Katelyn Tarver
Having spent much of the last 12 months on the road supporting the likes of James Bay, Michelle Branch, Johnnyswim, and Nina Nesbitt, acclaimed singer-songwriter Katelyn Tarver is set to captivate audiences once again on her own 21-date North American & 12-date European headlining tours. With her unique ability to translate complex emotions into resonant melodies, Katelyn Tarver has established herself as an artist who fearlessly explores the depths of the human experience. Having recently signed a new record deal with Nettwerk (SYML, Paris Paloma, Wrabel), Tarver’s newest music exhibits her remarkable growth as an artist, with a compelling sound that intertwines self-exploration and self-examination. Originally from Glennville GA—a quiet rural town with a population of just over 3,000 where her family owned a local candy business—Tarver began at a young age performing in local and national talent competitions, one of which, American Juniors, led to her first US tour and a move to L.A. Over the years, Katelyn has earned success with her songs, amassing over 200 million streams, led by her viral hit, “You Don’t Know.” She has an impressive resume of songwriting credits, having co-written Cheryl Cole’s #1 Single “Crazy Stupid Love,” Joshua Bassett’s “Set Me Free,”and Old Dominion’s “Young.” She’s also built a stellar acting resume, appearing in shows like HBO’s “Ballers” and Nickelodeon’s “Big Time Rush.” Following a string of single releases and a few EPs, Tarver issued her first full-length album “Subject To Change” in the fall of 2021, receiving acclaim from the likes of Rolling Stone, NPR, SPIN, Consequence, FLAUNT, American Songwriter, and more. She featured as the cover artist for Spotify’s star-making “Chill Pop” playlist and had multiple tracks placed in the pole positions across Apple Music playlists. With her radiant voice and soul-baring songwriting, the album defined a bold new era in her musical evolution, setting her exacting self-reflection to a gorgeously nuanced sound and delivering a finespun brand of indie-pop that is both intensely vulnerable and powerfully cathartic. As anticipation builds for her upcoming album following initial singles “What Makes A Life Good?” and “Starting To Scare Me,” Katelyn Tarver’s unwavering dedication to authentic storytelling and introspection will be on full display with more exciting new music throughout the year. Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | TikTok
Dan Rodriguez and Noah Guthrie
Hi, I’m Dan. I’m a whiskey & beer drinking, fishing & hunting loving, motorcycle riding, quality food eating, hippie sympathizing, hobby farm running, people loving, husband & father who lives in Minneapolis and shares a life with my amazing wife and two adorable sons named Oak and Alder.I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, MI, and moved to Minneapolis when I was 18 to study music, and I stayed because I’m one of those crazy people that enjoys the snow and cold weather.Songwriting, and performing those songs for people, is both my trade and my passion. When I’m not in my studio writing and cutting records, or on the road playing shows, I’m usually playing in the woods with our boys, tending to our backyard chickens, eating fresh veggies from my wife’s huge garden, making syrup from our maple grove, or doing one of my many outdoor hobbies.Now here are a few things about my music career that I should probably share in a music bio: In September 2014 Budweiser released their “Friends Are Waiting” commercial campaign featuring me singing my song When You Come Home and it premiered during both The World Series & The Super Bowl. In February, 2018, I released my album 25 Years and the title track is now inching toward 1 million listens. In October, 2018, Miller Lite featured my newest single “So Good” in one of their commercials that played for months during NFL games on ESPN & more. In March, 2019, my song “You Feel Like Home” was featured in Explore Minnesota Tourism’s newest ad campaign. In 2022 I released my album Troubadour Family Man. It’s my debut self-produced record and I couldn’t be more proud of it. Over the years I’ve had the honor of sharing the stage with some really cool artists & bands including The Civil Wars, Andy Grammer, Eric Hutchinson, Matt Nathanson, NeedtoBreathe, Augustana, Tyrone Wells, O.A.R., Haley Reinhart, Jon McLaughlin, Will Hoge, Drew Holcomb, Sister Hazel, and more. Website | Instagram | Facebook | SpotifyNoah GuthrieAmericana singer-songwriter, Noah Guthrie’s sound has been described as possessing Chris Stapleton’s country/rock grit with the authenticity of Jason Isbell. The unique soulfulness in his richly textured voice and the unmistakable Southern influence in his music makes him capable of conveying emotion as only a handful of artists can in today’s musical landscape. Noah’s latest album, BLUE WALL, honors the Blue Ridge Mountains where he grew up and still resides. Noah’s versatility and distinct voice is evident. However, Noah isn’t trying to box himself into any specific genre. For him, it’s just about making good, honest music – music that sounds like him – music that relates – music that makes the listener feel something.
Hiss Golden Messenger
$1 from every ticket goes to support the Durham Public Schools Foundation whose mission is to foster community support for public schools and invest in our students, educators, and families to ensure success and equity for every student.It’s spring of 2023 in the North Carolina Piedmont, and songwriter and singer M.C. Taylor—leader of the band Hiss Golden Messenger—is feeling alive. Joyful. Eternal, he might say. For the Grammy-nominated musician, whose albums have traced an internal path through adulthood, fatherhood, spirituality, and depression for well over a decade, this is something new. “The tunes on Jump for Joy were composed in free moments throughout 2022, a year during which Hiss was on the road more or less constantly,” explains Taylor. “And perhaps because the post-pandemic energy out in the world felt so chaotic and uncertain, I found myself thinking a lot about the role that music has played in my life and how exactly I ended up in the rarefied position of leading a band and crew all over the globe through dingy graffiti-scrawled green rooms, venerated music halls, dust-blown roadside motels. Sometimes playing in front of 5,000; sometimes 200. Sleeping sitting up. Laughing until my stomach hurts. Not being able to fall asleep at 3 a.m. in some anonymous bed because my mind is spinning with anxiety or depression or adrenaline, or because my ears are still ringing. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, then robbing Paul to pay Peter back. Over and over again. It’s an outlaw life but one, I’m coming to realize, that makes me happy.”The songs that make up Jump for Joy—the sharpest and most autobiographical that Taylor has written under the Hiss name—read as a sort of epistolary, postcards between the present-day songwriter and his alias Michael Crow, a teenaged dreamer very much like Taylor himself, who trips his way through the 14 tunes that make up the record. In this way, Jump for Joy is a meditation on a life lived with art, and the ways that our hopes and dreams and decisions bump up against—and, with a little bit of luck, occasionally merge with—real life. “Creating this character became the way that I could explore these vulnerable, tender moments that were so decisive in my life, even if I didn’t know it at the time,” explains Taylor. He continues:Through Michael Crow, I was able to get inside these places that exist so deep in my sense memory: Me at 16, knowing intuitively that there had to be something out there for me, something mysterious and divine that wasn’t full of fucked-up, confusing pain; me with my hardcore band, age 18, wandering the vast expanses of Texas beneath a big, fat tangerine moon, scrounging change to fill the gas tank, trying to make a soundcheck for a show that never happened. There’s me at 30, having kids, writing songs as though they were gravestone epitaphs, not yet understanding that nothing is so permanent and serious and that I needed to be gentler with my spirit. There’s me at 35, still chasing the thing because I’ve touched it once or twice and I know it’s the only way for me to feel whole and real and useful, but in the rear-view mirror, I can see everyone who gave up in search of something easier and not so heartbreaking.Produced by Taylor and engineered by longtime Hiss compatriot Scott Hirsch over two weeks in the late fall of 2022 at the fabled Sonic Ranch studio in Tornillo, TX, just a short walk from the Mexican border, Jump for Joy dances with joyful, spontaneous energy that feels like a fresh chapter in the Hiss Golden Messenger oeuvre.Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Hiss Golden Messenger
$1 from every ticket goes to support the Durham Public Schools Foundation whose mission is to foster community support for public schools and invest in our students, educators, and families to ensure success and equity for every student.It’s spring of 2023 in the North Carolina Piedmont, and songwriter and singer M.C. Taylor—leader of the band Hiss Golden Messenger—is feeling alive. Joyful. Eternal, he might say. For the Grammy-nominated musician, whose albums have traced an internal path through adulthood, fatherhood, spirituality, and depression for well over a decade, this is something new. “The tunes on Jump for Joy were composed in free moments throughout 2022, a year during which Hiss was on the road more or less constantly,” explains Taylor. “And perhaps because the post-pandemic energy out in the world felt so chaotic and uncertain, I found myself thinking a lot about the role that music has played in my life and how exactly I ended up in the rarefied position of leading a band and crew all over the globe through dingy graffiti-scrawled green rooms, venerated music halls, dust-blown roadside motels. Sometimes playing in front of 5,000; sometimes 200. Sleeping sitting up. Laughing until my stomach hurts. Not being able to fall asleep at 3 a.m. in some anonymous bed because my mind is spinning with anxiety or depression or adrenaline, or because my ears are still ringing. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, then robbing Paul to pay Peter back. Over and over again. It’s an outlaw life but one, I’m coming to realize, that makes me happy.”The songs that make up Jump for Joy—the sharpest and most autobiographical that Taylor has written under the Hiss name—read as a sort of epistolary, postcards between the present-day songwriter and his alias Michael Crow, a teenaged dreamer very much like Taylor himself, who trips his way through the 14 tunes that make up the record. In this way, Jump for Joy is a meditation on a life lived with art, and the ways that our hopes and dreams and decisions bump up against—and, with a little bit of luck, occasionally merge with—real life. “Creating this character became the way that I could explore these vulnerable, tender moments that were so decisive in my life, even if I didn’t know it at the time,” explains Taylor. He continues:Through Michael Crow, I was able to get inside these places that exist so deep in my sense memory: Me at 16, knowing intuitively that there had to be something out there for me, something mysterious and divine that wasn’t full of fucked-up, confusing pain; me with my hardcore band, age 18, wandering the vast expanses of Texas beneath a big, fat tangerine moon, scrounging change to fill the gas tank, trying to make a soundcheck for a show that never happened. There’s me at 30, having kids, writing songs as though they were gravestone epitaphs, not yet understanding that nothing is so permanent and serious and that I needed to be gentler with my spirit. There’s me at 35, still chasing the thing because I’ve touched it once or twice and I know it’s the only way for me to feel whole and real and useful, but in the rear-view mirror, I can see everyone who gave up in search of something easier and not so heartbreaking.Produced by Taylor and engineered by longtime Hiss compatriot Scott Hirsch over two weeks in the late fall of 2022 at the fabled Sonic Ranch studio in Tornillo, TX, just a short walk from the Mexican border, Jump for Joy dances with joyful, spontaneous energy that feels like a fresh chapter in the Hiss Golden Messenger oeuvre.Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Hiss Golden Messenger
$1 from every ticket goes to support the Durham Public Schools Foundation whose mission is to foster community support for public schools and invest in our students, educators, and families to ensure success and equity for every student.It’s spring of 2023 in the North Carolina Piedmont, and songwriter and singer M.C. Taylor—leader of the band Hiss Golden Messenger—is feeling alive. Joyful. Eternal, he might say. For the Grammy-nominated musician, whose albums have traced an internal path through adulthood, fatherhood, spirituality, and depression for well over a decade, this is something new. “The tunes on Jump for Joy were composed in free moments throughout 2022, a year during which Hiss was on the road more or less constantly,” explains Taylor. “And perhaps because the post-pandemic energy out in the world felt so chaotic and uncertain, I found myself thinking a lot about the role that music has played in my life and how exactly I ended up in the rarefied position of leading a band and crew all over the globe through dingy graffiti-scrawled green rooms, venerated music halls, dust-blown roadside motels. Sometimes playing in front of 5,000; sometimes 200. Sleeping sitting up. Laughing until my stomach hurts. Not being able to fall asleep at 3 a.m. in some anonymous bed because my mind is spinning with anxiety or depression or adrenaline, or because my ears are still ringing. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, then robbing Paul to pay Peter back. Over and over again. It’s an outlaw life but one, I’m coming to realize, that makes me happy.”The songs that make up Jump for Joy—the sharpest and most autobiographical that Taylor has written under the Hiss name—read as a sort of epistolary, postcards between the present-day songwriter and his alias Michael Crow, a teenaged dreamer very much like Taylor himself, who trips his way through the 14 tunes that make up the record. In this way, Jump for Joy is a meditation on a life lived with art, and the ways that our hopes and dreams and decisions bump up against—and, with a little bit of luck, occasionally merge with—real life. “Creating this character became the way that I could explore these vulnerable, tender moments that were so decisive in my life, even if I didn’t know it at the time,” explains Taylor. He continues:Through Michael Crow, I was able to get inside these places that exist so deep in my sense memory: Me at 16, knowing intuitively that there had to be something out there for me, something mysterious and divine that wasn’t full of fucked-up, confusing pain; me with my hardcore band, age 18, wandering the vast expanses of Texas beneath a big, fat tangerine moon, scrounging change to fill the gas tank, trying to make a soundcheck for a show that never happened. There’s me at 30, having kids, writing songs as though they were gravestone epitaphs, not yet understanding that nothing is so permanent and serious and that I needed to be gentler with my spirit. There’s me at 35, still chasing the thing because I’ve touched it once or twice and I know it’s the only way for me to feel whole and real and useful, but in the rear-view mirror, I can see everyone who gave up in search of something easier and not so heartbreaking.Produced by Taylor and engineered by longtime Hiss compatriot Scott Hirsch over two weeks in the late fall of 2022 at the fabled Sonic Ranch studio in Tornillo, TX, just a short walk from the Mexican border, Jump for Joy dances with joyful, spontaneous energy that feels like a fresh chapter in the Hiss Golden Messenger oeuvre.Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Shoaldiggers, Mystery Ranch, Country Cruel
The Shoaldiggers’ eight pieces produce a one of a kind sound that is completely unique, yet familiar enough to embrace. From rolling seascapes to the hollers of the smokey mountains, Shoaldiggers shows are a swamp grass blast!Website | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify
Be Your Own Pet
The myth of the “cool baby-sitter…” You know, the one that lets you stay up late to watch horror movies, teaches you about punk rock and the underground DIY scene, tells you stories of drinking beer at weird house parties… was it ever real? Well, for a few years in the mid 00’s, a group of Nashville teenagers who called themselves Be Your Own Pet were the ULTIMATE cool babysitter. Be Your Own Pet – singer Jemina Pearl, guitarist Jonas Stein, bassist Nathan Vasquez, and drummers Jamin Orral / John Eatherly – had a profound influence on bands of their day and beyond. Pearl’s shadow looms especially large, with her ferocious vocal delivery and wild onstage antics. “We were young and fearless,” Stein recalls. “I hardly knew how to play the guitar. After seeing some really great underground touring punk bands and playing live shows at pizza joints and house parties, we had the whole ‘we can do that, too’ attitude. Our youthful confidence was unmatched at the ripe age of 15. We never knew what was to come next.” Be Your Own Pet’s popularity was immediate and intense — the band nearly broke the “hype machine.” They were quickly signing deals with tastemaker labels like XL & Ecstatic Peace, gracing the cover of major magazines, giving late-night TV performances, jet-setting to festivals around the world, and opening for everyone from the Arctic Monkeys to Sonic Youth… all while being too young to drink. Their two studio albums — 2006’s self-titled debut and its 2008 follow-up Get Awkward — garnered significant critical praise, but also left little time for dealing with the pressures that came along with their newfound fame. “Things happened very fast, probably too fast,” Pearl says. “We played our first show at a pizza place that had all ages shows in the basement, and then less than a year later we were being flown across the country to be courted by labels. It was quite literally a whirlwind and incredibly overwhelming.” When their U.S. major label announced they were removing several tracks from the band’s 2nd album due to the lyrical content being “too violent,” while also pressuring them to perform at the ill-fitting Warped Tour, and more… the band was pushed past its limits. Taken together, these two events became the eventual nails in the band’s figurative coffin. “I was heartbroken when they cut three songs off the album,” Pearl remembers. “The label was worried we would be a bad influence on teenagers… I think being forced to do the Warped Tour really broke us, and all of that was the beginning of the end.” So after all this time, why come back now after nearly 14 years? “I’ve had a Be Your Own Pet sized hole in my heart for the past 14 years,” Pearl says, with a fond nod toward her youthful misadventures. “We shared something life-changing together, so to get to go back and do it again as adults feels like coming home.” Or as she once screamed — “When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth!” Website | Instagram | Twitter
The Japanese House
“I know I shouldn’t need it but I want affection / I know I shouldn’t want it but I need attention,” sings Amber Bain – AKA UK musician The Japanese House – on “Touching Yourself”, a sad and sexy pop-leaning earworm about desire and heartbreak. Much of second album In the End It Always Does is contradictory like this: beginnings and endings, obsession and mundanity, falling in love and falling apart. It’s the perfect circular portrait of a relationship – with others, with herself, with an experience – hence the simple, circular album cover.Written during a creative burst at the end of 2021, In the End It Always Does is primarily inspired by the events preceding it – including Bain’s first time moving to Margate, being in a throuple and the slow dissolution of those relationships. “[These two people] were together for six years and I met them and then we all fell in love at the same time – and then one of them left,” Bain’s remembers. “It was a ridiculously exciting start to a relationship. It was this high… And then suddenly I’m in this really domestic thing, and it’s not like there was other stuff going on – it was lockdown.”The album came together just as that chapter in her life was falling apart, with each song almost acting as a snapshot in time. From the dizzying swell of album opener “Spot Dog” (a rework of the 101 Dalmatians theme, her exes favourite film) to the emotional gut punch of “Over There” (an ode to relinquishing the throuple) and the sugar-sweet pop hooks of “Sunshine Baby” (a bright, bittersweet acceptance of the end), so much of In the End It Always Does glitters and shimmers with the mixed feelings of finally letting go. “Love was never the issue. I never wasn’t in love,” says Bain. “But I realised I wasn’t in love with myself. We broke up when the album was done.”Four years after her widely celebrated debut Good at Falling, this album sees Bain lean even further into the pop realm – with help from Matty Healy and George Daniel from The 1975, Katie Gavin from MUNA and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon among others. Bain credits Gavin especially with injecting her with creative energy and inspiration throughout. On the lush, lullaby-like “Morning Pages”, Gavin sings, “She’ll do that thing where she sits at your feet / And it used to be so hot, now it’s just sweet.” For Bain, these words gradually became her own. “She wrote a verse really quickly and sent it back, classic Katie-style,” Bain remembers. “At the time I was like, she’s writing about her relationship, and… I guess it became mine.”The album isn’t all heartbreak and lost love, though. On “Friends”, an upbeat, dance floor-ready song about threesomes, Bain sings in warped, auto tuned vocals, “Do I think about her more than you? Do I touch the way you want me to?” It was light relief to write about being one part of a three. “So many parts of being in a throuple is hilarious,” she says now, laughing. “It was one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. We’d go to a restaurant and be like ‘table for three’ and go to bed and be like ‘Good night, good night!’ It was very easy for me as a little unicorn to come in. And then suddenly I had two hot girlfriends.”Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify
Jordana and Dev Lemons
On her new EP, I’m Doing Well, Thanks For Asking, Jordana is getting to know herself again. Or more accurately: getting to know her selves.It’s fair to say the 22-year-old New York songwriter has shifted shape a few times in her short career. She got her start with homespun indie folk on Classical Notions of Happiness before jumping to the spindly bedroom pop of Something To Say To You. A year later, she was veering into the dreamy haze of her TV Girl collaboration Summer’s Over, before eventually giving way to the hi-gloss pop of Face The Wall. It’s the kind of omnivorous output the phrase something for everyone was invented for.Along the way she’s managed to make fans of Wallows, Local Natives & Remi Wolf, who’ve each taken her on the road in 2022, landing her in front of crowds that number in the thousands. In many ways, the magic carpet ride of touring that opened up post-pandemic hasn’t allowed Jordana the time to fully change forms again. Instead she’s synthesized a little bit of everything that came before on this new six song short-player. And while the overall sound pulls from each of her past releases, the songs themselves remain obsessed with love and neuroses, being left and leaving, pitying yourself and learning to stop.”SYT,” the EP’s lead single, is a soaring kiss-off from a jilted lover. “It channels the feelings of empowerment and emotional awareness after a tough breakup,” says Jordana. It wouldn’t sound out of place on Face The Wall, and certainly borrows from her most recent album’s logline advice of overcoming hardships.Elsewhere, on “You’re In The Way,” Jordana reaches back to the leathery indie pop of Something To Say To You’s “Reason” & “I Guess This Is Life.” It’s a song built around a simple drum loop, guitar strums and Jordana’s voice. “It’s about getting to know yourself again after seemingly wasting time investing in someone else,” says Jordana.Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | SoundcloudPennsylvania-born singer songwriter Dev Lemons straddles the line between R&B songstress and emo rocker, writing deeply personal bedroom pop songs designed to replicate a late night heart-to-heart chat with a close friend. Whether it’s touching on abandonment issues, toxic relationships, the fear of going to the dentist, or even tactics to deal with pampered nepotism babies, Lemons’ relatable music is about overcoming your demons and replacing them with the insulation of unhinged fun. A student of bands like Paramore, My Chemical Romance, and Bring Me The Horizon, Lemons shares a similar honesty in her songwriting and an innate ability to transform personal pain into galvanizing hooks ready to be chanted back by a crowd of fellow outsiders. Or, as she more succinctly puts it: “My music is about finding beauty amidst all of life’s chaos. By the end of a Dev Lemons song, you will feel somewhere in the middle of motion sickness, ecstasy, and maybe even a little itchy. Trust me!”Bandcamp | Instagram | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud
Hotel Fiction / Trash Panda
HOTEL FICTIONHotel Fiction is an Athens, Georgia-based band composed of Jade Long and Jessica Thompson. Both women have been playing music for over ten years and began writing, performing, and playing together in January 2019. In August of that year, Hotel Fiction released their debut single “Astronaut Kids,” which received a warm welcome from the indie scene, and went on to amass over 2 million global streams. Hotel Fiction’s sound has often been described as genre-fluid, with indie, pop and rock influences. With Jade’s dynamic vocals and piano, and Jessica’s complementary lead guitar and harmonies, the two create a sound that invites listeners to settle in and stay a while. For Hotel Fiction, the no vacancy sign is never illuminated, everyone is accommodated here. During quarantine, the two finished recording their debut album, Soft Focus, which was released in the fall of 2021. The project was met with praise from Atwood Magazine, Early Rising, A1234, and We Are the Guard, and was placed on Spotify editorial lists Fresh Finds and Fresh Finds Rock, where it spent eight weeks straight. Most recently, Hotel Fiction has supported Beach Fossils, Adam Melchor, flipturn and The Brooke and The Bluff. The band released their new EP Enjoy Your Stay on October 28, 2022.TRASH PANDATrash Panda began in 2015 as the pet recording project of songwriter/producer/multi-instrumentalist Patrick Taylor (AKA Lazuli Vane), expanding into a duo then a trio in 2016. Pulling from influences as wide as neopsychedelia, soul, indie rock and pop music, the band considers themselves somewhat post-genre. Darlings of the indie scene, Trash Panda tapped into both the perils of modern dating and the existential questions of dark nights of the soul. Their 2016 EP “Off” features crowd-favorites “Aging Out of the 20th Century,” “Off,” and “Check Please.” Trash Panda’s 2018 album The Starclimber made a splash with tongue-in-cheek banger “Atlanta Girls” and the psychedelic groove of “Heartbreak Pulsar.”After the album, the band went on hiatus and pursued other projects, emerging four years later in 2022 with several new members, releasing four singles “Things Will Never Change,” “Doin’ Fine Today,” “STARHEART,” and “Made of Love,” which are quickly gaining attention, featured on more than 10 of Spotify’s editorial playlists. “Doin’ Fine Today” has seen radio play in France. In Trash Panda’s first wave, only two years of frenzied creativity, the band made a regional splash touring small and mid-sized venues. Then, during its four year hiatus, the band reached a certain level of worldwide cult status with passionate fans spanning the globe. Autumn of 2022 brought the band their first nationwide tour as support for Ceramic Animal. Trash Panda just released their second full-length album, PANDAMONIUM, coinciding with their first national headlining tour in the May and June.DYLAN INNESWebsite
