The Nude Party
For The Nude Party, nearly a decade has flown by in the blink of an eye. In that time, the New York-based band has released a pair of well-received albums, an EP, and played countless shows. Prior to the pandemic, the band was really starting to hit its stride. They had a system in place and were spreading their brand of melodic rock to the masses. In fact, they could count Jack White, Arctic Monkeys, and Orville Peck as vocal supporters, which led to support slots for each. Soon, incredible live appearances at Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Newport Folk Festival, and Shaky Knees became the norm. Over the course of the last two years, The Nude Party decided to produce their new album, Rides On, themselves. With the help of Matthew Horner, The Nude Party had as much fun creating as they ever had at any other point in their career. Their new album includes 14 songs that dabble in electro-pop and stripped-down country. The Nude Party coalesced and embraced the spirit of collaboration. They’re excited to begin the next chapter of their career. At a time when it would have been easy to pack it in, the band continues to persevere. Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | TikTok | Spotify
Greg Freeman
Greg Freeman thrives on finding emotional catharsis and present-day resonance in the eccentric ugliness of the past. His songs all have a palpable sense of place thanks to his urgent delivery and evocative lyricism, which mines history for character-driven tales of violence, loss, and epiphany. On his sophomore LP Burnover, out August 22 via Canvasback Music/Transgressive Records, the Maryland-born, Burlington, Vermont-based artist uses the complicated backdrop of the Northeast to sing of grief, alienation, and the clarity that comes from opening up yourself to love. Explosive, unsettling, and undeniable, the 10 tracks here meld energetic indie rock with an ambling twang. It’s Freeman’s most adventurous and personal yet, cementing him as a singular songwriting talent. When Freeman quietly released his debut LP I Looked Out in 2022, it had no PR campaign, label, or music industry promo, but still received raves from Stereogum and Uproxx. The word-of-mouth success of that release had Freeman on a relentless tour schedule. An itinerant lifestyle from ceaseless long drives made him think about home and his role in it. “I was trying to make an album about where I live, without specifically writing about myself and my immediate surroundings,” says Freeman. Driving around Vermont, he’d pass by the birthplaces of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, and Ethan Allen, the Revolutionary War figure and state icon. “I was drawn to these slightly tragic regional figures who helped me understand the culture of that area even today,” he says. Burnover borrows its title from “The Burned-Over District,” a term used to describe parts of central and western New York that became hotbeds of fervent religious revival and utopian communities during the early 19th century. “There was this period where there’s all this psychedelic, religious movement coinciding with the territorial expansion,” says Freeman, citing Jack Kelly’s Heaven’s Ditch as well as Louise Glück, Grace Paley, Jim Thompson and Emily Dickinson’s writings as inspirations. On the album, there’s a sense that danger or revelation lurks behind every corner. It opens with the foreboding “Point and Shoot,” where he sings, “But I was lost like a little child / In a wilderness where the West was way too wild.” It’s a livewire track, with tangible momentum and an expansive arrangement. When Freeman was touring I Looked Out, he revamped his live setup as a five-piece where he was the only guitar player. He took that mindset to Burnover, which he recorded with Benny Yurco, drummer Zack James (Dari Bay, Robber Robber) and Freeman’s live band, at Benny Yurco’s Little Jamaica Recordings in Burlington. “I wanted to write songs that were fun and challenging to play on guitar, and maybe had a little more movement,” he says. Songs like “Gone (Can Mean a Lot of Things)” burst with intensity and Freeman’s guitars envelop the track with crunch and winding leads. But Burnover shines when Freeman tweaks the formula, like on “Curtain.” Originally demoed as a meandering guitar jam, the track came to life when pianist Sam Atallah tracked a tack-piano take at the studio. His lively leads invigorate the song, especially as Freeman sings lines like, “My thoughts die out slowly on the blood swept plains where I see you every night / And to the lonely hours, it’s like burning the furniture to keep the house bright at night.” Freeman says, “As soon as Sam laid down the piano, we heard the song for what it was and it came alive.” Website | Instagram | YouTube
Southern Culture on the Skids
Southern Culture On The Skids has been consistently recording and touring around the world since 1983. The band (Rick Miller – guitar and vocals, Mary Huff – bass and vocals, Dave Hartman – drums) has been playing together for over 30 years. Their musical journey has taken them from all-night North Carolina house parties to late night TV talk shows (Conan O’Brien, The Tonight Show), from performing at the base of Mt. Fuji in Japan to rockin’ out for the inmates at North Carolina correctional facilities. They’ve shared a stage with many musical luminaries including Link Wray, Loretta Lynn, Hasil Adkins and Patti Smith. Their music has been featured in movies and TV, parodied by Weird Al, and used to sell everything from diamonds to pork sausage. In 2014 the band was honored by the Southern Folklife Collection at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill with an exhibition featuring their music and cultural contributions. Their legendary live shows are a testament to the therapeutic powers of foot-stomping, butt-shaking rock and roll and what Rolling Stone dubbed “a hell raising rock and roll party.”At Home with Southern Culture on the Skids is the latest full length album from the band and is due to drop into stores on March 12th. The album consists of 11 tracks recorded and mixed in Rick Miller’s living room with some additional tracks recorded at his studio, The Kudzu Ranch.The first radio single off the album is “Run Baby Run”—a rocking number with deep garage roots. SCOTS bassist Mary Huff provides an urgent vocal while the band pulls back the throttle on a full race fuzz fest—cause she’s gotta to go fast! Run Baby Run!The other songs on the album are a combination of the band’s unique mix of musical genres: rock and roll, surf, folk and country—all a bit off-center, what Rick proudly calls “our wobbly Americana”. Rick goes on, “We put a few more acoustic guitars on this one, as you would expect if you recorded in your living room, but it still rocks like SCOTS. So put your headphones on, get in your favorite chair/sofa/recliner, put on “At Home With” and let’s hang out for a while.” Guitar riffs as lumpy as a camel, rough as a jackhammer or smooth and bright as Tennessee sippin’ whiskey, all slung loose and loud over salacious beats – No Depression For over thirty years, Southern Culture On The Skids have played an eclectic range of Americana including rockabilly, surf rock, country and R&B, with a punk edge and heaps of humor. They are known for their legendary live shows and wacky antics…But it’s more than just great fun; they are fantastic musicians to boot. – Elmore Magazine This Chapel Hill-based trio is flat-out amazing. Without resorting to needless flash or attention-hungry showboating, Miller in particular is one of the most spectacularly gifted guitar players I’ve ever seen. He juggles a lot of styles – country, garage rock, surf, rockabilly and soul to name just a few. – Stomp & Stammer Website | Facebook | Instagram
WXYC Goes Psycho – Halloween Dance party
ON THE EVE OF HALLOWEEN, WXYC GOES…PSYCHO🔪🩸 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30TH, WXYC joins CAT’S CRADLE for the most chilling night of the year. Check in if you dare. DJs live-mixing all night long. Lineup:10:00PM-10:45PM: DJ Unstable Ikea Dresser & KEPT!10:45PM-11:30PM: DJ 2STEP11:30PM-12:15: uumi b2b STINK12:15-1:00AM: Ivy b2b stroop test1:00AM-2:00PM: booshie mystik DOORS: 9:30PM MUSIC: 10PM-2AM $5 w/ OneCard, $8 without.Buy tickets online, or pay at the door. Costumes encouraged.
Kishi Bashi: Sonderlust 10th Anniversary Tour
Kishi Bashi is the pseudonym of Emmy-nominated singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Kaoru Ishibashi. A Berklee-trained virtuoso violinist, Kishi Bashi is acclaimed for his uplifting, high-energy concerts and his distinctive loop-based violin style. He has also earned recognition for his groundbreaking collaborations with major symphonies—including the National Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, and Oregon Symphony—where he blends classical and pop influences in captivating performances. Beyond the orchestral stage, he has toured internationally with Regina Spektor and of Montreal, and released five acclaimed albums—beginning with his NPR-praised debut 151a (2012), followed by Sonderlust (2016), the documentary project Omoiyari (2019), and most recently Kantos (2024), a kaleidoscopic fusion of funk, jazz, and orchestral pop. Known for his cinematic storytelling and genre-bending sound, Kishi Bashi continues to push creative boundaries while captivating audiences worldwide. Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube
Matt Pryor
Kansas City, Missouri native, Matt Pryor, is a household name for anyone who was attuned to the second and third waves of emo. His genre-defining band, The Get Up Kids, were among a small and legendary group that has shaped the musical landscape for years. However, after growing tired of the boundaries it so needlessly applied, the internationally recognized frontrunners eventually transcended the genre with their later albums and found themselves at home with a more indie sound. Most recently, on his latest album under his given name, Matt Pryor has presented the world with The Salton Sea, and it is abundantly clear that this is the continuation of a decades-long love affair with music and being outright obsessed with songwriting. Steadfast fans of Pryor’s prolific career will also find themselves treated to a style that is more reminiscent of the works of Paul Westerberg and Red House Painters, that is of course laden with Pryor’s signature style, whose DNA is deeply rooted in artists like Elvis Costello and The Afghan Whigs. It should be noted that the chosen title for the album is not one that was picked arbitrarily, and while not a concept album, the period of time when the songs were written were some of the darkest days of Pryor’s life. After spending six months in a downward spiral in what he sarcastically refers to as the penultimate moments of his “drinking career”, Pryor finally hit rock bottom. A casual habit that became a full-on addiction had officially come to a head, and in the blurry moments when 2022 became 2023, Pryor found himself with a choice that so many people before him have been forced to reckon with: Keep going on this path and face certain tragedy—or— Clean up, get sober, and stay on the right side of the dirt. Thankfully, Pryor decided on the latter, and the beautiful composite left on the shoreline for all of us to enjoy is the album now known as The Salton Sea. For those unfamiliar, The Salton Sea is what’s known as a “terminal” lake—meaning that new water never flows into it, and its salinity increases incrementally due to evaporation and pollution… The once high-spirited desert oasis was a tourist attraction for celebrities and the upper crust in the 1950s and 60s, and it is now a bona fide wasteland. It’s not difficult to imagine that while in the throes of addiction, Pryor saw himself as this once lush and vibrant body of water that years ago was referred to as a “California desert oasis”—but it is now an uninhabitable veritable shadow of its former self. Pryor’s latest songs have a timeless quality that makes you instantly nostalgic for strangers’ memories that unfold as narrative stories, and as a listener, you’re left wondering what these moments are all about—how will they unfold? This is undoubtedly due to the fact that along with sobriety, Pryor has found solace in writing for the sake of writing , a practice that he keeps up with daily—usually before dawn. If there’s a silver lining to all of this, one can glean that nothing bad will come from finding more creative outlets to calm the devil that sits on your shoulder, especially when that person has been writing the soundtrack of so many people’s lives for the last thirty years. Facebook | Instagram | YouTube
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
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
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
