Upcoming Shows

Substitute (Who tribute), Brainstewed. (Green Day tribute)

FridayDecember 2, 20228:00pm $15.00

For nearly 20 years, Substitute: Tales From The Who has delivered the hits and more to a variety of festivals and prestigious venues across the United States. A tribute to one of the most prolific and influential rock bands in history, the band's reputation has been built on high-energy performances and an unrivaled....

No Quarter (Led Zeppelin tribute)

SaturdayDecember 3, 20228:00pm $20.00

In September 1998, No Quarter, The Ultimate Led Zeppelin Experience was brought together in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Bound and determined to create the most mesmerizing and accurate portrayal of the band, each individual member was selected to portray both the presence, sound and playing styles of Robert Plant, Jimmy Page,....

Starcrawler

TuesdayDecember 6, 20228:00pm

Starcrawler are a rock band for a new generation. Best known for their explosive live shows, the 5-piece band consists of full-throttle frontwoman Arrow De Wilde, guitarist Henri Cash and brother Bill Cash on pedal steel/guitar, drummer Seth Carolina, and bassist Tim Franco. With two studio albums under their belts, their....

Recently Added Shows

Kevn Kinney, Miles Nielsen

WednesdayDecember 21, 20228:00pm $20.00

Kevn Kinney is the lead singer / songwriter of the Atlanta rock band, Drivin N Cryin, who recently celebrated the release of their 9th studio album, 'Live the Love Beautiful', on Drivin N Cryin Records. Since the band's 1985 inception, he's released some spare acoustic records on his own, often collaborating with R.E.M.....

Local H

ThursdayDecember 29, 20228:00pm $25.00

Local H

FridayDecember 30, 20228:00pm $25.00

Night Moves, Shady Cove

FridayJanuary 13, 20238:00pm $16 advance / $18 door

Kofi Baker's Cream Faith: The Music of Cream and Blind Faith

ThursdayJanuary 19, 20238:00pm $20.00

Victoria Victoria featuring Charlie Hunter

ThursdayJanuary 26, 20238:00pm $15.00

Victoria Victoria's new album, "To The Wayside," was released on Sept. 9, 2022--completing a beautifully fresh and alluring musical masterpiece that's been in the making since 2020. Each of the album's nine songs is a gem, mined through a magical collaboration between Victoria Victoria front woman Tori Elliott,....

The Appalachians, Tigera, Lunar Moth, Smoke Free Home

FridayFebruary 10, 20238:00pm $15.00

Milwaukee's beloved rock act The Appalachians have ended officially ended their six-year hiatus returning to the Milwaukee music scene in 2020. While frontman Adam Sutkiewicz was in recovery after a major Cancer Surgery, he reached out to Ryan Claxton, Adam Plew, and former guitar Jake Wachal in hopes to reunite the group....

Early Eyes

WednesdayFebruary 15, 20238:00pm $15.00

Church of Cash (Johnny Cash Tribute)

FridayFebruary 17, 20238:00pm $20.00

Whether you are an 'ol timer that grew up listening to Mr. Cash in your tractor or a young soldier driving your tank across the deserts of the Middle East with the Man in Black in your headphones, the Church of Cash will bring his music, with style and energy to fans everywhere. What the Church of Cash has that no one....

The Rural Alberta Advantage

FridayFebruary 24, 20238:00pm $22.00

The Rural Alberta Advantage (The RAA) recently released The Rise EP featuring 6 new songs including 'CANDU'. It is the first new offerings of music from the award-winning trio since 2017's album The Wild, and the first recordings since the return of core band member, Amy Cole. An ongoing series of new songs and EPs will be....

Michael McDermott

SaturdayMarch 18, 20238:00pm $25.00

Cowboy Mouth

ThursdayMarch 23, 20238:00pm $30.00

Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers

SaturdayMarch 25, 20238:00pm $25.00

Alternative Concert Group Presents

John Berry

FridayDecember 2, 20228:00pm

The Grand, Oshkosh, WI

Get tickets

John Berry

TuesdayDecember 6, 20227:30pm

The Grand Theater, Wausau, WI

Get tickets

George Winston

FridayDecember 9, 20228:00pm

Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts, Brookfield, WI

George Winston

SundayDecember 11, 20228:00pm

Campanile Center for the Arts, Minocqua, WI

Get tickets

George Winston

TuesdayDecember 13, 20227:30pm

The Grand Theater, Wausau, WI

Get tickets

George Winston

ThursdayDecember 15, 20227:30pm

Symphony Hall, Duluth, MN

Get tickets

George Winston

SaturdayDecember 17, 20227:30pm $45

The Pablo Center, Eau Claire, WI

Get tickets

Lee Greenwood

FridayFebruary 17, 20238:00pm $59 | $49

Capitol Civic Centre, Manitowoc, WI

Get tickets

Chapel Hart The Glory Days Tour

SundayMarch 26, 20237:30pm $45 / $65 / $125

At the Barrymore Theatre, Madison, WI.

Tickets on sale at barrymorelive.com or by phone at 608-241-8633 (Mon-Fri noon-5pm).

Chapel Hart The Glory Days Tour

ThursdayApril 6, 20237:30pm

The Grand Theater, Wausau, WI

Get tickets

Chapel Hart The Glory Days Tour

FridayApril 7, 20237:30pm $50

The Pablo Center, Eau Claire, WI

Get tickets

Chapel Hart The Glory Days Tour

SaturdayApril 8, 20238:00pm

At the Pabst Theater, Milwaukee, WI.

Tickets on sale at pabsttheatergroup.com.

Quick Calendar

In Chicago, a city overflowing with unrivaled blues talent, world-renowned Lil' Ed & The Blues Imperials have been standing tall for almost 30 years. The band's big sound, fueled by Lil' Ed's gloriously rollicking slide work and deep blues string bending, along with his rough-edged, soulful vocals, is as real and hard-hitting as Chicago blues gets. The Chicago Sun-Times says, "Lil' Ed & The Blues Imperials are the hottest purveyors of bottleneck boogie to come out of Chicago since Hound Dog Taylor."

Lil' Ed Williams comes to the blues naturally. His uncle, Chicago slide guitar king and master songwriter J.B. Hutto, taught him how to feel, not just play the blues. Nine albums and thousands of performances later, Lil' Ed is now universally hailed as a giant of the genre. Lil' Ed and The Blues Imperials--bassist (and Ed's half-brother) James "Pookie" Young, guitarist Mike Garrett and drummer Kelly Littleton--have remained together for nearly 30 years (an extraordinary feat for any group), the band fueling Ed's songs with their rock-solid, road-tested, telepathic musicianship.

The Big Sound Of Lil' Ed & The Blues Imperials is the musically electrifying, emotionally intense and downright fun new album from the band Guitar Player calls "a snarling boogie-blues machine...they blow down the walls." The CD features Lil' Ed's incendiary playing and playful, passionate singing, with the ragged-but-right Blues Imperials cooking like mad alongside him. Produced by Williams and Alligator president Bruce Iglauer, it is a tour-de-force of authentic, deeply rooted Chicago blues. Williams wrote or co-wrote all but two of album's 14 songs, the other gems written by Uncle J.B. The Chicago Reader says the band's music "is a soundtrack for dancing and celebration infused with a sense of hard-won survival. Williams attacks his lyrics like he attacks his guitar: with bare-bones intensity that makes each word sound like a matter of life or death."

Born in Chicago on April 8, 1955, in the heart of Chicago's tough West Side, Ed grew up surrounded by music. He was playing guitar, then drums and bass, by the time he was 12. Ed and Pookie received lessons and support from their famous uncle. "J.B. taught me everything I know," says Ed. "I wouldn't be where I am today without him." Ed and Pookie spent their teen years making music together, and in 1975 formed the first incarnation of The Blues Imperials. They played their first gig at a West Side club called Big Duke's Blue Flame, splitting the $6 take four ways. Over the next few years, the group played every club in the neighborhood. Even so, they still needed day jobs to pay the bills. Ed worked ten hours a day as a buffer at the Red Carpet Car Wash. Pookie drove a school bus. Night after night they played their roaring brand of blues in tiny clubs, and eventually the word reached Alligator president Bruce Iglauer.

At the time, Iglauer was looking for local talent for The New Bluebloods, an anthology of some of Chicago's younger blues musicians. "Ed and his band had a good reputation," recalls Iglauer. "I had only seen them live once or twice. I knew Ed was a hot slide player, but I had no idea what he and the band were really capable of. I just knew that their music reminded me of Hound Dog Taylor and J.B. Hutto, two of my favorite musicians. It seemed like having a band this rough and ready would be a nice change of pace for the anthology, so I asked them to come down to the studio and cut a couple of songs. I never expected what happened."

The band--never having been in a recording studio before--treated the studio like a club, playing live to Iglauer, the engineer, and all the people on the other side of the control room glass. After Ed recorded his two rehearsed songs quickly, there was still plenty of studio time left, so they just kept playing. After 10 songs were in the can, Iglauer offered the band a full album contract. The end result of the session was 30 songs cut in three hours with no overdubs and only one second take. Twelve of those songs became the band's debut album, Roughhousin', released in September of 1986.

The national press reacted with amazement to the blues world's new discovery. Feature stories ran in Spin, Musician, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune and dozens of other publications. The Village Voice declared, "Roughhousin' just may be the blues album of the year." The New York Times raved, "Raw-boned, old-fashioned Chicago blues has a new young master--Lil' Ed Williams."

But it wasn't until 1987, when guitarist Mike Garrett joined the band, and a year later, when Garrett recruited his Detroit hometown friend Kelly Littleton to play drums, that things really began to take off. Garrett's risk-taking rhythm guitar work and Littleton's unpredictable, old school drumming were the perfect complement to Lil' Ed's and Pookie's rambunctious playing. With their 1989 album Chicken, Gravy & Biscuits, doors opened and audiences poured in. Through relentless touring, the group crystallized, becoming tighter with each performance, more adept in their abilities to read each other's musical moves. Their spontaneous and unpredictable live show became legendary among blues fans worldwide.

They have played the Chicago Blues Festival multiple times, and have appeared at The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Portland's Waterfront Blues Festival, The Tampa Bay Blues Festival, The San Diego Blues Festival, The Pennsylvania Blues Festival and dozens of other festivals around the country. Satisfying worldwide demand, they have performed at festivals in Canada, Great Britain, France, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Japan, Australia, India, Turkey and Panama.

Lil' Ed & The Blues Imperials released eight Alligator albums between 1986 and 2012. With each one, the band's national and international stature grew as their fan base--known internationally as "Ed Heads"--continued to expand. With 2006's Rattleshake, Ed and company reached a whole new audience. Die-hard "Ed Head" Conan O'Brien brought the band before millions of television viewers on two separate occasions. Success and accolades never stop pouring in. Living Blues called 2012's Jump Start "scorching and soulful" with "crafty, clever lyrics...joyous and stomping."

The group took home the Living Blues Award for Best Live Performer in 2011, 2012 and 2013. They won the prestigious Blues Music Award for Band Of The Year in both 2007 and 2009. The Associated Press says, "Williams fills Chicago's biggest shoes with more life and heat than anyone on stage today."

With The Big Sound Of Lil' Ed & The Blues Imperials, the band continues to bring their blistering Chicago blues to "Ed Heads" new and old. Their infectious energy, joyful showmanship and masterful playing have been honed to a razor's edge by their many years together. Lil' Ed, Pookie, Mike and Kelly have seen sports stars and presidents, musical fads and fashion trends come and go. Meanwhile, their fiery music has more than stood the test of time. "We're not band members," says Williams, "we're family, and families stay together." Night after night, gig after riotous gig, the musical family called Lil' Ed & The Blues Imperials bring their big, dynamic Chicago blues sound to fans across the country and around the world

Nikki Lane's stunning third album Highway Queen sees the young Nashville singer emerge as one of country and rock's most gifted songwriters. Co-produced by Lane and fellow singer-songwriter, Jonathan Tyler, this emotional tour-de-force was recorded at Matt Pence's Echo Lab studio in Denton, Texas as well as at Club Roar with Collin Dupuis in Nashville, Tennessee. Blending potent lyrics, unbridled blues guitars and vintage Sixties country-pop swagger, Lane's new music will resonate as easily with Lana Del Rey and Jenny Lewis fans as those of Neil Young and Tom Petty.

Highway Queen is a journey through heartbreak that takes exquisite turns. The record begins with a whiskey-soaked homage to Lane's hometown ("700,000 Rednecks") and ends on the profoundly raw "Forever Lasts Forever," where Lane mourns a failed marriage -- the "lighter shade of skin" left behind from her wedding ring. On "Forever" and the confessional "Muddy Waters," Lane's lyrics align her with perceptive songwriters like Nick Lowe and Cass McCombs. Elsewhere, "Companion" is pure Everly Brothers' dreaminess ("I would spend a lifetime/ Playing catch you if I can"). She goes on a Vegas bender on the rollicking "Jackpot," fights last-call blues ("Foolish Heart") and tosses off brazen one-liners at a backroom piano ("Big Mouth").

"Love is the most unavoidable thing in the world," Lane says. "The person you pick could be half set-up to destroy your life with their own habits -- I've certainly experienced that before and taken way too long to get out of that mistake."

In 2014, Lane's second album All or Nothin' (New West) solidified her sandpaper voice beneath a ten-gallon hat as the new sound and look of outlaw country music. Produced by Dan Auerbach, the record's bluesy Western guitars paired with Lane's Dusty Springfield-esque voice earned glowing reviews from NPR, the Guardian and Rolling Stone. In three years since her Walk of Shame debut, Lane said she was living most of the year on the road.

Growing up, Lane used to watch her father pave asphalt during blistering South Carolina summers. She'd sit on the roller ("what helps smooth out the asphalt") next to a guy named Rooster and divvy out Hardee's lunch orders for the workers. "My father thought he was a country singer," Lane laughs. "He partied hard at night, but by 6:30 AM he was out on the roads in 100-degree weather." That's the southern work ethic, she says. "We didn't have a lot of money, but I was privileged with the knowledge of how to work hard, how to learn and to succeed when things aren't set up for me." Creativity was an unthinkable luxury, she adds. "When people told me I should try to get a record deal for songs I was writing, I was like, 'that's cute -- I've got to be at work at 10 A.M.'"

"Becoming a songwriter is one of the most selfish things I've ever done," Lane says plainly. She describes writing her first song at age 25 like it was a necessary act of self-preservation after a devastating breakup. Many of her early songs, she said on Shame and Nothin,' were about the fleetingness of relationships she believed were permanent, she says. Lane's main line of work in those days was a fashion entrepreneur (she's currently the owner of Nashville's vintage clothing boutique High Class Hillbilly). It brought her to cities around the country, New York to Los Angeles to Nashville. And like a true wanderer, Lane's sound crisscrosses musical genres with ease, while the lonesome romantic in her remains. Even a soft song like, "Send The Sun," with its lilting downward strum, is flush with bittersweet emotion. "Darling, we're staring at the same moon," Lane sings lovingly. "I used to say that to my ex," she says with cheerful stoicism, "to try to brighten the long nights, stay positive."

Highway Queen is poised to be Lane's mainstream breakthrough. "Am I excited to spend years of my life in a van, away from family and friends? No, but I'm excited to share my songs, so they'll reach people and help them get through whatever they're going through. To me, that's worth it."

"Lay You Down" is one of those unexpected moments for Lane. "That song was inspired by something Levon Helm's wife posted on Facebook when he was sick with cancer," Lane says. "I was just so moved by her telling the world how much love he felt from people writing to them, and moved that because of the Internet, I was able to see that love -- even from a distance." The song became surreal for Lane and her band when her longtime guitarist, Alex Munoz, was diagnosed with cancer while they were playing it. "It deepened my perspective and the importance of keeping everyone safe," says Lane.

On the record cover, Lane looks out on wide, unowned Texan plains, leaning on the fearsome horns of a massive steer. Wearing a vintage Victorian dress, the stark photo invokes a time before highways existed. The symbolism isn't lost on Lane. Highway Queen was a pioneering moment for her as an artist.

"I was always a smart girl, always had to yell to be heard," she says, "But this was the first time in my career where I decided how things were going to go; I was willing to take the heat." Lane included the bonus track "Champion" as a small testament to that empowerment. "It makes a point," Lane says with a smile, "That I appreciate what you're saying, but get the fuck out of my way."

Over the course of her career as an award-winning artist, singer/songwriter/guitarist Samantha Fish has brought extraordinary power to her self-expression, capturing her inner world in combustible riffs, visceral rhythms, and spine-tingling vocal work. On her new album Faster, she joins forces with superproducer Martin Kierszenbaum (Lady Gaga, Sting) and imbues even more intensity into her electrifying brand of blues/rock- and-roll. With Fish accompanied by legendary drummer Josh Freese (Guns N' Roses, Nine Inch Nails, The Replacements) and bassist Diego Navaira of The Last Bandoleros, the result is a singular body of work both irresistibly galvanizing and emotionally raw.

The follow-up to 2019's Kill or Be Kind (Fish's Rounder Records debut), Faster came to life at the famed Village Studios in Los Angeles, where she and Kierszenbaum uncovered new possibilities in her captivating sound. "Kansas City played a major part in bringing us together: I was born and raised in KC and Martin has some familial ties. Shortly after being introduced last year, we had a conversation about making an album,"she recalls. "His track record was perfect for what I wanted to do with this album, which was to expand into different genres while retaining the roots I'd built in the blues world."Revealing her affinity for North Mississippi blues heroes like R.L. Burnside and wildly inventive iconoclasts like Prince, the album ultimately embodies an unbridled energy true to its emotional core. "The whole record has a theme of taking charge and taking the reins, in a relationship or in life in general," says Fish. "I really thought that after 2020 I'd end up with a really dismal, bleak album, but instead, we came up with something that's fun and sexy and so empowering."

Faster opens on its spellbinding title track, a fiercely stomping number whose vocal hook states her intentions to "make your heart beat faster." Immediately making good on that promise, Fish next unleashes the restless urgency of "All Ice No Whiskey," a pop-perfect powerhouse she considers something of a dare. "'All Ice No Whiskey' is a way of telling someone they don't have any of that substance I'm looking for--sort of like, 'Come back when you've got something interesting for me,'" Fish says. That defiant spirit also infuses "Better Be Lonely," a fantastically loose and freewheeling track graced with a frenetic guitar solo. "That song's about putting someone on ice, where you're telling them: 'I don't want you right now, but when I am ready to have you, you better be there," says Fish. Another bold statement of self-possession, "Twisted Ambition" brings mercurial rhythms and jagged guitar work to Fish's refusal to let others define her. "It's about flipping the roles of power--taking control and confronting a world that tries to put you in your place," she notes.

While Faster never fails to showcase the gritty vitality of Fish's musicianship, much of the album journeys into elegantly eclectic sonic terrain. One of Faster's most vulnerable moments, "Crowd Control" unfolds in delicate beats and shimmering keyboard tones, forming a dreamy backdrop to Fish's self-reflection. "It's about confronting your demons -- separating the version of yourself that you portray to the world from who you actually are. At its core, it's about expressing vulnerability," Fish explains. "When I wrote it, it felt like a true rootsy, Americana song. Martin added keys and modern synth textures that really brought it back around to this plaintive mood." Featuring a guest spot from rapper/singer/songwriter Tech N9ne, "Loud" drifts from doo-wop reverie to guitar-fueled frenzy, riding that tension to glorious effect. "Tech N9ne is by far one of the biggest artists to come out of KC, and one of the biggest self-made artists in the world," says Fish. "He was perfect for 'Loud,' which is a song about speaking your truth as loud as you can. It's about saying to the person you're with: 'I want you, but I want you ugliness and all. So don't ever be afraid to speak your mind and speak your heart.'" And on "Hypnotic," Fish lays down a mesmerizing piece of R&B-pop, telegraphing unfettered desire in her seductive vocal delivery and lushly textured grooves. "'Hypnotic' is about putting somebody under a spell," she says. "There've been times in my life when I haven't felt all that in control in a relationship, and this song was my chance to become that person."

For the final track to Faster, Fish selected the album's most tender song, a gorgeously stark and slow-burning ballad called "All the Words." "It's about letting a relationship go because that's what's best for everyone, even though it's a horribly painful experience,"says Fish. "When we recorded it, it was just me on guitar, Diego on bass, Martin playing the grand piano. It's a song I hold very close, and it felt right to make it as raw as possible."

Throughout Faster, Fish threads her songwriting with the kind of nuanced storytelling and ultravivid detail that comes from carefully honing her craft. "Because we usually tour so much, most of my albums have been written in hotels between shows," she says. "This was the first time I've ever had the opportunity to just sit in one place, and pour everything that was happening around me into songs." Growing up in Missouri, Fish first found her love of songwriting in her late teens, mining inspiration from the likes of Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen. Having taken up guitar at age 15, she soon began seeking out gigs by cold-calling countless local bars. "I used to open the phone book and call up every place in Kansas City, even if they didn't have live shows," she remembers. "I had maybe a three percent success rate, but eventually I started filling up my calendar--if you put on a good enough show, word of mouth gets around." Over the years, Fish has maintained her reputation as a phenomenal live act and repeatedly turned out critically acclaimed albums, in addition to earning an ever-growing number of accolades.

For Fish, one of the greatest joys of making music is the powerful exchange of energy at her incendiary live shows. "I fell in love with music from going to shows, and I know how cathartic it can be. It heals your heart," she says. "Anytime I play live, I just want to want to make people forget about everything else in the world and feel that same joy that I feel on stage." And in the process of creating Faster, Fish experienced a similar exhilaration--a sustained head rush that's entirely palpable in every track on the album. "There's such a transformation that can happen in the studio when you really own that freedom to be creative," she says. "I feel so charged up in those moments, like I can be whoever I want to be. It's just me and these incredible musicians trying to make a piece of art that speaks for itself and contributes something new to the world. It's never hard to feel inspired or empowered when that's the mission."

Equally steeped in Texas/Louisiana blues, old-school country and punk-rock, Dayton is the music world's best-kept secret, a road warrior touring alongside acts as diverse as George Strait, Rob Zombie, Social Distortion, the Supersuckers and John Doe and a sought-after session player and sideman hiding in plain sight as a guitarist for Waylon Jennings, Duff McKagan, Johnny Cash, Ryan Bingham, Glenn Danzig and L.A. punk pioneers X. Dayton has over 50 songs licensed to films and has written and directed a feature film and published a memoir on Hachette Book Group aptly titled Beaumonster, in reference to his hometown of Beaumont, TX.

It's perhaps fitting that the first ever Billboard Americana #1 album was Jesse's 1995 debut, Raisin' Cain. The hard-to-define Americana genre is itself a melting pot of other, perhaps purer, styles of music. Yet Jesse's music casts an even wider net. His 13 solo records have common threads of outlaw country, punk rock energy, and East Texas blues. His guitar skills are imposing, his songwriting reverent and opinionated, and his voice as big and welcoming as a Texan saying "Hey ya'll!".

Inducted in 2022 into the Austin Music Hall of Fame, Dayton's life story reads like a "who's who" of American music. In his debut memoir Beaumonster, Dayton reveals the stranger-than- fiction encounters and outlandish experiences that have ensued across his wide-ranging career. After being discovered at a Beaumont dive bar by Clifford Antone, owner of iconic Austin's Home of the Blues, Dayton's trio began packing clubs and theaters across Houston, Dallas, and Austin. His first solo record--featuring great luminaries like Doug Sahm, Flaco Jimenez, and Johnny Gimble--hit #1 on the Americana Radio Charts, and then he was off to the races, touring the world as an opener for punk legends Social Distortion, The Supersuckers, and X, and helping with arrangements and guitar on The Supersuckers' biggest selling record, "Must've Been High." While doing press in Nashville, he caught the attention of Waylon Jennings and was whisked off to Woodland Studios, where he was greeted by none other than Johnny Cash, who tells Dayton: "We've been waiting for you."

After that meeting with "The Man In Black," Dayton's ride across the entertainment industry, traversing genre and format, has only gotten wilder. Whether it's playing guitar on records and film with the likes of Cash, Ray Price, Willie Nelson, Johnny Bush, and Glen Campbell; writing and recording soundtracks for horror director/rockstar Rob Zombie; directing Malcolm McDowell and Sid Haig in his own horror movie; or filling in for the iconic punk band X's guitarist on a massive 40-city US tour, Dayton is down to make his mark.

In August of 2022, Jesse teamed up with emergent superstar Samantha Fish, another bandleader guitar hero, to record a collaborative album of original songs penned by Dayton, Fish, and #1 songwriter Jim McCormick. Produced by the legendary Jon Spencer (of Blues Explosion fame), the record will be released in 2023 on Rounder Records and accompanied by a world tour that promises to be electrifying, teaming two wild talents together on stage for the first time.

Local H, the iconic alt-rock duo known for their blistering live shows and pioneering the two- piece band set-up, is at the top of their game more than two decades after they first burst onto the music scene. Frontman Scott Lucas, who covers both guitar and bass (through an extra pick up in his guitar), and drummer Ryan Harding have enjoyed a resurgence in recent years, buoyed by global touring along with the release of some of their most critically acclaimed work to date.

Local H's first major release was 1995's Ham Fisted, but it was their follow up album As Good As Dead that positioned the band as one of the elites in what was a groundbreaking decade for rock music. With multiple radio hits on the album, "Bound For The Floor" emerged as a generational anthem and remains a staple on playlists around the country over two decades later. Their widely praised 1998 concept album Pack Up the Cats, produced by the legendary Roy Thomas Baker, solidified Local H as a leader in the genre and the albums that followed were reflective of not only the band's definitive character, but as well their relentless effort to give their audience as much of themselves as possible. While recipients of numerous accolades over the years, Local H has always kept the focus on their fans, which can be seen by the awe inspiring and often times daunting tour schedule the band has kept up year after year.

The last three years have seen a multitude of releases from the band in various forms. In 2015, Local H celebrated the 25th anniversary of their first show and released a career-spanning coffee table book, "Local H: Twenty-Five Years of Skin In The Game". That same year they released Hey, Killer, their eighth full length studio album, to near unanimous acclaim. In 2016 the band celebrated the 20th anniversary of the release of As Good As Dead with a successful three month national headline tour (partnered with their first live Blu-Ray DVD, "Straight Outta Zion", shot at the Metro in Chicago during a weekend of sold out shows).

2017 was perhaps Local H's busiest year yet, as the band continued to tour extensively not only as headliners, but on hugely successful tours with The Toadies and Helmet and --perhaps most exciting of all-- career highlight performances on Metallica's sold out stadium tour. The band also found time to publish another book "The Last Picture Book Outta Zion or: How We Learned To Stop Worrying About Cell Phones And Love The Photos Of John Oakes", an intimate behind the scenes portrait of the band shot by photographer John Oakes.

2018 shows no sign of slowing down. In February, Local H released their second live record -- the ferocious Live In Europe-- to coincide with their second European tour in the space of a year. A new single produced by Ken Andrews of Failure, simply titled "Innocents", is being released to digital platforms to coincide with the band joining the Summerland Tour with Everclear and Marcy Playground this May.

Minneapolis-based quartet Night Moves return with the psychedelic new song "Fallacy Actually." The first track in a series of new singles to be released incrementally over the next year, "Fallacy Actually" is a head-spinning swirl of layered synths, harmonica, and guitar and a fitting introduction to the band's next chapter.

Singer John Pelant describes the track as, "A dense cosmic romp that deals with personal fears and letting go. The inevitable end of things, hatred versus acceptance, flawed thoughts, and what could have been. I wanted it to have a NOVA, UFO abduction, backroom Estonian roller rink discotheque kind of vibe. The song went through a lot of changes, styles, and moods. I think we ended up in a nice place. I love the soft flute -- makes me think of Canned Heat meets Motown meets The Spinners on acid."
"Fallacy Actually" and the batch of new songs that will follow were recorded at Pachyderm Studios outside of the band's hometown with producer John Agnello (Kurt Vile, Alvvays, Dinosaur Jr.).

"Fallacy Actually" showcases Night Moves further evolution as a band and as songwriters, still trading in massive pop hooks that somehow manage to convey a sense of yearning melancholy but with a sense of maturity and perspective in the arrangements that comes with time. Synthesizers sweep, the pedal steel swoons, the high lonesome harmonica calls across a distance.

These aren't pandemic songs... more a bit of unfinished business that the pandemic allowed to be fulfilled. The band and Agnello had worked together previously on the band's second album, 2016's Pennied Days. That album was set to be made at Pachyderm Studios but had to be relocated when studio owner John Kuker sadly passed away on the eve of the recording dates.

With the band restless after the campaign for their third album, Can You Really Find Me (2019), which was prematurely cut short by COVID, they did their best to keep busy: writing songs, building greenhouses in South Dakota for a friend, rehearsing the aforementioned songs. Out of that came a brace of new tunes that simply called out to be documented.

The funny thing is that, for anyone that's ever spent an inordinate amount of time in a recording studio, the process of making an album is its own social distancing of sorts. So the notion of getting a cohort together in the moment actually made strangely perfect sense under the circumstances.

New songs honed and selected, the band re-approached Agnello to get feedback on the material and working together again. The idea was met with enthusiasm, and everyone converged on the idyllic, secluded Pachyderm Studios for a hectic, bustling week of creation and homage.

Son of legendary drummer Ginger Baker, Kofi Baker is a name synonymous with drumming excellence. Without question, Kofi not only continues, but extends the family legacy, with outstanding skills, drive and dedication to his craft.

Kofi's first live performance was with his father on the cult UK tv music show "The Old Grey Whistle Test" -- at just six years of age he proved he had inherited more than just his father's name. In the early 80's, Kofi and his father played drum duets throughout Europe, amazing audiences with complex African polyrhythms. Later, Kofi toured with John Ethridge (Soft Machine) and gigged in London with Steve Waller (Manfred Mann) and Randy California (Spirit). He also toured Europe with Steve Marriot's Humble Pie.

During the 1990's Kofi toured with Jack Bruce in Budapest, signed with Scotty Brothers Records and recorded the album Lost City, cut Abstract Logic with Jonas Hellborg and Shawn Lane and toured extensively -- including more drum duets with Ginger Baker.

In 1994, Kofi headed off to the USA and for some time lived with his father in Colorado. Footage of this can be seen in the highly regarded documentary 'Beware of Mr. Baker.'

In 2015 Kofi joined The Extreme Guitar Tour with Uli Jon Roth -former Scorpions lead guitarist, with Vinny Appice (John Lennon, Rick Derringer, Black Sabbath, DIO, Black Sabbath) and Vinnie Moore (UFO).

Later that year he attended the CREAM reunion concerts at Madison Square Garden and following these historic shows, started to develop and evolve his 'Cream Experience' band.

After leaving Colorado for LA, Kofi continued to play extensively and also set up his own drum school which spawned many loyal fans and pupils. Anyone taking lessons or attending his clinics can testify to his easy, friendly manner and the excellent way he communicates his passion to others.

In 2017 he was invited to become an integral part of The Music Of Cream 50th Anniversary Tour, which began in Australia & New Zealand and has subsequently played hundreds of shows across Australasia, the U.S.A and the U.K.

This project continues to grow and when between these tours, Kofi concentrates on his side project, Kofi Baker's Psychedelic Trip. Celebrating classic cuts from the late 60's & early 70's with other top session musicians.

On February 17th, 2020, Eric Clapton invited Kofi to perform with him, his band and very special guests, at a tribute concert organized to celebrate the life, times and music of Ginger Baker.

It's a foreboding time to make pop music. But like a sunbeam peering through a haze of wildfire smoke, Early Eyes have somehow persevered through dashed dreams, fractured relationships, historic social justice uprisings in their own hometown, and a society tearing apart at the seams to make an album that is both responsive to the chaos and wearily optimistic.

"It almost feels like Look Alive! is a direct response to the pandemic," bandleader Jake Berglove reflects. "It was like, oh, my goodness, all of our capitalist anxieties just came true! We took all of that anxiety and angry energy and put it into making a really fucked up album."

"The album was not just an expression of all of our frustrations, but also an escape from it," adds guitarist Joe Villano. "And I feel like the process of making it really carried us through the year."

Look Alive! vibrates with angst, punctuated by computerized glitches and disintegrating threads of abandoned melodies that echo in the distance before roaring back to life. A track like "Chemicals" will begin with Early Eyes' signature buoyant and catchy pop-rock, but as the song progresses it grows more ominous before shattering apart in an earthquake of rattling, subterranean bass.

Early Eyes signed to Epitaph Records in January 2020 and put out their first singles with the label that march--just as the pandemic brought the entire music industry screeching to a halt. As weeks turned into months, and as their city of Minneapolis imploded in a catastrophic moment of fury, grief, and protest, the band alternated between doing what they could to support mutual aid efforts and holing up in the studio to channel their complicated emotions into song. Along the way, they also parted ways with their previous rhythm section, further escalating their sonic reinvention.

"It kind of gave us an entirely new identity," Jake says. "It almost feels like we're completely different people. The three of us who were remaining wanted to pursue this new direction with the band and kind of embrace the chaos that comes with living in 2021." Away from the gaze of the public, they were free to make whatever best captured their mood in the moment. "We would write stuff previously with the understanding that we are writing to play live," guitarist John O'Brien says. "And then when playing live stopped being a thing that we had to worry about immediately, we were able to approach the songwriting process with a different mindset, being more production oriented, creating impossible textures and sounds."

Since his neo-psychedelic Green On Red days, Chuck Prophet has been turning out country, folk, blues, and Brill Building classicism. THE LAND THAT TIME FORGET is something different, a weather vane picking up signals from outer space -- or maybe it's the Heartland.

Priced out of his beloved hometown, San Francisco, Prophet found himself re-energized in Upstate NY just a few miles from the Vermont border -- and made a record that is much a 21st century exorcism as it is America.

The songs inhabit a world where a Fast Kid might be on the run from the truant officer or a handsy boss...or the Immigration Service. These are love songs that turn political on a dime (Love Doesn't Come from the Barrel of a Gun), and melodic hallucinations about kicking back in the Oval Office after hours "talking to my baby, saying baby, let's not fight."

Where else besides a Chuck Prophet LP are songs going to come at you from both the Tenderloin and an English roundabout, with stopovers in Nixonland and a love-struck mirror on a Saturday night while a workingman tries his Best Shirt On? With special appearances by the ghost of Johnny Thunders and Willie Wonka and John the Baptist and the train that brought Abraham Lincoln home one last time.

In Waving Goodbye, a young girl leaves small town attitudes behind to conquer the world one gig at a time. Then there's a dance Marathon, lost in time and reborn as a reality show. According to Womankind, men had their run, but it's over. (The good news is he can still try to sing his way into her heart.)

And it all leads up to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue where a singer has his say, in two and a half loping verses and a middle eight.

Here's Chuck:

"Have any of you been to a 24-hour Walmart on the outskirts of Pittsburgh after midnight lately? It was just me and a couple tweakers roaming the auto parts aisles. We got along just fine. Long story short, I fixed that guitar by my lonesome and am playing it right now. I'm kind of proud of that."

"I will say this, though, about Ohio. Some of my truest hard earned fans are in Ohio. Go on and call it a fly-over-state, but not while Chrissie Hynde is in earshot, unless you want a vegan boot up your ass. All I'm saying is that a state is a lot more than which candidate won by how many votes. I mean you gotta feel sorry for the conservatives. The only songs they can play at their rallies without getting hit with a cease and desist order are by Ted Nugent and Charlie Daniels. And those two sure aren't shy about expressing their opinions."

THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT got off the ground in the Money Belt, only to find its legs in the Borscht Belt. Musically it has deep roots, from the Southern Delta to the discos of Munich. There's a kind of folkish inevitability to it, lots of acoustic instruments, on top of each other and side by side. But as much as folk music is the soil all music grows from, it never hurts to have a boiler room. So, there's always a rhythm section shuffling under your feet here.

Written mostly with longtime co-conspirator klipschutz, this LP steps out of Chuck Prophet's comfort zone ("two guitars, bass, and drums"). After nailing three tracks in S.F. with Grammy-winning alchemist Matt Winegar, Prophet confesses, "We hit a wall. Schedules. Money. Towed vehicles: a thousand large to get one van out of lockup."

So he went out on tour, a solo tour. Driving through the Catskills he dropped into Kenny Siegal's Old Soul Studios, in a "5-bedroom Greek Revival listed on the National Registry," Chuck and Kenny immediately began to argue. Over anything. Whether it was too hot or too cold (according to WHOM?). At the end of the day -- "a very long day, three weeks of them -- let's just say Kenny's the man. At Old Soul, musicians drop in, sometimes complete blind dates. We did everything live. The drummer gigs with Kevin Morby. The bass player, out of some jazz scene. Piano player, an honorary Bad Seed. A mish mash of personalities and styles. Turns out you can make a lot of noise with acoustic instruments, if there are enough of them."

When asked about his life, Prophet is candid and evasive all at once: "What do you want to know. Death, health issues, financial hijinks, I've had them all the past few years. We lost my dad and we lost Stephie's dad too. The basement flooded. My shoulder went out. I got hives over 80% of my body; was quarantined. The only break I caught was when the ear, eye, nose, and throat doctors were all in the same building. Oh, and I almost got killed about seven times in rented cars in snowstorms, lost on the way to gigs. Hey, maybe we should talk about songs instead."

Employing a dazzling mix of glam rock, hard rock, and progressive rock, Angel's outrageous, white-satin-heavy image and equally over-the-top stage shows, made them one of the more colorful arena rock bands of the mid-'70s and early '80s. Discovered by Kiss bass player Gene Simmons, the group issued their eponymous debut album in 1975, which hewed closer to prog rock than the glam pop that would inform future endeavors like On Earth as It Is in Heaven (1977) and Sinful (1979). The group went their separate ways in 1981, but re-formed in the late '90s with a new lineup, and released two studio albums (1999's In the Beginning and 2019's Risen) and numerous compilations.

Formed in Washington, D.C., the group's self-titled 1975 debut was recorded for the flamboyant Casablanca Records label -- home to Kiss -- with a line-up comprising Frank DiMino (vocals), Punky Meadows (guitar, ex-BUX), Gregg Giuffria (keyboards), Mickie Jones (bass, ex-BUX), and Barry Brandt (drums). A heady slab of heavy pomp rock with lengthy songs swathed in Giuffria's atmospheric keyboards and featuring the longtime stage favorite "Tower," it was followed in 1976 by Helluva Band, which continued in a similar vein, with the group's famous white satin stage clothing making its debut on the album sleeve. On Earth as It Is in Heaven saw a distinct change in musical direction, as the band adopted a a more pop/rock-oriented sound, and introduced a clever logo that read identically when upside down.

1978's White Hot, with Felix Robinson replacing Jones, was helped by Eddie Leonetti's sympathetic production, and produced minor U.S. hits in "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" and "The Winter Song." Leonetti subsequently produced Sinful and the in-concert set Live Without a Net. Angel's record sales never quite reflected their popularity as a live act, and a legal dispute with PolyGram prompted the band's breakup in 1981. Giuffria attempted to revive the band in 1984, but the abortive reunion led to the formation of the more successful House of Lords. Robinson, meanwhile, appeared in an early White Lion line-up and played with 707. Brandt and DiMino re-formed Angel in the late '90s to record In the Beginning, with the help of guitarist and songwriter Richard Marcello. They staged an Angel reunion of sorts by persuading former colleagues Robinson and Meadows to play on the track "Set Me Free."

The group performed off and on during the early 2000s and issued a handful of compilation albums. Bassist and founding member Mickie Jones passed away in 2009 after battling liver cancer. Punky Meadows released a solo LP, Fallen Angel, in 2016, and in 2018, Meadows and DiMino toured under the name Frank DiMino & Punky Meadows of Angel. The band officially re-formed the following year with Meadows and DiMino joined by Danny Farrow, Steve E. Ojane, Billy Orrico, and Charlie Calv. The newly reactivated Angel released their seventh studio effort, Risen, later that October.

Michael McDermott burst onto the scene in his early 20s with his exceptional debut, 620 W. Surf and subsequently found himself touted as Rock's 'Next Big Thing'. MTV, Rolling Stone, The New York Times and even author, Stephen King added their appreciative nods and having the backing of Giant Records and prestigious producers like, Brian Koppelman and Don Gehman, seemed to go a long way towards assuring his success - overnight success.

The missteps and failures that followed, the collapse of an industry that once embraced him as its next sensation, are troubles and travails that either ruin a person completely, or they force a change of attitude and staunch determination to gather one's resolve to not only survive, but overcome. McDermott vowed to do both. Ten albums in, it's resulted in Willow Springs (Pauper Sky, June 17, 2016), one of the most honest, daring and defiant recordings of McDermott's career. Named for the small town where he now resides with his wife and young daughter, it reflects a certain circumspect about his life, the situations he's encountered, while realizing that ultimately, his fate resided in his own hands.

"This is an album of reckoning I suppose," McDermott reflects. "There was a real cacophony of change going on in my life at the time... being a new father, losing my own father, leaving the city for the country, dealing with sobriety, grief, death, mortality, shame and forgiveness. It was a veritable emotional tsunami and yet somehow I had to navigate through it all. That journey is reflected in these songs. Willow Springs is the name of the place where I took refuge and had to confront a lot of things".

Recorded at his home in the country and fan-funded, Willow Springs finds McDermott behind the boards as producer for the first time with longtime producer and collaborator, Lex Price doing the mix. Having enlisted a stellar support group of musicians -- including multi-instrumentalist, Price; guitarist, Will Kimbrough; keyboard player, John Deaderick ; sax player Rich Parenteau; and McDermott's wife, Heather Horton on backing vocals - McDermott found himself able to craft the unassuming yet cutting sound he envisioned.

Indeed, the results bear out the fact that Willow Springs is the most honest and expressive album of McDermott's extraordinary 25 year career. Songs such as, 'These Last Few Days', 'Getaway Car', 'Half Empty Kinda Guy', 'One Minus One' and the title track, convey all at once, a sound that's both reflective and confessional - borne by stark emotion and a tattered, battered delivery that's both sobering and sublime. McDermott remains more determined than ever, and Willow Springs is the result. "My enthusiasm is only matched by my desire to continue to evolve as an artist" he insists.

Accolades and kudos can be accumulated one minute and quickly dissipate the next. After all, the music biz is a fickle beast and it doesn't matter how much you pleased the masses last year, last month or even last week, but rather, about what you offer today.

Today, McDermott has offered his best.

Kudos to Michael McDermott - overnight success.

Much like gumbo, the famous dish of their hometown, the New Orleans-born Cowboy Mouth uses a potent blend of musical ingredients - rock, blues, punk, funk, country, pop, soul and whatever else feels good -- to create their bodacious, kickass tunes. Frontman, drummer, and co-founder Fred LeBlanc has asserted "if The Neville Brothers and The Clash had a baby, it would be Cowboy Mouth." His description not only reflects the group's amazing diverse sound, but it also conveys the fire and commitment they bring to their music.

Cowboy Mouth has perfected their wonderfully rambunctious style over the band's three decades together. During that time, they have sold over a half a million albums domestically, performed before more than 10 million people, and played over 3,000 concerts. These relentless road warriors built their reputation and developed their devoted fan base through powerhouse live performances (frequently averaging 250 gigs a year). "With every show, no matter where it is, we try to turn it into New Orleans during the middle of Mardi Gras," LeBlanc proclaims. "It's like a southern gospel revival without the religion" -- unless your religion is rock 'n' roll!

Cowboy Mouth formed in 1990, and their festive, free-wheeling style stood in sharp contrast to the then-popular grunge sound. In 1996, the band signed with MCA and their major label debut, Are You With Me?, spawned their biggest hit, "Jenny Says," which cracked the top 40 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock and Alternative Rock charts. Their tunes have appeared in films ranging from the crime drama The Underneath (which featured them performing on screen) to the family comedy Meet The Robinsons. After doing several more albums on MCA Records and then Atlantic Records, Cowboy Mouth has continued to get their music to the people with a series of well-received independent and self-released albums.

New Orleans and Louisiana have always been special places for Cowboy Mouth, who are inductees in The Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame. Their tune, "Mardi Gras State Of Mind," featuring another NOLA luminary Big Sam Williams (of Big Sam's Funky Nation) on trombone, delivers a joy-filled, footloose tribute to the world-famous carnival.

LeBlanc (previously of the punkabilly band Dash Rip Rock) and former Red Rocker guitarist John Thomas Griffith have been guiding Cowboy Mouth from the very beginning. Bassist Brian "Bruiser" Broussard joined the group in 2014, and quickly developed a telepathic groove with drummer LeBlanc (Broussard, by the way, is a beermaster too). The band's newest member is Frank (aka Frankie G) Grocholski, who has teamed up with Griffith to create a formidable two-man guitar army.

The phrase "Cowboy Mouth" typically is defined as "one with a loud and raucous voice," and the term fits the band too. This is especially true for their legendary live performances that have been described as celebratory, life-affirming experiences possessing the ability to save souls. The galvanizing connection between band and fans is one reason Cowboy Mouth has stayed strong for so many years. LeBlanc, however, offers another explanation: "bullheaded tenacity and determination, with a pretty healthy dose of faith."

Years before Americana music earned its own category at the Grammy Awards, Steve Forbert helped pioneer the genre's mix of folk, roots-rock, and richly delivered storytelling. He's been a torchbearer of that sound for more than four decades since, navigating the twists and turns of an acclaimed career that's taken him from gold records to Grammy nominations, from New York City's CBGB to Nashville's Bluebird Cafe, from his 1978 debut album to 2022's vital and versatile Moving Through America.

"I'm not trying to refine or reimagine what I do," says Forbert, a longtime road warrior who continues to spend the bulk of each year onstage, on the road, and in the writing room. "This is a continuation. I'm telling new stories, but my focus has always been the same. It's always been about the songs."

The songs take centerstage once again with Moving Through America. Filled with character portraits and quirky insights, the album unfolds like a mosaic of modern-day American life, delivered by someone who's been crisscrossing the country for nearly half a century. With an author's nuance and a humorist's wit, Forbert offer glimpses into the everyday lives of his characters: a dog running from the sky's thunderclaps; a Houston man preparing to take his girlfriend out for fried oysters; a former drug dealer celebrating his freedom after incarceration; a road-tripping motorist steadily making his way across the midwest. Forbert inhabits each character, turning their storylines into first-person narratives that blur the lines between subject and scribe. Backed by the same band that appeared on his collection of cover songs, Early Morning Rain, in 2020, he sounds every bit as spirited as he did in the late 1970s, back when he left his hometown of Meridian, Mississippi, and headed to New York in search of new horizons.

"I was a fan of the Byrds and the Lovin' Spoonful," he recalls of those early years up north, "but I also loved the singer/songwriters from that era. Country music, too. Gram Parsons was a real touchstone for me, and there wasn't a name yet that could encompass all those sounds. I wanted to keep that sound alive with my own music, and I didn't care that this was the late 1970s in New York City. I watched pop music go through a lot of changes, particularly in the eighties, but it never made me want to change what I was doing. I was making music that sounded like the way I felt."

His unwavering work ethic soon paid off. "Romeo's Tune," a track from Forbert's 1979 breakthrough, Jackrabbit Slim, became a hit, climbing to Number 11 in the U.S. and pushing its accompanying album to gold status. When New Wave bands began to dominate the FM airwaves several years later, Forbert stuck to his guns, continuing to fly the flag for organic roots music that proudly blurred the lines between genres. Releasing 20 albums in twice as many years, he has remained prolific well into the 21st century, serving as an elder statesman of Americana music while still writing music that's spry and steadfast. He's also a member of the Mississippi Music Hall of Fame, author of the lauded memoir Big City Cat: My Life in Folk-Rock, and a Grammy nominee for his tribute to Jimmie Rodgers, Any Old Time. Meanwhile, his older songs continue to resonate in today's world, with Keith Urban recording his own version of "Romeo's Tune" on the artist's platinum-certified album Greatest Hits: 18 Kids.

Moving Through America marks a new chapter in a story that's still unfolding. These are songs for the head, the heart, and the heartland, from the acoustic funky-tonk of "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" to the Tom Petty-worthy "Say Hello to Gainesville," which salutes the head Heartbreaker himself. It's an album that celebrates the art found in the everyday, created by a legacy songwriter with plenty of fuel left in the tank. Steve Forbert is still moving through America, and with his latest album, he takes us with him.

"Here's to life!" Fans around the world can be found singing the chorus of the Roger Clyne-penned fan favorite "Mekong" and toasting their glasses in unison to celebrate life through rock-n-roll. But the inspiration for the song dates back to the time Roger went to Taipei, Taiwan, as a college student to teach English during the day and busk with his guitar at night for money.

Today, as Clyne prepares to record his 11th studio album, he continues to transform his life experiences, inspirations, observations and his own muses into timeless music. And whether he's wearing his Converse high tops, boots or sandals, Clyne's blend of punk rock, country-western and mariachi influences have made him, drummer PH Naffah, guitarist Jim Dalton and bassist Nick Scropos -- collectively known as Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers -- one of America's best live rock-n-roll bands.

Starting with the seminal Tempe quartet, The Refreshments, Clyne and Naffah put the fun in rock during the 90s grunge era with a sense of humor. They also started what would become a trademark sound on all future albums by adding mariachi horns, something Clyne was influenced by while in college studying Cultural Anthropology with an ethnography study of mariachis during a three month immersion stay with a local family in Ensenada, Mexico.

The Refreshments' debut album, "Fizzy, Fuzzy, Big & Buzzy," became a cult classic. It produced the alternative radio hit "Banditos" which also had significant airplay on MTV and earned The Freshies an appearance on The Conan O'Brien Show. Clyne then penned and performed the theme song for the Mike Judge animated TV series, King of Hill. In 2017, Here's to Life: The story of The Refreshments, was released. The feature-length documentary was a hit with fans and critics alike.

Changes within their record label and internal band issues resulted in Clyne and Naffah going on a vision quest of sorts in the Whetstone Mountains near the Clyne Ranch in Southeastern Arizona. It was there that Clyne found inspiration in the rolling hills and the jukeboxes of small town taverns that still played Marty Robbins and Johnny Cash -- music he had shed from his youth in favor of bands like Camper Van Beethoven & They Might Be Giants. But after reconnecting with those old country records, Clyne and Naffah wrote and recorded under a new moniker what would become Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers' debut album, "Honky Tonk Union."

The album was the perfect combination of classic rock and twang, and fans immediately connected with it. Their independent release, "Honky Tonk Union," debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's internet sales chart in 1999 prompting a call from a Billboard exec to their Manager demanding, " Who the hell is Roger Clyne and why is he #1 on my chart?!" beating out much better known artists

RCPM released eight more albums that landed in the top ten of Billboard's Internet Sales Chart, including a No. 1 debut for their third album, "Americano!" -- all without the backing of a major record label and while flying under the radar of commercial radio.

In 2019, Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers were inducted into the Arizona Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame, joining the likes of fellow Arizona legends Alice Cooper, Buck Owens, Glen Campbell, Stevie Nicks, Linda Ronstadt and Waylon Jennings.

Later that fall, RCPM was invited by a man who, like Roger, also knows a little something about tequila and throwing big parties in Mexico. The band headlined Sammy Hagar's Cabo Wabo Cantina on the eve of Hagar's weekend birthday celebration.

Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers have curated their own annual music festival, Circus Mexicus, in the sleepy beach town of Puerto Peñasco, Mexico, which draws thousands of fans from around the world. The festival not only has a major impact on the local economy, but charity events hosted by the band and fans alike help raise money for a local orphanage, support local youth sports and help feed shelter animals.

Clyne not only sings about life in the border-lands, he also produces his own ultra-premium spirit, Mexican Moonshine Tequila (soon to be re-named Canción Tequila). Owned by the entire band, it was the official tequila at the Arizona Diamondbacks Chase stadium in 2016, 2017 and 2018. Started in 2011, the award-winning spirit is distributed in multiple states as well as Sonora, Mexico.

Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers have toured all over the US and achieved a faithful following through hard work and great music. They have done this all while being independent, without the safety net of a label or a label's radio promotion department. Dubbed "The Springsteen of the Southwest," by the Asbury Park Press. The band delivers exciting live performances that garner declarations like the one from emcee Jay Peterman of the Seinfeld TV show at Alice Cooper's annual Christmas Pudding event, "Young man, you light that stage a-flame!"

Born in Miami, during World War II, Chris Smither grew up in New Orleans where he first started playing music as a child. The son of a Tulane University professor, he was taught the rudiments of instrumentation by his uncle on his mother's ukulele. "Uncle Howard," Smither says, "showed me that if you knew three chords, you could play a lot of the songs you heard on the radio. And if you knew four chords, you could pretty much rule the world." With that bit of knowledge under his belt, he was hooked. "I'd loved acoustic music -- specifically the blues -- ever since I first heard Lightnin' Hopkins' Blues In My Bottle album. I couldn't believe the sound Hopkins got. At first I thought it was two guys playing guitar. My style, to a degree, came out of trying to imitate that sound I heard."

In his early twenties, Smither turned his back on his anthropology studies and headed to Boston at the urging of legendary folk singer Eric von Schmidt. It was the mid-'60s and acoustic music thrived in the streets and coffeehouses there. Smither forged lifelong friendships with many musicians, including Bonnie Raitt who went on to record his songs, "Love You Like A Man" and "I Feel the Same. (Their friendship has endured as their career paths intertwined over the years.) What quickly evolved from his New Orleans and Cambridge musical experiences is his enduring, singular guitar sound -- a beat-driven finger-picking, strongly influenced by the playing of Mississippi John Hurt and Lightnin' Hopkins, layered over the ever-present backbeat of his rhythmic, tapping feet (always mic'd in performance).

Smither's first albums, I'm A Stranger, Too! (1971) and Don't It Drag On (1972) were released on Poppy Records, home of kindred spirit Townes Van Zandt. By the time Smither recorded his third album, Honeysuckle Dog with Lowell George and Dr. John helping out, United Artists had absorbed Poppy and ultimately dropped much of their roster, including Smither. Smither made his next record in 1985, when the spare It Ain't Easy on Adelphi Records marked his return to the studio.

By the early '90s, Smither's steady nationwide touring and regular release of consistently acclaimed albums cemented his reputation as one of the finest acoustic musicians in the country. His 1991 album, Another Way to Find You, was recorded live in front of an in-studio audience with no overdubs or second takes. This would be the first of two albums with Flying Fish Records. His next recording, Happier Blue, was embraced by Triple A radio and received the NAIRD (now AFIM) award as Best Folk Recording of 1993. Up On The Lowdown (1995) marked the first of a trio of albums to be recorded with producer Stephen Bruton at The Hit Shack in Austin and his first of five albums with roots label HighTone Records. Up On the Lowdown rode the crest of the newly formed Americana radio format wave and sparked considerable interest abroad. A tour of Australia with Dave Alvin and extensive solo touring in Europe led to an expanding global interest in Smither. His song, "I Am the Ride," from this album inspired the independent film, The Ride, for which Smither also composed the original score.

In early 1997 Smither released Small Revelations. It climbed the Americana and Triple A radio charts and led to concert dates with B.B. King, Bonnie Raitt, Nanci Griffith, and the hugely successful, original Monsters of Folk' tour with Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Dave Alvin and Tom Russell. Small Revelations also generated several film projects for Smither. Emmylou Harris recorded his song, "Slow Surprise," for the The Horse Whisperer soundtrack on MCA. And his recording of "Hold On" was used in the indie feature film Love From Ground Zero. Smither also shared insight into his guitar style and technique on two instructional DVDs, available from Homespun Video.

His CD, Drive You Home Again (1999), garnered four-stars from Rolling Stone. And with it, Smither continued to tour world-wide. Shortly after, in 2000, Smither released his one-man-tour-de-force, Live As I'll Ever Be. Recorded in-concert at various clubs and concert halls in California, Dublin, Galway, Boston, and Washington DC, it has proven to be a fan favorite, capturing Smither at what he loves to do: performing in front of an audience.

Train Home (2003) was Smither's last record for HighTone and his first with producer David Goodrich. Over a six-week period, basic tracks for Train Home were recorded in the relaxed environment of Smither's home near Boston. Working with new session musicians, the record is simultaneously sparse and assured. Bonnie Raitt graciously provided backing vocals and slide guitar on Smither's cover of Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row." And Smither's "Seems So Real" from the CD earned a Folk Alliance Award as "Song of the Year."

In 2005, jazz great Diana Krall covered "Love Me Like A Man," introducing what is now a blues standard to a whole world of jazz fans. Shortly after, Smither's song "Slow Surprise" was included in the independent film, Brother's Shadow. In addition, Smither narrated a two-CD audio book recording of "Will Rogers' Greatest Hits." Continuing to expand his creative horizon, Smither was invited to contribute an essay to Sixty Things to Do When You Turn Sixty, a 2006 collection of essays by American luminaries on reaching that milestone. In 2009, Melville House published Amplified, a book featuring 16 short stories by notable American performing songwriters. Smither's story Leroy Purcell about a touring musician's encounter with a Texas State Patrolman leads off the collection.

With the release of his 12th recording Leave The Light On (2006) on his own imprint, Mighty Albert, Smither began a new label relationship with the renowned acoustic and modern folk label, Signature Sounds. For the recording, Smither reunited with producer David Goodrich and session musicians Mike Piehl, Lou Ulrich and Anita Suhanin. As an added treat, Smither invited good friend and Grammy Award-winning multi- instrumentalist, Tim O'Brien, along with rising American roots stars, Ollabelle, to add their distinctive talents on several tracks. Smither followed this with Time Stands Still (2009), his most stripped down recording in some time, working with just two accompanists after the same trio had played a rare band performance -- a non-solo setup required in order to play a Netherlands festival.

About the recording Smither says, "We're the only three guys on this record, and most of the songs only have three parts going on. We had a freewheeling feeling at that festival gig, and we managed to make a lot of that same feeling happen in this record." In 2011 Smither put out two fan projects: a collection of live tracks from newly discovered concert recordings from the 1980s-1990s titled Lost and Found and the rollicking EP, What I Learned in School, on which Smither covered six classic rock and roll songs.

Smither followed these fan-projects with Hundred Dollar Valentine (2012), a ????? (MOJO) studio record of all Smither-penned songs. With longtime producer David "Goody" Goodrich at the helm, this collection sported Smither's trademark acoustic guitar sound and evocative sonic textures meshed with spare, brilliant songs, delivered in a bone-wise, hard-won voice.

In 2014 Smither released Still on the Levee (2014) -- a double-CD retrospective. Recorded in New Orleans at the Music Shed, this career-spanning project features fresh new takes on 24 iconic songs from his vast career and some very special guests including the legendary Allen Toussaint and Loudon Wainwright III.

The coffee table style book Chris Smither Lyrics 1966-2012 and Signature Sounds' Link of Chain -- an all-star tribute record including a stellar list of artists offering their takes on some Smither favorites including Josh Ritter, Bonnie Raitt, Loudon Wainwright III, Dave Alvin, Peter Case, Tim O'Brien, Patty Larkin, and many others were fan-favorite accompaniments to the retrospective CD .

In March 2018, Smither released his eighteenth record, Call Me Lucky (Signature Sounds/Mighty Albert) once again teaming up with producer and multi-instrumentalist David Goodrich. Also joined by Billy Conway (Morphine) and Matt Lorenz (The Suitcase Junket), Smither recorded eight new originals along with some very special and surprising covers at the Blue Rock studios in the Texas hills in June 2017.

In October 2020, More From The Levee, the followup to the 50-year career retrospective Still on the Levee, was released.

Acoustic Guitar: Smither sings about "the big things -- life, love, loss -- in a penetrating and poetic yet unpretentious way."

Paul Cebar cut his teeth musically in the coffeehouse folk scene of the mid-'70s in Milwaukee. First paying gigs took place in late '76 with an emphasis on solo recasting of small combo jump-blues and other early R&B. Upon graduation from New College in Sarasota, Florida, with a thesis addressing rhythm & blues varieties featuring a hearty emphasis on Louis Jordan and Buddy Johnson, Cebar dedicated himself to trodding the boards in earnest and spent substantial amounts of time testing the waters out New York way while exploring band dynamics with a soul and New Orleans-minded crew called the R&B Cadets back home. The Cadets ranged about from 1980 to 1986 and featured the grand original tunes of John Sieger alongside the winning assortment of B sides and obscurities that were the fruits of Cebar's research. Concurrently, he kept alive the spark of his solo work with a small group which came to be known as The Milwaukeeans. Throughout the early 80s, this combo featured Rip Tenor on tenor sax, Alan Anderson on upright bass, Robyn Pluer on vocals and Paul on acoustic guitar and vocals, and drew most of its repertoire from '30s, '40s and '50s jazz and R&B.

With the demise of the Cadets in mid-1986, Cebar and Pluer, Tenor and Anderson welcomed drummer Randy Baugher and early Cadet saxophonist/vocalist Juli Wood to a new dance-floor fortified version of The Milwaukeeans which reflected Paul's ongoing and deepening fascination with African, Latin American and Caribbean rhythm & blues analogues. Rambling about the Midwest for the remainder of the '80s with occasional forays east and south, The Milwaukeeans began to rely more and more upon the original material that began to emerge in the aftermath of years of interpolation and grappling with favorites.

The first studio album, "That Unhinged Thing," which was culled from a number of years of recording, finally saw the light of day in 1993. It sparked a wider itinerary in the touring department, with initial forays to the west coast and Canada, as well as returns to the east and south. Following the release of the record and six months of touring, founding member and estimable vocalist Robyn Pluer left the band to attend to le private life.

Rebuffing the command of the record label, Shanachie, that he add a female vocalist, Cebar and cohorts ventured forth into the storm without a label umbrella for what turned into two years of enthusiastic touring with much attendant hand-wringing. Finally, they landed on the shores of a little label that could (for awhile), Don't Records, a Milwaukee-based, heart-driven indie. In the summer of '95, they set about making "Upstroke for the Downfolk," while upon its release in the fall of that year began to make inroads at adult album alternative radio outlets nationwide. The single "Didn't Leave Me No Ladder" ushered the fellows to a new level of visibility and the vans rolled on.

A six-song EP, "I Can't Dance For You," followed in the spring of '96 and was superseded by "The Get-Go," a full-length recording released in the fall of '97. Radio support was more sporadic, though the fan corps kept growing. But halfway through '98, Don't's distributor declared bankruptcy and its inventory was impounded. With its merchandise out of reach, Don't found it increasingly difficult and ultimately impossible to carry on.

In 2001, 15 1/2 years into the dance band incarnation of The Milwaukeeans, the fellows presented, "Suchamuch",a long-requested live album recorded at Martyr's in Chicago and continued to offer their multifarious wares to all and sundry. The present day incarnation of Tomorrow Sound took shape with the arrival (8 years back) of bassist, Mike Fredrickson, joining 22 year veterans Reggie Bordeaux on drums and Bob Jennings on saxophones and keyboards.

The peripatetic pageant continues unabated with renewed focus on "the song " in the context of the increasingly forceful rhythmic exploration that is at the heart of Cebar's quest. Stripping back to 4 pieces has opened up space for the understated command of Bob Jennings' keyboard and saxophonic thinking. Field Marshall Cebar's pithy guitar musing comes to the fore building upon the muscular rhythmic lattice laid by Reggie and Mike. With an ever-deepening appreciation for the funk and the polyglot rhythmic conception that is their trademark, Paul Cebar Tomorrow Sound said More! More! More! in 2004. Way to thrive in 2005! Dipped their wicks in 2006, Partied like '11 in 2007, and have their wild heads on straight in 2008. Fine fine Fine into 2009! funked it again and again and again and again in '10, made like 2107 in '11, and have packed up the worry they shelved in '12, incorporated the added vim they were flirtin' with in '13 and are full-on sportin' A-team in '18

Presently spreading the word with their gangling, headlong and insouciant record,"FINE RUDE THING", Paul Cebar Tomorrow Sound want and need you to come on out and help them get down.

Many musicians have graced the stage with Paul in the course of the aforementioned wander. He'd like to thank them all again for the loving spirit they brought to bear on the music. A partial list would include: Rip Tenor, Alan Anderson, Robin Pluer, Guy Hoffman, Juli Wood, Randy Baugher, Peter Roller, Tony Jarvis, Greg Tardy, Mac Perkins, Paul Scher, Michael Kashou, Michael Walls, Ethan Bender,Patrick Patterson, Romero Beverly and the present day crew, Bob Jennings, Reggie Bordeaux,and Mike Fredrickson. Viva le Musicianers!!!!!!!

It is a true, and nowadays rare, musician who writes lyrics so vulnerable and authentic that an audience is irrevocably captured by the powerful experience of sharing the journey. An album that is essentially an autobiographical account of personal mistakes, change, and growth, offers listeners a chance to reflect on their own experiences and connect with another's story.

With Griffin House's upcoming album, So On And So Forth, it is clear the artist digs deep and offers up his narrative after much reflection. House is now a young family man and artist who is choosing sobriety and celebrating the path to his success, through songs which share his perspective on how people remember the past with rose-colored glasses, how we grow up and realize what we deeply need, and how we must find happiness in ourselves in the present.

"The record has a lot to do with recognizing the ego in one's self and letting it die. It can feel like your whole identity is being wiped away, and you don't even know who you are anymore. For the person singing these songs, holding on to one's own individuality in order to remain special or important in the world has started to became far less important than being content with being a good, decent, and loving person. But old habits die hard," adds House.

The project was tracked last summer at Lakehouse Recording Studios, in Asbury Park, New Jersey. House's ties to Asbury Park go all the back to 2004, when he was invited to tour with Patti Scialfa. His first show in the boardwalk town was opening a show for Scialfa at the Paramount Theatre. It was there that Griffin met her husband, Bruce Springsteen, and all the wonderful characters in their crew and band. Those memories and experiences made returning to Asbury Park over a decade later to record So On And So Forth feel like a full circle moment in his career.

House recorded the essentially live project with no click track and very little overdubbing. Lakehouse owner, Jon Leidersdorff, helped assemble the band. Prior to walking into the studio, House had never met the musicians and had no idea how the songs would turn out. He adds, "The experience ended up being one of the most fun and positive of my career. The process was stress-free and freeing." The resulting album reflects this journey -- a leap of faith with triumphant results.

Recording and performing for over a decade, House has toured with Ron Sexsmith, Patti Scialfa, Josh Ritter, John Mellencamp, Mat Kearney, and The Cranberries. He received early critical acclaim on the CBS Sunday Morning, and his songs have since been featured in countless films and television shows such as One Tree Hill, Army Wives, and Brothers and Sisters. He has also appeared on Late Night with Craig Ferguson. Most recently, CNN Newsroom invited House to perform "Paris Calling," from So On and So Forth, live on the air, and the song has been picked up by radio prior to being serviced. House has released ten albums and continues to headline his own national tours. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife Jane and their two daughters.

Stars in their native Australia and cult heroes around the world, the Hoodoo Gurus are a band who blend their passion for '60s and '70s rock & roll with a delight for the joys of pop culture -- vintage exploitation cinema, television comedies, dance crazes, and roadside attractions, among other things. Their songs were usually rooted in classic garage rock, surf, and AM Pop formulas, but with the punch of power pop (especially on 1985's Mars Needs Guitars) and the crunchy guitars of hard rock (especially prominent on 1989's Magnum Cum Louder and 2004's Mach Schau), while the lyrics shifted between sincere contemplations of love and heartache and witty celebrations of all that was cool and trashy. The excellence of their material and the joyous ferocity of their performances won them a loyal audience that kept them in the game even after four decades together, when they released 2022's Chariot of the Gods.

Singer, guitarist, and principal songwriter Dave Faulkner began putting together the band after he left the Perth proto-punk outfit the Manikins. He soon teamed up with three other musicians on the Perth underground scene -- guitarists Kimble Rendall (formerly of the XL Capris) and Roddy Radalj (who had played with the Scientists) and drummer James Baker (ex-Victims). After comparing notes at a New Year's Eve party, they began working on material and adopted the name Le Hoodoo Gurus. The three-guitar lineup wasted little time, and by October 1982, they had put out their first single, "Leilani," through the Australian indie label Phantom Records. Not long after the record came out, they dropped the "Le" from their name, and the song did well enough to earn the group a few appearances on Australian TV. However, Rendall dropped out and went on to a successful career as a director in film and television. Radalj left in solidarity with Rendall, and to fill out the lineup they brought aboard bassist Clyde Bramley, who played with the Sydney group the Hitmen. Bramley was sharing a flat with Brad Shepherd, the former guitarist with Fun Things, and Bramley soon brought Shepherd into the group.

The Hoodoo Gurus had built enough of a buzz that the Australian label Big Time signed them up, and their first album, Stoneage Romeos (named after a Three Stooges short), was issued in March 1984. The LP went gold in Australia on the strength of the singles "I Want You Back" and "My Girl," and A&M Records licensed it for American release the following September, though their re-sequenced edition was given a drab new cover that did little to attract the eye. Within a few months of Stoneage Romeos appearing in shops, drummer James Baker was fired from the Gurus, and Mark Kingsmill took his place behind the kit. August 1985 brought their second album, Mars Needs Guitars! It peaked on the Australian charts at number five, and would go on to earn triple-platinum status there. In America, Elektra took up the group's contract, and thanks to extensive touring (including several dates opening for the Bangles), the album charted at a respectable number 140 in the States. For 1987's Blow Your Cool!, the group opted for a more polished production and a bit less lyrical eccentricity; the LP charted high in Australia (going all the way to number two) and moved more units in America than Mars Needs Guitars!, while members of the Bangles and the Dream Syndicate pitched in on backing vocals. After the touring cycle for Blow Your Cool! was completed, Clyde Bramley left the band, and Rick Grossman became their new bassist. Unhappy with their record contract, the Hoodoo Gurus filed a lawsuit to win their freedom, which kept them off the road for most of 1988, and it wasn't until mid-1989 that their next album appeared as part of an international deal with BMG. Magnum Cum Louder was produced by the band themselves, and boasted a tougher and more straightforward sound than Blow Your Cool! It went platinum at home, and topped out at number 101 in the U.S. The opening tune, "Come Anytime," would later become the theme song for the Australian TV series Thank God You're Here.

In 1991, the Hoodoo Gurus delivered the album Kinky, which included the hit singles "Miss Freelove '69" and "1000 Miles Away," and earned them another platinum award in Australia. A pair of compilations were issued in 1992; Electric Soup gathered their biggest hits and went triple platinum, while Gorilla Biscuit was devoted to B-sides and rare tracks. Crank was issued in 1994, and was followed by several rounds of international touring, including a number of dates in Brazil, where they had developed a sizable audience. The Hoodoo Gurus parted ways with BMG and signed with Mushroom Records for 1996's Blue Cave, while Zoo Entertainment released it in the United States. An arm injury suffered by Mark Kingsmill forced the band to postpone their touring in support of the LP, and their run of Australian dates didn't end until December 1996. A month later, Dave Faulkner broke the news that the Hoodoo Gurus were breaking up at the end of 1997. After another successful tour of Brazil, the band booked an extensive number of farewell dates that kept them occupied until January 1998. The final tour coincided with another pair of collections from the Gurus' back catalog: Electric Chair was devoted to their more raucous rock & roll numbers, and Armchair Gurus featured ballads and love songs. After the tour was completed, a live album was released, 1998's Bite the Bullet, that featured material from the final shows.

The four members of the group each pursued solo projects, while a career-spanning two disc anthology, Ampology, came out in 2000. By September 2001, Faulkner, Shepherd, Grossman, and Shepherd got the itch to play shows again, and re-formed under the name the Persian Rugs, where they indulged their 1960s rock influences. The Persian Rugs would issue an album in 2003, Turkish Delight, and even contributed a new version of "Be My Guru" to a Hoodoo Gurus tribute album, Stoneage Cameos. The Gurus reunited under their own name in 2003 to record a version of "What's My Scene," rewritten as "What's My Team," for the National Rugby League, with the band's share of the proceeds going to cancer charities. Their eighth studio album, Mach Schau, was released in March 2004; it was produced by Kim Salmon of the Scientists and the Beasts of Bourbon. In 2007, the Australian Recording Industry Association inducted the Hoodoo Gurus into their Hall of Fame, and they did several rounds of international touring, including an Australian "Clash of the Titans" tour where they shared the bill with Radio Birdman and the Stems.

In 2009 the Hoodoo Gurus struck a deal with Sony Music Australia, which resulted in their ninth full-length studio album, 2010's Purity of Essence. In 2012, with their 30th anniversary in sight, the Gurus released another career-spanning compilation, Gold Watch: 20 Golden Greats, which combined 19 favorites from their library along with one new tune. 2014's Gravy Train was a four-song EP that presented fresh recordings of three songs that had to be left off Stoneage Romeos in 1984, as well as a remake of "Leilani." The recordings featured all current and former members of the group, each playing on the songs suitable for their time of membership. The Hoodoo Gurus remained active as a live act over the next 18 years, staging major shows in Australia and occasionally touring elsewhere. The band scheduled a rare North American tour for the fall of 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic led to the shows being rescheduled twice before they were postponed indefinitely. However, they chose to use their time off profitably, and completed their first full-length album since 2010. Featuring 14 songs on CD and with three additional tracks on vinyl, Chariot of the Gods was released in March 2022; the Gurus performed the songs in full in a live streamed concert on March 10, with Australian tours planned for later in the year.

All shows 21+

Check the schedule for more detailed information or subscribe to our

RSS feed