When I was first introduced to the music of Sad Baxter, via 2016’s Weirdy, I realized they filled a void I didn’t even know existed: here was a band that was not afraid to go full grunge, and the payoff was great. Dirty guitars, heavy backbeats, and a Cobain-like growl mixed with a delightfully...
An entrancing voice and charismatic presence are the perfect ways to define singer/songwriter Shira and her recent show at Rockwood Music Hall on January 26. Shira captivated the audience by playing tracks from her upcoming album, Subtle Creature, as well as chatting with the crowd in between each...
org The dimly-lit green room at Music Hall of Williamsburg smells of cigarettes, but in an unassuming way, perhaps because Chris Chu of POP ETC kindly apologizes to my plus one, Caroline, and I in advance. I hardly noticed what he meant once we got up there,...
"Playing the best songs, a crowded room when we were young:" The By Gods are releasing their latest album, Get On Feelings, this Friday, and it's going to take you back a couple of years (or decades). The Nashville band specializes in straightforward, sincere rock music. Similar to Beach Slang,...
Celestial Shore is a Brooklyn trio that cites bands like the Zombies and the Pixies as influences, but whose sound has never been anything but their own- spacey, floaty, always-shifting rock. When we talked to the band's guitarist/vocalist, Sam Owens, they were preparing to book it to Austin for...
Over the course of the past two years, Lily and Madeleine Jurkiewicz, teenage sisters from Indianapolis, have had a performance go viral on Reddit, written their first original songs, gotten signed to Asthmatic Kitty, released two full-length albums and an EP, and played several tours. The duo's most...
When Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez met in 2000, Sanchez had already been building instruments for years. For him, constructing the instrument came part and parcel with creating sound. When he speaks about creating his gase--a guitar-bass hybrid, and the namesake of one-half the duo Buke and...
If you ask newlyweds Kim and Jarod Weldin what kind of music to expect from their duo Tape Waves, their response might be kind of vague. “Any adjective in front of pop,” Kim responded nonchalantly, when I asked, during our phone conversation last week, I asked her to describe the group’s sound....
Emmy Wildwood - Photo Credit Shervin Lainez Everyone's had a broken heart. That's why songs about love gone wrong are so ubiquitous; as listeners, we crave relatable lyrics telling tales of liars and cheats and unrequited crushes. We make playlists to deal with love's letdowns, and as we sing along...
Dan McGee, of Chapel Hill garage rock band Spider Bags, does not have time to grow orchids or build model ships. He works triple duty these days, with a family, a job, and a brand new record, Frozen Letter, due to come out on August 5th via Merge Records. When I called McGee last week, though, he...
I wasn’t sure what to expect as I drove to a random address in North Hollywood two weeks ago. I had been invited to witness the birth of a band, but I didn’t know the genre or the members. I wandered to the back of a lockout that was stacked to the ceiling with amps, instruments and boxes packed...
Willie Watson recorded his debut solo effort, the straightforwardly-titled Folk Singer Vol. 1, over the course of two days at Woodland Sound Studios, the studio owned by Gillian Welch in Nashville, TN. In those sessions, he played whichever songs came to mind: the collection features some...