With July 4th just passed the cultural calendar is firmly planted in summer styles. The literary publications are full of reviews of beach reads. Hollywood is rolling out their summer blockbusters, a category which, if the critics are to be believed, pretty much originated 50 years ago with a story about a beach and a […]
BettySoo – If You Never Go Away
As far as I can tell, every musician has a bunch of sad songs in their catalog. If songwriting is cathartic, that makes complete sense because it’s the difficult things in life that need to be worked out, not the happy moments. Austinite BettySoo professes to be the queen of sad songs, going so far […]
Brayden Baird and the Once In A Lifetime Band – Lord, why do you do these things to me
If you’re over a certain age one of the memes that sticks with you is Monty Python’s “and now for something completely different.” That’s the thought that crossed my mind when I heard Brooklyn resident Brayden Baird’s new album, Lord, why do you do these things to me. Some of the materials label it as […]
Kai Crowe-Getty – The Wreckage
At some point in everyone’s life you learn to measure your hopes and desires against the reality of your situation. You have to still keep them separate in order to function daily, but each can inform the other. I think that heightened sense of self-awareness is the common thread in the songs from Virginian Kai […]
Tawny Ellis – Edge of the World
I generally tend toward a less-is-more aesthetic to the music I listen to. I’ll take a live studio take on a song before a 64-track production any day. I like to see songs performed on stage without autotune or a dozen recorded background tracks. But every now and then I get a hankering for some […]
Big Love Car Wash – Daydream
A few weeks back we premiered a single, 21st Century Telegraph, from a recently formed Austin band, Big Love Car Wash. Formed after a fateful one-time gig organized by mandolinist/vocalist Sol Chase, the group discovered they had a musical chemistry that begged further time together. They gathered in an Austin studio and put together their […]
Moonshroom – Take A Trip
There’s no doubt choosing a life as a professional musician requires you to chart your own path. That’s pretty evident with Kansas born-and-raised songwriters Lily B Moonflower and Jake Keegan. Growing up a few miles apart, but not meeting until years later, they had similar musical experiences that fed their creative streaks. While still fronting […]
Shelby Means – Shelby Means
I sometimes get surprised when a musician releases a debut album. Their industry stature and experience just led me to assume that along with all their other projects they’d somewhere along the line done a solo record. Such is the case with Charleston’s Shelby Means. With groundbreaking and Grammy-winning stints in Della Mae, and Molly […]
The Shootouts – Switchback
Some people collect old vinyl records. Some people collect autographs. As far as I can tell, Ryan Humbert and his bandmates in The Shootouts collect guest stars. They just released their 4th album, Switchback, and it includes appearances from Vince Gill, Rodney Crowell, and Sam Bush, among others. Their previous records have featured Chuck Mead, […]
Caitlin Cannon – Love Addict
Some things sound better in retrospective. For instance, if everyone who owns a Ramones t-shirt today had actually bought a Ramones record back in the day, they’d make Taylor Swift’s music sales seem like pocket change. I have to profess that perspective on countrypolitan music. As a typical, limited viewpoint teenager growing up in rural […]