It’s well known that the Armadillo World Headquarters was at ground-zero for the Austin music scene in the early 70’s. Gary P. Nunn once noted, “It’s been said that our music was the catalyst that brought the shit-kickers and the hippies together at the Armadillo.” Presumably one of those hippies was Hank Alrich, a California […]
Monday Morning Video – Dallas House Show Preview
There’s something about a Sunday afternoon in a Dallas backyard — relaxed, sunny, the kind of day that makes you remember why you love live music in the first place. We’ve been lucky enough to host some incredible artists at the Sunday Social over the years, and if we’re being honest, we’ve gotten a little […]
Andy Hedges – The Westerner
It used to be called country & western. Then two or three decades ago, for reasons I’m sure the ethnographers still debate, it just became country music. Western just sort of slipped out of the vernacular, except for maybe a strip of North America from around Calgary to somewhere near El Paso. Fortunately, there’s still […]
SXSW 2026: The Sounds, Part 3
NAKIA Austin’s Nakia was a favorite SXSW discovery from nearly 20 years ago. I caught two sets towards the close of SXSW – a fitting way to round out the week. The Wednesday afternoon set at C-Boys, in particular, brought me right back to that first encounter — the voice, the energy, the songs, all […]
SXSW 2026: The Sounds, Part 1
JON DEE GRAHAM AND WILLIAM HARRIES GRAHAM News broke last Friday night that Jon Dee Graham had passed away that morning. What was already a SXSW performance highlight suddenly felt like something more. Jon Dee had battled serious health issues for years, making his reflection on the experience and performance of “I Can See Clearly […]
Sam Lewis – Everything’s Fine
Is everything OK? Everything’s fine. Uh-oh. Your interpretive skills are just about to be put to the test. That kind of verbal misdirection became an anchor point for Nashville’s Sam Lewis’ 7th studio album, Everything’s Fine. It can be equally true and false at the same time, like when you’re having a bad day but […]
The Montvales on Rehearsal Space Interlopers and How They Financed Their 2nd Album
Cincinnati-based duo the Montvales talk about touring survival mechanisms, investing in one’s relationship with creativity, and the time that they were billed as a French-Appalachian folk group.
Paula Boggs Band – Sumatra
I suppose it’s only natural that a musician from Seattle would use a region’s coffee as a metaphor for the style of one of their albums. Sumatran coffee is generally considered to be bold and full-bodied, with notes of earthiness, spice and chocolate. That’s actually not too bad of a one-line review for Paula Boggs […]
Monday Morning Video – John Moreland
Few artists mine the depths of emotion like John Moreland. “Break My Heart Sweetly”, from 2013’s In the Throes, is a prime example—raw and heartbreaking, capturing that brutal moment when you know exactly where a relationship is headed but can’t bear to reach the destination. Stark, beautiful, and deeply moving, it’s Moreland at his most […]
Monday Morning Video – TopHouse
Some shows remind you why you fell in love with live music in the first place. TopHouse delivered one of those last week in Boston. The Montana-bred group is rooted in bluegrass—intricate instrumentation, rich harmonies—but their songs are something else entirely: brilliantly crafted pop songs that hit like a gut punch. Live, those punches land […]