(Editor’s note: Each issue of Good Country, our co-founder Ed Helms will share a handful of good country artists, albums, and songs direct from his own earphones in Ed’s Picks.
Tag: Pop
MIXTAPE: In the Same Room with Ethan Lipton & His Orchestra
Last year, my bandmates and I went into the woods to a studio that wasn’t a studio to record this collection of songs, Did You Do The Thing We Talked About? (Out February 16.) Some were songs from before the pandemic that meant a lot to us, and others were new songs I needed to write coming out of it.
Usually, when you go into the studio, you’re trying to maximize control, right? You put everyone in different rooms, isolate each sound, get a basic track, then have everyone redo their part until they’re happy with it. Then you add other instruments, effects, color.
We didn’t do that for this album. Coming out of the pandemic, we needed to share space again. We needed to be in the same room, to see each other’s fingers, to watch the crumbs clinging for dear life to each other’s shirts.
I wanted to make a record that sounded like the four of us communing.We all set up in one big room. Made baffles out of couches and blankets, like you do. We recorded in whole takes without overdubs or extra instruments. Our guitarist, Eben Levy, engineered the tracking. Our saxophonist, Vito Dieterle, and I did the cooking. Ian Riggs, our bass player, kept the tempos and the peace. The album sounds a lot like what our band sounds like on any given night after playing together for 20 years, and that’s just what we were after.
In creating this Mixtape of songs recorded “in the same room,” I was just trying to think of recordings by artists I revere that contain a sense of intimacy and life – I can’t say for sure how they were all recorded. More than anything, these songs make me feel like I’m listening to humans saying human things to other humans. That always makes me feel less alone in the world. – Ethan Lipton
“Walter Johnson” – Jonathan Richman
This is an a cappella recording, so how could it not be intimate? Still, I love this song about one of baseball’s all-time greats, and on this version, Richman sounds like he’s making it all up — lyrics, melody, tempo — as he goes. No one else could do a recording quite like this. Richman occupies a unique space in music, blending folk, garage rock, and proto-punk (?), but it’s his chops as goofball raconteur that I love most. This song also reminds me of my big brother, who introduced me to Richman and a lot of my favorite songwriters.
“Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis” – Tom Waits
Two pianos, Tom (acoustic) and George Duke (electric). And they create a whole universe together. To me it sounds like Tom is drunk and George is trying to hold him up. There’s so much air and grease and love in it. Blue Valentine isn’t my favorite Waits album — there are too many other exceptional ones — but I’m devoted to the epic narratives of this song and “Kentucky Avenue.” And “Christmas Card” has my favorite lyric ever: “I don’t have a husband / he don’t play the trombone.”
“I’ve Loved You All Over the World” – Willie Nelson
A nearly perfect album, and of course Daniel Lanois got Willie to record it in an old Mexican movie theater. It sounds like every musician on this track is dialed in to every other. I mean, if Bobbie Nelson’s clankity piano doesn’t break your heart, I don’t know what will. And Mickey Raphael’s harmonica is something I hear in my dreams. The drumming takes us into this whole other world. Lanois once said: “We had some nice risers set up for Willie and Emmylou [Harris] and the drummers. So we had a nice time setting it up like a club, and it sounds as though the fun that you’re hearing in the track was definitely in the building at the time.” Amen to that.
“Stardust” – Hoagy Carmichael
I don’t know how this recording was made, but the intimacy of it feels so honest and assured, you almost can’t believe there was a time when it didn’t exist. Nobody sings Carmichael’s songs like he does, and this version is full of his idiosyncratic phrasing. It’s hard not to see Hoagy sitting at the piano when you hear it. And the song itself, I mean ranking is ridiculous, but it has to be one of the best ever written.
Here are a couple of faves from our saxophonist, Vito Dieterle:
“Alone Together” – Lee Konitz, Brad Mehdlau, Charlie Haden
Lee Konitz was a huge inspiration to me. A true improviser. Brad Mehldau took the scene by storm with his virtuosity, but I always knew his roots were in the old masters, and this group showcases all facets of Brad’s talent in ways that few other albums do. And Charlie Haden brings everybody together in a grounding way like only he could.
This group was together only briefly but it captured the essence of playing jazz live and being in the moment with little ego, with true spontaneity and freedom within the confines of the traditional forms of the American songbook. These three were playing live all in the same room/club. The result was just magic. And pure sensitivity and support. I encourage everyone to explore the entire record.
“Fall” – Miles Davis Quintet
This composition by Wayne Shorter is a perfect example of what I consider a “musical trust fall.” A moment when you know everyone in that room has your back, so no matter what, you feel like you can’t fail. The tempo here is liquid, and the chances taken are mighty and bold. You can feel each musician digging into and supporting each other’s choices, and in some cases making those choices even more bold and beautiful in real time. This track changed my life. The first piece of music that truly made me aware of teamwork being the dream work, in a musical context.
Our bass player Ian Riggs wrote about two of his favorites, including another classic by Tom Waits: (The four of us come from different points of musically, but it’s rare for only one of us to like a particular song. In almost every case, one or more of the other three has big love for the same tune.)
“Semi Suite” – Tom Waits
From the quiet count-off to the rousing peak, this song is a wonderful instance of a group of people listening and breathing with each other in the same room. Bones Howe, the producer on this (The Heart of Saturday Night) and other early Waits albums, came from a jazz background and preferred to record musicians that way, without separation. I suppose a multi-tracked version of this song could have also been great, but I’m sure glad they gave this way a shot first.
“Switch Blade” – Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Max Roach
The stories about these “Money Jungle” sessions are legendary. They say it wasn’t the best day for Charles Mingus. Apparently he packed-up and stormed out more than once. Duke Ellington and Max Roach (an idol and longtime friend of his) talked him into staying each time. Mingus’ playing is wildly erratic but also beautiful and full of raw feeling. Thank goodness for wise friends who ask you to stay, especially on the bad days.
And here are a couple of picks from Eben Levy, our guitarist.
“Little Ditty” – Cyrus Chestnut
Pianist Cyrus Chestnut’s 1993 album Revelation, with Christopher J. Thomas on bass and Clarence Penn on drums, feels so alive because it’s so live. The liner notes state, “Recorded live to two-track analog at Clinton Studios, Studio B on June 7 & 8, 1993. Complete takes only, with no additional mixing or editing.” It’s all tightrope playing and tightrope engineering. Everyone involved nails the landing, like Kerri Strug. There’s zero filler on this album, but the track “Little Ditty” kills me every time. When Chesntut goes into the very highest keys after the break at about 1:40, the swing is so hard and so light at the same time. Philippe Petit!
“Tight Like That” – Asylum Street Spankers
The 2004 album Mercurial by the Asylum Street Spankers was recorded live in a 100-year-old church direct to a 2-track reel-to-reel tape deck. I love how much the room itself is a voice on the album. The drums are way in the back. The singer is right up front. Wait, holy shit! That harmonica is right in my face! And check out the old 20s barn burner “Tight Like That.” Great solos, and the Spankers mix in some of Jim Carroll Band’s “People Who Died” just to fuck with me.
Now that I see the tunes everyone picked, I can’t wait to listen to this mix-tape!!! There are pieces of all of us in each of these songs. – Ethan Lipton
Photo Credit: David Goddard
BGS 5+5: Glitterfox
Artist: Glitterfox
Hometown: Bakersfield, California (Solange); Charlotte, North Carolina (Andrea); Eugene, Oregon (Eric)
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): We definitely joke about our pretend side project punk band Litterbox and Clitterbox (not sure the genre of that one yet). “Solo,” nickname for Solange.
(Editor’s Note: Answers provided by Andrea Walker.)
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
When we were first getting started we were asked to play in a battle-of-the-bands called “Buskerfest” in Long Beach, California. To say we were long shots at winning the competition would be an understatement. At 8 p.m. we went out on stage for our 30-minute set in front of the biggest crowd we’d ever been in front of and all of a sudden the sound system started going haywire. My microphone stopped working. The guitar amp stopped working. It’s like everything that could go wrong with the sound system did. But at the same time, all of our friends were right there in front and just so proud and excited for us. We were up there together, just the two of us and we kept rolling with it – whatever went wrong, we just smiled and kept going. We played for the biggest crowd we’d ever been in front of that night and in the end were named the grand prize winners. That night changed the course of our lives, because it gave us the confidence and conviction that we needed to follow our hearts and quit our jobs and try to make a life for ourselves in music.
What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?
In 2013, I lost my mom to breast cancer. We were incredibly close and the loss was utterly devastating. I started writing a song called “Cold Steel of Night” a few weeks before she passed. The lyrics to the chorus literally came to me while I was broken down on the carpet crying uncontrollably and the verses I wrote a few months after she was gone. The whole experience of writing the song was pretty cathartic for me and helped me to process her loss, but it was also the hardest to write, because I was going through the saddest experience I’ve ever been through.
What has been the best advice you’ve received in your career so far?
Back in the summer of 2015 we decided that we were going to quit our jobs, give up our apartment, live in a van on the road, and do whatever it took to support ourselves 100% from playing music together. Before leaving Long Beach, we had lunch with a friend, Josh Fischel, who sat us down and spoke with us earnestly about the life we were embarking on. He said, “Always remember, this is a marathon – not a sprint.” That advice has proved helpful every step of the way, because it’s been a reminder to be patient, to make sustainable choices, and to try and stay grateful for wherever we are in our career. We’ve come a long way and still have a long way to go.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?
Solange and I live right next to an 85-acre park in Portland and we both walk our dog, Gilly, in the park every day. The park is full of massive trees and forested paths and is just a really peaceful place to explore. Writing songs is such an intensely cerebral activity for me that it’s really helpful to step away and take a walk through the park when I’m working. A lot of times when I take a break the ideas get a chance to gel and I’ll come back to the writing process with new inspiration about how to move forward.
How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?
Actually, never. Solange and I both write from our direct experience and point of view, so reading the lyrics of a song is almost like reading a page from one of our journals. We definitely use imagery and metaphors to tell the story and deliver emotional content, so a lot of times the true meaning of a line may be hidden in there. But all of the songs are written from a very personal, first person narrative perspective.
Photo Credit: Jaquelyn Cruz
WATCH: Melody Walker, Crys Matthews & Heather Mae, “Room”
Artist: Melody Walker, Crys Matthews, Heather Mae
Hometown: Melody – Bay Area, California; Crys – Richlands, North Carolina; Heather – Washington, D.C. Area
Song: “Room”
Release Date: September 15, 2023
Label: AntiFragile Music
In Their Words: “‘Room’ started as a conversation between me and my co-writer, Sarah Potenza, about the enduring underrepresentation of women and other marginalized folks on festival lineups, but it blossomed into so much more. The ways that women and woman-aligned people are expected to not take up space in the world: to not be fat, loud, queer, creative, assertive, and are definitely not to band together in solidarity to fight against our own oppression. Community and joy are the keys to liberation, and this song celebrates both. I am so glad my faves Heather and Crys were down to come bring it to life with me.” – Melody Walker
“The first time I heard the demo of ‘Room’ that Melody sent me, I had tears in my eyes by the time it got to, ‘Your win is mine, I’ll root for you.’ As a Black, Butch-of-center lesbian in the Americana and country genres, it rarely feels like there is room for women in general, and especially not for women like me. Getting to lift my voice alongside Melody to echo the powerful sentiment contained within this song was an absolute honor. I hope it empowers women and girls to advocate for one another on and off the stage.” – Crys Matthews
“This song is so much more than just an all-woman collab. ‘Room’ stands as a celebratory rallying cry against the enduring patriarchal norms that fuel female rivalry. There persists this notion that there’s only one seat at the table and, when women scan the music industry’s landscape, you can see why we’d be forced to think that. It’s 2023, and a woman has yet to secure a Grammy for Producer of the Year. Examine festival lineups and you’ll see a stark gender imbalance in the representation of male and female artists. This scarcity of ‘room’ forces us into a perceived competition, when in reality, our struggle should be directed at dismantling the system that pits us against one another.” – Heather Mae
Track Credits: Written by Melody Walker & Sarah Potenza
Vocals: Melody Walker; Heather Mae
Vocals and Guitar: Crys Matthews
Slide Guitar: Jacob Groopman
Bass: Michael Majett
Drums: Alex Bice
Keys: Jen Gunderman
Additional Guitars: Dan Knobler
Produced by Dan Knobler
Photo and Video Credit: Kaitlyn Raitz
Filmed live at Sound Emporium Studios, Nashville, TN
Artist of the Month: Mipso
If one were to chart North Carolina string band Mipso’s career over the past decade on a line graph, you’d see a steadily rising, ever-growing musical output and an ever-burgeoning audience for their brand of grounded-yet-dreamy folk pop. This journey through roots music has paralleled their peers – bands and artists like Watchhouse, Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle, and Della Mae – but they’ve outlasted more than a few similar ensembles that have fallen to the wayside over those years. Strikingly, even while enjoying near constant growth since they coalesced in 2012, the band has eschewed higher echelons of the Americana star-scape, choosing instead to scale their business and their art intentionally and deliberately.
Theirs is a sound and musical aesthetic ready for the “big time” – they’ve garnered hundreds of millions of streams – but Mipso (made up of Wood Robinson, Libby Rodenbough, Jacob Sharp, and Joseph Terrell) seem very happy with where they’ve landed since their consecutive popular and critically-acclaimed releases Coming Down the Mountain (2017), Edges Run (2018), and 2020’s Mipso. Each album saw the group gain traction, gain fans, and gain notoriety. Still, they aren’t defined by their ambitions; and their ambitions don’t seem to ever be conflated with conquering anything. Instead, this is a band building something.
Mipso’s sixth studio album, Book of Fools (due out August 25), certainly speaks to this phenomenon. The group feels perfectly at home with one another; they’re a chosen-family band – together, they’ve been through their college days, their road-dogging era, their “I think this might not just be a pipe dream…” successes, landing with a crystalline point of view that’s expansive, complicated, and rich, but doesn’t feel like it has anything to prove. There’s no desperation here – to claw back pre-COVID reality, to tour arenas, to brand and merchandise their way to an empire. As songwriter, guitarist, and singer Joseph Terrell puts it in a press release, “Book of Fools feels more relaxed, more confident, more us – like we’re wearing our favorite clothes and telling our favorite story and it feels exciting again.”
“The Numbers,” the second single from Book of Fools, winks to this measured, black-and-white view of their own jobs and careers – versus “real jobs,” let’s say – and the economic access that’s never been a hallmark of either roots music or the generation to which Mipso’s members belong. By prioritizing building art and community over bottom line, Mipso demonstrate a class consciousness that places themselves and their music in alignment with workers, laborers, and the every-person, making the message behind “The Numbers” palpably genuine.
“I looked around at this cruel place where we live,” Libby Rodenbough explained via press release, describing the U.S. and the stock market, “And I felt forlorn that the NASDAQ offers anybody any kind of comfort. How do I know things are bad? Because I feel it, and I see it.”
Who are “The Numbers” supposed to comfort? And what exactly are they supposed to indicate? Mipso utilize their post-modern string band trappings – in a similar fashion to Nickel Creek or Crooked Still – to explore these ideas in ways that the forebears of bluegrass and old-time did as well, in their own time and within the social and political issues of their own days.
Genre-wise, Mipso may have traveled a great distance from their bluegrassy early days as a string band quartet dripping with North Carolinian roots music traditions, but again their journey, in this regard especially, does not feel overtly aspirational. These are not sounds and production values adopted in order to sell out bigger rooms or fill bigger stages. The music of Book of Fools (and really any LP in their catalog since Dark Holler Pop) is as intentional as the messages within it, so one can feel and enjoy the old-timey touches that underpin these fully-realized sonic landscapes.
Mipso hasn’t lost touch. They haven’t lost sight of how real the stakes are outside of their own experiences – and within them. While they may not be building a business model reliant on “sheds” and arenas and radio hits and dynamic ticket pricing to be “successful,” you can feel the gratitude they have for their own daily lives and careers, even while they apply critical lenses through which to talk about the social and political issues they and their community face.
It’s exciting, encouraging, and energizing, to appreciate an album that isn’t merely a rung on a career ladder, but is meant to be its own constituent journey – both for Mipso and their listeners. Book of Fools speaks to a trajectory that is neither predictable nor totally quantifiable and isn’t merely about consumption or facilitating an ever-deepening appetite for consumption. That this could be said about almost any release by this prolific foursome speaks to exactly why we’re so pleased to name Mipso our August Artist of the Month.
Watch for our Artist of the Month feature to come later in August and for now, enjoy our Essential Mipso Playlist.
Photo Credit: Calli Westra
The Show on the Road – Sammy Rae & The Friends
This week, we talk to Brooklyn-based bandleader and jazz-roots singer extraordinaire Sammy Rae, who for the last four years has barnstormed the country with her kinetic octet, The Friends.
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Look, when you’re young and inspired, you drop out of college, you’re waiting tables and you’re thinking about starting a jazzy pop band — most people (as well as common sense and basic economics) tell you to start small. Get a few like-minded musicians in a room, work and work on your best songs, try packing out a few local shows, put some radio-ready singles on the internet, do a music video or two. See what happens. But Sammy Rae does her own thing — and has done pretty much the opposite.
Much like your host of this fine program, Z. Lupetin (who went against all advice and began Dustbowl Revival as an 8 to 10 piece genre-bending, New Orleans-string band mashup in 2008), Sammy has harnessed the open-minded, countercultural energy of Broadway musicals, the slinky funk-pop of the 1970s AM radio, and her own rapid-fire poetic style to create a massive sound that’s made with three singers, two saxophones, and a fearless, seasoned rhythm section. Plus, they are all friends who don’t just treat this as a temporary weekend gig. Too much too soon? Well, ask the packed houses up and down the Eastern Seaboard if they care about playing it safe.
Sammy Rae knows the road ahead for The Friends won’t be easy, but so far, the response from listeners has been undeniable. Starting at tiny supportive clubs in New York like Rockwood Music Hall and graduating to the biggest rooms in one of the hardest towns to impress, the group struck a nerve with their debut EP The Good Life in 2018 — with the standout jazzy experiment “Kick It To Me” gaining nearly ten million steams and counting. “Don’t record songs over four minutes long,” they keep telling us. “No one will pay attention!” Yet their most listened-to track clocks in at nearly seven minutes.
What’s the lesson here? For Sammy it’s finally learning to trust her instincts and be herself. Their upbeat EP Let’s Throw A Party dropped in 2021. Make sure you stick around to the end of the episode to hear how Sammy’s experience as a queer teenager in a Connecticut girls’ Catholic school informed their new track, “Jackie Onassis.”
LISTEN: Chris Robley, “Love Is a Four-Letter Word”
Artist: Chris Robley
Hometown: Lewiston, Maine
Song: “Love Is a Four-Letter Word”
Album: A Filament in the Wilderness of What Comes Next
Release Date: September 14, 2021
Label: Cutthroat Pop Records
In Their Words: “Bob Dylan wrote a song called ‘Love Is a Four-Letter Word.’ I didn’t know that until I was on stage announcing my new song and someone shouted, ‘I LOVE Dylan!’ Anyway, you can’t copyright titles and I didn’t borrow any other lyrics — so we’re not in Darius Rucker or Old Crow Medicine Show territory here. It’s all mine, Bob! I don’t know if there’s much to explain except the obvious: love can be a double-edged sword. We can build beautiful things inspired by love. Or we can build walls, reactionary political movements, or just act like selfish shitheads, all because of the same basic force. One word, different outcomes.” — Chris Robley
Photo credit: Lauren Breau
The Show on the Road – Madi Diaz
This week on The Show On The Road, we go on a deep dive with Madi Diaz, a sought-after Nashville-based songwriter who may have dropped among the most devastating and powerful break-up albums of the decade with her newest LP History Of A Feeling, a searing debut on Anti- Records.
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If you’ve made it to the doldrums of your mid-thirties, you’ve probably had your heart broken once or thrice. Diaz is no exception, except unlike the rest of us who may try and forget all about those lost love affairs, Diaz does the opposite. She chronicles the destruction of her last relationship with a craftsman’s precision, creating a series of unvarnished, seething, diaristic songs about an ongoing and fractured grieving process.
Diaz opens with the gut-puncher “Rage,” which says a lot even if it’s under two minutes long. Is it ok to not be ready to move on? To hate that you HAVE to move on? Soon after she’s “Crying In Public” and immediately after that she’s baring her teeth in the standout acoustic single “Resentment” — which was initially covered by moody pop hero Kesha. Does it get brighter from there? Not exactly, but it’s better that way.
It could be way off base, but maybe History Of A Feeling is our updated Jagged Little Pill without the pop artifice. Not that Diaz sings at all like Alanis Morissette, but a similar hope for heartbroken catharsis weaves its way throughout. Working with Big Thief collaborator and soulful producer Andrew Sarlo surely helped capture the intimate vibe, with certain songs barely needing more than a guitar and her direct, cutting voice. Without an army of synths or the armor of an orchestra behind her, or the security blanket of a band smoothing out the edges, the rawness of the emotion in each song sings out louder.
Diaz grew up in Lancaster, PA with a dad who had his own Frank Zappa cover band (she mentioned that she indeed had her own teen version) and then later dropped out of Berklee College of Music to hit the road with her own work. She has never been afraid to pick at the shrapnel in some of her deepest wounds to create songs that leave their own mark after you listen. She’s put out more atmospheric, pop-forward work — like We Threw Our Hearts In The Fire (2012) and Phantom (2017) — for a decade, but this quieter, more personal record feels like she’s finally found her sound.
Pulling no punches, Diaz includes a song like “Man In Me,” which references a long-time partner who transitioned to female. In a way, it was almost a double-loss, one that left her feeling confused and guilty for feeling angry at all. And yet — when we reach the end of History Of A Feeling, the feeling we get isn’t bitterness or rage any longer — it may be that most elusive of the grieving steps: acceptance. And maybe even forgiveness.
Photo credit: Lili Peper
WATCH: Claire Hawkins, “Small Doses”
Artist: Claire Hawkins
Hometown: New York City
Song: “Small Doses”
Release Date: June 18, 2021
In Their Words: “‘Small Doses’ was the last song I wrote before the pandemic, when I was still performing in youth hostels across Europe on the Foreign Voices Travelers Tour. It was a weird, wonderful time that was brought to an abrupt end in March 2020. It wasn’t until several months later that I revisited the song. I reached out to some artist friends, and suddenly we had this fantastic collaborative project to work on together during lockdown. The track was produced by Katie Buchanan, who produced my first-ever single when I was 17; the music video, which will be out later this month, was shot and directed by Florence Bradish, who created the music video for my song ‘Dublin.’ After so many months of staying apart, the opportunity to make art with my friends has made this release all the more special.” — Claire Hawkins
Photo credit: Ryan Cho
The Show On The Road – Lake Street Dive
This week, Z. Lupetin and The Show On The Road bring you a conversation with internationally loved soul-pop pioneers Lake Street Dive. Starting out as jazz nerds storming local folk festivals and tiny rock clubs around Boston, they’ve since become a well-oiled touring phenomenon, headlining Red Rocks, traveling across Europe, playing late night on Colbert and Kimmel, all while refusing to settle into an easily nameable genre. In 2021, after three years since their last release, they celebrated their much-awaited seventh studio album Obviously.
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Most notable bands are like sunsets: they flash their colors, they create a few memories and fade away. And most groups that attempt, somehow, to connect virtuoso players in the jazz, roots, and rock ‘n’ roll scenes never actually live in the same town. Each have a Beatles-esque knack for singing sublime harmony and writing effortlessly killer hooks (see fan favorites like “Go Down Smooth,” “Good Kisser,” or their new TikTok earworm, “Hypotheticals”) and also each have their own solo groups? Maybe they last a few fiery tours and finally disband. And yet Lake Street Dive have become a steady standard-bearer in the nascent Americana world — and only seem to be getting tighter and more creative 17 years in.
Founded in 2004 by luminous singer Rachael Price, upright bassist-songwriter Bridget Kearney, high-energy drummer Mike Calabrese, and the recently departed guitarist-trumpeter Mike “McDuck” Olsen at The New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, the group caught new wind and inspiration after adding kinetic keyboardist/singer-songwriter Akie Bermiss in 2017.
After months of planning, we finally caught up with Calabrese and Bermiss on Zoom to discuss how they are forging a fresh path forward after a tough year and a half away. Make sure you stick around to end of the episode to hear how they meticulously created their knockout a-cappella pop gem, “Sarah,” which closes out their new LP.
Photo credit: Shervin Lainez
