2023 The Hails plan to release singles building towards a forthcoming debut album, and will continue to build their touring history starting with a southeastern run of shows with The Happy Fits and The Beaches.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | TikTok
Vedo
R&B singer & platinum-selling songwriter, VEDO.From capturing the attention of R&B megastar Usher on NBC’s The Voice to writing hits for some of the biggest names in music, VEDO has proven he is a voice to be heard with his undeniable talent. The R&B singer & platinum-selling songwriter’s #1 hit, “You Got It,” reached platinum status with the help of fans on TikTok, while his prior albums “VEDO” & “For You” remained on the R&B Charts from their 2019-2020 release. The release of his 5th Studio Album 1320, hailed as his most personal project to date, gives fans the best of his artistry and creativity—from the ultra-sexy climactic record “Juicy” with Ari Lennox to a fan favorite with “Yesterday.”In 2022, VEDO released While You Wait — a joint EP with super producer OG Parker to “hold fans over” while completing his next project and kicked off one of the biggest R&B Releases in 2023, his 13-track 6th Studio Album “Mood Swings.” The sultry, yet edgy, body of work features R&B megastar Chris Brown, who VEDO received a recent Grammy nomination with for his contributions on Warm Embrace. Mood Swings also featured Chicago born Singer-Rapper Tink on another stand-out track, Somebody.The release coincides with an impressive wave of momentum from VEDO’s appearance on the now viral Tiny Desk Concert with his longtime friend and mentor, Usher, who called him one of the greatest voices of this generation. With credits under his belt like Usher & Ella Mai’s “Don’t Waste My Time,” Chris Brown’s “Warm Embrace,” and his own double platinum single “You Got It,” VEDO’s contributions to the R&B Charts are undeniable. Instagram | Twitter
Cosmic Charlie – High Energy Grateful Dead from Athens, GA
“Cosmic Charlie really is a great band – these guys do this music the way it should be done: having the conversation in their own voices.” -David Gans, Grateful Dead archivistCosmic Charlie was born in the musical Mecca of Athens, Georgia. From its summer 1999 inception, the band swiftly cemented its reputation as a band that puts a unique and personal twist on the Grateful Dead catalogue, a Dead cover band for folks that are ambivalent about Dead cover bands. Rather than mimicking the Dead exactly, Cosmic Charlie chooses to tap into the Dead’s energy and style as a foundation on which to build. The result is healthy balance of creativity and tradition, and both the band and its audience are taken to that familiar edge with the sense that, music is actually being MADE here tonight. Moving and shaking even the most skeptical of Deadheads, Cosmic Charlie storms into a town and plays with an energy that eludes other bands, an energy that sometimes eluded the Dead themselves. Those precious moments during Dead jams when the synchronicity is there and all is right with the world, these are moments that Cosmic Charlie relishes and feverishly welcomes with open arms. Clearly, Cosmic Charlie’s audiences are also eager to arrive at those moments, and together with the band, they have indulged in many memorable evenings. Website | Facebook | YouTube
