Tag: The Show on the Road

The Show on the Road – Run River North

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week on The Show On The Road, we bring you a cross-freeway conversation with a daring electro-roots outfit born and raised in the San Fernando Valley of LA: Run River North.


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Host Z. Lupetin caught up with frontman and lyricist Alex Hwang to discuss how this group of Korean-American friends came together nearly a decade ago (they then called themselves Monsters Calling Home). They found a waiting fanbase who eagerly embraced their masterfully done emotive songs about immigrant family dramas with acoustic instruments and a lush electronic backdrop. Early standout songs like “Growing Up” harnessed their nuanced classical chops and show how large the divide can be between their parents’ and grandparents’ view of America and how it really is for the new generation born and raised in LA.

Gaining notice in Southern California’s coffee shop scene, an unexpected performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live (thanks to a beloved music video they shot in their Honda) shot the band to national awareness. Non-stop touring began in earnest with their gorgeous self-titled rebrand — Run River North got them signed to Nettwerk.

It’s no secret that the band is looked up to in the rarely-represented Asian rock and pop communities, and by 2016 Run River North was playing some of their biggest shows to date at festivals in Japan and South Korea. In 2018, with the realities of the road hitting hard, the group pared down its lineup to what we see today, with founding members Alex Hwang (guitar/vocals), Daniel Chae (guitars/vocals), and Sally Kang (keys/vocals) leading the way.

The last few years saw the band go independent again, and during the pandemic they have put out a flurry of hooky folk-pop gems, like the subversive “Pretty Lies,” that have them cautiously more excited about the future than ever.

Stick around to the end of the episode to hear Hwang present his favorite new single, “Cemetery,” about the off-kilter first date he took his now wife on. Run River North’s new full length album, Creatures In Your Head, will drop early 2021.

 

The Show on the Road – Mt. Joy

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week we feature a conversation with songwriter and singer Matt Quinn of jangly-pop phenomenons Mt. Joy.

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Much like host Z. Lupetin’s group Dustbowl Revival, Mt. Joy began thanks partially to some Craigslist kismet. After Quinn took the leap from PA to LA and reconnected with fellow guitarist Sam Cooper (who he used to jam with at their high school in Philadelphia), the band found their bassist Michael Byrnes, and Byrnes’ flatmate, producer Caleb Nelson, helped create their infectious breakout singles “Astrovan” and “Sheep.”

While most rising bands might shy away from writing extensively about addiction; or describing Jesus as a reborn Grateful Dead-loving stoner; or examining generational violence and brutality in Baltimore; with some deeper listening, it’s not hard to notice that Mt. Joy’s bouncy, arena-friendly sing-alongs are admirably subversive and often quite heavy below the pop shimmer.

A whirlwind of touring on some of America’s biggest stages followed the resounding streaming success of their first homemade singles, bringing the band from tiny rehearsal spaces and obscurity to the most hallowed festivals in America — like Newport Folk and Bonnaroo — and huge white-knuckle tours opening for The Shins, The Head and The Heart, and The Lumineers. By 2018 their joyous, full-throated rock sound had fully gelled with the addition of Sotiris Eliopoulos on drums and Jackie Miclau on keys. Their catchy and confident self-titled record arrived on Dualtone and seemed to go everywhere at once — with the acoustic-guitar led anthem, “Silver Lining,” surprising the band most of all by hitting #1 on the AAA radio charts.

But, as Quinn mentions early on in the talk, by the time the band released their much-hyped sequel record, Rearrange Us, in early 2020, the group of friends and collaborators were fraying at the seams. Relentless time away from loved ones caused breakups that were a long time coming, and trying to match incredibly high expectations had forced the band to ask themselves what they really wanted out of this new nomadic, whiplash life. Thus Rearrange Us dives courageously into darker shadows than its predecessor. In emotional standout songs like “Strangers” Quinn has an achy-voiced knack for pinpointing that exact moment when good love goes wrong — and how feeding off the endless adoring energy of the strangers he meets in every new town can only sustain him for so long.

In a way, the pandemic-forced time off coinciding with their record gaining steam was a blessing in disguise, allowing Quinn and the band to reflect and recharge. But of course, with a feverish fanbase from Philly to LA waiting, Mt. Joy wasn’t about to rest long. If you’re a fan, you may have noticed that they are currently playing safe, sold out drive-in shows across the East coast and Midwest with more on the way.

Photo credit: Matt Everitt

The Show On The Road – Aubrie Sellers

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week on the show, we catch up with a rising star in boundary-bending country and take-no-prisoners rock ‘n’ roll, Aubrie Sellers.


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What have you been doing since the pandemic hit in late February? Somehow Aubrie Sellers has managed to release a striking new LP of twisty, guitar-drenched originals on Far From Home (collaborating with her roots rock heroes like Steve Earle) while also pushing herself to make a EP of beloved covers on the aptly-titled, World On Fire. In rejuvenating a faded favorite like Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game,” she takes a song we all thought we knew and twists it around until it seems like a poisonous, reverb-zapped revelation that just arrived out of nowhere.

Sellers was prepared to make music earlier in life than most. Growing up, she often found herself in nontraditional school situations, doing her homework on tour buses, hanging out in green rooms, and getting her feet wet on stages in Nashville’s tight-knit country community; you might know her mom, twangy-pop icon Lee Ann Womack and her dad, Jason Sellers, had a few chart toppers of his own, writing for folks like Kenny Chesney and playing in Ricky Skaggs’ touring band.

Sellers made her major label debut in 2016 with the more straight-ahead, but tightly crafted New City Blues, and earlier sang on a compilation record with the late Ralph Stanley. But at only 27, Sellers feels and sounds like an old soul — one less interested in climbing the current country charts than mining thornier material like her history of anxiety and stage-fright. She harnesses the punky, poetic outlaw energy that more cerebral songwriters like Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams have become known for. And audiences are taking notice, as Sellers’ scorching duet with Earle, “My Love Will Not Change,” was recently nominated for the Americana Music Association’s Song of the Year.

Stick around to the end of this episode of The Show On The Road to hear an acoustic, live-from-home rendition of her tune “Far From Home.”

Photo credit: Scott Siracusano

The Show on the Road – Gary Louris (The Jayhawks)

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week on The Show On The Road, we feature a conversation with Gary Louris, co-founder and leading songwriter of longtime Americana favorites The Jayhawks — who launched out of Minneapolis in 1985 and celebrated the release of their harmony-rich, 11th studio album, XOXO, this July.


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Any band that has managed to stick together for a generation (their self-titled debut dropped when host Z. Lupetin was in diapers) clearly has kept a fervent fanbase intrigued; their signature shoegaze-y, electric roots has endured through personnel changes, bouts of addiction, and the upheaval of the music industry that often leaves fading rock and rollers behind. While Louris will be first to admit that for many years he didn’t think it would be “cool” to keep a rock band together this long, he has grown to appreciate the band’s defiant longevity.

Indeed, their newest collaboration, XOXO, doesn’t show The Jayhawks softening at all, even as they have become respected Americana elder statesmen. Instead it shows off some of their sharpest rock-guitar-inspired records yet — with tunes like the Uncle Tupelo-, sepia-tinted “This Forgotten Town” staying at the top of Americana single charts for months, getting near-constant radio play nationwide.

Seminal Americana records like Smile and Rainy Day Music in the early 2000s finally launched The Jayhawks into international notoriety — they played late night TV and enjoyed (or endured) packed bus tours across North America and Europe — but the success was often bittersweet and they never quite tipped the scale like other roots-adjacent groups like Wilco and Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit.

As host Z. Lupetin discovered while remote recording, Louris can now laugh about an infamous New York Times review of their album Smile that, despite being quite positive, lead with an unfortunate headline noting the band’s lack of widespread acceptance: “What If You Made a Classic and No One Cared?”

Louris is often cited as leading the charge behind the band’s shift from jangly alt-country toward a more catchy, rock-pop sound, but there are plenty of roots still showing — especially Louris’ noted love of British Invasion rock energy and 1970s AM radio layered harmony. After some years that took Louris away from the supportive twin city hub for other ventures (he was also in supergroup group Golden Smog) the band’s core group of Louris, Marc Perlman, Karen Grotberg, and Tim O’Reagan are now happily back together in their original Minneapolis home-base, grateful to still be creating new rock ‘n’ roll with a devoted audience that is waiting patiently for touring to open up again.

Stick around to the end of episode to hear Louris share an intimate acoustic performance of The Jayhawks’ all too fitting new song, “Living A Bubble.”

Photo credit: Sam Erickson

The Show On The Road – Chicano Batman

Posted on by Chris Jacobs
This week, The Show On The Road features a conversation with members of LA’s Latin roots-rock heroes Chicano Batman. The band came together in 2008 and is comprised of Eduardo Arenas (bass, guitar, vocals), Carlos Arévalo (guitars), Bardo Martinez (lead vocals, keyboards, guitar) and Gabriel Villa (drums).

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Host Z. Lupetin was able to catch up with Bardo Martinez and Eduardo Arenas while they sheltered in place at home in LA. In the past you may have seen Chicano Batman at music festivals like Coachella dressing up in matching Mariachi outfits or crooning in a colorful mashup of Spanish and English on previous standout records like the dreamy Cycles of Existential Rhyme and the rebellious Freedom Is Free.  

Their newest work, Invisible People, is their most personal, political, and downright danceable release to date. The traditional Mariachi outfits may be tucked away in storage, but their playful vibe remains, even as the musicianship and pop-tightness took a big jump forward.

After twelve years of expanding and fine-tuning their sound and finding a devoted national audience, Chicano Batman is no longer the oddball, upstart band. While they now focus mainly on English lyrics, they know as songwriters and performers that they’ve become role models for Los Angeles’s vibrant Latin-roots rock renaissance, acting as springboards to a whole new scene that may not have a genre or name yet.

 

The Show On The Road – Leyla McCalla

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week The Show On The Road features a conversation with Leyla McCalla, a talented, multi-lingual cellist, banjoist, and singer/songwriter.

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Born in New York, raised in New Jersey, and McCalla is now based in New Orleans, where she raises three kids (she often tours with them in tow). McCalla often honors her Haitian heritage, bringing listeners into a vibrant world of Creole rhythms and forgotten African string-band traditions by introducing them to a new audience with her own powerful creative vision.

You may know McCalla as an integral part of two different roots supergroups: the Carolina Chocolate Drops and Our Native Daughters. But for much of the last decade, she has put out heady, ever-surprising solo projects. The latest, The Capitalist Blues, harnesses the brassy, percussive sounds of New Orleans; her previous record, A Day for the Hunter, A Day for the Prey, was also a standout, putting her gorgeous cello-work center stage while also examining powerful Haitian proverbs and Haiti’s often-overlooked, tragic history.

The Show On The Road – Dan Reeder

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week on The Show On The Road, a conversation with renegade roots songwriter, painter and NSFW self-taught poet Dan Reeder.

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Reeder is rarely interviewed, but has collected a legion of devoted fans after putting out a series of beloved albums on John Prine’s Oh Boy Records – including the much-anticipated new LP, Every Which Way.

For the uninitiated, diving into Reeder’s uniquely absurdist, harmony-drenched body of work can feel like reading a rich short story collection in one sitting. His normal routine is to layer lush close-mic’d vocals on top of one another using himself as a conspiratorial choir. He sketches tiny but poignant moments from his life and imagination, often repeating a simple phrase again and again like one of his most-listened to tunes, “Work Song,” which tells us bluntly through gospel claps: “I’ve got all the fucking work I need.” 

The new album may seem intimidating at first. It features a whopping 20 songs (or cinematic vignettes of a sort), but a closer look shows it clocking in at a succinct 39 minutes. Controversial-while-gentle acoustic offerings like “Porn Song” come in at just under minute long. New favorites like the wide-eyed (and foul-mouthed) piano ballad “Born a Worm” ask the deepest of questions of an indifferent, endlessly beautiful universe in only the way Reeder could — by plainly inquiring about a caterpillar’s mysterious transformation into a butterfly: “what the fuck is that about?”

Much more than a one man band, Reeder often builds every instrument he plays in his recordings, from steel string guitars, to banjos, drums, basses, cellos, violins, clarinets, and even the computer he records on. This episode was recorded in his garage studio in Nuremberg, Germany, where he’s lived with his wife for 30 years. 

Host Z. Lupetin spoke to Reeder right after John Prine passed away from complications of COVID-19, and they spoke about his tours together with Prine and how much his music inspired him through the years. 

The Show On The Road – Agnes Obel

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week, The Show On The Road features a conversation with renowned Danish pianist, experimental composer, and atmospheric-folk songstress Agnes Obel. 

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Recorded high above Hollywood in the famed Capitol records building (Obel was recently signed to Blue Note Records), host Z. Lupetin takes an intimate tour of Obel’s newest work Myopia, which shows the pianist and composer at her most personal and aurally fearless.

Born in Copenhagen and based in Berlin, Obel’s albums warrant repeat listening, as it’s often hard to know exactly what instruments are playing at any given time. At times the darting, looping piano and quicksilver string work seem like a chamber orchestra, or maybe the songs on Myopia are secretly the technicolor backdrop and emotive score to a film that only she sees.

It’s been nearly a decade since her transcendent DIY debut album, Philharmonics, put her into many people’s minds (she may not be very well known yet in the States, but she is a gold-record selling, underground star in many parts of Europe). This past spring, Obel was set to play the expansive Greek Theater in Los Angeles before COVID-19 forced her to stay in Berlin — which, for an artist that creates hushed, often lyricless songs you probably can’t dance to, is an impressive leap.

 

The Show On The Road – Dave Stewart (Eurythmics)

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week on The Show On The Road, we feature an intimate, long distance talk with British-born super producer and new wave songwriting titan Dave Stewart.


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Stewart grew up obsessed with Delta blues, but also with the futuristic beats and dancehall magic found in synthesizers. He somehow fused those two worlds into an indelible body of work that has won him a Grammy and sold over 100 million records and counting. While most people know him as one-half of the foundational synth-soul group Eurythmics, which he formed with longtime friend and muse Annie Lennox, churning out genre-defying hits like “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)” and “Here Comes The Rain Again,” that still burn up radio today.

Since the 1980s heyday of Eurythmics, Stewart has forged a singularly cosmopolitan career as something of a modern sound collector, both in creating his own bluesy solo work and producing records for a cavalcade of stars like Mick Jagger, Aretha Franklin, Tom Petty, Stevie Nicks, Joss Stone, and more. He has also been acknowledged as one of the most tireless boosters for AIDS research, even working directly with the late Nelson Mandela to raise money for the cause.

His newest musical adventure has him rejoining Louisiana-based blues interpreter Thomas Lindsey for the forthcoming full length Amitié. The striking single “Storm Came” is available now.

The Show on the Road – Listen to These Black Voices

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Something powerful is in the air. While we may have said that after similar unrest in the past — after Rodney King in LA, Trayvon Martin in Miami, Freddie Gray in Baltimore, and countless others — something about what is happening now feels deeper, heavier. Maybe it’s actually sinking in.

I normally try to put out a new episode of The Show on the Road podcast every other Wednesday. This week, that simply wasn’t possible. It was time to stop giving my endless opinions, to stop waxing poetic about harmony, to shut up about finding the meaning in every lyric and just be quiet, listen and learn.

I’ve been lucky to talk with truly amazing Black artists, songwriters, and performers in the two years I’ve been creating The Show on the Road. I ask you to go back into our archives and listen to these voices. — Z. Lupetin, host

Sunny War


Discover a young, deep-voiced folk/blues artist like Sunny War, who overcame a troubled past with drugs and being unhoused in Venice Beach to create a series of critically acclaimed records that have brought her to festivals and venues around the country.

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Bobby Rush


A sonic elder statesman, Bobby Rush came north from Mississippi during the great migration to work in the heyday of the Chicago blues and soul scene with Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. Rush has been making brashly funky and fearlessly sexy songs for decades, finally snagging his much-deserved first Grammy at the age of 86.

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Birds of Chicago


Based in Nashville by way of Chicago by way of Montreal, Birds of Chicago are centered around the powerful chemistry of husband-wife duo JT Nero and Haitian-Canadian banjoist and clarinetist dynamo Allison Russell, who gives every audience chills when she sings about her fallen ancestors. How she is not an international star astounds me. You may have seen her newest creation as part of the African American, female banjo supergroup, Our Native Daughters with Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, and Leyla McCalla.

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Dom Flemons


If you need to go back in time and educate yourself about Black cultural history (which you do), listen to our double episode with the great American songster Dom Flemons, who came up in the renowned Black string band Carolina Chocolate Drops. Of course, he has since struck out on his own to become a sought after, roving ethnomusicologist and music historian. His newest Grammy-nominated record brings us back into a forgotten world of Black cowboys, who don’t get the credit they deserved in helping settle the West.

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Liz Vice


If you’ve been having a crisis of faith and need a little musical medicine, Liz Vice’s episode is the ticket. Vice grew up in Oregon singing gospel music with her family and aiming to be a filmmaker. Her career as a songwriter and performer blossomed with homemade, deeply felt, deliciously soulful and social-justice-forward records (examining her faith and our ever-evolving relationship to a higher power). We recorded in an old church in LA, and her renewed version of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” is haunting.

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The War and Treaty


Finally, if you need a shot of pure, joyous harmony and unabashed rock ‘n’ roll spirit, our episode featuring The War and Treaty is exactly what you need. They show us how music can be a healing tide to rise all broken ships. How it can be a force for good, bringing now power-couple Tanya and Michael Trotter together against all odds after Michael came back from a trauma-filled tour of duty in Iraq and needed a way to reenter society and share the songs that had been brimming in his heart for decades. Hearing them sing together, how they complete each other totally, is all the hope I need right now.

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