Tag: premiere

LISTEN: The Honeygoats, “Hummingbird”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: The Honeygoats
Hometown: Plymouth, Wisconsin
Song: “Hummingbird”
Album: Four Years in Three Days
Release Date: October 16, 2020

In Their Words: “’Hummingbird’ was written out of a love for songs that get people dancing and singing along to them the first time they hear them, which makes it great opening track for our album. Upbeat, straight to the chorus, no messing around. It almost sounds innocent enough at first listen, but there’s some innuendo in its theme that gives it some edge when you take a closer listen. The idea was sparked simply by watching some hummingbirds as they buzzed around a feeder one morning, and it turned into a song about a certain type of relationship between two people. Old blues musicians mastered the art of using metaphors to sing about edgy themes in their songs, and that was something that we tried to capture with this.” — Jamie Odekirk, The Honeygoats

Photo credit: Flyover Vigilante

LISTEN: Peter Mulvey with SistaStrings, “What Else Was It”

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Artist: Peter Mulvey with SistaStrings
Hometown: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Song: “What Else Was It”
Album: Live at the Cafe Carpe
Release Date: Oct. 9, 2020
Label: Righteous Babe Records

In Their Words: “‘What Else Was It?’ was a gift, a trance, a song that came straight through me in a time of need. I’ve been alternating two different third verses for years now, and we finally got the other one on record. This might be the best we’ve ever played this song, so I guess we won. What else was it we were looking for, anyway?” — Peter Mulvey

Yellow Couch Management · What Else Was It?

Photo credit: Matt Dayak

WATCH: Josh Shilling, “(Go to Hell) 2020”

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Artist: Josh Shilling
Hometown: Martinsville, Virginia
Song: “(Go to Hell) 2020”
Release Date: October 9, 2020
Label: Josh Shilling Music

In Their Words: “This song wrote itself. It fell out one morning while waiting for a Skype writing session to start with another songwriter. It felt like a personal and heavy conversation with an old confidant. I was positive this would impact people. Each verse is something I’ve faced personally since spring regarding the pandemic: societal unrest, facing loss and grief, and relationship tension throughout 2020. The chorus provides hope and belief that life will get better and ‘someday soon we’ll be free and this will be in the rear view.’ The song is where I am; it’s where I think we all are right now. No tricks, no big production, this was a live take, three chords and the truth … the truth for everyone, I think.” — Josh Shilling

Photo credit: Sebastian Smith

LISTEN: Bahamas, “Half Your Love”

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Artist: Bahamas
Hometown: Living in Halifax, Nova Scotia; from Barrie, Ontario
Song: “Half Your Love”
Album: Sad Hunk
Release Date: October 9, 2020
Label: Brushfire Records

In Their Words: “It’s a love song. Doesn’t the world need another one of those? My first co-write with the massively cool Pat MacLaughlin. Every line in this one feels well-earned and true and like it’s been there for 1000 years. Hope it’s half as good as I think it is.” — Afie Jurvanen

Photo credit: Dave Gillespie

LISTEN: Jeremy Garrett, “The World Keeps Turning Around”

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Artist: Jeremy Garrett
Hometown: Loveland, Colorado
Song: “The World Keeps Turning Around”
Release Date: October 9, 2020
Label: Organic Records

In Their Words: “These days it just seems like we are going around in circles with many of the conversations we are having — especially online. Someone has a good idea for good change, and then the barrage of disagreements on how to achieve that fires up. When we look at the big picture though, are we all just beating our heads against a brick wall, so to speak? Never realizing how powerful all of us truly loving one another could be? Maybe that message is too simple and naive, but perhaps we need to break it all down, go back to the basics and realize that we are one country, one world. We can’t ever escape that, and when we learn from each other, we would never want to. So the goal of this song for us was to simply ask that question: are we going to keep heading down a path of division over and over and over again? Or can we ask ourselves what we can do to break this cycle?” — Jeremy Garrett

Photo credit: J.Mimna Photography

WATCH: Suzi Ragsdale, “The Ending”

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Artist: Suzi Ragsdale
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “The Ending”
Album: Ghost Town
Release Date: October 9, 2020
Label: CabaRay Records

In Their Words: “Can anyone accurately predict the future? Of course not. Not even the chief meteorologists get it right. With the exception of fictional books and films when you might, like my ex-husband in this song, skip to the last chapter to get answers, we’re all kinda just wingin’ it. More and more I’m becoming a fan of focusing on the present moment unfolding instead of pinning anything on the final result. ‘The Ending’ is a four-minute musing on how my life might have been different had I known the outcomes of life’s loves, dramas and situations … and how ultimately, I’m happier not knowing and having the world of possibilities remain open to me and to everyone else.” — Suzi Ragsdale

Photo credit: Joshua Black Wilkins

LISTEN: Woodlock, “Normal”

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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: Bonnie Whitmore, “Time to Shoot”

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Artist: Bonnie Whitmore
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Song: “Time to Shoot”
Album: Last Will and Testament
Release Date: October 2, 2020

In Their Words: “When I wrote ‘Time to Shoot,’ it was after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. It was the largest death count of any mass shooting and was in the summer of 2016. Remember 2016? That year of a thousand losses that started with David Bowie, Prince, Leonard Cohen on Election Day, and Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) right at the end? I was reflecting back on the earliest mass shootings that I could recall and I remembered it was Columbine in 1999. It struck me that it has been 20 years, and nothing has changed. Twenty years of making mass shootings normalized. The potential of becoming someone’s target practice is no longer how, but which large gathering.

“I was in high school when Columbine happened and I remember the immediate fear and repression that came afterwards, and for more than half of my life I’ve watched systemic violence being tolerated by my country and its people. I can see a pattern of unaddressed mental health issues and the ease of accessibility to these military-style weapons, and also the toxic masculinity and fear and shame that’s at its core, but each time it happens nothing changes. Nothing but more fear and ‘thoughts and prayers.’ I cannot accept that this is the only way. I know this is not an easy topic to discuss, but it is worth discussing over and over because we have to find a solution. It’s time we collectively shed some light in those dark places and do the work to get through this, because if the desire is to build towards a better future, then there is a lot that’s got to change for the better.” — Bonnie Whitmore

Photo credit: Eryn Brooke; Video: Ryan Doty

LISTEN: Selena Rosanbalm, “Can You Really Be Gone”

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Artist: Selena Rosanbalm
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Song: “Can You Really Be Gone”
Album: Selena Rosanbalm
Release Date: October 9, 2020
Label: The Balm Records

In Their Words: “My ex-boyfriend took his own life four and a half years ago, but I still see him all over the place. I thought I saw him driving a van the other day, thought I saw him in a coffee shop. But I was especially struck when I saw a photograph of his niece some months ago; I could see his face so clearly in hers. ‘Can You Really Be Gone’ is about the suspension of reality people often experience after losing a loved one, when the logical mind knows the person is gone, but the emotional mind doesn’t want to give in to that fact.” — Selena Rosanbalm

Photo credit: Daniel Cavazos

WATCH: Justin Wade Tam, “Paradise”

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Artist: Justin Wade Tam
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee, via San Diego, California
Song: “Paradise”
Release Date: July 24, 2020
Label: Soundly Music

In Their Words: “I wrote this song with my friend Daniel Ellsworth about the subjectivity of paradise. We often get caught up in staring at idealized photographs on social media and forget that there can be beauty in the everyday, no matter where we are. Maybe paradise is more a state of mind than an actual physical location. So when Luke Harvey (Moss Flower Pictures) and I set out to make the music video, we wanted to convey that people all over the world have their own versions of paradise, and that is lovely: so many people and so many paradises. To help with the concept, friends from Chile, France, Iran, and Russia translated the lyrics into their respective languages. I’ve met each of these friends through music and touring over the years, and it’s wonderful to have their friendship reflected in this project. Luke set the translated subtitles and music to old film vignettes, capturing and challenging our perceptions of paradise.” — Justin Wade Tam

Photo credit: Annelise Loughead