Tag: alt

WATCH: Black Violin, “Impossible Is Possible”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Black Violin
Hometown: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Song: “Impossible Is Possible”
Album: Take the Stairs

In Their Words: “This video captures the innocence and raw potential that lives inside of our youth. If molded with love and understanding, that young soul can foster hope and achieve the impossible. The little black boy is everyone of us. Running towards an uncertain future, inspired by those who love him most. He ultimately wins the race that no one thought was possible.” — Kev Marcus and Wil Baptiste, Black Violin

Photo credit: Mark Clennon

LISTEN: Cf Watkins, “White Nights”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Cf Watkins
Hometown: Westfield, North Carolina (Currently in Nashville, Tennessee)
Song: “White Nights”
Album: Babygirl
Release Date: October 16, 2020
Label: Whatever’s Clever Records

In Their Words: “‘White Nights’ is based off of one of my favorite Dostoevsky short stories. On this album, I was trying to explore shifting the way I write music and, in a sense, share myself. I felt a lot of my music was coming from a place of my own longing, unrequited love, and heartbreak. Though I think all of those topics are worthy of our time and attention, I felt, as a woman especially, it was important for me to explore and show my strength as well. I started by simply shifting the focus from myself, and writing songs about something outside of myself. This was one of the first songs to come from that effort. I am singing from the male perspective, who has unrequitedly fallen in love with the female character. There was something very powerful for me to recontextualize romantic longing — to sing the male voice, and to have it honoring the power and magic of a woman.” — Cf Watkins

Photo credit: Griffin Hart Davis

LISTEN: Woodlock, “Normal”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Woodlock
Hometown: Melbourne, Australia
Song: “Normal”
Album: Collateral EP
Release Date: October 9, 2020
Label: Nettwerk Records

In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Normal’ a few years ago in Adelaide after a friend came to a show, and we were chatting about relationships. I wasn’t married at the time, but I was thinking about taking the next step. My friend opened my eyes on how marriage, after all the glamour, needs serious work, and how he still loved his partner, but it expressed itself differently over the years. I loved the idea of describing a deep love for someone without saying the word ‘love.'” — Eze Walters, Woodlock

Photo credit: Kane Hibbered

WATCH: The Sweeplings, “Deep & Wild”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: The Sweeplings (Cami Bradley and Whitney Dean)
Hometown: Spokane, Washington (Cami) and Huntsville, Alabama (Whitney)
Song: “Deep & Wild”
Album: Losing Ground, Vol. 2
Release Date: September 18, 2020
Label: Nettwerk

In Their Words: “‘Deep & Wild’ is a lighthearted song about entering into the unknown with a willing attitude and a free spirit. We sat down to write this song with a painted picture of each scene in our minds. It shaped itself as we wrote, seamlessly creating a tune about the longing to explore the unknown with someone you love with no other purpose other than to find what’s most freeing. This song in particular fits itself into our EP series, Losing Ground, Vol 1 & 2, as a happy spot of contrast to the cinematic drama of the most of the collection.

“It took us a long time to get to these EPs. We worked tirelessly relationally and musically to make it happen. Stopping and starting, pushing and pulling. Because of that, we lost some ground in our process, but it ultimately brought us to something more magical. These two EPs truly have the grit of our story behind each song. The songs range in sentiment and tone, but all share the same heart. We wanted to create something special with as minimal sonic distractions as possible. We just let the performances and songs speak for themselves, simple and even bare at times. In that, we found our true identity as artists and songwriters.” — Cami Bradley and Whitney Dean, The Sweeplings

Photo credit: Glass Jar Photography

BGS 5+5: Elizabeth Cook

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Elizabeth Cook
Hometown: Wildwood, Florida
Latest album: Aftermath
Personal nicknames: Shug

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

Forgetting that I’m on stage and then coming to and being like, “Oh my god, I’m on stage!” That, and one night in Phoenix, this group of young girls stood at the front of the stage and sang along to every one of my songs.

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

I didn’t really know that I wanted to be. I was a kid singer — so, I came to it from a funny angle. I fought it for years and tried to do other things, but never found a really gratifying way to fit into the world. I got asked to open for Todd Snider once in Wilmington, North Carolina, at this outdoor amphitheater. He threw a one-man acoustic folk show party riot throwdown. I’d never seen anything like it and really haven’t since. But I thought if this is on the table — I will try it.

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?

All of it. I’m always collecting details that ping me in some way… and it can be something that I see, read, taste, touch or hear.

What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?

I wrote a song about my mama’s funeral. And of course it’s not something you want to write about, because it’s not something you want to even happen in the first place. But it did. And I was really dreading this event, and the responsibility I felt in the throes of my grieving. I was resenting the whole process. But then, it turned out to be a really beautiful day and it was helpful and healing. And I owed it to the world, almost a right to the wrong for my attitude towards it in the beginning. The song is called “Mama’s Funeral” and it’s on Welder.

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

I have a “hard hat” bag! I can get really fussy and anxious right before I go on and dig neurotically for things I think I need. So I made this little bag… it has all the comforts from Advil to throat sprays and drops, a neck and hand massager, extra guitar picks, my lucky rock and some dice.

Photo credit: Electropogram

LISTEN: Jordan Lehning, “The Quarry Song”

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Artist: Jordan Lehning
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “The Quarry Song”
Album: Little Idols
Release Date: August 7, 2020

In Their Words: “Once I realized ‘The Quarry Song’ would [not] act [as just] a standalone song about a breakup, but as a chapter to a bigger story, I was able to zoom out and understand more about the potential for the rest of the record. Treating the record as a film with scenes and arcs was incredibly informative to the pacing and sequence of the final product. In particular, there are interludes between the songs. ‘The Quarry Song’ is preceded by ‘Hey Boy,’ where the two main characters are lying in their own beds at their respective homes pining over one another telepathically. But after that song, during the interlude, we can hear her emotions shift. A longer interlude than exists in the rest of the record occurs. She pushes and pulls her emotions apart, and after some time has passed she reluctantly agrees to meet our hero one last time in ‘The Quarry Song.’” — Jordan Lehning

Photo credit: Laura E. Partain

The String – Chatham County Line

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

With an old-school look and feel, Raleigh, North Carolina’s Chatham County Line started at the dawn of the new millennium in a surge of passion for bluegrass music. Now at 20 years old, they’ve made only one very recent personnel change and refreshed their concept as a post-modern string band with drums.


LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS

Their new album, Strange Fascination, displays far-reaching vision and a warm, cohesive sound, riding on the unique songwriting voice of Dave Wilson. Wilson and co-founding multi-instrumentalist John Teer join host Craig Havighurst for a retrospective conversation, featuring music from their past and present.

LISTEN: The Texas Gentlemen, “Skyway Streetcar”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: The Texas Gentlemen
Hometown: Dallas, Texas
Song: “Skyway Streetcar”
Album: Floor It!!!
Release Date: July 17, 2020
Label: New West Records

In Their Words: “‘Skyway Streetcar’ is the first song Dan Creamer and I ever wrote together. It is still one of my favorites to play. It’s really the best example of our writing and lyrical trade-off style and vibe. Lyrically, we kinda looked at it as a way to live life to the fullest and get around doin’ so. Basically, a spacecraft of sorts you can use to get the best out of life.

“We had all just moved into a big house south of Dallas on Mona Lane. Later referred to often as ‘Mona.’ We were in the middle of cultivating Beatles songs and various other favorite covers to fill in for Daniel’s brother, who had to bail on a weekly residency at the Sundown at Granada. In the midst of this, we unknowingly started a band that was bound to be more than just a cover band. The musical chemistry that was building between Dan and I flowed into our own song ideas. With ‘Skyway Streetcar,’ I had the music all recorded in demo form, but one night we were laughing about what a casanova one of our pals and bandmates was at the time. That’s what inspired the line, ‘I’ve got a friend, goes from town to town, knocking ‘em up setting ‘em down, he used to really get around.’ The lyrics just grew from there.

“We had a studio in Mona and that is where the song was originally recorded just directly after writing it. For the next several years we continued to play it live. We had used that song as a jumping-off point to feel out any given studio. So this song technically was recorded about five times as we recorded in different studios before we ever took it to Echo Lab and did the final version with Matt Pence.” — Nik Lee of The Texas Gentlemen

Photo credit: Barbara FG

WATCH: Samantha Crain, “Garden Dove”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Samantha Crain
Hometown: Shawnee, Oklahoma
Song: “Garden Dove”
Album: A Small Death
Release Date: July 17, 2020
Label: Ramseur Records/Thirty Tigers and Real Kind Records/Communion

In Their Words: “With the idea in mind of being better for yourself and learning to love yourself, I started thinking about how much easier it was to connect with other people when you’re actually reveling in and enjoying your own company as well. It reminded me of a cult of friendship, sort of building this great web and community around myself. So, of course, I felt like I wanted to make a spooky Oklahoma backroads cult video for the song. I was inspired by Robert Weine and Hitchcock and wanted to make it feel real and high quality but also homemade in a way. I directed the video and did the costumes, my friend Blake Studdard did the camerawork and editing, my friends Nia and Izze (who were also in my ‘An Echo’ video) and Adam acted as my growing cult family. We filmed it on an extremely cold winter night on a dead-end street in Norman, Oklahoma.” — Samantha Crain

Photo credit: Dylan Johnson

Artist of the Month: Nathaniel Rateliff

Posted on by Editor

One of the most powerful artists in roots music, Nathaniel Rateliff has a solo album coming out in just a couple weeks, and as a preview, he’s released a music video for the title track. The evocative video mirrors a song with a lot of weight and meaning behind it, a trademark of Rateliff’s style. A simple song — voice accompanied by galloping guitar and a swirl of ambient textures — “And It’s Still Alright” has a beckoning quality that is matched with a grainy film aesthetic, shot in black and white with a splash of washed-out color.

In 2019, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats scored a platinum single with “S.O.B.” and a gold record for their self-titled album. Now the pieces are in place for the next installment of Rateliff’s music as And It’s Still Alright is slated for a Valentine’s Day release. Tour dates are filling in, including a stop at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, as well as multiple shows in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, and Minneapolis. His European tour kicks off in April.

To hold over the anticipation for the new record and our upcoming Artist of the Month coverage, enjoy our BGS Essentials playlist.

Photo credit: Rett Rogers