Tag: rock and roll

LISTEN: Leftover Salmon, “Boogie Grass Band”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Leftover Salmon
Hometown: Boulder, Colorado
Song: “Boogie Grass Band”
Album: Brand New Good Old Days
Release Date: May 7, 2021
Label: Compass Records

In Their Words: “This old Conway Twitty song was recommended for the band by our friend Ronnie McCoury years ago. It speaks to where we sit on the musical spectrum. We love country, bluegrass and rock music and like to do them all at the same time! This song acknowledges that while taking it taking it in a uniquely Salmon direction.” — Vince Herman, Leftover Salmon

Photo credit: John-Ryan Lockman

LISTEN: June Star, “I Don’t Wanna Know”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: June Star
Hometown: Baltimore, Maryland
Song: “I Don’t Wanna Know”
Album: How We See It Now
Release Date: April 16, 2021
Label: WhistlePig Records

In Their Words: “Human beings are messy emotional creatures. Sometimes when we struggle to communicate in relationships it’s because there’s the voice we speak with and that voice in our head. ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’ bounces between a professed love to another person and a confessed loneliness on the inside.” — Andrew Grimm, June Star

Photo credit: Shane Gardner

LISTEN: The Shootouts, “Saturday Night Town”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: The Shootouts
Hometown: Northeast Ohio
Song: “Saturday Night Town”
Album: Bullseye
Release Date: April 30, 2021
Label: Soundly Music

In Their Words: “It was inspired by a book I read about a historic small town in Ohio. Throughout the book there were stories of fun-loving locals who would cut loose at the end of a long week, referring to it as a ‘Saturday Night Town.’ I instantly knew that was meant to be a song title. We all come from, or know someone who comes from, a small town like this. Even if they end up leaving, it’s hard to get that out of your blood. I think we can all relate to a much-needed break at the end of a long week, no matter what town you call home.

“That same book inspired another track called ‘Rattlesnake Whiskey,’ which is also on Bullseye. Both of those songs were written in 2015, before The Shootouts began. They were some of the first original songs we performed live, and they quickly became fan favorites. They didn’t quite fit with the batch of tunes that became our debut album, Quick Draw, but they definitely felt like a perfect fit for Bullseye. Luckily, Chuck [Mead, producer] thought so too. I think we got the definitive versions, and I’m glad we finally got to record them both.

“Fun fact: We end almost every show with ‘Saturday Night Town’ and have almost since the inception of the band. It really allows the band to stretch out a bit and trade some tasty licks.” — Ryan Humbert, The Shootouts

Photo credit: Jamie Escola

LISTEN: Hey, King!, “Get Up”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Hey, King!
Hometown: Ontario, Canada and Tucson, Arizona
Song: “Get Up”
Album: Hey, King!
Release Date: April 2, 2021
Label: ANTI-

In Their Words: “I feel like every serious, emotionally raw album can use a breath of lightness. When Taylor dared me to write a song from our dogs’ perspective I thought it would be a fun experiment, but we fell in love with the track and are so happy it made it on the record!” — Natalie London, Hey, King!

Photo credit: Richard Fournier

LISTEN: The Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band, “I’ll Pick You Up”

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Artist: The Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band
Hometown: Nashville, Indiana
Song: “I’ll Pick You Up”
Album: Dance Songs for Hard Times
Release Date: April 9, 2021
Label: Thirty Tigers

In Their Words: “Well, this song goes out to anyone that drives or has ever driven a POS car. Of all of the songs on the record, this one probably has the most ‘rural’ subject matter, but it’s the most complicated in its vocal layers, and in my mind I wanted to layer it like a Stax records song from the ’60s. It starts with my thumb on the bass, and I wanted my slide guitar and my harmonica to come in together like a horn section. Breezy and Max worked really hard to get the strange vocal layering I came up with to really work in the choruses. And the beat that Max plays is straight ’60s R&B.” — Rev. Peyton

Photo credit: Tyler Zoller

LISTEN: Todd Snider, “Turn Me Loose (I’ll Never Be the Same)”

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Artist: Todd Snider
Hometown: East Nashville, Tennessee
Single: “Turn Me Loose (I’ll Never Be the Same)”
Album: First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder
Release Date: April 23, 2021
Label: Aimless Records / Thirty Tigers

In Their Words: “if you listen to jerry jeff walker’s a man must carry on record, right before he plays ‘sea cruise,’ he yells to his band ‘turn me loose, i’ll never be the same.’ and as soon as i heard it i knew the same was true of myself. i am still totally certain of it. for better or worse, bragging or complaining, it is what is. but what if it isn’t what it is? at first this was going to be for a girl in chattanooga but she was too young for me. so i changed it, it was the right thing to do. trust me, I’m a reverend. i started over by calling jerry jeff and asking him why he yelled that. he said it was something rodeo cowboys yelled when they were ready. when I think a song is ready it’s because it feels like it has a rock I can put my foot on when I sing. so i yelled put your foot on the rock, asked the cosmos to hook me up, and the next thing you know ol’ jed’s a millionaire.” — Todd Snider

Photo Credit: Stacie Huckeba

The Show on the Road – Low Cut Connie

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, we call in to Philadelphia for a conversation with the highly-theatrical pianist and tireless, much-adored performer Adam Weiner, who for the last decade has gained a cult following around the world fronting his soulful bizarro-rock outfit, Low Cut Connie.


LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • SPOTIFY • STITCHER
Some artists have retreated into obscurity during the pandemic shut-down, some have turned lemons into personalized, livestream lemonade. But Adam Weiner took it to another level when he launched his often twice-weekly vaudevillian interactive web show “Tough Cookies” in March. Charging around his small home stage like a schvitzing piano preacher, often losing clothing along the way, Adam has learned nearly six hundred covers in the last eight months alone — from Barry Manilow to Cardi B’s “WAP” to Macho Man to an entire Little Richard set, which he performed to honor his hero after his passing. He then interviews anyone from Beyonce’s dad to members of Sly and the Family Stone. In short, it’s a rollercoaster every week — one that you kind of have to watch to believe.

Alongside his 2020 LP Private Lives, Low Cut Connie’s heartfelt and sweat-dripping sets have gained Weiner some famous supporters: Elton John for one, fellow New Jersey-born hero Bruce Springsteen for another. Up-and-coming playlist presenter Barack Obama unexpectedly placed Low Cut Connie’s defiant cabaret rocker, “Boozophilia,” on his must-listen list. Indeed, this taping, which often showed Adam jumping from his piano to his guitar to play favorites (like the Kinks-esque, “Revolution Rock N Roll”) initially had to be delayed so he could play an inauguration event for new president and Philly-piano lover Joe Biden.

While Weiner is basking in some much-earned attention, it hasn’t always been an easy road. He readily admits to scraping by on side jobs into his mid-thirties, for years playing around dim New York City piano bars as his sequined alter-ego, Ladyfingers. If Low Cut Connie has learned anything during this strange era, it’s that people desperately still need live music. In all its spur-of-the-moment, sweaty glory. One of the more moving stories he tells is seeing groups of nurses in beleaguered hospitals taking a much needed break to watch his livestreams. Much like his role model and patron Elton John, Low Cut Connie’s songs can leap from intimate folk-rock to greasy soul to bombastic musical theater and back with ease and his relentless spontaneity keeps fans waiting for that he will do next.

Photo credit: Skylar Watkins

WATCH: Ariel Posen, “Now I See”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Ariel Posen
Hometown: Winnipeg, Manitoba
Song: “Now I See”
Album: Headway
Release Date: March 5, 2021

In Their Words: “This song was inspired by my own personal growth over time but more specifically by a friend that had once told me that ‘now they could see’ that everything was left behind them. They were struggling with some relationships and some severe personal issues and it took time, but they finally found acceptance in themselves and were able to move past it. Just because they weren’t the type of person that they thought they would be, and just because someone isn’t perfect, doesn’t mean that they don’t belong. Sometimes the smallest realizations and changes lead to gigantic breakthroughs and in the theme of the album, make significant ‘Headway.'” — Ariel Posen

Photo credit: Lynette Giesbrecht

LISTEN: Lauren Spring, “I Remember You”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Lauren Spring
Hometown: Port St. Joe, Florida
Song: “I Remember You”
Album: I Remember You EP
Release Date: February 26, 2021

In Their Words: “‘I Remember You’ is about choosing to remember someone in a kinder light than what the relationship may have been in reality. If you chose pain, you feel pain when you remember it. If you choose love, then you’re flooded with love and nostalgia. I’ve had plenty of opportunities to learn that lesson and chose the more immature road for longer than I’d like to admit but I’m choosing love more and more and feel it coming back to me all the time now. I love the message of this song and am so glad to put it out in to the universe. It felt weird to celebrate the nostalgia of a past relationship and not honor the glorious human I love who puts up with my shit today. This line was for him: ‘Cracks in the story we learned to fill with something real.’ He’s my real. Here’s to ‘real’!

“My co-writer Scott (Feldman, Darkbloom Productions) wrote a lyric so ridiculously dope that it took me two months and 8.5 billion rewrites to feel like I had written the rest of the song anywhere close to the bar he set. (Jackass) ‘Ain’t nostalgia a funny thing, it paints a picture so carelessly. Prettier than it’s ‘sposed to be, that’s how I remember you.’ It became the chorus and I love it. That TikTok video of the guy skateboarding to ‘Dreams’ was everywhere when we were writing ‘I Remember You’ and when I listen back I definitely hear a Fleetwood Mac influence in there. Probably more Christine than Stevie, but still there. Crazy what you don’t even know what you’re absorbing sometimes!” — Lauren Spring

Photo credit: Shelli McMillan

The Show on the Road – Shovels & Rope

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, The Show On The Road celebrates the newest record by Charleston’s hellion harmonizers, Shovels & Rope, with a new conversation with the married duo of Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst.


LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • SPOTIFY • STITCHER

You’d be hard-pressed to find two harder working singer-songwriters than this prolific duo, even before they got together to record their honey-voiced self-titled debut over a decade ago. Thinking it was just a sonic souvenir before they split off again to pursue their barnstorming bar-band solo careers, their human hearts and some encouraging listeners had other plans, convincing them to keep creating as a team. They’ve been off to the races ever since — making five acclaimed records of originals beginning with O’ Be Joyful and following with three gritty covers albums with collaborators like Lucius, Shakey Graves, Brandi Carlile, The War & Treaty, and more.

Shovels & Rope’s newest cover project, Busted Jukebox Volume 3, which dropped on February 5 via Dualtone Records, is a new experiment. You could say it’s an angsty rock record for kids or maybe it’s an homage to the yearning, defiant, ever-hopeful teenager in all of us. With indie-darlings like Sharon Van Etten sitting in on standouts like the Beach Boys’ “In My Room” and Deer Tick joining a rollicking version of the Janis Joplin favorite “Cry Baby,” like a good Pixar animated flick, this collection has just as much to offer Mom and Dad as it does for the kiddos.

If you’ve seen Shovels & Rope live, you’ll notice that Trent and Hearst often face each other, not the audience; their eyes never seem to leave each other. Almost all their songs, like the award-winning favorite “Birmingham,” include spot-on harmony and intensely-focused unison singing. Somehow they create a blisteringly big sound despite always remaining a duo. Even on the biggest stages, from Red Rocks to their own acclaimed festival High Water Fest (set in their longtime South Carolina home base), they stick to their simple but potent formula. Switching back and forth between jangly and crunchy guitars, humming keyboards and pounding piano, hopping from sweat-strewn stripped-down drum kits to aching accordions, their joyous garage-rock Americana keeps gaining them new fans worldwide.

If you’re stuck at home and have kids running rowdily through your house like Shovels & Rope do, (this taping had to be rescheduled three times), maybe try turning on Busted Jukebox Volume 3 nice and loud and see what little ones think. Or just put them to bed and rock out yourself!

Stick around to the end of the episode to hear Shovels & Rope present the sweet campfire jam “My Little Buckaroo” featuring M. Ward.

Photo credit: Mike Crackerfarm