Margo Price has something to say but nothing to prove. In just three remarkable solo albums, the singer and songwriter has cemented herself as a force in American music and a generational talent. A deserving critical darling, she has never shied away from the sounds that move her, the pain that's shaped her, or the topics that tick her off, like music industry double standards, the gender wage gap, or the plight of the American farmer. (In 2021, she even joined the board of Farm Aid.)

Now, on her fourth full-length Strays, a clear-eyed mission statement delivered in blistering rock and roll, she's taking on substance abuse, self-image, abortion rights, and orgasms. Musically extravagant but lyrically laser focused, the 10-song record tears into a broken world desperate for remedy. And who better to tell it? Price has done plenty of her own rebuilding -- or as she shout sings in explanation on "Been to the Mountain," the set's throat-ripping opener, "I have to the mountain and back alright" -- and finds herself, at long last, free. Feral. Stray.

Moving from the sparse folk of her 2016 debut, Midwest Farmer's Daughter, into the rollicking roots of its follow up, All American Made, the following year, and, in 2020, into classic rock with Rumors, Price has established herself as a sonic explorer of the finest ilk. Still, she says, "This could be too out-there for people. But I just have this morality where I feel like, it has to be this."

And this does sound different. Louder, lusher. More layered. Price and her band recorded the set across a blissful week in Topanga Canyon, California, at producer Jonathan Wilson's Fivestar Studio in the summer of 2021. (A smaller second batch would get tracked in Music City, months later.) Wilson, who has helmed sets from Angel Olsen, Father John Misty, and Dawes in recent years, created a space for Price and her band -- a longtime troupe that's been honing their kinetic, even raucous, live show since before Midwest Farmer's Daughter -- to traverse new sounds and influences confidently.

Album opener "Been To The Mountain" showcases her "hard-living swagger" (The New York Times), while the Mike Campbell-assisted "Light Me Up" lays down a searing, explicit epic. "Radio," a buoyant guitar track featuring Sharon Van Etten, embraces sunny pop melodies. While the dobro- and pedal steel-laden "Hell in the Heartland," which Price penned in the immediate, uneasy aftermath of quitting drinking, builds towards a cacophony of distorted vocals and synthesizers.

Rock and roll, psychedelic country, rhythm & blues, and even bright shiny pop, they're all there on Strays, but as each refract through her artistry, that delicate vocal and unhurried delivery, they come out sounding singularly her. While the last few years have seen remarkable moments of acclaim -- a Best New Artist Grammy nomination, Americana Music Honors, a Saturday Night Live performance, and just about every outlet and critics' year-end Best Of list -- Price is still hungry. "I still have a lot of drive inside of me," she says. "I have a chip on my shoulder. It feels like I still haven't been able to fully realize all my dreams yet, and that eats me up." Just wait.

Jay Cobb Anderson (vocals, lead guitar, harmonica) / Kellen Asebroek (vocals, rhythm guitar, piano) / Mimi Naja (vocals, mandolin, electric & acoustic guitar) / Jeff Leonard (bass) / Tyler Thompson (drums, banjo)

Fruition’s newest album, Wild As The Night, conveys the emotions of our darkest, and sometimes weakest, moments. Influenced equally by acoustic music as well as rock ‘n’ roll, the eclectic, after-hours vibe comes naturally to the Portland, Oregon-based band. Their unmistakable vocal blend first revealed itself in 2008 when Anderson tagged along with Asebroek and Naja for an afternoon of busking in Portland. Since that time, they have opened shows for the Wood Brothers, Greensky Bluegrass, and Jack Johnson, and appeared at festivals like Telluride Bluegrass, Bonnaroo, and DelFest. Wild As The Night follows the band’s acclaimed Tucker Martine-produced 2018 album, Watching It All Fall Apart.

The album’s first single, “Wild As The Night,” provides perhaps the album’s most beautiful moment, with vocals from Naja evoking the midnight grief of letting a relationship go. It was released with the announcement of the album, along with the track’s accompanying music video.

Wild As The Night opens with the rollicking and pulsating “Forget About You,” setting the tone of the record as a whole; commiserating in sorrows and lifting spirits. “Sweet Hereafter” follows the album’s self-titled first single with an entrancing drum and piano loop that could be equally at home on a James Blake record. The organic beat gives way to thick repeating harmonies, leaving the listener wanting more after a subtle fade to silence. The album picks back up, tempo-wise, with a quick rock and roll study in city living with “Raining In The City” before it dives back into more classic Fruition territory with a campfire celebration of the Oregon Coast in “Manzanita Moonlight.” “Don’t Give Up On Me”’s seductive groove dips back into the commiseration with the final verse lamenting, “All the world is just empty without somebody to love.”

“For me, I've just always hoped that people relate to the music, whether it's a certain chord movement that lifts their spirit or comforts their sorrow, or a lyric that speaks to them like it was written for them,” Asebroek says. “This music comes from places of vulnerability and I hope people can take their guard down a little while resonating with it.”

Recorded at Silo Sound Studio in Denver, Wild As The Night captures the band’s mindset in the midst of relentless touring. “We were exhausted, but musically firing on all cylinders,” says Thompson, who shares production credit with the band on the new project. “It’s extremely diverse Americana, with a focus on great songwriting and harmonies. We weren’t going for a particular sound, just something that’s honest to our live sound along with a few tricks we learned from our last producer, Tucker Martine.”

With a renewed focus on harnessing the energy of the live experience, Wild As The Night allows listeners to get a glimpse of these longtime friends doing what they do best on stage, whether they’re opening for the Wood Brothers, Greensky Bluegrass, and Jack Johnson, or playing at festivals like Telluride Bluegrass, Bonnaroo, and DelFest.

“Something that has always tied our variable styles together is the honesty in the songwriting, the attention paid toward what is genuinely and deeply catchy, not superficially so,” Asebroek says. “Vocal harmonies have also always been a unifying tool for our band. The Fruition sound has always been about being more than the sum of our parts.”

fruitionband.com/home

With their eighth studio album, Simple Things, The Band of Heathens came home—geographically, as they returned to their longtime base of Austin for the recording; sonically, in an embrace of the rootsy, guitar-based rock with which they made their name; and thematically, with lyrics that speak to appreciating friends and family and our limited time on this planet. It’s a confident, assured statement of a group finding its place in the world amid uncertain and troubled times.

“It was a return to embracing our influences, our natural instincts, the way we sound when we get on stage,” says guitarist-vocalist Gordy Quist. “Many times in the past, we'd take a song and stretch to make it into something else sonically, because that's exciting and fun to do in the studio. This time around, we tried to use some restraint and embraced our first instincts, trusting the songs were strong enough. With the subject matter, there’s a sentiment of focusing on what's important as we go through this journey together—don't waste time, because this is all we've got.”

“Gordy and I each have a natural sound when we sing, but there's something even more special and unique when our voices blend together” says guitarist-vocalist Ed Jurdi. “So it was just about harnessing and embracing that. Good, mid-tempo rock and roll—that's our breadbasket, and there's not a lot of that music being made right now.”

Though the members of The Band of Heathens now live scattered across the country, coming back to Austin (where they first formed in the early 2000s when Quist and Jurdi were among four songwriters playing regular weekly sets at the late, lamented club Momo's) was crucial to the making of Simple Things. “The city has grown and undergone many changes over the years, but the intangibles that make Austin a unique place are still alive and well,” says Jurdi. “I feel like the band wouldn't have come together anywhere else. As Austin has evolved, the band has evolved too, and now coming back feels like a very full circle moment.”

They worked in a studio called the Finishing School, which was founded by the band’s close friend and sometime producer George Reiff; Quist took over the studio after Reiff passed away in 2017, and upgraded with gear including three of Freddie Mercury's actual vocal mics, which have previously been used on recordings by David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, and AC/DC. “It’s our own communal space and we’re very comfortable there,” says Quist.

In some ways, the new album is a logical extension of Remote Transmissions, the livestream series that Band of Heathens started soon after the pandemic shut down the world in 2020 (and which was documented in last year’s Remote Transmissions, Vol. 1 album). Unable to tour, the group convened every week for a year, playing covers of songs new and old, responding to a disorienting time by reconnecting with music they love.

“These were all the songs we grew up on and learned how to play in garage bands,” says Jurdi. “It was good to get back in touch with that, as a survival mechanism and as a creative outlet.”

As opportunities started to open back up, they extended the experiment with the “Good Times Supper Club” on Patreon, offering fans the chance to watch the band work and to participate in the creative process. “Rather than get together once a year for two weeks and make a record, now we're getting together almost every month, for three or four days or a week, and trying out some new songs,” says Quist. “The frequency of having to do that really dovetailed well into the workflow of making this record—taking little bites and small chunks of stuff, and then taking some time to listen and then go home and write. As we started putting some of this new material together, it started snowballing in terms of, ‘Oh, there's a good direction here. I got an idea for something that could work with this batch of songs.’”

After almost twenty years on the road, the domestic solitude of lockdown led to new sources of inspiration for the musicians. “Being at home and going out in the backyard to play with my daughter,” says Jurdi, “taking a walk and talking my neighbors, things that normally are incredibly mundane—but they weren’t mundane, because that hadn't been our mundane life.”

The title track of Simple Things took a while to cohere but started in the early days of the pandemic. “I just remember the world feeling like it was exploding,” says Jurdi, “I was talking to Gordy a lot—What the fuck are we going to do? How are we going to keep the band together?’ On a deeper level, my daughter is going to school on the computer at home and isn't out in the world, spending time with her friends. So the song is about figuring out what's important, what we need to be thankful for, and how we address this adversity without it being overwhelming and overcoming us. How can we harness the beauty in that and appreciate the moments and be present in them, without being swallowed whole by what's going on around us in the world?”

Quist ponders coming home in a different way on “Long Lost Son,” which he co-wrote with his friend Jeff Whitehead. It’s the experience of leaving home, seeing the world, and that feeling you get when you come back,” he says. “It's that special spot in your heart where the place you've been running from retains a new kind of charm and you realize how fortunate you are to have grown up there."

Jurdi recalls that “Don't Let the Darkness” began with a couple of simple but profound observations—a friend remaking one night that “If you weren't here, we wouldn't all be together,” and then bass player Jesse Wilson talking about being “a lot closer to a little further away.”

“I started thinking that there's a lot of sadness in the world,” says Jurdi. “That song is like a pep talk for my friends and myself. Like, ‘Hey, there's a lot of stuff coming at you, but how do we keep these forces the forces of darkness out?’ It’s sort of a mantra, to figure out how to get closer to being in the spot you want to be and keep the bad shit further away.”

From day one, The Band of Heathens have remained proudly, fiercely independent—turning down label offers, maintaining complete ownership of their catalog, building their audience one show at a time. ‘There's a survivor's spirit within this band that we've had from the first record,” says Quist. “I see a lot of artists out there screaming, ‘Hey, we're outlaws, we're independent!’ and they're signed to a subsidiary of a major label and live completely within that model. Now we don't necessarily go around waving that outlaw flag in everybody's face, but I truly feel we've been the ultimate indie band for 17 years. We've always been living outside the lines, industry-wise, and that spirit helped us during this time when it was all taken away from us.”

With Simple Things, they extend this achievement—creatively, personally, and practically—in the face of a challenging and turbulent landscape in music and beyond. “We’ve been able to grow with each record,” says Jurdi, “all the while doing exactly what we wanted to do—which, believe me, has not always been the best thing for our career or commercial success. There's never been anyone there to tell us, ‘Guys, don’t do this, you're fucking up completely.’ That was the whole thing to us, the idea of being in a rock and roll band is freedom, right? We grew up with icons and heroes that not only represented music, but a lifestyle, an attitude, and a way of doing things. Those ideas molded us in our youth and we've carried them with us ever since."

“We've realized,” says Quist, “it's us, it’s our families, and it's our fans, and that's really all that matters.”

https://bandofheathens.com/

https://marchfourthband.com/tour

Portland, OR-based singer, songwriter, and producer John Craigie adapts moments of solitude into stories perfectly suited for old Americana fiction anthologies. Instead of leaving them on dog-eared pages, he projects them widescreen in flashes of simmering soul and folk eloquence. On his 2022 full-length album, Mermaid Salt, we witness revenge unfurled in flames, watch a landlocked mermaid’s escape, and fall asleep under a meteor shower.

After selling out shows consistently coast-to-coast and earning acclaim from Rolling Stone, Glide Magazine, No Depression, and many more, his unflinching honesty ties these ten tracks together.

The album comes from the solitude and loneliness of lockdown in the Northwest. Someone whose life was touring, traveling, and having lots of human interaction is faced with an undefinable amount of time without those things. So, he began writing new songs and envisioning an album that was different from his past records. The sound of everyone playing live in a room together was traded for the sound of song construction with an unknown amount of instruments and musicians—a quiet symphony.

Rather than steal away to a cabin or hole up in a house with friends, Craigie opted to set up shop at the OK Theater in Enterprise, OR with longtime collaborator Bart Budwig behind the board as engineer. A rotating cast of musicians shuffled in and out safely, distinguishing the process from the communal recording of previous releases. The core players included Justin Landis, Cooper Trail, and Nevada Sowle. Meanwhile, Shook Twins lent their signature vocal harmonies, Bevin Foley arranged, composed, and performed strings, and Ben Walden dropped in for guitar and violin plucking parts.

“Instruments were scattered around the theater and microphones placed in various spots,” he recalls. “It’s hard to say who all played what exactly.”

As such, the spirit in the room guided everyone. On “Distance,” warm piano glows alongside a glitchy beat as he softly laments, “I could lose you to the loneliness, vast and infinite.” Then, there’s “Helena.” A jazz-y bass line snakes through head-nodding percussion as he relays an incendiary parable of a mother and son in exile. He croons, “She said fire was how we’d make ‘em pay. As I ran across the fields, she would scream, ‘Light it up son’,” uplifted in a conflagration of Shook Twins’ harmonies. Strings echo in the background as his vocals quake front-and-center on “Street Mermaid.”

Elsewhere, the guitar-laden “Microdose” beguiles and bewitches with an intoxicating refrain dedicated to a time where he “Microdosed for months and months, dissolve my ego in the acid.” Everything culminates on the glassy beat-craft and glistening guitars of “Perseids” where he sings, “There’s always a new heart after the old heart. Maybe a new heart is enough.”

During this period, he explored the environment around him “from the Oregon coasts to the waterfalls” and read books about Levon Helm, Billie Holiday, and Ani DiFranco.

“I got time to silence all the noise and chaos of touring and look inward,” he observes.

Craigie had reached a series of watershed moments in tandem with Mermaid Salt. Beyond headlining venues such as The Fillmore and gracing the stage of Red Rocks Amphitheater, his 2020 offering Asterisk The Universe earned unanimous tastemaker applause. Rolling Stone noted, “tracks like ‘Don’t Deny’ and ‘Climb Up’ bridge a Sixties and Seventies songwriter vibe with the laid-back cool of Jack Johnson, an early supporter of Craigie,” while Glide Magazine hailed it as “one of his best records.” Perhaps, No Depression put it best, “For many weary and heavy- listeners hearted, the album might be exactly what they need.” Along the way, he generated over 40 million total streams and counting, speaking to his unassuming impact.

In the end, Craigie offers a sense of peace on Mermaid Salt.

https://johncraigiemusic.com/

Whether traveling to gigs on horseback or by tour bus, Americana mavens The Brothers Comatose forge their own path with raucous West Coast renderings of traditional bluegrass, country and rock ‘n’ roll music. The five-piece string band is anything but a traditional acoustic outfit with their fierce musicianship and rowdy, rock concert-like shows.

The Brothers Comatose is comprised of brothers Ben Morrison (guitar, vocals) and Alex Morrison (banjo, vocals), Steve Height (bass), Philip Brezina (violin), and Greg Fleischut (mandolin, vocals). When they’re not headlining The Fillmore for a sold-out show or appearing at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, the band is out on the road performing across America, Canada, Australia, and hosting their very own music festival, Comatopia, in the Sierra foothills.

https://www.thebrotherscomatose.com/

Hailing from Humboldt County, deep in the redwoods of California...Diggin Dirt is an undeniable force in the West Coast funk scene. With a deeply original sound and a reputation for high energy performance, this premier ensemble is a captivating scene.

https://www.diggindirtband.com/

This is the story of Steve Poltz.

Some people start life with a plan. Not Steve. He opens himself up to the universe in a way most of us will never be loose enough to achieve, and the universe responds with a wink, a seemingly bottomless well of inspiration, and the talent to truly connect with an audience. While 2021 could have found him adrift, faced with a tour moratorium the likes of which he hadn’t experienced in decades, it opened a door — literally, his friend Oliver Wood of The Wood Brother’s door — to creating an exuberant, thoughtful batch of songs that celebrate life in all of its stages.

The resulting album is called Stardust & Satellites [Red House / Compass Records].

“I just make stuff up,” he exclaims, quipping, “it sounded good to say that.” Steve is the sort of prolific writer and collaborator who downplays what seems like a non-stop geyser of creativity. “I have no rhyme or reason for what I do. It’s all magic. I go by instinct. It just felt right, so I went with it.”

The “it” in question is one of those serendipitous situations that were created by the pandemic. Steve, a road dog and performance junkie who regularly spends 300+ days a year on the road, bringing it to the people, should’ve been on tour last year. Esteemed Nashville roots rockers The Wood Brothers (Chris Wood being a former neighbor to Steve), also should’ve been on tour. Stuck in Nashville, Steve often joined the Wood Brothers for outdoor socially distant hangs, and, on a whim, decided to record one song with Oliver Wood and Jano Rix.

They cut “Frenemy,” a wistful, “keep your friends close and your enemies even closer” song that made it clear to all involved that they’d stumbled onto something special. With no studio clock ticking, no schedule or deadlines to meet, the companionship and ability to collaborate with like-minded musicians added a joyful diversion to what was a boring-ass year. Musically, the sky was the limit, and the group of musicians and friends embarked on a musical experience that found cast and crew reaching toward the stratosphere with Stardust & Satellites, which Oliver and Jano Rix of The Wood Brothers produced.

The album begins with the lithe fingerpicking of “Wrong Town,” an anthem summing up the life of an itinerant songwriter/performer, where he declares, “The truth is I have no plan at all,” going on to cite Emmylou Harris and Don Was as his style icons. It’s a “pleased to meet me” sort of song, and it was written to greet the audience at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in 2019. “I wanted to write an opening song,” Steve recalls.“I sat down with fellow Nashville songwriter Anthony da Costa, and ‘Wrong Town’ just appeared.”

But even gonzo guys have their moments where the cycle of life seems to be almost too much to bear. “Conveyor Belt” is a heartfelt song, a song that could only be written at a certain point in one’s life, and that point is when you’re saying goodbye to your parents and addressing your own mortality. Steve explains, "My mom passed away, and then a few years later my dad crossed over. I started thinking that I was next on the conveyor belt in a factory on the wheel of time. Next thing I know, I grabbed my guitar and this song appeared to me like a gift. It didn’t exist and then voila, there it was. I feel lucky to be a conduit."

The song is written over a gentle, repetitive melody that moves along with the inevitability of ye old sands of time. For fans, it’s a different side of Steve, using a voice and a new solemnity for a song that touches a universal nerve.

On one of the last nights of the recording sessions, Steve locked himself up in his writing room and within an hour, had conjured the catchy, effervescent “Can O’ Pop,” destined to be the radio single.

“Jano from The Wood Brothers was leaving the studio, and I asked him to give me a beat, and I told him I’d write a song with the beat he gave me,” recalls Steve. The exuberant, syncopated groove seems to bubble up as Steve admits, in his best mid-period Dylan, “I want to feel the fizzy rhythm with you.”

“Hey, Everyone loves a can of pop” he cracks.

Among other highlights, “It’s Baseball Season” seesaws on a sunny acoustic guitar as he pays homage to America’s favorite pastime. Poltz is a true fan, and the song’s laid-back, relaxed vibe speaks of carefree days at the ballpark. Steve even pays tribute to legendary baseball announcer Ernie Harwell.

With a cult following that includes fellow musicians, regular folks and festival goers who stumble onto his performances, there’s no common denominator to Steve’s fans. Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia and raised in San Diego, CA Steve toured and recorded with San Diego cult favorites The Rugburns (they still play annual sold-out reunion shows). But it was through his creative partnership with Jewel that he vaulted into the national spotlight; co-writing her multiplatinum Billboard Hot 100-busting smash, “You Were Meant For Me,” and continues to work with her to this day.

Over the years, the Nashville-based troubadour has built a fascinating solo catalog, earmarked by his debut, One Left Shoe, Dreamhouse, Folk Singer, and 2019’s Shine On. No Depression crowned him, "A sardonic provocateur with a lighthearted acoustic-driven wit, suggesting at times a sunnier, less psychedelic Todd Snider, or maybe a less wan, washed Jackson Brown,” while the Associated Press dubbed him "part busker, part Iggy Pop and part Robin Williams, a freewheeling folkie with a quick wit and big heart.”

Among other collaborations, GRAMMY-winning bluegrass phenom Billy Strings tapped him to co-write “Leaders” on 2021’s Renewal and he’s co-written with Molly Tuttle, Sierra Hull, Nicki Bluhm, Oliver Wood and even Mojo Nixon.

He’s resumed his tour schedule, and when he comes to your town, he’ll say, as he does every night, “This is the best show I’ve ever played.” And hell, maybe it just is.

Ultimately, Steve never needed a plan.

He’s something of a natural, after all.

https://poltz.com/

A founding member of the band Elephant Revival, Daniel wrote and sang some of their most well known songs, such as Birds and Stars and Sing to the Mountain, to name only a couple. They disbanded in 2018 after playing their last show to a sold out Red Rocks. Creativity became a therapeutic balm in the wake of the breakup. He released his debut collection of songs, an EP titled Your Heart The Stars The Milky Way on February 15, 2019. His debut full-length album, Sojourn of a Burning Sun, was released on August 28th, 2020 on BMG Records.

“Daniel cements himself as a solo performer with forthcoming album Sojourn of a Burning Sun.” - ROLLING STONE

He and his talented band opened for The Lumineers on their BRIGHTSIDE World Tour in July and August of 2022, playing to sold out arenas and stadiums across North America, with a special homecoming show in front of 40,000 fans in Denver, Colorado.

He has also performed with friends and heroes such as Gregory Alan Isakov, Ben Harper, John Craigie, Todd Snider and many more.

The Lumineers recorded and released one of Daniel’s songs after adding the words “Merry Christmas” to the chorus, turning it into an instant dark humored Christmas classic. This is Life (Merry Christmas) feat. Daniel Rodriguez was released in December of 2021.

He released his second full length album, Vast Nothing, on 3/1/23.

https://www.drodriguezmusic.com/

https://www.nickibluhm.com/

https://www.rossjamesmusic.com/

Rejecting the influence of fleeting scenes and encroaching developers; the Laurelthirst Public House has always stayed in tune with its generations of muddy patrons carving out lives as blue-collar artists. “The Thirst”–Portland, Oregon’s oldest independent venue–has always been a sort of misfit stronghold–a sanctuary for the same kind of spirit that sustained local punk legends Dead Moon and outsider folk hero Michael Hurley. It’s also become a lifeblood for working-class musicians like Taylor Kingman. Most nights, you’ll likely find the TK & The Holy Know-Nothings songwriter and lead vocalist on stage (or at the bar). Ask around the place and you’ll quickly uncover Kingman’s reputation as the sort of songwriter who makes other songwriters jealous, even angry. You’ll also hear about his hustle as both a player and writer, as those same songwriters line up to play with him. It’s led to countless projects, exploring myriad concepts and styles, and making the sort of honest music that stands starkly, alongside the Laurelthirst, against the backdrop of a city quickly fading under the lacquer of gentrification.

TK & The Holy Know-Nothings is perhaps Kingman’s most beloved project. Half-dutifully and half-facetiously self-dubbed “psychedelic doom boogie,” the group was born out of Kingman’s desire to create a loose, groove-heavy bar band that never sacrifices the importance of good, honest songwriting. Doing so required pulling together a local supergroup of friends, neighbors, and fellow Laurelthirst royalty, including drummer Tyler Thompson and multi-instrumentalists Jay Cobb Anderson (lead guitar, harmonica), Lewi Longmire (bass, guitar, pedal steel, flugelhorn, mellotron, lap steel) and Sydney Nash (keys, bass, slide guitar, cornet). It’s a band of deeply contrasting styles buoyed by a sincere and palpable mutual trust–one that allows them to find and lose the groove with the same ease. They build graceful, spaced-out landscapes around Kingman’s storytelling–his voice ragged and broken one moment and raging the next–only to deconstruct them through a fit of manic and often dissonant rabbit holes. And Kingman’s equally irreverent, delicate, and cerebral first-person narratives somehow merge seamlessly with it all.

The Incredible Heat Machine, the band’s forthcoming album, is an album of growth. It doesn’t diverge all that much from 2019’s Arguably OK (and 2020’s B-sides EP Pickled Heat). Its story is simply that of a working band coming off the road and going right back to work, intent on capturing the growth and wear amassed in the meantime. Both albums were recorded in just a few mid-winter days (two years apart) in Enterprise, Oregon, a quiet cowboy town at the foot of the snow-capped Wallowa Mountains. They were both made live, with no overdubs, on stage at the historic OK Theatre, where much of their budget was again spent on keeping the heat on. And again, Thompson engineered on the fly with the help of old buddy and local theater resident Bart Budwig. While Arguably OK introduced listeners to the band’s distinct brand of unbound rock & roll infused with the strange, wide-open, outsider nature of Western country; The Incredible Heat Machine just goes stranger, wider, and further out. Lyrically, Kingman delves deeper into the struggles of the working-class musician with themes of substance abuse and redemption, companionship as salvation, and the ever-present shadow of disillusionment. His lyrics are again intensely honest, full of all the lessons learned and ignored, while always tempered with mystery and room for the listener.

“I like to alternate between plain-spoken truth and fragmented visions of painfully vivid dreamscapes,” Kingman notes. “Songs need a listener to be complete. And I don’t want to tell the listener what to think or do. It’s our job to present honesty, good or bad: an unfinished song from an unfinished life. And everybody hearing it gets a co-write because each moment is unique.”

This is apparent from the start, as album opener “Frankenstein” comes to life with deceptive lyrical hooks, coupling the pieced-together aesthetic of the famous resurrected corpse with generous metaphorical roundabouts. Its psychedelic wormholes envelop the song in warm, trippy veils, transcending the confines of its Western country roots to an altogether more experimentally robust misfit anthem.

“Serenity Prayer” follows with the Sisyphean journey of a working musician who makes good for a few hours each evening playing at the local tavern before finding themselves inevitably drawn to a seat at the bar again. It’s an entreaty to oneself to find the strength to change tomorrow, as Kingman writes, “Grant me the serenity to pay for this in change,” and “Grant me the wisdom to know I owe the difference,” before always returning to, “But a friend behind the bar is a mighty fine deal.”

Kingman’s songwriting vacillates between the specter of longing and the levity of self-awareness. “The trick is to be honest,” Kingman says. “And there are many ways to be honest.” It comes in songs as crushing as “Hell of a Time” and “I Don’t Need Anybody”; in irreverent tracks like “I Lost My Beer”, a love letter to a misplaced libation that is already a favorite among Laurelthirst patrons; and in the rattling regret of hangover lament, “Bottom of the Bottle”. And then there’s the title track and its “Preprise”, a two-part roadhouse opus that splits The Incredible Heat Machine, comprising a formidable showcase of TK & The Holy Know-Nothings’ divergent styles, both sonically and lyrically. “I want a line to fill me with golden light and then leave me alone in the pale desert with just the wind and my heartbeat,” Kingman shares.

Finally, the album closer “Just the Right Amount” ties the album’s themes together as Kingman places himself on stage, staring at the mic and the crowd, reflecting on the experiences and decisions that led to these songs. “I think he liked the way it sounded / Drunk and bleeding on a borrowed mic / I’ve never seen a bar so crowded / Dead quiet on a Saturday night / Maybe one to get them crying / Maybe one to help them fight / You gotta do a little wrong, kid / To get that kind of right.”

“At our core, we are working musicians. And that’s why we will always be a bar band no matter where we play. We are players and that’s all we wanna do. We live for songs and we take them very seriously. Even the stupidest ones. It’s all sacred and that’s why it should be mangled by children.”

TK & The Holy Know-Nothings’ new album is above all things true to the moment it was created, full of lessons unheeded and questions unanswered. In the end, it will always exist in that moment and whatever moment it shares with its listeners. Kingman sums it up best: “The Incredible Heat Machine is a haunted jukebox on wheels and God’s own check engine light. It’s a locomotive composed of living parts linked by some buck-toothed telepathy allowing it to make it down the tracks where there is no final answer or destination, just movement and feeling.”

https://www.tkandtheholyknownothings.com/

"What makes the homey Ozark stew of Handmade Moments so very nourishing, so perfectly spiced? Partake and be effortlessly guided through wistful and deep channels of musical flavor, rich with hearty roots and fungi, vegetables home-gardened and watered from the sacred well of American musics: jazz old-time country blues soul hip-hop rock (and it don't stop). Glistening with insight and whimsy, long-simmering with righteous compassion and beauty, Handmade Moments are a fearless all-weather duo - complementary spirits of musical tightrope and magic - serving up entrée to their secret river of goodness." - Matthew Souzis

https://www.handmademomentsmusic.net/

Hailing from North Lake Tahoe, CA, americana/roots rock band Dead Winter Carpenters has

built a reputation for pouring their heart and soul into each performance. Over the past decade,

the band has worked hard to position themselves, wrote Portland Metronome, “at the forefront

of a youthful generation trying to redefine what string music is and what it can do.” That

progressive nature shines through loud and clear on the band’s latest release “Sinners ‘n’

Freaks” which debuted on April 24th, 2020. The 5-song EP is DWC’s fifth studio effort and

coincided with the band’s 10th anniversary. The release is a celebration of the hard roads

previously traveled and the road that lies ahead. Recorded in January 2020 at Baxter’s Ranch

in Auburn, CA, the band found a masterful ally with a keen ear and sensibility in studio

owner/engineer Matt Baxter. Born of an organic, roots based approach, Sinners ‘n’ Freaks rings

true to the Sierra Nevada foothills.

The band’s fourth studio project, Washoe, is a 12-song collection of originals recorded in Reno’s

Sierra Sonics Studio (Ozzy Ozbourne, Eminem, Dr. Dre, Collective Soul) and co-produced by

Dead Winter Carpenters and Zachary Girdis. The band’s previous albums include the group’s

2010 self-titled debut, Ain’t It Strange (2012), and the much-acclaimed Dirt Nap (2014). They

also released a single “Roller Coaster” in the summer of 2018 featuring alt-country hero Jackie

Green on organ.

Reminiscent of genre-benders like Jack White, Chris Thile, and Sam Bush, Dead Winter

Carpenters harmoniously blend refined musical ability with a scarcely restrained tendency to let

it all hang out. The result is a controlled burn, a riveting sound, and a connection with fans that

sells out shows and has the band sharing stages with the likes of Jason Isbell, Easton Corbin,

Greensky Bluegrass, Rising Appalachia, The Infamous Stringdusters and Hard Working

Americans.

Members include Jesse Dunn (acoustic guitar, vocals), Jenni Charles (fiddle, vocals), Nick

Swimley (lead telecaster guitar, vocals), Brian Huston (drums, vocals), and Jeremy Plog (bass,

vocals). A steadily touring band since forming in 2010, Dead Winter Carpenters has entertained

growing crowds at notable festivals including High Sierra Music Festival, Strawberry Music

Festival, California Worldfest (CA), DelFest (MD), Northwest String Summit (OR), Harvest Music

Festival (AR), WinterWonderGrass (CA and CO), Hangtown Music Festival (CA) and more.

Dead Winter Carpenters is a band ingrained with ambition, talent, and authenticity. Look for

them to continue to delight – and invite – fans from many music camps.

http://deadwintercarpenters.com/

https://www.jonstickley.com/

The Black Tones welcome audiences into their musical family every time they take the stage. Once you see them live, you’ve then become a part of their extended sonic kin. Founded by twins Eva and Cedric Walker, the Seattle-based rock ‘n’ roll band has grown from humble beginnings in their grandmother’s basement to receiving recognition from Guitar World, AfroPunk, KEXP, American Songwriter, Under the Radar and NPR, which said, ”The Black Tones are redefining Seattle music.”

Over the past handful of years, the rock group has shared stages with Weezer, Mavis Staples, Death Cab for Cutie, Tank and the Bangas, Fishbone and many more. The group has also worked closely with Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready on several projects, including a cover of U2's "Pride (In the Name of Love)." And in 2019, The Black Tones released their debut LP, Cobain & Cornbread, which was engineered by the legendary Godfather of Grunge, Jack Endino.

That album garnered the group many accolades, including the rank of #17 on KEXP’s Best Albums of 2019 list. Not to be outdone, The Seattle Times dubbed the group one of the 15 Most Influential Artists of the 2010’s. In 2020 The Black Tones released a limited edition 7” (“Where Do We Go Now” b/w “The Devil & Grandma'') on McCready’s record label, HockyTalkter Records. And in 2022, the rock band caught the attention of Sub Pop Records, which released their single, “The End of Everything” b/w “Mr. Mines.”

While these accomplishments are lofty, Eva and Cedric keep their feet firmly on the ground, maintaining warmth and humility, joy and a sense of familial freedom. To wit, The Black Tones boast their own hate group-fighting 8-bit video game, “They Want Us Dead,” inspired by their hit single, “The Key of Black.” In the game, players can fight hate groups like the alt-right, slave owners and more as either Eva or Cedric, traveling back through time.

Truly, for the band, music is as much entertainment and expression as it is a chance at activism. To change the world—or even a single person’s perception of it—through songs is an honor for Eva and Cedric and one it does not take lightly. Whether singing songs about the danger black bodies incur daily, spiders in their childhood bedrooms or fantastical “ghetto spaceships,” The Black Tones' charisma and infectious blues-punk approach is exemplary, essential and the stuff of deep roots.

https://www.theblacktones.com/

Brad Parsons w/ The Quick & Easy Boys - EPK

Bio: The godfathers of “Daddy Rock”, Brad Parsons with The Quick & Easy Boys is a melding of two powerful PNW forces into a juggernaut of brain melting psychedelic rock. Brad Parsons met Quick & Easy Boys Sean Badders and Jimmy Russell in 2008 as pups in the Portland music scene. Throughout the years they hovered in each others orbit, sharing bills, playing festivals, Parsons was a regular sit in guest with Quick & Easy Boys side projects Jimmy Russell’s Party City 2034 and Boyz 2 Gentlemen. In 2022 Brad Parsons and The Quick & Easy Boys collaborated for a late night set and Brad Parsons’s gospel project at Sawtooth Valley Gathering. They had such a good time doing that they decided to continue working together throughout 2023

Photo: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18PZpZvGryg9aWifcgfdyjYgUZbv97fx2?usp=sharing

Video:

“Treatin’ Myself” https://youtu.be/oDpT8-g2Xwo

“Had It Bad” https://youtu.be/G9UtJCpnC6g

Brad Parsons is a singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist from Astoria. In 2017, he released his debut album "Hold True," followed by an EP, "The Starbird Sessions," in 2020. His career collaborators include John Craigie, Bart Budwig, Horse Feathers, Cabinet, Fruition, TK & The Holy Know Nothings. Parsons has toured nationally and been a mainstay at festivals such as Northwest String Summit and Sawtooth Valley Gathering. He is currently working on a project with The Quick & Easy Boys out of Portland, OR.

Based in Los Angeles, this old-timey punk rock revivalist band goes by the name of Water Tower. They released their debut album “Fly Around” on March 27, 2020.

This is the sixth album for founder Kenny Feinstein, but the first since kicking the bucket (band was formally Water Tower Bucket Boys). The album is a ten-track collection of songs rooted in bluegrass and folk, indie rock and a dash of electronic landscaping. This album represents a transition for Feinstein and the re-birth of the band in it’s neighborhood of Echo Park in Los Angeles. The new album manages to blend psychedelic and punk influences weaved into their traditional love of Bluegrass and Americana instruments, creating their mixed bag of branded music.

Feinstein has teamed up with Joe "Juice" Berglund and Tommy Drinkard and Jesse Blue Eads as the formal tour line-up. They each play multiple instruments (fiddle, banjo, guitar, lap steel). They all share the same amount of passion for traditional bluegrass as well as punk and indie music.

You can find them performing at festivals with multiple sets of old time bluegrass like songs like that of Flatts & Scruggs, Dr. Ralph Stanley, Bill Monroe or the Carter Family. (Huck Finn Jubilee 2022, Topanga Banjo Fiddle Fest 2022, Picking in the Pines 2022) Then again you catch them at a local pub performing their versions of the Germs, Rancid and Lou Reed Songs. You will however, always get some Water Tower originals which are fan favorites and you'll hear what is "coined" as Feinstein's song-crafting, that music that keeps fans coming back for more.

https://www.watertowerband.com/

For most, a pandemic might not be the ideal time for any kind of work, let alone planning a debut album. But for the bicoastal six-piece Mama Magnolia—vocalist Megan Letts, saxophonist Alex Cazet, guitarist Thomas Jennings, drummer Jackson Hillmer, trumpeter Carrie McCune, and bassist Zach Jackson—the process of making their first full-length Dear Irvington was an essential remedy amidst distress. After managing to stay together for five years, despite inter-band-relationship-breakups and cross country moves, the shapeshifting indie-soul group was primed to create in a turbulent time. “This band was the thread of consistency and familiarity that was keeping my sanity,” Cazet says about creating during the throws of the pandemic. “We gave ourselves a goal,” Letts adds about the project. “And there’s something to be said about art that comes out of desperation. We were desperately trying to connect, and feel purpose as artists, as we all felt that feeling of aloneness. And I feel that in this record.”

Following a successfully overfunded Kickstarter campaign, Dear Irvington was a comfort for Mama Magnolia to lean into amidst a continually harrowing time, while also turning tumultuous, personal stories into ostensibly groovy jaunts. In doing so, they pushed themselves past new creative limits. After enlisting producer Robert Ellis and former White Denim drummer and engineer Josh Block to funnel their ideas and further animate their intricate, sometimes nerdy, sophisticated rock compositions, Mama Magnolia made an album that captures the group at its most complete. “[this album] feels very coming of age—we are who we are—both musically and lyrically,” Letts says of the album. “It's a letter to you, letting you know just who we are.”

Dear Irvington focuses on empathetic missives, highlighting Mama Magnolia’s emotional maturation from when they first started writing together. They embrace the challenge of pairing difficult emotions with colorful sonic landscapes; it's an uncharted pasture for them to explore rather than run away from. There’s no reservation in diving into the deep end of depression (“Grey”), unpacking the betrayal of a loved one (“Each Time You Lie”), or expressing frustration with another who won’t take a chance on a relationship (“Try Me”). Throughout Dear Irvington, songs bounce from acceptance to catharsis to reflection. “Either you're trying to sit in that feeling, or you're trying to grow from it,” Hillmer says about musical intention.

Whether it’s the barbed funk of “Punching Bag” or cascading love letter to time with “Slow Down,” Mama Magnolia morphs between perspectives and stretch their instrumentation to unexpected places. “Each Time You Lie” is a poignant example of the group undertaking the challenge of vulnerable lyrics with exploratory song structure. Initially budding from an acid trip-induced watch of Willy Wonka followed by a masterclass and concert by jazz pianist Fred Hersch, Letts chipped away at the track over the years eventually adapting the melody to lyrics inspired by a pained family scenario. “I ended up changing the lyrics to be about my relationship with my dad,” she says. “That song is a total banger. You would think it'd be a summer jazz bop, but it's about some really deep and painful familial struggles,” she shares with brazen honesty. “That's shitty, but that's real. It's empowering for me to speak my honest truth.”

And their growth doesn’t only apply to raw lyricism: It rippled into their musical performance. “Since 2013, I've become more empathetic, emotionally mature, and I hear things with the context of more experience and that translates to the guitar,” Jennings says about his transformation since the band’s beginnings. My relationship with the guitar and my relationship with myself are synonymous. I'm on Prozac, so my guitar is on Prozac.”

Further evolution came from producers Block and Ellis, who encouraged the group to embrace their inner jazz nerd and get weirder, think bigger, and dive deeper. Their time at Niles City Sound in Fort Worth, Texas allowed Mama Magnolia to push their vast technical skills without overthinking academic competition or wrestling bravado. “Lean into the part that maybe you're a little too scared to lean into,” Letts explains, recalling Ellis’ advice. “The weird shit is what makes us unique – and the fact that the six of us can somehow combine our brains together and create something that maybe isn't gonna be palatable for everyone.”

Altogether, Dear Irvington is a batch of playful compositions carrying the weight of hard revelations. “He told me I sound just like a rainbow / Which is funny cause I feel like mud,” Letts sings on album opener “Grey.” Careful guitar strums and soft percussion slowly build as the lyrics struggle to untangle themselves from self-doubt. The track was inspired by a zoom classroom visit where a synesthetic student described Letts’ performance as a technicolored flurry. Unknown to the class, she was in the midst of a deep depression and creative dry spell. The compassionate anecdote encompasses this entire musical endeavor created in the thick of the pandemic that’s murky aftermath has yet to fade. All one needs is an outside perspective to remember their colors. Like a wandering flashlight amidst seemingly endless darkness, Mama Magnolia use the shadows to bring about brilliant possibilities.

http://www.mamamagnolia.com/

Music magnifies the human condition, highlighting both daily struggles and personal triumphs with the same sensitivity and sympathy. Portland-based singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Jay Cobb Anderson accepts the responsibility of such sonic discourse via his solo output. Moreover, he deciphers these universal experiences in the form of hummable, hypnotic, and heartfelt anthems steeped in storytelling folk tradition and amplified by unabashed rock ‘n’ roll energy.

His seven-song 2019 EP immediately strikes an emotional chord.

“I’ve always felt like I had a duty to be a voice for the average person—and mostly for their frustrations, loneliness, and struggles,” he affirms. “The plight of the human condition is very confusing at times. We live in the age of information, and we’re still so much like animals. I feel like a great voice for that. I’m like a pendulum swinging hard from intellect and sensitivity to complete primal instincts and animal passion.”

He developed a knack for such writing via his downright prolific career thus far. Not only did he co-found bluegrass folk phenomenon Fruition, but he also launched groups such as The Bell Boys and Rose City Thorns. His growing catalog includes 10 albums and multiple EPs, while he’s logged thousands of gigs since launching his career in 2007. He served up his first solo offering, I’m a Rambler, I’m a Fool, during 2012. Constantly writing, he challenged himself to crank out song per day beginning on his birthday October 12, 2018.

IMG_4612.jpg

In the midst of this creative whirlwind, he carved out time to hit the studio alongside Fruition drummer Tyler Thompson once again behind the board as producer. It proved to be just the right moment for his sophomore solo album as they retreated to Thompson’s studio.

“Fruition has been touring nationally really hard for the past seven years,” he explains. “It was a challenge to find time in between. Along the way, I never stopped making my own music. So, I picked some of the material from the 100 songs that was more personal and specific to me and started recording them for eventual EPs. This is an outlet to fully get my vision out there and be completely me.”

Spanning seven years between solo releases, he widened his palette of inspiration. Musically, he developed a deep appreciation for indie-rock band and prolific songwriters, Bahamas and maintained his longstanding Tom Waits fascination. At the same time, “books had been a big part of the last few years” as he devoured classics from Charles Bukowski and Kurt Vonnegut. Drawing on the talents of his Fruition family, Thompson handled drums in addition to production, and Jeff Leonard contributed bass as Anderson handled vocals, guitar, piano, mellotron and “everything else.”

The subject matter reflected marked growth.

“I’ve been through a lot of changes,” he goes on. “I put out my last solo record when I was 27. It’s still in the same vein as the original solo album where the lyrics were super important. The vibe is just different. You could say I’m older and maybe a little wiser,” he laughs.

The title track on the EP “Everything Is Gonna Work Its Own Self Out” illuminates his evolution in under two minutes. A stop-and-start beats gallops in tandem with high-energy guitars as his soulful wail carries an upbeat and undeniable refrain punctuated by a punchy bounce.

“It discusses hardship in society and trying to work through everything as it also touches on repression,” he says. “That was all on my mind at the time. As an artist, it’s hard to do this and survive. You go through all of these processes in your head, wondering what you’re doing on the road and if you’d be happier with a nine-to-five and paid vacation. In exploring those frustrations, you swallow your emotions and gain the faith to keep going.”

Elsewhere, the stripped down live performance of “So Far From You” details “a relationship that ended” by way of unfiltered lyricism and stark emotion. “Leave Me” nods to Bahamas, and “Little Glowing Screen” takes on our smartphone addiction complete with “weird phone sounds” to enhance the atmosphere. Then, there’s the sweaty and sticky closing rocker “Baby I’m Yours,” which gets down and dirty replete with a shredding solo.

In the end, Anderson positions himself as a relatable and real voice for the modern age.

“Hopefully, you can connect to it, and maybe it helps you through whatever shit you’re going through,” he leaves off. “Maybe you forget about what’s driving you crazy and you’re able to have a good time and let it all out, if only for a moment.”

You can catch Anderson on the road solo, or with his other nationally touring bands Fruition and TK & The Holy Know-Nothings.

https://www.jaycobbanderson.com/

Shaina Shepherd is a singer, songwriter, vocal teacher, and community organizer in Seattle, WA. Known for her pervasive style as front-woman to soul-grunge band BEARAXE, her notable vocal stylings have brought her into various creative spaces — from collaborating with Duff McKagan, Chong The Nomad and Acid Tongue to sharing stages with rock stars like Dave Matthews and Thunderpussy to being a soloist with the classical ensembles around the country. Inspired by the parallels between gospel and garbage metal, Shaina Shepherd is not your average vocalist. Living in the city where both Soundgarden and Quincy Jones cut their teeth, Shaina lends her soulful voice to projects of all genres.

“Vocalist Shaina Shepherd pushes her vocals past “soul” territory into “shreds,” like Sharon Jones fronting Mötley Crüe.”

— Graham Issac, Nada Mucho

Inspired by Nina Simone's commitment to representing the times with the ivories at her fingers, Shaina Shepherd tells heartfelt stories of love, loss, and personal power. She describes herself as an anthem artist translating pivotal moments in human history through her unique form of poetry. Her biggest inspirations are often from Mark Twain, James Weldoyn Johnson, Maya Angelou. A teacher at heart, Shaina's songs often include a moment of audience interaction or shared moments of reflection in the room. Her dynamic vocal combines the power of theater with the tender introspection of American folk music in a commitment to every song, story, and note being real, raw, and present.

Shaina grew up around gospel music and not much else. She would watch her mother sing with the church choir and emulate the steady richness of her tone. Her passion for vocal technique led her to opera, then to musical theater, and then right back to opera. Shaina studied and worked in the classical music world for many years before finding her sound as a singer and songwriter. After graduating from New York University, she was immersed in the symphony world as an administrator -- working closely with classical musicians. This experience inspired her to pick an instrument and realize there are no limitations in creativity. She started playing the piano in November 2017. While finding her voice on the piano, she was finding her voice as the lead singer of Seattle prog-rock and soul band BEARAXE. BEARAXE has allowed Shepherd to hone her craft as a gospel-influenced rock artist exploring classicism, sexism, and self-care themes. And as her relationship with the piano grew, she began to weave similar themes through a lens of vulnerability and thematic strong structures akin to the operas and oratorios she studied as a new musician. Shaina's influences include Fanny, Kurt Carr, Jeff Buckley, Leontyne Price, Quincy Jones, and above all others, Nina Simone.

Shaina is also the co-founder of The Artist Reclamation Movement, or The ARM, an organization working to reclaim the artist industry to serve the creators first, shift the culture at large to respect the contributions of creative professionals, and work to build up an artistic middle class.

https://www.shainashepherdmusic.com/

Nick Delffs grew up in Mendocino County, a lawless stretch of coastline that’s hard to get to and, for many, hard to escape. Nick did — emerging in the early aughts as the frontman for Portland band The Shaky Hands, whose sharp, jittery rock was anchored by Nick’s quavering vocals and questing lyrics. The Shaky Hands were mainstays of Portland on the verge of a major shift, and they rode that shift a while, signing to Kill Rock Stars and touring internationally with some of the bigger names in indie rock. But a hiatus in 2011 became indefinite and Nick Delffs was once again cast into the world: working as a sideman, releasing solo records, doing manual labor, going deeper into his spiritual practices, and, crucially, becoming a father.

Becoming a parent can affect different artists in different ways. Nick rode that change with surpassing grace and maturity. 2017’s Redesign, his first full-length under his own name, reflected the transition. In “Song for Aja”, Nick touched on other concerns familiar to those who follow his work: love of the natural world; longing for spiritual and physical connection; the desire to suffer with meaning and exult with abandon, to embrace somehow the world in its maddening contradictions and find the unity at the core.

Childhood Pastimes, his second release on Mama Bird Recording Co., is both more focused and, despite being technically an EP, more ambitious. It’s a four-song cycle — one song with many movements or four songs that bleed into one another, depending on how you hear it — that can be viewed either as a personal journey or an archetypal passage of a human being through four discrete stages: roughly, the movement from childhood innocence into adolescent adventure (The Escape); the sudden immersion into a life of discovery and excitement (The Dream); the first experience of romantic love, followed by the onset of heartbreak, dissolution, breakdown of self (The Affair); the emergence into a new way of thinking, a fresh perspective that encompasses all the suffering and joy into a balanced whole (The Outside).

Nick plays nearly all of the instruments here and the result is a unified aesthetic, born ultimately of his deep-seated love of rhythm: the thrum and throb of the acoustic guitars, the percussive melodic bang of the elegantly-crafted piano lines, and always, always the insistent, driving drums, propelling the record, and the listener, on this journey as the four tracks bleed into one another, one body, one blood, one beating heart. The concept of four songs that are really one suite of music requires a sure hand, and Nick’s never shakes: the way the songs blend together while retaining their distinctiveness — from the poppy exaltation of “The Escape” to the cold intensity, almost like an acoustic Kraftwerk, of “The Affair” — shows a songwriter and musician who has fully grown into his powers.

Those who have followed Nick’s career may see this as a culmination of years and years of honing and fine-tuning his bountiful gifts, and wonder with delight what might come next. For those who haven’t listened to Nick before, Childhood Pastimes is the perfect entry point, a distillation of what’s come before and the promise of a new beginning.

http://www.mamabirdrecordingco.com/nick-delffs

St. Terrible is a musician, visual story-teller and performance artist based out of Boise, Idaho. Though his work started as a solo project in 2011, his recent works have evolved into collaborative efforts, working with a group of close-knit artists and friends. Ranging from the beautiful to the bizarre, his work is eclectic and ever changing in its sound, form and presentation.

https://stterrible.bandcamp.com/album/an-endless-fiction

Free Peoples began as a band in an Oakland, California studio in 1999. It was there that singer/guitarist Tim Sawyer and bassist/singer Michael DiPirro met. They immediately connected on a deep musical level and began composing songs. Soon after, guitarist/vocalist Johnny Downer joined. The trio began working on their self-titled album that would be released in 2001. A year or so later drums were added to the ensemble to accommodate larger venues. The band recorded two more studio albums between 2002-2005 and two live albums between 2007- present.

The band has fluctuated with different line-ups throughout the last 15 years. Some of the players who have contributed to the ever-evolving sound have been Bradley Leach, James Foster and Ricardo Lomeli on drums; Mark Calderon on bass; and Jesse Shantor and Nick Hasty on saxophones.

The current line-up features long time member Jason Thor on trombone/vocals, Sam Hamby on guitar/vocals and Dylan Garrison on drums.

https://freepeoples.com/home

Ketchum's original alternative country western band.

Melodic, poetic, rhythmically diverse,

Rock, Americana/Roots/ hint of Gypsy Jazz

Music has had Michaela French traveling since the late 1980’s. Playing music all across Europe and the US. She is a Swiss native and stems from a long line of musicians. Michaela has made the arts and entertainment in one form or another her career, including animated film, busking, pottery (Wild boar Pottery). Since the mid nineties she has made the American West (Colorado, Washington and Idaho) her home, where she and her husband are raising a family.

Much of her early musical inspiration grew from a love for the music of Paul Simon, Richard Thompson, Daniel Lanois and world music. Michaela is highly influenced by 20th century melodic and rhythmically diverse music of all cultures. She has learned from her travels that music is a unanimously unifying global force that crosses man made boundaries and connects a vital energy within people. As such, her songs are melodic, rhythmically diverse and complex. As a performer she is known for her versatility in being a back up musician to others on the upright and electric bass and guitar, as well as fronting her own material either as a solo performer or with a band in a variety of different venues. In her music Michaela draws from observations, a philosopher at heart, and her personal experiences, which she is able to relate in a heartfelt way to the listener, by interpreting a moment with the keen sense a traveler and adventurer would need to get an idea across, with compassion and diplomacy and other times as an observer in matters which touch upon questions of existentialism.

Earlier this year Michaela French released a 5 song Debut EP of original material. Produced and Recorded in Portland at the ‘Magic Closet’ by Sebastian Rogers,

With the added talents of Catherine Feeny on harmony vocals, Anna Tivel on violin and harmony vocal, Skip VonKuske on Cello, Christopher Johnedis on Percussion.

The recording has received much praise on content and sound quality, it was recorded onto tape before being digitized, accounting for its warm sound. Listeners are mostly critiquing the brevity of the EP, hoping for more.

The songs have enjoyed repeated airplay up to date and other musicians are enjoying them enough to add them to their own performance repertoire.

‘Some kind of a light’ has been selected as a submission for the ‘Whistle Pig’ an annual journal of Elmore County Authors.

That song, as well as ‘Talk about shoes’ have also been used for a small documentary by John Marsh of Liberty Films.

The CD is at the ‘Record Exchange’ in Boise, as well as at performances.

no commercial digital downloads are available. Please contact the address below for downloads.

And/or enjoy the current free samples below:

A singer’s talent is complete when they can bring a crowded dive bar to a collective hush and also get one of the biggest audiences on the planet to a collective standing ovation. Stephanie Anne Johnson is that special singer. Stephanie can don a cowboy hat and sing over a slide as old timers weep. And they have wowed judges on the immensely popular NBC TV series, The Voice, showcasing their gifts.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that Johnson is so affecting. Their mantra, after all, is “Find your joy and go there.” Their prowess exudes whether they are singing the Black national anthem - “Lift Every Voice And Sing” - to a packed auditorium or whether they're cooing acoustic lullabies to Saturday night tavern regulars. Their music, which is rooted in all that’s American, expresses the pain of the past, the roots of the down home and the hope that hard work will lead to proper reward.

Their latest album 'Jewels' was released on April 7th, 2023. Produced and engineered by Jeff Fielder.

Stephanie Anne Johnson has opened for acts that include political figure Bernie Sanders, and artists such as Mavis Staples, Chaka Khan, Ani DiFranco, Joseph, Cedric Burnside, and Black Joe Lewis

https://www.stephanieannejohnsonmusic.com/

There are people who know how to take the tragic and make it magic. Arietta Ward is one of those people. The eldest daughter of the late, legendary Janice Scroggins, the sudden loss of her mother became the catalyst to solidifying her space on the stage – a space that Arietta, commonly known as Mz. Etta, has already occupied for years.

Alongside everyone who is anyone in Portland’s multi genre music scene, Mz. Etta has been a staple. From Linda Hornbuckle to LaRhonda Steele, Ken DeRouchie, Tony Ozier, and Norman Sylvester, Arietta has shared the stage with the elite and on her own merit. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone affiliated with jazz, soul, funk or R&B that doesn’t know who she is. Yet only now is she on the cusp of releasing her debut solo album, a body of carefully crafted musical masterpieces.

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When asked why now in regards to releasing her work, Ward says “Carrying on my Mother’s legacy is a huge motivation”. She also acknowledges that her mother did a lot of the work so that she and her sister, Nafisaria Mathews, who is also an established vocalist, don’t have too. Subsequently, Mz. Etta is able to successfully navigate an often male dominated and difficult industry – and she does so with a following of respect. “I got grandfather into it [the music scene]. It’s a blessing because I can get into rooms that it takes years for others to access.” For example, Mz. Etta’s third solo show was at the renowned Jimmy Mak’s - - a venue typically reserved for music royalty, not still blooming solo artist who haven’t yet released an album. And as if being booked for a show at the venue wasn’t impressive and powerful enough, Arietta’s show was sold out. That is the power of Etta’s world.

About Etta

Even though most would assume that singing is what she’s always done, Arietta acknowledges that her mother never pressured her or her sister to sing. “We grew up with music, it was always a part of our lives but Mom didn’t push us into the industry. She gave us freedom and choice to be whoever we wanted to be.” A glimpse into the powerhouse that she’d become came by way of a stage appearance in the “Red Beans and Rice” play. “Even close friends were shocked; they didn’t know I could sing like that.”

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While others were shocked at her vocal prowess, Mz. Etta was dealing with her own type of shock. “I had really bad stage fright.” However, as an original member of the famed Doo Doo Funk All Stars, Arietta eventually grew more comfortable in the spotlight and her talents quite easily manifested into greatness. Arietta worked closely with the late Obo Addy and she credits him, amongst others, for helping her “work outside the box”. Addy’s friendship and mentorship was a blessing, even leading to her learning different Ghanaian dialects. Ms. Ward is featured on Obo’s last recording, which was released in September 2015. Arietta has also shared the stage with many local turned national and international stars including Liv Warfield and Esperanza Spalding, Thara Memory, Jarrod Lawson, Curtis

Salgado, Lloyd Jones, Farnell Newton and far too many more to name.

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By trade, Arietta is a licensed cosmetologist and spends her days as an educator in the field. It’s not really a secondary career but instead, a compliment and conjunction of her life as an artist. “Singers and Stylist actually have a lot of commonality” she says, flashing her warm smile that reminds you of a woman filled with wisdom well beyond her years. “In both fields, you have to create. “ The steady income from the cosmetology career gave Arietta the stability she needed to raise her son. “Music money comes and goes but in Portland, you can make it – you can definitely make it.”

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As she released her debut solo album in fall 2020, Arietta is destined to be among those who will not only make it, but make it big. The album stands as a testament to Mz. Etta’s unrivaled vocals, but also serves as a tangible contribution to the continuation of a legacy. “I am indeed, my Mother’s child. All the music, all the songs, these are my stories. They’re stories that need to be told, and I am here to tell them.”

While many labels of style exist, Arietta doesn’t define herself by any particular genre. Some would call her neo soul, others jazz, and still others R and B. But Mz. Etta is more focused on content and the responsibility that she believes every artist has. “Be mindful of how you deliver. Be mindful of your intent while delivering your messages. When you open your mouth – always hold that intent in the highest positive vibration possible. Artists are healers, music has healing power. Music is sacred.”

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And from that sacred and healing space, we meet Arietta Ward. A name you’re bound to be hearing for a long time; a name that, like her Mother, will be spoken of in reference to legendary music royalty for a long time coming.

​https://www.mzettasworld.com/

Over the last decade, Ryan Curtis has made a name for himself as a songwriter not easily packaged into any specific genre. He’s bounced almost seamlessly from folk and bluegrass to rockabilly, blues, and vintage rock n’ roll. Never to be pinned down, his latest release and solo debut, Rust Belt Broken Heart is steeped in the kind of vintage twang more common in a 1960s honky tonk, than a modern club. Ryan’s songs are usually about life’s harder-learned lessons, featuring picaresque heroes to whom he gives a very personal feel. His new record dives deep into the different styles of country and western while telling tales from his youth in the Midwest from Michigan to Illinois. The gravelly voice of the Michigan-born, Boise-based singer has been praised on KEXP and earned acclaim from the likes of No Depression and Saving Country Music. He's set to release his second album, Ain't Ever Easy this July on American Standard Time Records. In the meantime, you can catch Ryan and his band out on the road week in and week out bringing their unique brand of high desert country blues to the dives and haunts of the great American West and beyond.

“Sometimes when Bart sings, I forget what we’re talking about. I’m sure he knows though. I trust him. He sounds like John Prine, plays like Hoyt Axton, and looks like well… Bart Budwig. He’s a cosmic country lawn gnome.” – Sean Jewell, American Standard Time

Since its inception in 2008, Boise Rock School has been led by the belief that the best way to get individuals excited about learning music is to have them play in a group. We believe the band setting, coupled with a strong curriculum and student-chosen songs, achieves better results than any other teaching method.

In addition to helping students achieve musical excellence, the band setting also encourages essential life skills such as group problem solving, compromise, and the value of positive social interactions.

Boise Rock School is so much more than just a place where students learn to play their instruments. We teach our students how to play songs (cover tunes of their choice in all genres and originally penned compositions), how to record those songs, how to perform those songs at a gig, and how to use those songs as an inspirational and exciting tool to contribute to our community.

We believe giving every student at Boise Rock School the opportunity to perform and share their musical accomplishments with an audience is a valuable and rewarding experience for everyone. In short, we develop the total musician.

From proper technique to creativity and songwriting, from music theory to listening and problem solving skills, we help students — both kids and adults — not only become better musicians, but better people.

JARED GOODPASTER

Education Director, Co-founder, Instructor

PDX LIVE ELECTRONIC POWER TRIO

House / Drum & Bass / Breakbeat / Funk

https://www.reverbnation.com/jupiterholiday

The Muddy Souls are a leading progressive/jamgrass band based in Eugene, OR featuring original songs, virtuosic improvisation, tight vocal harmonies, and a high-octane groove that always has the dance floor bouncing. Formed in 2018, the band has four albums of completely original music, and has played more than 150 shows across the Pacific Northwest, Northern California, and the Northeast including festival sets at Freshgrass, Bridge City Bluegrass, Oregon Country Fair, and Wintergrass. A gem of the Northwest music scene the Muddy Souls are sure to get your feet dancing and your face grinning.

Vocalist & songwriter AR leads the ARBand, a jazz & soul-infused Americana project out of Boise, ID.