Tag: Song Premiere

LISTEN: Roses and Cigarettes, “California Going Home”

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Artist: Roses and Cigarettes
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Song: “California Going Home”
Album: Echoes and Silence
Release Date: February 22, 2019

In Their Words: “‘California Going Home’ was written about a relationship that didn’t work out but the love there remains. Not everyone will stay forever and this song is about appreciating that person for who they are and where they are, even if it means your heart is broken in the process.” — Jenny Pagliaro

“This was the last song we wrote for the album. We were over at Jenny’s house, and we were talking about needing one more rockin’ song for the album. I sat on her couch and summoned Janis Joplin to help us out. The chords literally poured out from my hands. Jenny and I looked at each other and she immediately grabbed her phone, a pen, and we recorded the first draft. The song came together fairly quickly. Jenny created this beautiful scenery and imagery with her lyrics and I just love the story she tells in this song. We’ve all been there, and have felt those feelings before.

“We took a lot of inspiration from The Allman Brothers, John Mayer, and Susan Tedeschi for ‘California Going Home.’ After recording our debut album in 2015, I knew I wanted Album 2 to have a song with harmonizing guitar parts. I really had fun playing my Fender Telecaster on this track! Jenny and I both wanted a jam song and a sing-along on this album, and we are so thrilled with how this song turned out! Our producer and bassist, Michael Lyons, really dug deep to create a beautiful production on this song that truly grasps that down-home, sparkly, Americana vibe Jenny and I had envisioned when we wrote it. We were very honored to have Ryan Lipman mix this album, and he really hit it home on this track. Chris Lawrence (pedal steel,) Bobby Victor (keys,) and Vic Vanacore (drums/percussion,) completed the circle with their great energy and musical vibe in the studio to make the song a real jam! — Angela Petrilli

Photo credit: Rachel Louise Photography

LISTEN: Jennah Bell, “Green & Blue”

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Artist: Jennah Bell
Hometown: Oakland, California
Song: “Green & Blue”
Album: Anchors & Elephants
Release Date: February 22

In Their Words: “In my early twenties, I would often find myself trying to have ‘the correct emotional response’ in confrontational situations. Smile instead of cry. Laugh instead of scream. This song was written in a moment of observing how fear was standardizing my ability to be vulnerable. Over time, I realized that one small act of bravery could be crying instead smiling, and living that truth out in the open. This song is an ode to that.” — Jennah Bell

Photo credit: Mallory Talty

LISTEN: The Infamous Stringdusters, “Somewhere in Between”

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Artist:The Infamous Stringdusters
Song: “Somewhere in Between”
Album: Rise Sun
Release Date: April 5, 2019
Label: Tape Time Records

In Their Words: “I remember back when my wife and I had our friend Daniel Walker over for dinner. He brought his guitar and had this little idea he wanted to write about, so we threw on some dinner and started a fire in the outdoor pit. We were both wanting to write about a state of mind we had been experiencing a lot and decided that it was ok to be feeling it. That feeling centered on being somewhere in between where we have come from and where we are going, but not being there yet. Sometimes it’s ok to be in that state of mind and we shouldn’t always be feeling pressure to have it all together all the time. Sometimes when writers write, it’s for our own healing and well-being and when a song is finished, it’s awesome to be able to share it and have other people identify with the meaning.” — Jeremy Garrett, The Infamous Stringdusters

Photo credit: Aaron Farrington

LISTEN: Jane Kramer, “Hymn”

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Artist: Jane Kramer
Hometown: Asheville, North Carolina
Song: “Hymn”
Album: Valley of the Bones
Release Date: March 1, 2019

In Their Words: “This song was a kind of ‘homework’ assignment from my songwriting mentor, Mary Gauthier. She looked me in the eye and told me that all of my self-deprecation wasn’t cute or charming and asked me, ‘When are you going to drop the bullsh*t and really own your power and talent?’ She told me that only then would I write the kind of songs that were up to my full potential. She challenged me to write a song from a perspective of self-love. Like, full, real, spiritual and true self-love, and to call it my ‘Hymn,’ whatever that meant to me. I spent a few weeks after that alone, backpacking around Italy with a little travel guitar. I wrote this song in a little mountain village called Vetulonia, where I slept in a little cottage with a hammock for a bed, looking out over mountains that reminded me of home, and it sunk in then that I couldn’t really come home till I came home to myself. So I did.” — Jane Kramer

Photo Credit: Rose Kaz

LISTEN: David Huckfelt, “Everywind”

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Artist: David Huckfelt
Hometown: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Song: “Everywind” (featuring Sylvan Esso’s Amelia Meath)
Album: Stranger Angels
Release Date: February 22, 2019

In Their Words: “At the Mishipeshu Trading Post, named for a mythical Ojibwe underwater panther, at the foot of the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, I found an old postcard with a woman wrapped in a blanket… Photographed in 1907 by Roland Reed, and standing on the shores of what surely must be Lake Superior, the card simply read ‘Everywind.’

“Nothing else was written and nothing more could be found on who she was, or where, or how she lived. Immediately the wheels began turning on how this woman over a hundred years ago was part of this royal, nurturing, fierce and life-giving lineage of women who have endured all that men have done to them, and this planet, from time immemorial. I flashed ahead to Winona LaDuke, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Tara Houska, Faye Brown, and the countless women I know who have stood up and spoken up for the Earth from Alcatraz to Standing Rock in North Dakota; to Louise Erdrich whose novels are staggering in their beauty and whose Birchbark Bookstore in Minneapolis stands as a beacon of truth-telling of a deeper American history vibrant in its resistance ‘Everywind’ is about then and now, the link, from mother to earth, and this moment in our culture when it’s time for men to say to women: ‘You talk. We listen.'” — David Huckfelt

Photo credit: Graham Tolbert

LISTEN: Daniel Steinbock, “Pine Needles”

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Artist: Daniel Steinbock
Hometown: Santa Rosa, California
Song: “Pine Needles”
Album: Out of Blue EP
Release Date: Single, February 4; EP February 15, 2019

In Their Words: “Following in the long tradition of poets, bards, and mystics, I open the album with a dedication to the Muse in ‘Pine Needles.’ Without her, I wouldn’t be here singing to you. The song asks you to wonder, ‘Is there anything that is not holy?’ Pine needles point in every direction at the beautiful dream we live inside of. And if our very flesh is holy, what better way to worship God than to make love?” — Daniel Steinbock

Photo credit: Bradley Cox

LISTEN: Michael McDermott, “Ne’er Do Well”

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Artist: Michael McDermott
Hometown: Chicago, Illinois
Song: “Ne’er Do Well”
Album: Orphans
Release Date: February 8, 2019
Label: Pauper Sky Records

In Their Words: “The first time I heard the term ‘ne’er do well’ I must have been 8 or 9 years old. I heard it from my father describing his uncle who ended up dying on skid row in Chicago… That kind of stuck with me I guess. I became a sort of ne’er do well of my own, afflicted with drug and drink, who let his career go to hell and lived for the next fix and drink. Those are just external solutions for internal problems, and what they really need is love, faith, connection. I was always amazed that there was more real discussion about God and Jesus in crack houses than there was in the church I went to. One time in Wayne, New Jersey, I was checking into a hotel and they asked for my name, and I said ‘Ne’er Do Well.’ They asked me, ‘Can you spell that?’ and I just said, ‘Ne’er Do Well, it’s French.’ — Michael McDermott

Photo credit: Tony Piccirillo

LISTEN: Eric Brace, Peter Cooper, & Thomm Jutz, “King of the Keelboat Men”

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Artist: Eric Brace, Peter Cooper & Thomm Jutz
Song: “King of the Keelboat Men”
Album: Riverland
Label: Red Beet Records
Release Date: February 1, 2019

In Their Words: “When we were looking at the history of the Mississippi River, it was clear that the steamboats were the biggest thing that ever happened to it and on it. But what about before the steamboats? Before steamboats were the keelboats, pushed up and down river by big men with poles. They were the rock stars of their time, from the 1700s til about 1830. The mightiest of the keelboat men was the near-mythic Mike Fink. His tale was told in stories and books and songs of the time, but we wondered what happened to him when steam took away his job. Buy him a drink, and he’ll tell you exactly what happened.” — Eric Brace, Peter Cooper, & Thomm Jutz

Photo credit: Chris Richards

WATCH: The Chapin Sisters, “Lost”

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Artist: The Chapin Sisters
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York (Abigail), and Hudson Valley, New York (Lily)
Song: “Lost”
Album: Ferry Boat
Label: Loantaka Records

In Their Words: “This song was written as a little finger-picking ditty on the guitar, but when Evan Taylor (producer/bandmate) heard it he visualized the string-like strains of the Mellotron lifting into the solo which creates a dreamlike ambiance. This song was written at the nadir of US political despair — post-election 2016 — right after Trump was elected when we were trying to navigate this fear and uncertainty. It is a meditation on remembering to stay in the now, choose hope over despair. For me regret can arise out of thin air. It can keep me up at night, chewing at my insides. The only way out of it is meditation, gratitude, hope. There is a children’s book* that says, ‘when you are lost it is the easiest place to be found.‘ And it’s true that often my songs come out of late night sleepless rambles. We need hope these days, and togetherness. This song is about that.” — Lily Chapin

Photo credit: Sita Marlier
Video directed by Alec Coiro
*children’s book is Emily Winfield Martin’s The Littlest Family’s Big Day

LISTEN: Ari & Mia, “Little Bit Like Me”

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Artist: Ari & Mia
Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts
Song: “Little Bit Like Me”
Album: Sew the City
Release Date: March 1, 2019

In Their Words: “‘Little Bit Like Me’ is a conversation between myself as an adult and myself as a nine-year-old. In the song, I reflect on the sense of creativity and openness that came naturally to me as a child, and I wonder if I’ve lived up to the expectations I set for myself back then.” — Mia Friedman

“I love ‘Little Bit Like Me’ because of its simple intention and the sweet melody that mirrors it. The song’s nostalgic message feels relatable and honest, and the process of arranging it together was seamless. It clicked right away.” — Ari Friedman

Photo credit: Kat Waterman