Meshing rock & roll, soul, and pop music with acoustic overlays, The New Respects inhabit a genre all their own. The band cites Aretha Franklin, The Beatles, and Led Zepplin as core influencers of their music, traces of which can all be found within their catchy hooks and heavy grooves. NPR Music announced the upcoming release of the band’s 5 song EP Here Comes Trouble, which features 3 new unreleased tracks, which the band played live on tour this past spring with Robert Randolph.
Band Members
Alexandria Fitzgerald
Alexis Fitzgerald
Darius Fitzgerald
Jasmine Mullen
Lo-fi music pioneer R. Stevie Moore & power pop icon Jason Falkner. “Make It Be” was released on Friday, March 10th, 2017. The majority of songs were composed by Moore with one Falkner composition, a Roger Ferguson/Moore co-write, a surprising cover of “Don’t You Just Know It”, five co-writes between the two sprinkled throughout. The recording was done by Jason Falkner at his Rhetoric Studio in Hollywood CA.
Before they met up, both artists had long and storied careers, but their paths to cult status take completely opposite routes. Moore is widely considered to be the godfather of the DIY recording aesthetic. Dubbed a “lo-fi legend” by the New York Times, he started his career in the late 60’s, gaining widespread underground recognition during the 70’s punk explosion. Anticipating the viral internet era, Moore made innumerable cheap but brilliant videos. Luckily, many of them eventually found their way to YouTube where a whole new generation of fans discovered his work including the likes of MGMT, Mac Demarco, the Vaccines and collaborator Ariel Pink.
After a stint playing with a later line-up of the Coasters and trying his hand as a Nashville session player, R. StevieMoore realized he wasn’t cut out for the life of a conventional working musician. As he said in the documentary film, *I AM A GENIUS (AND THERE’S NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT)* “So boring. It was not me at all. If you have to work a day job, what could be better than doing music even if you hate it? …At the same time I started smoking pot as a twenty year old and I’m playing this acid rock on headphones and reel to reel recorders. It just exploded!”. He’s recorded more than 400 albums including the classic *Phonography* and *Delicate Tension,* releasing them via various labels as well as on his own on handmade cassettes and CDRs.
On the other hand, Falkner was involved in various major label deals as a group member and solo artist. He started with Paisley Underground pioneers The Three O Clock, joined supergroups Jellyfish with Andy Sturmer and Roger Manning, and the Grays with Jon Brion, finally scoring a solo deal with Elektra. He’s gone on to release numerous solo records and has worked with a wide range of artists, including Beck, Air, Brendan Benson and Paul McCartney.
“Make It Be” makes clear very quickly that their voices, performances, and arrangements are a match made in heaven long overdue to be realized here on earth. The duo immediately explodes on the lead off track with “I H8 Ppl” and proceeds to take listeners on a journey through rock, pop, and experimental music. Anchors such as “Play Myself Some Music” and “Sincero Amore” keep the effort rooted in insanely catchy songwriting, while spacey instrumental interludes and spoken-word pieces push boundaries of what could be considered pop music. Their raucous cover of the New Orleans classic “Don’t You Just Know It” shows the kind of fun the two had together.
“He was only able to be here for two weeks,” Falkner recounted , “so I just kind of concentrated on getting as much of him on tape as possible, and then I’m adding my Jason half to it. But it is a duo, it’s not just a record that I’m producing. So that’s very exciting.” As well as adding multiple instrumental tracks, Jason sang lead on a number of R. Stevie’s compositions. (Note: a whole new documentary “Cool Daddio” about Stevie is set to be released in 2017).
Moore explains how these strange bedfellows finally got under the creative covers together:
“We unknowingly shared a mutual admiration bigtime and finally got in direct contact mid 2000’s. I think my friend Tim Burgess was the first one to turn him onto my stuff. Recording with him was a dream, totally incredible. We showed a similar sense of both crazed adventure and textbook pop discipline. The sessions moved fast, just gleefully piling on overdubs. I am grateful he allowed me to just dive into any left-field idea I felt. JF’s a marvelous producer and killer drummer, but I don’t think he usually gets quite as much creative leeway to tinker with things as he did with me.”
Meanwhile, Falkner recalls: “I first became aware of Stevie in the late 90’s when I was sifting through the 10″ bin at a record shop that was going out of business. This record with the Beatles’ Revolver cover caught my eye. Upon closer inspection I noticed all the Beatles’ faces in the collage were covered with this oddly interesting looking fella. It was, of course, the R. Stevie Moore “Revolver” record so I bought it on looks alone..took it home and fell hard in love.
Take one mad DIY genius with the whole history of rock n roll at his fingertips and one consummate, world-class multi-instrumentalist, singer/composer, shake vigorously, and you have the magic that can be found in the grooves of “Make It Be” by R. Stevie Moore and Jason Falkner. Can’t wait to see what happens next.
All Them Witches, a Nashville born and raised quartet, is neither a country band or a gang of witches (I know, I was kind of bummed too). They’re a grungy, psychedelic rock band born from the blood, sweat, and beers of Charles Michael Parks Jr., Robby Staebler, Ben McLeaod, and Alan Can Cleave. The guys banded together (no pun intended—OK a little bit intended but I’m not apologizing) in 2012 and released their debut record Our Mother Electricity that same year. “Sleeping Through the War”, their release on February 24th, will be their third (and was produced by Dave Cobb so you know it’s going to be pretty good).
When asked about the video for “357” features a glitchy VHS filter that brings to mind the video of the floating plastic bag the weird kid made in American Beauty—drummer Robby Staebler, had this to say:
“For me this video is about perspective and the process of self realization. Once you begin to see yourself around you and in others, realizing you are apart of everything (even things that you despise) is something you have to swallow and move toward understanding so you can properly adjust. Remember that one song about that one dude who reached for the stars too soon? One of the most important and inspiring things I’ve heard is: “in concentration I will place my mind. For those whose thoughts are slack and wandering are caught between the fangs of their own afflictions” or something like that. Those afflictions become everyones afflictions. The cycle continues. The suffering continues. Learn to focus, you can do it!”
From the new album ‘Sleeping Through The War’ available February 24th, 2017.
On “Dirty Rain,” the first single from “Canyons of My Mind”, Andrew Combs pondered our fading grasp on consequence – and how, in an age preoccupied with instant gratification in the name of progress, we could be fast approaching a dark, joyless future. Self-awareness and a sensitivity for the world around him is a theme rich across the Nashville-based songwriter’s forthcoming third album. And on his newest track, “Blood Hunters,” he’s taking time to address the fragile relationship we all have with our own psyches. Watch the exclusive video above, with a sci-fi vibe that nods to Stranger Things .
Directed by Ry Cox, the video for “Blood Hunters” takes that fear of the unknown and puts it into a force tangible enough to look at – and nods at how some things are easier to confront when one returns to a more peaceful, natural state as Combs does, ankle-deep in the Piney River. With backup from Lera Lynn – whose recent album ShapeShifter shares a sense of sonic fearlessness with Canyons – the song opens with AndrewCombs‘ soothingly gorgeous vocals on haunting echo and spare electric guitar that crescendos into a fierce, Seattle-riffed fury. The musical gambit removes it even further away from the constraints of traditional country to forge a more experimental, rock-forward take on folk in the vein of Kevin Morby, Angel Olsen, or Cass McCombs .
As is also the case with “Dirty Rain,” the video for “Blood Hunters” prominently features children, and Canyons thinks often not only about growing up and settling into different definitions of adulthood, but the future we’re paving for our offspring. As a soon-to-be father himself – Combs‘ wife, Kristin, is pregnant – it’s a weight on his mind that is now more personal than ever. “The record was written before the news of the baby,” Combs says, “but the videos weren’t, and that’s definitely something I have been thinking about a lot: bringing up a child in this day and age. Technology, the craziness going on, everything – it’s scary times, bringing a child into that.” As echoed in the clip, there’s a monster looming, though it looks different for all of us: for some, it’s 10 stories tall with scales. For others, it’s 6’2″ with an orange tan and bad comb-over.
Canyonswas produced by Skylar Wilson (Justin Townes Earle) and Jordan Lehning (Rodney Crowell) at Battle Tapes Studio in East Nashville, and features appearances from Caitlin Rose, who also co-wrote a song, as well as Erin Rae McKaskle and Lynn. Andrew Combs will kick off a tour to support the album, available April 7th via New West, in March.
Fixed Focus is the debut album from Saint Pé (Ian Saint Pé, longtime Black Lips and Diamond Rugs guitarist).
After moving to Nashville, he settled down in a log cabin formerly owned by country legend Roy Acuff, which is where the record was born. it maintains all the hooks and pop sensibilities of his previous acts, while refining them with a bit of Nashville class and a hint of the darkness that ten long years on the road imbues upon the soul.
When Nikki Lane releases her anticipated third album on February. 17th, it won’t be the set she originally thought you’d hear. Between tours for her second album, the well-received, Dan Auerbach-produced “All Or Nothin’”, she holed up in New York City’s fabled Electric Lady Studios with producer Jonathan Wilson (Father John Misty, Dawes) to record. But at the end of those sessions, she realized everything had to be scrapped. “I just didn’t hear enough of myself on it,” she says.
The legacy of Nothin’s success was weighing on her, as was the shadow Auerbach cast across it. Working with the Black Keys frontman and renowned producer was, as she recalls, “a wonderful thing.” But it also messed with her head. “Most of the interviews that I had for that record began with, ‘Oh my god! You worked with Dan Auerbach! What’s he like? What’s his new music sound like?’” Lane started to question if it was his genius — or that of Dave Cobb, the producer of her first record, who has also helmed brilliant sets from Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, and Chris Stapleton in recent years — that made her records crackle. “Would mine be good if a famous rock star didn’t make it?” she says she began to wonder.
Highway Queen, is the product of primarily Lane and Jonathan Tyler, her boyfriend and frequent collaborator. They recorded in the Spring of 2016, while Lane was visiting Tyler in Dallas a few months after she’d been off the road. The last several years of touring had taught her that the more personal the fare, the more fans connected to her. “We’re all coming from the common denominators that we all have feelings and we’re trying to find friendships and relationship that are eternal,” she says, “I realize the more that I was open and honest, the more people could relate to [the music]” — and the more intimate studio environment aided her in letting loose. “I have to sometimes work through with myself what I’m willing to share,” she admits.
Across “HighwayQueen‘s” 10 tracks, Lane shares plenty. On “Big Mouth” she calls out a fellow Music City artist for badmouthing one of their industry-mates. “Jackpot” sees her admire her luck in finding Tyler and on the title track she admires her dream alter-ego.
The notion of the “Highway Queen” was largely inspired by Zane Grey’s 1950 Western novel The Maverick Queen, Lane says. The woman here, with tight blue jeans and long black hair, helps the singer-songwriter stay on the road for long stretches, something that she’d struggled with early in her career. “My life had become a character that didn’t know how to come home,” she says. “Because when I did, the house was empty, the dog was at my sister’s, my friends had had babies that were already walking. So I created this persona who, if I could slip into [her in] the evenings, would help me forget the fact that there was another side of me that was being put on hold.”
Overall, through this process, Lane says she’s more sure of her talents than ever. “I entered this [industry] as a bonafide rookie. I couldn’t play guitar, I just made up that I could do this job. And then the co-writes on my records, the producers in the studio, the album covers and fonts — everything was assisted,” she remembers. “So the thing I am most proud of now is the difference in myself, six years later. [This album] has given me an awareness that I am good enough at my job to get to call the shots and if things fail, now, I am much more comfortable with that than as a byproduct of a famous person making my record.” Fail? Not a shot.
Michael Stovall, who under the name Red Porch Kid, has crafted something pretty spectacular on his new solo project “Rocketship”. The entire album mixes ambient and Americana together to create a beautiful, folky, airy production. It’s not unlike Bon Iver’s ambitious 22, A Million, and at first listen seems at least somewhat influenced . Lyrically it’s a pretty standard growing up record, but sonically it challenges and rejuvenates, and Lord knows we need some more of that these days. Stovall is a founding member of Jackson Jones, who disbanded back in 2008. This is his second solo release, and his first under the name of Red Porch Kid. He wrote, recorded, and produced the record himself, which came out January 27th.
Nashville singer-songwriter and producer Michael Stovall has been making a name for himself in the music world for nearly a decade. In 2014, he released his first solo album, Georgia, just months before relocating to Nashville. Since then, he’s focused his time on producing great local music, including a new project of his own. Under the moniker Red Porch Kid, Stovall has crafted an album completely on his own. “Rocketship”, sneaked out this January, was mixed, mastered, produced and recorded in his one bedroom apartment earlier this year.
In his Words: “‘Waitin’ on Something’ was one of the first songs I wrote for the record, and it sorta ended up being the cornerstone for the entire album. Usually I don’t enjoy listening back to the songs that I’ve written and recorded, but I don’t mind listening to this one if it comes on.” comments Michael Stovall. while Good Heart was a song that happened pretty quickly,” Stovall tells. “I was thinking about how different experiences or relationships can often end pretty quickly, but neither side is really to blame. It doesn’t make you a bad person if you lose touch with someone, we’re all human beings. Sometimes things just end, and it’s ok to move on with your life.”
Red Porch Kid is the moniker of Michael Stovall, a musician/producer based in Nashville, TN. His forthcoming album “Rocketship”, cameout January 27th of 2017 is already turning heads and piquing ears – as his low-key approach to ambient Americana is making an incredible first-impression.
Mike’s commented. My new record is called “Rocketship”. It’s something that I am really proud of and can’t wait for people to hear it. I actually wrote and recorded the entire album in my old 1-bedroom apartment here in Nashville, TN.
I had the opportunity to work with one of my favorite local bands (Dead & Lovely) on a song called “Lazarus”. Other than that, I kinda kept everything on the album to myself. I wouldn’t say its a very personal record, but I had a distinct mood that I wanted to create for it. Red Porch Kid’s approach to craft is humble, focused and telling – a balm to chaos, and a sense of measure against the insurmountable, this is a mature set of songs that are both compelling and rewarding.
Red Porch Kid – Waitin’ on Something From the Album “Rocketship”
Red Porch Kid – Waitin’ on Something (Demo Version)
From the album: Rocketship B-Sides
Andrew Combs’ sophomore album, All These Dreams, marks a huge step forward for the Nashville singer-songwriter. Using hisgifts for lyricism and wry observation, Combs weaves tales of love, sin and redemption, in a style that brings together classic country and contemporary pop.
What is it about Combs vocal journey across its registers that evokes both deep sensual pleasure and sadness “Fake Plastic Trees.” is one of Nashville’s most poetically gifted young singer-songwriters Andrew Combs , echoes the work of these greatest in “Dirty Rain,” the first song from his deeply heartfelt third album “Canyons Of My Mind”, out April 7th on New West Records.
Combs, on Canyons. The album’s orchestrations are still highly evocative, but less directly suggestive of shiny modernity. “Dirty Rain,” is a nostalgic lament for wide open spaces that’s really a protest against Nashville’s rapid gentrification, gains intensity from the swirl of a string section mid-song; the crescendo is gentle, however, mirroring his undulating vocal line and the hazy circles of Jim Hoke’s pedal-steel guitar. “What will all the little children say, when the only place to play is in the dirty rain?” Combs ruefully intones,
The Fat Angel Sings 