Jesse Malin, Kevn Kinney
Released in 2003, ‘The Fine Art Of Self Destruction’ was the debut album by New York based singer-songwriter Jesse Malin. “It wasn’t named for drug or alcohol abuse,” he states. “It was more about a personal wreckage when I looked back on my life, from my parents’ divorce to failed relationships, broken up bands, dropping out of school, crashing cars, breaking things. It was more of a spiritual journey in some sense. This record is definitely one of my favourites.”To celebrate its 20th anniversary, ‘The Fine Art Of Self Destruction’ was reissued on 17th February 2023 in expanded form with a bonus disc of the album reimagined and re-recorded with Malin’s longtime band. The bonus material was produced by Derek Cruz and engineered by Geoff Sanoff, who worked on Jesse’s recent ‘Sunset Kids’ and ‘Sad And Beautiful World’ releases.A video for a new version of the album song ‘Brooklyn’ entitled ‘Brooklyn (Walt Whitman in the Trash)’ that honours New York in days of yore has been directed by Catherine Popper and Vivian Wang. “Cat and Vivian have a great sense of beauty, art and decay,” Malin adds. “‘Brooklyn’ is about beginnings, those early days of innocence and big dreams that often collide with irreversible mistakes and regret. We try to find ways to accept the mistakes and look back with laughter, forgiveness and love.”Following his teenage years in the pioneering hardcore band Heart Attack and his 20s fronting the wild and beloved D Generation, Malin took a cue from his songwriting heroes and was ready for a chance to stand alone. His solo debut was recorded over six days in New York City, live and raw.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTubeKevn Kinney is an acclaimed Rock and Folk singer, songwriter and performer most widely known as the founder and frontman of the Atlanta-based rock band Drivin N Cryin.An accomplished musician, poet, and painter, Kinney has released multiple critically-acclaimed recordings over his 30+ year professional career including the gold-certified album Fly Me Courageous. He is well-known for his collaborations with the Allman Brothers’ Warren Haynes, REM, and Grammy Award-winning producer Paul Ebersold, among others.Executive Producers of F/X Network’s hit TV show Archer asked Kinney to produce 12 tracks (five of which were pre-existing DNC/KK songs and three were written anew for the series) for season 5 debuting January 13, 2014.Kevn Kinney has just released his first solo record in more than a decade, also his first vinyl since 1990’s MacDougal Blues. Featuring R.E.M. co-founders Peter Buck and Bill Berry, as well as Brad Morgan of Drive-By Truckers, Laur Joamets (Drivin N Cryin, Midland, Sturgill Simpson) and more, the star-studded Think About It has its roots in the introspective solitude of the pandemic, and also the passing of Kinney’s old friend, the iconic oddball musical/improvisational genius and lighting-rod philosopher Col. Bruce Hampton.Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Nova Twins
Asked about what it takes to make it into a Nova Twins song, the heavy alt. rock renegades have a few words that spring to mind. “Power and fight” replies singer & guitarist Amy Love. “Imagination” adds bassist Georgia South. “We imagined this band because we didn’t have any one like us to look up to. That was the fun bit. There were no rules to who we can be.”Nova Twins are the zeitgeist-capturing polymath pioneers that our times have been waiting for. Their debut album ‘Who Are The Girls?’ planted their flag as outliers on a mission. The same fighting spirit is ingrained in their new, Mercury Shortlisted album ‘Supernova’, a piece of work that’s fearlessly itself – once again playing with genre and rich in different moods, textures, and layers, all the while retaining that purity & simplicity of the essential elements: South, Love, bass, guitars, drums, and a whole lot of energy.A clash of ideas from the worlds of punk, rap, pop, rock & beyond, their sound is one that smashes genres and showcases the many facets of the duo, resulting in one of the scene’s fiercest live acts with 2x BRIT nominations (“Best Group” & “Best Rock/Alt”) to their name. Nova Twins reach a very broad church, without diluting what they’re all about.If more artists blazed a trail like this, we’d be celebrating a lot more difference, rather than craving what’s safe and similar. From being “shunned” when they arrived on the scene, now Nova Twins are leading a game all their own. Now, there are no rules.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | TikTok
Spaced Angel, Tiger Beach, Weymouth
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Be Loud! Sophie High School Showcase
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Motherfolk
Serious songs from goofy people. That’s what you can expect from diverse, Midwest indie-rockers, Motherfolk. What started out as a writing project among two college friends turned into a fully realized band untethered to genres, with an endlessly bright future. Composed of Bobby Paver and Nathan Dickerson on vocals and guitar, bassist Clayton Allender, drummer Ethan Wescott, and Karlie Dickerson on keys Motherfolk are not only bandmates, but best friends. The band’s close-knit relationship allows each member to be their most authentic self, leaving every ounce of their souls to be poured into each song and high-energy performance. Despite their light-hearted, groovy-rock sound Motherfolk is dedicated to creating a much deeper connection with their fans. They don’t shy away from the taboo, taking on heavy topics with a light heart. The results provide us with music you can dance to, whose impact is felt long after the song has ended.The band’s quirky friendship and social media posts originally drew fans in, but their connection to the music kept those fans around. Since their formation Motherfolk has been on a steady upward trajectory, amassing well over 5 million Spotify streams on their three studio albums and selling out shows while touring heavily across the United States. While COVID-19 halted the band’s year of touring plans, Motherfolk spent the year hard at work, creating and self-producing new music and they came out anew. Late summer 2021 will invigorate fans with new singles adorning the most refreshing and versatile Motherfolk sound to date, leading up to a fall EP release. This next chapter is slated to be the most exciting one yet, don’t miss it!Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
Subhumans
Subhumans are one of the most influential bands from the UK Anarcho-Punk scene of the 80’s, filed right alongside Crass and Conflict, and just as relevant today as they were during the darkest days of Thatcher’s Britain. Take your choice in how to label them – Punk, UK82, Crusty, etc, – there lies the attraction and consequent reason for their popularity, the band epitomizes non-conformity and connects with people in many different scenes.Forming in 1980, recording and releasing a series of live and demo cassette tapes on their own Bluurg label, they continued to release music throughout the 80’s – building a powerhouse of a back catalog that completely stands the test of time. Their debut LP ‘The Day the Country Died’ (1983), with its Orwellian influence, is considered by many to be a classic and has sold in excess of 100,000 copies. The second album, ‘From the Cradle to the Grave’, came swiftly the following year (1984), and although the same frenetic pace is in evidence, this marks a significant musical development for the band. In 1985 Subhumans broke up, citing the usual musical differences, although had managed to release a third, maybe ironically entitled, LP ‘Worlds Apart.’ A final EP was released posthumously in 1986, ‘29:29 Split Vision,’ a further demonstration of how far the band had come musically from their initial leanings.Dick Lucas subsequently joined Culture Shock and then formed political ska-punk band Citizen Fish in 1990, both bands releasing many albums, and still playing today. Subhumans had a couple of reunion shows in the nineties, before a more permanent return for the 21st century, including 2 major tours of the US, the first resulting in the ‘Live in a Dive’ LP. The Subhumans then released a further studio album in 2007, ‘Internal Riot,’ again on Bluurg Records. The band is still passionate and angry, illustrated by Dick saying “Being in a band is the source of most of my passion and drive! The live experience of sharing it with people keeps it ongoing, the release of anger, frustration and initially negative/destructive states of mind is a release from the downward spiral of keeping it all bottled up and it feels positive/constructive as a result.”The band have recently written ten new songs, which Pirates Press Records are thrilled to be releasing, and are embarking on a year of touring in both Europe and North America! First a split with The Restarts before a 12” of their own comes out in October of 2019! The social and political commentary of bands like Subhumans forged a path, along with their contemporaries, for punk to change lives and opinions around the world. Sadly the things they sang about forty years ago are largely just as important now, sometimes more so in an age of Trump and Brexit. We can’t wait to hear more of what they have to say about the current political climate, the immense imbalance of wealth and power, and the causes they hold near and dear to their hearts.Instagram | Facebook | Spotify
Arlie
Arlie is a band created by singer-songwriter, composer & multi-instrumentalist Nathaniel Banks. It began in summer 2015 as a solo bedroom project and grew to incorporate a full-band live show by fall 2016. Since Arlie started playing live, Adam Lochemes and Carson Lystad have been part of the performing ensemble on drums and guitar, respectively. Ryan Savage joined on bass in 2018. During the pandemic and the year prior, everyone involved in the group wound up going through some of the hardest times of their lives, in one way or another. But despite some major setbacks and challenges, they managed to come together and finish a debut full-length album as a team, with Ryan and Adam as co-producers alongside Nathaniel, Carson as a trusted go-to perspective, all together bringing a new batch of Banks’ songs and demos to full fruition. After finishing the record, the group added Noah Luna to the performing ensemble as a backing vocalist and multi-instrumentalist to complete the live show.Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | Soundcloud
Ax and the Hatchetmen
Ax and the Hatchetmen came to party. The Chicago based rock and roll band’s shimmering three guitar attack, earthy rhythms and blistering horns have gained them a loyal following nationwide. Formed in 2018, the camaraderie and musicality between the long-time group of friends is apparent the moment they take the stage. Led by the vocals and guitars of Axel Ellis and Kenny Olzewski, the seven piece band also showcases Sal Defilippis on guitar, Hunter Olshefke on bass, Nick Deputy on drums, Phil Pistone on trumpet and Quinn Dolan on saxophone. 2022 saw the band complete two headlining tours as well as release four new singles that have amassed millions of streams globally. They plan on touring and releasing music for the foreseeable future. They also will party. Website | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube | TikTok
Dave Hause Album Release Show
Dave Hause’s songs have always been rooted in tangible reality—of emotion, of environment, of circumstance. Since releasing his debut album, Resolutions, in 2011, the Philadelphia-born songwriter has poured his whole heart, soul and life into his music. That’s no different on Drive It Like It’s Stolen, his sixth full-length. Its 10 songs overflow with Hause’s trademark urgency and passion, shimmering with a truth that reflects the harsh realities of life in this day and age, as well the intermittent jolts of joy that punctuate it. After all, his songs have always detailed his own personal traumas and triumphs within the setting of an unforgiving capitalist backdrop, tethering those personal experiences to ineluctable external forces. 2013’s second album, Devour, for example, was a response to his divorce from his first wife, while 2019’s Kick saw him tackle hope, depression, global warming and a crumbling American democracy with the news that he was to become a father. Most recently, on 2021’s Blood Harmony, Hause wrote and sang about the positive impact of having twins, and of the joy and excitement of being able to be at home with them for the first couple of years of the pandemic. Drive It Like It’s Stolen is just as earnest and heartfelt, raw and real as anything he’s ever written before. Yet there’s also a subtle yet significant difference—here he’s delving into a more fictional type of storytelling to create what he terms “post-apocalyptic Americana.” That’s clear from the title of this album’s haunting and ominous opening song, “Cheap Seats (New Year’s Day, NYC, 2042)”. Set two decades in the future, it’s obviously not about anything that’s actually happened, but is still very much inspired by life. Drive It Like It’s Stolen was engineered and mixed by David Axelrod, and—like Blood Harmony—produced by Will Hoge and recorded at Santi Sound in Nashville, though with a different set of musicians than that album’s all-star cast. Yet that’s not to the record’s detriment at all. On penultimate song “Tarnish”, a song about both a life lived and one still being lived—past and present coalescing in a beautiful mesh of wistful self-reflection, Hause sings ‘I never got a golden record/I guess the melodies were wrong.’ The performance and production of not just that song, but this whole record, proves that sentiment entirely wrong. It’s followed by “The Vulture”, a song that harks back to the defiance that dominated Kick but which is recast with his children in mind. It feels, too, like the cementing of the thematic shift he’s making on this record. These songs may still be for Hause, but they’re increasingly less about him. “My life is getting increasingly less interesting,” he smiles. “And that’s by design. You want to be steady, you want to be at a baseball practice or taking your kids to gymnastics or whatever it is. You don’t want to necessarily be staring into the abyss all the time and trying to determine your existential weight. I don’t want my life to become fodder for songs—I want my creativity to be the fodder for songs.” With this particular car ride, then, Hause is en route to a whole new world. Whether real or imagined or a combination of both, it’s time to buckle up for the ride. Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify | YouTube
Less Than Jake Welcome to Rockview Tour 2023
The story of ska-rockin’ maestros Less Than Jake isn’t told in their sizable discography. It can’t be calculated by the amount of road miles they’ve logged. (But if we’re forced to calculate, we think they might be a block or two short of the Van Allen belts.) Nah! Less Than Jake’s cumulative worth is all about what they bring to your party. From sweaty club shows to uproarious festival dates to opening up for America’s most beloved rock acts, these five lifers’ deeds are best measured in the smiles they’ve slapped on the faces of true believers and new listeners, alike.Silver Linings is the name of the new Less Than Jake album, their first full- length for the Pure Noise label and the follow-up to 2013’s See The Light. It also doubles as a bunch of sonic diary pages and a mission statement that cements their conviction after two decades in this rock ‘n’ roll circus. Indeed, LTJ—frontman/guitarist Chris DeMakes, bassist/vocalist Roger Lima, trombonist Buddy Schaub, saxophonist Peter “JR” Wasilewski and new drummer Matt Yonker—have escaped most (but not all) forms of ennui, depression and violence against screen-based objects to create an endorsement of humanity.Silver Linings also does a good amount of myth-exploding in its pursuit of joy. The songwriting core of DeMakes, Lima and Wasilewski wrote all the lyrics. New drummer Matt Yonker, whose former positions included LTJ tour manager and hammering along with such punk outfits as the Teen Idols and the Queers, helps bring a new sense of urgency. And that album title? Yeah, that was decided upon long before bands began to offer face masks in their online merch stores. Pro tip: Dial back your preconceived notions. The only things the Jakes have to prove are to themselves. Their laurels aren’t so comfortable that they’d willingly choose to be painted into a retro- colored corner.While Silver Linings doesn’t skimp on the joy, fun or grooves, careful listeners will sense a bit more reality seeping into LTJ’s escapism. The calisthenic bounce of “Lie To Me” is slightly undercut by Lima’s tales of how “the flames we hold the closest burn the worse.” On the urgent track “The Test,” DeMakes dares to seek some self-examination through someone else’s prism. “Dear Me” might be the first rock song that doesn’t couch its disdain for technology with poetic metaphors. That track addresses the loss of friends via distance and tragedy. The word “love” also appears in the album’s lyrics at three junctures. That detail should not be lost on anyone.“We allowed ourselves to be vulnerable,” offers Wasilewski. “In the past, previous records’ lyrics were about leaving a specific place or time. This ismore about the departures in our personal lives: family, friends, relationships. We’ve never really explored that side. With this record, we tried to pull back that curtain. We’re showing some fragility in a time when people seem so hardened.“We’re not looking for silver linings,” he clarifies. “The record is about appreciating them. Nobody appreciates them until maybe it’s too late or maybe it’s after the fact.”Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify
