For over two decades, Railroad Earth has captivated audiences with gleefully unpredictable live shows and eloquent and elevated studio output. The group introduced its signature sound on 2001’s The Black Bear Sessions. Between selling out hallowed venues such as Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, CO, they’ve launched the longstanding annual Hangtown Music Festival in Placerville, CA and Hillberry: The Harvest Moon Festival in Ozark, AR—both running for a decade-plus. Sought after by legends, the John Denver Estate tapped them to put lyrics penned by the late John Denver to music on the 2019 vinyl EP, Railroad Earth: The John Denver Letters. Beyond tallying tens of millions of streams, the collective have earned widespread critical acclaim from David Fricke of Rolling Stone, American Songwriter, Glide Magazine, and NPR who assured, “Well-versed in rambling around, as you might expect from a band named after a Jack Kerouac poem, the New Jersey-built jam-grass engine Railroad Earth has let no moss grow under its rustic wheels.”

https://railroad.earth/

Todd Sheaffer – Lead vocals, Acoustic Guitars

Tim Carbone – Violins, Electric Guitar, Vocals

John Skehan – Mandolin, Bouzouki, Piano, Vocals

Carey Harmon – Drums, Hand Percussion, Vocals

Andrew Ryan – Upright and Electric Bass

Matt Slocum – Keys

George Guthrie – Banjo, Acoustic Guitar

Built to Spill was formed in 1993 by Doug Martsch and over the years they have toured extensively and made several albums with a rotating cast of musicians, currently featuring Teresa Esguerra (Prism Bitch) on drums, and Melanie Radford (Blood Lemon) on bass.

With curly tufts of a recognizable Jewfro peeking out from his omnipresent knit cap, Andy Frasco is a cross between John Belushi’s “Joliet” Jake Blues and Jimmy Buffett. He’s a band-fronting, songwriting party animal who turns into a swirling rock ‘n’ roll Tasmanian Devil onstage leading his U.N., not unlike Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band. From switching instruments mid-song to Frasco stagediving into the crowd or kibitzing with them, an Andy Frasco & The U.N. show is a celebration of inclusivity and tolerance where “You do You” and “let us do us.”

Kitchen Dwellers continue to carve out their own lane in the world of progressive roots music, blending bluegrass, folk, and psychedelic grit into a sound as expansive as their Montana home. The Bozeman-born quartet of Shawn Swain (mandolin), Torrin Daniels (banjo), Joe Funk (upright bass), and Max Davies (acoustic guitar) has grown from regional upstarts into one of the most dynamic and forward-thinking bands in modern string music. Their catalog pairs instrumental virtuosity with emotional storytelling, an exploratory spirit, and a deep connection to the American West.

https://www.kitchendwellers.com/

Formed in 2020, BALTHVS has grown in six years to become Colombia’s leading alternative act. With over 100 million streams, four albums, and twelve EPs, the band has established itself in the global touring circuit, performing across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Oceania.

They have played more than 26 countries and 94 cities worldwide, appearing at major events including SXSW, Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, Outside Lands, Electric Forest, Lightning in a Bottle, Montreal Jazz Festival, SXSW Sydney, and Jazz Cafe Festival. The band has also made notable appearances on KEXP, Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Cafe, and the BBC.

BALTHVS continues to push forward with a distinctive blend of psychedelic funk, global grooves, Middle Eastern melodies, spiritual jazz improvisations, and Latin-tinged rhythms.

BALTHVS is:

Balthazar Aguirre (Guitar, Vocals)

Johanna Mercuriana (Bass, Vocals)

Santiago Lizcano (Drums, Vocals)

Steve Poltz has fun on stage. Steve Poltz has fun off stage. Every show has its own vibe. Raucous, joyous, improvisational and always strange. Stellar guitar work and songs that will have you smiling one minute and crying the next. Born in Halifax Nova Scotia Canada and raised in Southern California and now living in Nashville Tennessee. Steve Poltz tours nonstop and is the surprise sleeper hit of any festival. He also thinks he's an attorney for dogs but that's a whole different story. Catch him while you can. He's elusive like Bigfoot.

It just happened. 

Perhaps, it could be attributed to cosmic design, good old-fashioned magic, or the unspoken, yet understood bond all twins share. One day back in 2007, identical twin sisters Katelyn Shook [vocals, guitar] and Laurie Shook [banjo, vocals] found themselves writing, recording, and performing as Shook Twins. To their recollection, the pair never hatched a plan or even properly discussed it. 

Hundreds of shows, four albums and 2 EPs later, the duo continue to tread this path.

“Neither of us remember a time where we planned things out, it all unfolded naturally,” affirms Katelyn. “We simply started to play out and call ourselves Shook Twins, because that’s simply who we are.”

“We never set specific goals either,” adds Laurie. “We talk about our hopes and dreams, but we’ve just let everything grow organically with the band. We’ll see what happens next.”

Jenny Don’t and the Spurs have spent over a decade forging their own path in music, pioneering a unique brand of high-energy Country Western that captivates fans from the traditional Western scene to the raw energy of garage rock. Their captivating stage presence, infectious enthusiasm, and extensive discography have garnered them a global following, leading to tours on continents rarely visited by country bands.

The Sweet Lillies' music is first and foremost heartfelt and collaborative. Those defining traits are given life by the quartet of musicians who make up the Lillies. Together they have combined their individual strengths to deliver powerful narratives of life in song. With their lineup of guitar, viola, upright bass, drums, washboard, djembe and ethereal vocal harmonies that float like a dream, the Sweet Lillies' music has a hard hitting original flavor with a forward looking eye. They have incorporated all of their cumulative life experiences into their music, songwriting and artistry, crafting an uncommonly beautiful style which is a nod to the band’s all encompassing musical tastes and willingness to experiment with genres ranging from folk and rock all the way to hip-hop.

The desert often represents scarcity, a place where few signs of life can be found. For the women in Blood Lemon, however, trading their homebase in the high desert of Boise, Idaho for the low desert in Joshua Tree, California would prove to be the right choice to give the five songs found on Petite Deaths their final form.  

“Small bursts of either pleasure or despair,” says bassist and vocalist Melanie Radford of the collection comprising Blood Lemon’s sophomore release. “I think what came out was something eclectic and mystic,” she added. Using the seemingly scant resources of the Mojave, Radford, guitarist and vocalist Lisa Simpson, and drummer/percussionist Lindsey Lloyd, culled together their strongest set of songs to date. 

Working alongside esteemed fuzz lord Dave Catching (Desert Sessions, Queens of the Stone Age, earthlings?) at the storied Rancho De La Luna studio, the band treated the sessions as a retreat rather than a routine visit to a recording studio. To make the most of the time away from Boise, the band stayed in an adjacent bungalow on the property, seizing an opportunity to “briefly get away from distractions in our immediate lives,” says Radford. 

Blood Lemon, a mainstay of the Boise scene despite Radford’s recent move to nearby Seattle, received plenty of praise for their eponymous debut released in the throes of the pandemic. NPR Music, A.V. Club, SPIN, and other outlets of repute lauded their debut that garnered comparisons to other beloved female-fronted influences like Sleater-Kinney and The Breeders. Following celebrated appearances at Treefort Music Fest in their hometown as well as dates supporting avant-garage heavy hitters The Shivas and viral goth-punks Vision Video, the band crafted a collection of songs with widened emotional registers when Radford was on break from serving as the current bassist of indie stalwarts Built To Spill. 

While the songs on Petite Deaths are, no doubt, less overtly political than the band’s debut LP, they are no less provocative. The record’s opener, “High Tide,” explores Simpson’s fascination with “concepts around sensuality and completion” and “what other languages and cultures called an orgasm.” Echoing the aforementioned Breeders’ penchant for blending distorted guitars with entrancing female vocals, the track provides plenty of overdrive alongside lyrics that speak to our animalistic tendency to seduce and be seduced. Thoroughly couched in metaphor, Simpson’s lyrics might still pass as classroom-appropriate in her new role as a teacher at her daughter’s elementary school in Boise. 

Other songs on the collection put Radford’s ethereal vocals and erudite bass playing on full display, often branching out into new territory. For example, “Her Shadow” was “an experiment on how to collaborate differently,” says Radford of using Lloyd’s pre-written lyrics as a basis to develop melodies and chords around. A sludged-out reworking of Jessica Pratt’s “Mountain’r Lower” also gives plenty of room for the band’s psychedelic and more other-worldly influences to shine through. With searing lead guitars and pulsing rhythms, the collection’s first single, “Perfect Too,” offers a scathing critique of contemporary culture’s tendency to sell perfectionism without any promise of moral salvation.   

“Mudlark,” another song with Simpson’s voice at the forefront, is equally full of wonder. Inspired by Scottish actor Sam Heughan’s review of Mudlarking, a novel by Lara Maiklem, the song explores the theme of scavengers who meander riverbanks for hidden treasures. An “unabashed” fan of Heughan’s work as an actor and author, Simpson gravitated towards imagery in his review of the novel, and in her words, of “a person being a possession that ends up being tossed away, and hidden beneath the surface of the riverbed.” The result, an expansively melancholic track that crescendos into one of the band’s signature dirges toward the end of its six-plus minutes of runtime, exhibits how the band can hold an audience’s attention with songs longer than those conforming to traditional radio formats. 

Beyond the expansiveness of the desert influencing the sonic landscape of Petite Deaths, birth also became a central component of the album’s creative force. Following the recording sessions, Lloyd soon learned that she would be expecting the birth of her first daughter, Zenith. Lloyd’s dedication to the band was underscored when the band performed a show in the winter of 2023 in the last weeks of her pregnancy. Well aware that scheduling any major life decisions while playing in an active band can be difficult, Lloyd notes that “the timing of making the record couldn’t have been better.” 

As the final notes fade and captured sounds of coyotes howling in the Mojave fill the silence, the listener is immersed in the stark beauty of the desert and the transformative power of collaboration. Petite Deaths is a testament to how these three women continue to invent – and reinvent – themselves through a shared love of song and embracing change with resourcefulness. The album stands as a powerful statement, echoing with the vastness of the desert and the intimate journey of creation, both musical and personal.

https://www.bloodlemonmusic.com/

Lena Marie Schiffer is a folk singer

and songwriter based in Livingston, Montana. After spending ten years touring nationally with the band, Laney Lou and the Bird Dogs, she has since embarked on a solo career, performing under her own name and continuing to pursue her passion for songwriting and connecting with an audience.

Lena writes original lyrics that offer deeply personal reflections and insightful observations of the world, creating a connection with her audience wherever she goes. Her innate ability to relate to others drives her passion to write and share her songs.

https://www.lenamarieschiffer.com/

To watch Allie Kral perform is to witness a passionate mixture of musical styles, from J. S. Bach to Pink Floyd. Allie has a classical background of violin playing that began in 1988 when she was just 5 years old. Controversial to Allie’s roots, her true passion is rocking out and improvising. In 2000, Allie went to University of Illinois for violin performance, and found a new love for bluegrass music while frequenting The Canopy Club. A 2-year stint with band Green Mountain Grass took her to stage with improvised solos, touring the country and never looking back. A decade with Chicago-based bluegrass jam band, Cornmeal, taught Allie to solo with ears open, with endlessly changing musical styles and a team-player attitude. Allie’s excitement for music was nothing short of contagious and her passionate energy never-ending as she joined Colorado jamgrass pioneers, Yonder Mountain String Band from 2014- 2022. Embracing her aural skills and heart-forward demeanor, Allie has now recorded on dozens of albums, and has played live with the most well-known bluegrass players out there and just about every jam band on the scene, including Widespread Panic, The Dead, String Cheese Incident, Moe, Umphrey’s McGee, Government Mule, Billy Strings, Dark Star Orchestra, Melvin Seals, Greensky Bluegrass, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Glenn Tilbrook, Big Head Todd, G. Love, The Travelin’ McCourys, Leftover Salmon, Railroad Earth, The Infamous Stringdusters, Peter Rowan, Bela Fleck, Sierra Hull, Molly Tuttle, Jerry Douglas and Sam Bush. While moving her entire body with her playing, Allie’s mastered the ability to use her instrument as a voice. She sings melodies with her bow, mimicking an electric guitar with distortion and delay, and utilizes the space in her solos - claiming to be what she calls the sexiest part of playing music. No matter which genre Allie is playing, she continues to innovate ways to blend her violin seamlessly. Allie Kral is indeed a thrill to witness!

www.alliekral.com