Welcome to our weekly show recommendation column RSVP HERE – your source for the best NYC shows and interviews with some of our favorite local live bands.
photo credit: Michael Amaral
I first heard about Bad Waitress from a friend who described their live set as “a 100mph party train ride,” and they have been on my radar to see their next grand return to NYC ever since. Hailing from Toronto, ON, Bad Waitress are Canada’s premiere alt-punk party band consisting of Kali-Ann Butala (vox/guitar), Katelyn Molgard (guitar), Nicole Cain (bass) and Eva Moon (drums). Today they have released “That Sedative,” their first single and video since 2018 (watch below), and this week they will be rocking NYC at Mercury Lounge on January 22nd with Castle Rat and Old Lady. We chatted with them about their experiences touring in the US vs. Canada and their upcoming trip to Las Vegas.
AF: What is the difference between touring in Canada vs touring the US?
BW: US has shorter drives… and a lot of signs for selling fireworks and Jesus.
AF: What are your favorite cities to play in the US and Canada? What’s the craziest drive you’ve ever done on tour? Craziest tour story in general?
BW: It’s hard to choose really! Every city has its own place in our hearts but so far Detroit, Brooklyn, and Montreal have been major highlights. Our craziest drive hands down was straight from Toronto to Saskatoon which lasted 32 hours. Still have nightmares of that… woof!
We have so many crazy stories. One that sticks out is the mysterious black eye Kali got after our weekend playing Fest in Gainesville. Still don’t know to this day! Playing Crystal Lake fest two years ago was insane too. Katelyn met a woman who was former world champion body builder and ended up crashing at a Christian retreat owned by said body builder’s father while Kali disappeared into the woods while on acid to softly fall asleep in a nest of pine needles.
AF: You’re playing Punk Rock Bowling festival in Las Vegas next May. What bands are you most excited to see?
BW: We’re definitely stoked for Lunachicks. They are clearly a huge inspiration for our drummer Eva’s fashion sense. Haha. Also Cock Sparrer and Propaghandi.
AF: What other plans do you have for 2020 post-record release?
BW: We are playing at the Mercury Lounge in Manhattan January 22 and also playing New Colossus in Brooklyn in March as well as SXSW and Pouzza in Montreal! So much to do!
Toshi Reagon’s career is extraordinary. A performer since her teens, Reagon has played alongside countless artists from Lenny Kravitz, who brought her on as an opener for his first world tour, to Nona Hendryx to Elvis Costello to her godfather Pete Seeger. A singer, songwriter and producer, Reagon’s work has appeared in film and television (The Secret Life of Bees, The L Word). She has collaborated with dance companies and composed music for the stage, including recently, Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower, for which she collaborated with her mom, Bernice Johnson Reagon. She even founded a music festival, Word, Rock & Sword.
There’s a lot of music in Toshi Reagon, spanning from pop to blues.Over the course of five nights at Joe’s Pub, Reagon and her longtime band, BIGLovely will tap into that deep well of song for the acclaimed artist’s 36th annual birthday celebration. The events have surprises in store, including guest appearance from Reagon’s circle of friends and collaborators. From January 22 through 25, shows will take place at 9:30 p.m. On Sunday, January 26, Toshi Reagon & BigLovely will present The Sacred Music Show – The Bernice Johnson Reagon Songbook at 7 p.m.
Letitia VanSant creates a chilling effect with the opening line of her new song, “You Can’t Put My Fire Out:” “I didn’t run/I didn’t scream/I didn’t want to make a scene.”
The words came to her during a workshop when she was presented with the prompt, “How are you wounded?” It brought to mind her experience with sexual assault – she was raped by a former friend years prior, an experience she is sharing through song. “I think that question really opened the door for me,” VanSant says. Three years after she wrote down those striking lines, the rest of the song began to organically unfold as she watched Christine Blasey Ford courageously recount her story of sexual assault during the hearings for Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to Supreme Court in 2018. Premiering exclusively with Audiofemme, “You Can’t Put My Fire Out” was “one of those songs that forced its way out of me,” VanSant says, “and then I recognized the message that was coming out of it.”
VanSant shares that she initially kept the details of her sexual assault to herself, and is honest about the long-lasting impact it had on her life, subconsciously making her feel socially hesitant and “unwanted.” “People don’t realize sexual assault is not just the physical vibration, but it’s the mental impact that can live on for years,” she explains, adding that she’s since been on a journey of self-love. “I think that I’ve finally done enough of that that this song was able to recognize how much the experience had hurt me.”
Writing “You Can’t Put My Fire Out” has served as a healing process for VanSant, who reclaims her narrative in its potent lyrics: “Too long you’ve lived inside my mind/You paid no rent/You stole my time/Now I’m taking back what’s mine.” “I didn’t realize how much of the voices in my head that said bad things about me kind of came from this experience,” she continues. “It was sort of like recognizing that all of those voices saying hateful things towards myself, that’s not me. Those are the voices that I can kick out and that I can replace with more positive and much more powerful messages.”
One of those powerful messages is the title of the song, which VanSant admits she originally thought was “cheesy.” But as the lyrics began to tell her story in a meaningful way, she saw the title as a statement of self-confidence and conviction. “It’s more of a realization of a statement of something that’s true. It’s both a willful ‘I’m not going to let you’ but also ‘you actually can’t.’ People really can’t get at the core center of my being and my spirit. No matter what the world throws at me, the core of me is an unchanging and alive thing,” she says.
Through “You Can’t Put My Fire Out,” VanSant can use her story to connect with others who’ve experienced sexual assault. The singer says she’s had “powerful reactions” from women and men alike when she performs the song live, recalling a time when a group of college-aged men approached her after a show to discuss the song. “I think that this is the kind of song that can speak to anybody who’s been through a difficult experience. It’s for anybody who has someone in their past living in their head and needs to kick them out,” she says.
Growing up as white woman in an upper middle class family in Baltimore, VanSant is open about her intention to acknowledge the privileges and advantages she’s been given by society. She’s adamant about wanting to create space for people of color and those who are non-binary – and the question posed in the workshop reminded her that we all experience pain in our own way.
“As a person that occupies a position of a certain amount of privilege in our society, I think there is a place for self-doubt and for questioning. But I think that within that there is a place for growing a deep and centered kind of self-love. And the more we all grow that,” she expresses, “the better the world will be.”
“You Can’t Put My Fire Out” is included on VanSant’s new album Circadian, set for release on February 21.
“Nobody logical in life ever gave me a shot. They were always a little left of center.”
This wasn’t just a proclamation made by Tanya Tucker during her headlining show at the Ryman Auditorium on Sunday (Jan. 12), but a defining factor of who she is as an artist. The 61-year-old country legend achieved one of her prodigious dreams when she headlined a sold-out show at the historic Nashville venue, serving as the kick off for the 2020 CMT Next Women of Country Tour that she’ll helm through June.
Days before the show, Tucker reflected on how her father brought her to the Grand Ole Opry, whose original home was at the Ryman, from their native Willcox, Arizona when she was 9 years old. Tucker made history in 1972 at just thirteen years of age, when she became the youngest artist to have a major country with “Delta Dawn” reaching the top ten. Tucker would later become one of the few female acts included in the outlaw country movement led by the likes of Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard in the 1970s, and judging by the crowd’s reaction, she’s just as beloved now as she was nearly five decades ago.
Tanya Tucker performs with Billy Ray Cyrus during her headlining show at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Photo by Derrek Kupish / dkupish productions
She received multiple standing ovations throughout the opening trio of beloved favorites “Blood Red and Goin’ Down,” “Jamestown Ferry” and “What’s Your Mama’s Name Child.” “You remember!” she observed after a performance of “Lizzie And The Rainman” that inspired the crowd to sing along, a notion that continued as she powered through her storied catalog of hits, several of which she racked up before she was eligible to vote.
With a voice of endurance and consistency, Tucker’s spirit is perhaps more youthful than ever, with her wispy blonde hair dipped in hot pink tips, doing her best Elvis impression by swiveling her hips throughout multiple numbers in the set. The night was also jam-packed with surprise guest stars who were sprinkled in like precious gems, allowing Tucker to not only perform alongside her friends and fans, but soak in their affinity for her, as she did when Jamey Johnson came out and nailed “Don’t Believe My Heart Can Stand Another You,” vowing that he knew every one of Tucker’s songs.
“Strong Enough to Bend” got a particularly warm reception, as did “Love Me Like You Used To,” with the presence of Margo Price adding a nice touch. Billy Joe Shaver, Lee Ann Womack and actor Dennis Quaid – who unbeknownst to most is also a songwriter – were all pleasant surprises, but perhaps the most rewarding appearance was Billy Ray Cyrus. The two dueted on his famous “Achy Breaky Heart” before Tucker requested they sing his massive hit with Lil Nas X, “Old Town Road.” And try as she might, the trailblazing star didn’t exactly know all the words, but was clearly in the spirit of the song as she danced her way across the stage and struck as many poses as possible. The performance wasn’t merely a reunion among two friends, but a symbol of how courage, artistic vision and aligning with the right visionaries can revitalize one’s career in a meaningful way.
Tanya Tucker and friends perform during her headlining show at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Photo by Derrek Kupish / dkupish productions
For Tucker, those visionaries are Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings, who co-produced her new album, While I’m Livin,’ her first in 17 years. Tucker treated the audience to several numbers from the album, including the spirited “The Wheels of Laredo,” “Hard Luck” and “High Ridin’ Horses.” Tucker remarked how Jennings called her one day to remind her that she once told him she’d do anything for him – he decided to play that card early by encouraging her to make an album, knowing her talent needed to be re-showcased to the world. “The biggest song you’ll have is the one you’ll write yourself,” she added, recalling a sage piece of advice she received years prior that served as an introduction to “Bring My Flowers Now,” the somber, reflective ballad she co-wrote that’s since scored her three nominations at the 2020 Grammy Awards. The moment proved to be one of the best of the night, with Tucker perched on a stool with just a piano, her husky voice and the song’s potent lyrics about cherishing other’s appreciation and love while you’re still able to do so.
The evening came to a fulfilling close with the edgy “Texas (When I Die),” a duet with Quaid on his original number “On My Way to Heaven” and an all-star sing-along to the hit that started it all for Tucker, “Delta Dawn,” bringing the audience to its feet. “I think they’ve figured out, I’m not going anywhere,” Tucker remarked about her friends, a statement that not only applies to her revitalized career, but the loyal fans who continue to support her in days past and present.
The Mojave is a rain-shadow desert, which means that the mountains block rain weather systems, casting a “shadow” behind them. In the arid heat, one can find the kind of solitude needed to write music, sheltered from the sun by the summit’s back. Singer-Songwriter AC Sapphire, aka Annachristie Sadler, spent five years meditating out there in the badlands, only to find herself now in Portland, Oregon with an EP, Omni Present, due in February; its first single, “Mini Tour,” premiering today; and a full-length tour in the works.
Sapphire began her music career in Sisters3, with her siblings Beatrice and Cassandra by her side. The first “mini tour” they went on was not far from their hometown Downingtown, PA; she got on the road with three other local Philadelphia bands (The Naughty Naughty Nurses, The Extraordinaries and The Clouds). “I have memory of my dear friend ripping up the Bible from the hotel drawer and us rolling joints with some of the torn out pages,” she says, “in combination with a breakup that I was going through at the time – one of those situations where you are on Facebook, scrolling, and get drawn in and stuck on your ex’s photos. This song is about wanting to get drunk to forget and wanting to get sober to remember and wanting to go back to simpler, younger times of my first mini tour.”
After eight years on the road, Sisters3 called it quits. Moving to the desert was part of an escape plan. “The time in between Sisters3 ending and me moving to the Mojave desert was a grieving and healing time for me, trying to not give up on music and finding my own voice as a solo artist,” Sapphire admitted – a difficult task when you’re used to performing in three-part-harmony, often a capella, at live shows.
On “Mini Tour,” Sapphire utilizes harmony, but this time it’s her own voice filling up the room, echoing along the canyons. “I want to fill my cup, I want to get fucked up and not remember you, baby,” she breathes, giving the lyrics the kind of effortless cool one pictures of a desert musician. “Mini Tour” was conceived along with a bit of good luck: she found $5 in the pocket of a jacket she hadn’t worn since her first mini tour. That bit of cash provoked a slew of memories from the good ole days, the kind of faded flashbacks that you can’t find on social media. There’s something warm and cozy about the song itself, a memory blanket of sorts.
“Mini Tour” was mixed and mastered in Joshua Tree and Portland, a befitting start to a song that brings to mind an Astro van full of guitars heading full speed across the sand. With the rain-shadows of the Mojave behind her, Sapphire has become greatly enamored with Portland and is planning on making use of recent heartbreak for her next inspiration (“I’ll be working on some of those songs once the dust settles,” she says). In the meantime, she’ll be hitting the road in 2020, with her first big gig taking place at the legendary desert hotspot Pappy & Harriet’s on March 12th.
AC Sapphire’s EP Omni Present is due out February 28; follow her on Facebook for ongoing updates.
It’s easy to get lost in particular nooks of the Philly music scene. Within a few blocks radius of where I’m sitting, there’s a coffee shop that blasts Screaming Females in the morning, a basement venue with metal shows every other night, three tattoo shops, two vegan donut joints, and – inexplicably – an anarchist street artist who tags “gay chaos” on every mailbox in town. I do love this strange bubble of a neighborhood, but I’ll happily let Sophie Coran‘s “Saltwater” burst it, adding something fresh and unexpected to my small corner of this city.
Lauded on NPR as one of “10 Artists You Should Know from Philadelphia,” Coran describes herself as a “Noir & B” artist, incorporating elements of jazz, soul, and pop into her own admirably ambitious sound. She could rock a dive bar as easily as an expansive theater; her music is best accompanied by a grand piano and a brass ensemble, but she could make it work on an electronic keyboard just fine.
Sophie Coran started garnering attention around Philadelphia after releasing the All That Matters EP in 2018. Themed around her experience working in restaurants, the powerful EP is adorned with retro diner graphics. There’s an aesthetic sensibility to her work – her rooftop sessions pluck Lana Del Rey from Venice Beach and drop her on the deck of a Fishtown loft. Coran thrives when she channels her eclectic songwriting through visual means, so it’s no surprise that the new music video for her single “Saltwater” is so captivating. Directed by Philadelphia’s own William DeJessa of Rittenhouse Filmworks, “Saltwater” is dark, dreamy, and evocative.
In “Saltwater,” Coran describes the alienating experience of growing up: “I measure every thought in fear, it’s not the right one/And further from the shore I steer, lost in the ocean.” She’s not the first writer to compare loneliness to floating through the ocean, but her surprising musical arrangements make the concept feel more fresh. Its verses sound like a jazzier Billie Eilish with a wider vocal range; its choruses feel oddly victorious, despite their melancholy lyrics. If you have a short attention span, you’ll love Sophie Coran – her clever song structures will keep you on your toes.
The music video for “Saltwater,” equally glamorous as it is vulnerable, offers us a first look into what this next phase of Coran’s style might look like. Like a pop star, Coran is showered with sparklers, glitter and confetti. Then, against a backdrop of moving water, she looks like a mermaid as she’s “swimming upstream.” In these tight shots, Coran sings directly into the camera, inviting us into her world. But before we can dwell on this image of a star in the spotlight, the shot pans out to show a “behind-the-scenes” look at how the music video was filmed. In the midst of a dark film studio, Coran sits on a stool, illuminated by intense spotlights. The further we zoom out, the darker and lonelier Coran seems.
In a press release, director William DeJessa says, “I wanted to show a sense of nostalgia and yearning as well as a celebration of life.” It’s clever to break the fourth wall on “Saltwater,” because it allows us to see two sides of the musician: her burgeoning stardom and vulnerability are intertwined, inviting us to dwell on what artists – particularly, women solo acts – must work through before they find themselves drowning in a sea of glitter and confetti.
Cacie Dalager and Bradley Hale of Now Now, circa 2017. Photo by Sam San Román.
Now, Now pulled many of us into the 2010s—right out of the Hot Topic era and into the brave new world of adulthood. Formed in Minnesota during the early aughts by frontwoman Cacie Dalager and drummer Bradley Hale, when the two were still in high school, the duo spent their first seven years honing their sound, refining their line-up, and coming of age before releasing their Neighbors EP in 2010. Throughout their music, a melancholy keyboard anchors guitar and drums that pay homage to emo forbears like Sunny Day Real Estate, American Football, and Paramore. Now, Now was a bit of a forgotten stepchild of the “scene” era, but for those who bought in, they were both vessel and balm for emo angst.
Dalager’s moody charisma lies in her velvety voice, paired with the drama of Tegan-and-Sara-esque syllable breaks. The band’s Neighbors EP burst like a firework into the new decade, just a year after their meandering debut album, Cars. After the instrumental intro track, the aptly-named “Rebuild,” electric guitars and drums weave a shimmering web that eventually nets the song’s soaring coda. Darkly-plucked guitars and plaintive vocals buoy the rest of the album through “Roommates,” “Jesus Camp,” and the title track, and through two emotionally-charged acoustic versions. All of it is about young crushes, restlessness, hometown ennui. “Tell them when they’re older / how you miss the neighbors / standing in the front yard / telling all your secrets / like they were theirs to tell.” Each song finds the listener staring Dalager in her huge, haunted, green eyes, spellbound by her lightly veiled tales of loneliness and longing.
Two years later, their cult-favorite album Threads dropped, a melee of fuzzy guitars, wide-eyed melodies, dark chords, and sharp drums that earned them a modest but diehard fanbase. This is the one most emo kids will cite: the moody guitars layer over and over and over, the ideal soundtrack for throwing a hood over your earbuds on a bus to anywhere. It begins with haunting opener “The Pull,” and ends with lyrics on “Magnet” that implore, “Can you still feel the pull?”
Now Now circa 2012, with former guitarist Jess Abbott.
The album peaks on track four in the stripped-down strums of “Dead Oaks” — perhaps the band’s most beloved song. Though it’s less than two minutes long, “Dead Oaks” offers the effortless and infectious “Oh oh oh oh oh I’ve been up and oh oh I don’t sleep enough” that present-day fans will still echo at the top of their lungs.
From 2012 to 2017, Now, Now went pretty much silent. That summer, they rewarded their faithful fanbase with new single “SGL,” an electric ode to front-seat love that was satisfying, hot, and catchy as hell. Next came shimmering “Yours”: pop mastery that echoed the ‘80s and seemed radio-ready. “AZ” and “MJ” followed, showing off more emotive synths and charming, breathy Dalager vocals. A little under a year later, Now, Now released Saved, their final full-length album of the decade. Saved is fuller and punchier than their first two LPs, but the sharp vocals, piercing melodies, and compelling drums boomerang to 2012. 2010, even – “Back to the heart of it all.”
The last decade saw pop intensify and rock retreat, and Now, Now followed suit; yet, they remain emo kids at heart, along with many of us who still feel the pull. As the opening line of “Threads” incants: “Find a thread to pull / and we can watch it unravel;” their lyrics are hollowed out with longing, from 2010 to 2019 and back. Throughout the 2010s, Now, Now has remained a trap door out of adult life—a promise that you can always retreat into your hoodie’s sleeves if all else fails.
Cincinnati-bred rapper Roberto has delivered his first project of the year: the Many Truths EP. Balancing carefully crafted verses with a casual flow, Roberto’s introspective lyrics are perfectly housed within Matador’s gritty lo-fi production. Vulnerability and easy-listening coexist as the standout qualities of the six-track project, while songstress Ladi Tajo adds a drop of syrupy sweetness on the EP’s lone collaboration, “nowhere2run.”
“Ladi Tajo and I are really good friends and have been for a while. We’d been working on some tracks for a collab LP that we plan to release in the spring and were in the studio together when Matador sent the instrumentals through,” Roberto tells AudioFemme of the feature.
The Cincy MC makes lyrical strides throughout the first five songs, sprinkling personal anecdotes and inner thoughts along the way. However, Many Truths hits its peak vulnerability on closing track, “Close To You,” where Roberto wraps up a project that you can tell he’s proud of.
“I felt like I was taking a victory lap, in a way. It was probably around 5 or 6 a.m. and I was in the studio recording [“Close To You”], running off adrenaline and coffee,” he described of the final song. “I was just reflecting on everything, from seeing success in music before I graduated high school, and then taking a three-year hiatus, disappointing releases, the fear of being seen, and everything that kept me from releasing music for a long time.”
“I felt like everything had come full-circle,” he continued. “Whether it be the fact that I’ve been trying to muster up a project I felt confident in for years, my long-time relationship with Matador finally becoming fruitful, constantly wondering when I’d be able to get a record out with Ladi Tajo, or comparing myself, wanting to prove myself to my peers – it was all laid to rest in the five-day period of creating the project.”
‘Many Truths’ cover art/ by @stkales
Roberto describes obstacles that many artists struggle with – the pursuit of perfection, feelings of self-doubt, and the fear of being exposed. At the beginning of “nowhere2run,” a conversation between him and Ladi Tajo epitomizes the feeling, where he can be heard jokingly suggesting they start from scratch entirely, rather than put out their record.
“For a long time, that’s precisely how I’ve felt,” he said. “And all I had to do was lock in, focus, and be honest with myself. Essentially it felt like I had been worrying so long about how others saw me, that I had forgotten to see myself.”
From top to bottom, the one-minute “Many Truths” intro provides a perfect bite-sized sample of what’s to come. “Dear, Mrs. Whatshername” and “Canismoke.wav” ease the listener to-and-fro the standout track, “nowhere2run.” The EP ends on a strong note, with the “Close To You” outro. Matador and Roberto are a clear producer-rapper match made in heaven, with Matador’s immersive lo-fi acting as the ideal backdrop to Roberto’s gentle, yet purposeful, bars.
“The last three years or so has, in essence, been me tirelessly creating content just to leave it on my hard drive and try to create something better the next day. I’ve written and conceptualized entire albums just to scrap them entirely or to throw away certain songs,” he said. “The recordings you hear [in Many Truths] are the first and only drafts I made for the songs and the mixing and mastering was done immediately after writing and recording each individual track, with me virtually living in the studio to make sure I had no choice but to get it finished.”
Lizzo press photo by Luke Gilford, courtesy of Atlantic Records.
Every year I keep a running list of new album releases. The idea is that I’ll have new stuff on my radar, along with a go-to playlist if I’m feeling adventurous (or bored) and want to hear something new. This year that list grew to nearly 9,000 songs, and I’m still adding stuff I missed from this year to it. When it came time to make my year-end list, I had some ideas about what would be on it, but I decided to do something more immersive than I’d done years prior (basically narrowing my list down to ten albums). This year, I decided to rank every record I listened to that came out in 2019, resulting in a list of more than 200 albums. That’s a lot, certainly. It’s my job, of course, to listen to music. But what was more mind-boggling was that, when I made a separate list of albums I hadn’t had a chance to listen to or simply didn’t stick in my mind, it was more than double that number. Y’all, a lot of music came out in 2019. And a lot of it was really, really good.
I think our list at Audiofemme is unique in that it gives each of our regular writers (and some of our contributors) complete ownership over their favorites, and that makes our list unusually eclectic. That’s especially true this year; last year’s lists featured a lot of love for Mitski and Janelle Monae, while this year’s lists were so disparate there’s very little crossover from list to list. So while it’s hard to choose one overarching narrative around who slayed hardest this year – Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen releasing the best albums of their careers, Big Thief releasing two amazing records, Jamila Woods and FKA Twigs going big on concept albums – I think we all know that person was Lizzo.
EDITOR LISTS
Marianne White (Executive Director)
Top 5 Albums:
1) Jamila Woods – LEGACY! LEGACY!
2) Big Thief – Two Hands
3) Boy Harsher – Careful
4) FKA Twigs – Magdalene
5) Cate le Bon – Reward
Lindsey Rhoades (Editor-in-Chief)
Top 10 Albums:
1) SASAMI – SASAMI
2) Hand Habits – placeholder
3) Crumb – Jinx
4) Pottery – No. 1
5) Orville Peck – Pony
6) Cate le Bon – Reward
7) Kim Gordon – No Home Record
8) Sharon Van Etten – Remind Me Tomorrow
9) Black Belt Eagle Scout – At the Party With My Brown Friends
10) Big Thief – Two Hands Top 10 Singles:
1) Sharon Van Etten – “Jupiter 4”
2) SOAK – “Valentine Shmalentine”
3) Jonny Kosmo – “Strawberry Vision”
4) Mineral – “Your Body Is the World”
5) Drahla – “Stimulus for Living”
6) Mattiel – “Keep the Change”
7) Girlpool – “Minute in Your Mind”
8) Charlotte Adigéry – “Paténipat”
9) Weyes Blood – “Andromeda”
10) Palehound – “Killer”
Mandy Brownholtz (Marketing Director)
Top 5 Albums (in no particular order):
Summer Walker – Over It
Jamila Woods – LEGACY! LEGACY!
Angel Olsen – All Mirrors
Mannequin Pussy – Patience
Raveena – Lucid Top 3 Singles:
Summer Walker – “Anna Mae”
Solange – “Binz”
Jamila Woods – “ZORA”
Top 5 Albums:
1) Guayaba – Fantasmagoria
2) Ings – Lullaby Rock
3) The Black Tones – Cobain & Cornbread
4) Lemolo – Swansea
5) Stephanie Anne Johnson – Take This Love Top 5 Singles:
1) Lizzo – “Juice”
2) Karma Rivera – “Do More Say Less”
2) Heather Thomas Band – “When I Was Young”
3) Stephanie Anne Johnson – “Never No More”
4) Sarah Potenza – “I Work For Me”
5) Ariana Grande – “Thank U, Next”
Top 5 Albums:
1) Charly Bliss – Young Enough
2) PUP – Morbid Stuff
3) Kim Petras – TURN OFF THE LIGHT
4) Microwave – Death is a Warm Blanket
5) Caroline Polachek – Pang Top 3 Singles:
1) Jess Day – “Rabbit Hole”
2) Ashnikko – “Hi, It’s Me”
3) Saweetie – “My Type”
Top 5 Albums:
1) Yola – Walk Through Fire
2) Louis York – American Griots
3) The Highwomen – The Highwomen
4) Sara Potenza – Road to Rome
5) Rising Appalachia – Leylines Top 3 Singles:
1) Kacey Musgraves – “Rainbow”
2) Louis York – “Don’t You Forget”
3) The Highwomen – “Crowded Table”
Top 5 Albums:
1) The Raconteurs – Help Us Stranger
2) Harry Styles – Fine Line
3) Brittany Howard – Jaime
4) MARINA – Love + Fear
5) Death Mama – High Strangeness Top 3 Singles:
1) Sam Burchfield – “Blue Ridge June”
2) Pip the Pansy – “Siren Song”
3) 5 Seconds of Summer – “Teeth”
Top 5 Albums:
1) YBN Cordae – The Lost Boy
2) Wale – Wow… That’s Crazy
3) Roddy Ricch – Please Excuse Me For Being Antisocial
4) DaBaby – KIRK
5) NF – The Search Top 3 Singles:
1) DaBaby – “Intro”
2) Polo G – “Pop Out”
3) Lil Baby – “Yes Indeed” (feat. Drake)
Top 5 Albums:
1) Palehound – Black Friday
2) Great Grandpa – Four of Arrows
3) Charly Bliss – Young Enough
4) T-Rextasy – Prehysteria
5) Leggy – Let Me Know Your Moon Top 3 Singles:
1) Mannequin Pussy – “Drunk II”
2) Charly Bliss – “Chatroom”
3) (Sandy) Alex G – “Southern Sky”
Top 5 Albums:
1) Karen O & Danger Mouse – Lux Prima
2) FEELS – Post Earth
3) Francie Moon – All the Same
4) Lizzo – Cuz I Love You
5) Crumb – Jinx Top 3 Singles:
1) Dehd – “Lucky”
2) Bodega – “Shiny New Model”
3) Y La Bamba – “Entre Los Dos”
Top 5 Albums (in Chronological Order):
1) JANITOR — She Hates The Hits
2) Haybaby — They Get There
3) Holy Tunics — Hit Parade Lemonade Supersonic Spree
4) Bethlehem Steel — Bethlehem Steel
5) Francie Moon – All The Same
6) SUO – Dancing Spots and Dungeons
Top 5 Singles (in Chronological Order):
1) Big Bliss – “Contact”
2) Gesserit – “Silence”
3) Vanessa Silberman – “I Got A Reason”
4) New Myths – “Living Doll”
5) Miss Eaves – “Swipe Left Up”
Top 5 Albums:
1) Hot Chip – A Bath Full of Ecstasy
2) (tie) Chelsea Wolfe – Birth of Violence // K Á R Y Y N – The Quanta Series
3) !!! – Wallop
4) Yacht – Chain Tripping
5) Chromatics – Closer to Grey Top 3 Singles:
1) Billie Eilish – “Bad Guy”
2) Roisin Murphy – “Narcissus”
3) Boy Harsher – “Come Closer”
Top 5 Albums:
1) Xiu Xiu – Girl With a Basket of Fruit
2) slowthai – Nothing Great About Britain
3) Boy Harsher – Careful
4) Thee Oh Sees – Face Stabber
5) Sylvia Black – Twilight Animals Top 3 Singles:
1) Squarepusher – “Vortrack – Fracture Remix”
2) Coyu & Moby – “I May Be Dead, But One Day The World Will Be Beautiful Again”
3) Cocorosie – “Smash My Head”
Top 5 Albums:
1) Bad Books — III
2) Pedro The Lion — Phoenix
3) Laura Stevenson — The Big Freeze
4) An Horse — Modern Air
5) Black Belt Eagle Scout — At the Party With My Brown Friends Top 3 Singles:
1) Kevin Devine – “Only Yourself”
2) Rain Phoenix feat. Michael Stipe – “Time is the Killer”
3) Sigrid – “Strangers”
Top 5 Albums:
1) Stef Chura — Midnight
2) Angel Olsen — All Mirrors
3) Lisa Prank — Perfect Love Song
4) Carly Rae Jepsen — Dedicated
5) Cheekface — Therapy Island Top 3 Singles:
1) Caroline Polachek — “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings”
2) Priests — “Jesus’ Son”
3) Lana Del Ray — “The Greatest”
Top 5 Albums:
1) The Highwomen — The Highwomen
2) Better Oblivion Community Center — Better Oblivion Community Center
3) Various Artists — Tiny Changes: A Celebration of Frightened Rabbit’s ‘The Midnight Organ Fight’
4) Vampire Weekend — Father of the Bride
5) J.S. Ondara — Tales of America Top 3 Singles:
1) MUNA — “Good News (Ya-Ya Song)”
2) Lizzie No — “Narcissus”
3) Noah Gundersen — “Lose You”
Top 5 Albums:
1) King Princess – Cheap Queen
2) Carly Rae Jepsen – Dedicated
3) Tyler, the Creator – IGOR
4) Kim Petras – Clarity
5) Charli XCX – Charli Top 3 Singles:
1) King Princess – “Hit the Back”
2) FKA Twigs – “holy terrain”
3) Charli XCX – “Gone” feat. Christine and the Queens
Top 5 Albums:
1) Marielle Allschwang & the Visitations – Precession of a Day: The World of Mary Nohl
2) Angel Olsen – All Mirrors
3) Sudan Archives – Athena
4) Karen O & Danger Mouse – Lux Prima
5) Sigur Rós – Sigur Rós Presents Liminal Sleep Top 3 Singles:
1) King Princess – “Hit the Back”
2) Sleater-Kinney – “Hurry on Home”
3) Lizzo – “Tempo”
Top 5 Albums:
1) Jenny Hval – The Practice of Love
2) Mariee Sioux – Grief in Exile
3) Carolina Eyck – Elegies for Theremin & Voice
4) Julia Kent – Temporal
5) Rhiannon Giddens – There is No Other (with Francesco Turrisi)
Top 5 Albums (in no particular order):
Mal Blum – Pity Boy
Jamila Woods – LEGACY! LEGACY!
Durand Jones and the Indications – American Love Call
Tony Molina – Songs from San Mateo County
Carly Rae Jepsen – Dedicated Top 3 Singles:
Brittany Howard – “Stay High”
Angel Olsen – “New Love Cassette”
Jacky Boy – “Get Along”
Welcome to our weekly show recommendation column RSVP HERE – your source for the best NYC shows and interviews with some of our favorite local live bands.
After seeing Godcaster for the first time, I imagined they all grew up together on a purple mountain surrounded by space dragons on one of Saturns moons. Turns out I was half right: they have been playing music together since they were kids and called themselves a band before they even played instruments. Their members are split between Philadelphia and Brooklyn, and played 25 shows of their well-composed glam chaos in NYC last year, landing themselves on Oh My Rockness’ list of Hardest Working Bands of 2019. Their first show of the new decade is on 1/10 at Baby’s All Right with many of the other bands on this list including Cindy Cane, Darkwing, Gesserit, Top Nachos, and New Myths. We chatted with Godcaster about flute solos, Europa and the hand seekers…
AF: What was your favorite moment of your 2019 shows? Who was the best dancer you saw at one of your shows? Where and with what band do you want to play in the next year that you haven’t yet?
GC: When the piston misfired in the old van / big wheelie across Utah. Best dancer: David! Who we want to play with: Deerhoof!
AF: How large is your collection of fringe jackets? What’s the most creative use of the fringe on your jacket?
GC: Keeping in terms with the hand seekers, we are big we are valid
AF: If you could play on any planet, moon, black hole or another celestial variety in the universe, where would it be & why?
GC: Europa the frozen moon with the elves!
AF: What is the most inspirational flute solo you have ever heard?
GC: Keeping in terms with the hand seekers! Delving quick and valid
AF: What are your plans for 2020 + beyond?
GC: Continue commencing big velocity undergoing valid dirth and keep rockin around!
Until three years ago, singer-songwriter Caitlin Sherman’s musical career in Seattle was always attached to one romantic partner or another. For seven years, she was married to local Seattle guitarist Jason Goesl, and for nine years the two performed together as Slow Skate. After the two divorced, Sherman met and began dating musician Hart Kingsbery, and they began western-psych outfit, Evening Bell. For four years, Evening Bell’s regional notoriety mounted; they filmed a Band in Seattle segment, played a KEXP in-studio, and were asked often to open for notable contemporaries, like Wanda Jackson. But when Sherman and Kingsbery’s romantic relationship came to an end in 2017, Evening Bell, and much of what they’d worked for, came to ashes with it.
Sherman calls losing her romantic partner and her band at the same time “devastating,” and joked that trying this method twice might be “the definition of insanity.” But, this last time, she didn’t stew for long. Even before Evening Bell had completely disbanded, Sherman went to Nashville for the annual Americana Festival, and the experience confirmed that she was a music “lifer.”
“[I realized] I have to figure out how to keep doing this—because the bands that I had and the relationships that I had didn’t work out—but this is what I do. I borrowed a guitar [in Nashville], and wrote [the song] ‘Death to the Damsel’ in pretty much one sitting.”
This song would become the title track to her first solo full-length, Death to the Damsel, due out February 14th, 2020 on the label Small Batch Records. Personnel, both on the album and live setting, include Jason Merculief on drums (J Tillman, Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter, Alela Diane, Sera Cahoone), Bill Patton on guitar (Fleet Foxes, J Tillman) and Jesse Harmonson on bass (Jaime Wyatt, The Crying Shame). Along with writing the songs, Sherman plays piano, guitar, and sings on the album.
“There was the strength to [“Death to the Damsel”], like ‘no more of that.’ I don’t want to say it’s a jab at myself, but it’s giving myself a good talking to,” Sherman said. “You were complicit in conforming to traditional roles that relationships entail and slowly lost [yourself] in it. Nope, we’re done with that.”
Death to the Damsel is a strong, what-we’ve-been-waiting-for kind of debut. Though Caitlin’s voice was undeniably a part of her previous collaborations, up front and out from behind her exes is where Sherman’s songwriting prowess shines.
Today’s single premiere, “Find Me A Fire,” is a perfect example of this album on a whole. Empowering and frankly personal, it makes peace with the difficult decision to leave her ex-husband, and with the painful life lessons we must learn (and sometimes relearn) until they stick. The song plays with the image of a house on fire—a nod to Sherman’s Sagittarius nature—and this Tennessee Williams quote she’s always loved: “We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.”
Lyrically, Sherman challenges the conclusions of the quote in the song, determined in finding a way out and rebuilding. A calming, almost-familiar piano-driven progression pushes the song forward, resulting in a highly-listenable anthem of self-empowerment. “It all kind of came together as I think just that kind of feeling of ‘Okay, I’m going to be the one to pull the rip cord,’” Sherman said. “This kind of solution-oriented [feeling], like ‘No, I’m going to find a way to get out of it.’”
She’s out of that house now, and now there’s a different kind of fire burning under Sherman. Though she admits it’s scarier to write and perform under her own name, she also admits it means she’s finally getting her due. People have continued to ask her to open for them, sans the rest of Evening Bell, and those who’ve heard the early tracks of Death to the Damsel have approached her with a new perspective on her talent.
“It’s a weird sort of compliment, but so many people who knew Evening Bell [and have heard my new work] are saying, ‘I’m so sorry, I thought it was Hart the whole time,’” said Sherman. “It’s a programming thing—if a man and woman make music together [it’s assumed] he probably wrote the stuff. We both wrote.”
On Death to the Damsel, with her well-crafted songs and musical talent as the centerpiece, there’s no question she’s a formidable tour de force. The confidence and resilience that radiate throughout this deliciously tender debut mark an exciting new phase for Sherman—and her listeners.
Aubrie Sellers’ sophomore album “Far From Home” will be released on February 7. Photo courtesy of Aubrie Sellers
When Aubrie Sellers’ new album, Far From Home, is released, you’ll notice a distinct message etched into the vinyl: “We are traveling through this wild, wild land.”
It’s a line from the title track that sets the pace for Sellers’ journey of self-discovery she poured into Far From Home. “This album was really about ‘I’ve got to make sure I’m embracing who I really am,’” Sellers shares with Audiofemme. “It’s a lot about me finding my place in the world as a person.”
Solidifying her place is something the singer has long been adamant about. Though the daughter of Grammy winning songstress Lee Ann Womack and hit country songwriter Jason Sellers, the young starlet established a distinct sound with her 2016 debut record New City Blues that strikes a delicate balance between grunge and blues that’s layered with an angelic voice much like her mother’s; a style Sellers has dubbed “garage country.” She carries this unique sonic identity into Far From Home, a 12-track display into the mind of an introverted artist who doesn’t shy away from a challenge.
The 29-year-old notes more than once that the sophomore project feels “grown up,” a result of the past several years she’s spent touring. Being a front woman on the road made her feel exposed to the world, while powering through the grind of tour life and constant interactions with people caused her to break through her shell. She says being onstage was a “serious challenge” when she first began touring, especially as someone who lives with anxiety. As a self-described “intuitive being” who feels other people’s energy, Sellers compares life on the road to throwing herself into the deep end, knowing the only way she could become comfortable in the craft was to go through the uncomfortable growing pains. But the self-proclaimed perfectionist recognizes the importance of embracing imperfection, particularly in music. “It doesn’t feel human to be that way. I think it’s more important that we express ourselves vulnerably,” she says.
Sellers defines vulnerability in Far From Home, particularly as she conveys what it’s like to have anxiety in “Worried Mind.” “Change is the only way we move forward and we grow, but for somebody who’s anxiety prone, you constantly feel like you’re fighting battles because it’s so difficult to make that change,” she explains. “Something I’ve learned about myself is that all change, it’s going to be hard for me, and you cannot move forward or grow without it and the only way to learn whether it’s right for you is to do it until you feel like it’s wrong for you to be doing it.”
She cites the ethereal “Haven’t Even Kissed Me Yet” as one of the album’s most potent moments, comparing to a journal entry that captures the feeling of going against one’s intuition. “Drag You Down” is an edgy, guitar-heavy rocker that’s more about empathy and less about dragging someone into the depths of depravity, while “One Town’s Trash” is a tribute to all the outliers looking for sanctuary in like-minded people, something Sellers has experienced first-hand. “I definitely feel a lot of the time like I don’t quite align with the people around me,” she chuckles. “[It’s] about realizing that maybe if you find yourself constantly in a situation where you feel like the people around you don’t get you, that you can go continue your journey to search and find the people who do.”
Sellers intentionally opens the album with its namesake song, one that symbolizes her personal self-discovery and hopes it inspires others to do the same. And just as purposefully as she begins the album with such an ode, she completes it with “One Town’s Trash,” a symbol of venturing on one’s own path to find their place in the world. “We’re all here together and part of this human experience and it’s challenging and it feels like we’re in the jungle half of the time. I think that message and that song are the embodiment of this album and how I feel and where I am as a person,” she observes of “Far From Home.”
“It’s almost like you’re looking at your reflection in a way because you’re imprinting your own life on to these songs,” she continues about the album. “I hope they listen to the record and it’s a self-discovery process for them and they can hear themselves in it.”
Far From Home will be released on February 7. Sellers will join Robert Earl Keen for several tour dates throughout January and February. She’ll also support Tanya Tucker on the CMT Next Women of Country: Bring My Flowers Now Tour during select dates in February and June.
The year’s end is ripe for self-reflection, and the decade’s end, even more. It is easy to get inside your head; to obsess over the past and the things that may have been different had you kissed that person, taken that job, gone home just a little earlier that night. It’s more difficult to let things go.
Stef Chura’s sophomore LP Midnight is a step forward, away from the past, and it sees her rejecting old habits for new ones at every turn. Produced by Will Toledo of Car Seat Headrest, Chura speaks fondly about how working together was truly a collaboration. Like Car Seat Headrest’s re-recording of Twin Fantasy, some of the songs on Midnight are rewritten demos, and in both cases, adding new people into the mix makes these songs feel less alone. Their parallels don’t stop there; both artists have evolved by mixing their vocals closer, letting themselves be truly audible for the first time. Being open-minded to different angles and approaches let Chura explore musically what she’s been doing lyrically for years, whether that’s an added layer of percussion, or just having a second guitar player, or a few years of confidence to add a new perspective.
“Scream” explores those shifting points of view right away; it examines the concept of an idealized self and idealized versions of other people – so basically, Instagram. Chura is “dreaming of being nice,” yet longs to reveal her truest self, her fears, her frustrations, to someone else who will really see her (“You know me / But I’m lonely” she sings, laying that disconnect bare). Guitars, like lyrics, start and stop staccato – unfinished thoughts, so as not to offend, perhaps. She’s reintroducing herself to listeners and revealing something new about herself all at once.
Indeed, there’s something familiar about the tone of Midnight. Younger artists tend to be musical polyglots – drawing from every era, songs they remembered liking growing up. The entire history of a band can be read on Wikipedia in a matter of minutes, their entire discography just a click away. That’s become a strength: you have Car Seat Headrest namedropping Frank Ocean, James Brown, and They Might Be Giants in one song. You have Soccer Mommy covering Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire” and collaborating with Snail Mail on a rendition of mom car mixtape favorite Goo Goo Dolls. In ways that don’t feel obvious, Midnight draws from everything before Chura’s time. “They’ll Never” has a very college rock guitar jangle, while “All I Do Is Lie” feels like a spiritual sequel to Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps” thanks to Chura’s Karen O-esque warble. The album even ends with a cover of Billy Idol’s “Eyes Without A Face.”
Though she takes it in new directions, Chura is never totally unmoored from her past. “Love Song” uses a short and conversational approach reminiscent of some of her earlier work, and displays the trademark nervy humor (“Before I forget / Oh, they told me to write you a love song”) that initially endeared her to fans. On a more serious note, “Sweet Sweet Midnight” is about dreaming of a friend who passed away, waking to remember they’re not there; it was this person’s death that motivated Chura to record her 2017 debut Messes – a step toward a risk because, you know, life is short. The song muddles along, feeling its feelings. Yet the catharsis of the song is huge – Chura and Toledo shout-sing together, a key change so fast it’s like a splash of cold water.
“They’ll Never” is another kind of goodbye, one for an era and geographic location of Chura’s life. It’s an elegy, but also a damnation: “They’ll never tear this place apart.” Chura’s vowels stretch and waver, lyrical phrases stop and restart in places you don’t expect, like finding your belongings in a room they’re not supposed to be. Her lyrics are confessional, but you’d never know; they’re obscured on multiple layers on purpose. She understands them, but we can form our own impressions and opinions about them.
Chura is more overt on the album’s lead single “Method Man,” a side-eye to a man “Ripping up a box of books / He says I’ll never understand.” It’s measured for just over a minute, then a mood change – something driving, something wild; a repetitive, slightly off guitar tone persists throughout, a cluster headache of sound. Her sonic spontaneity may put her at odds with the predictable titular character, but it’s wise not to get too comfortable with Chura, who often takes the most unexpected routes available. On the whole, Midnight offers a goodbye to old ways, to old friends, old places. Letting go isn’t always about leaving it all behind; sometimes it’s about reexamining things from a new perspective and running wild with it. Midnight means a new day has started, after all.
Below is our list of the Hardest Working DIY Touring bands of 2019 keeping the DIY dream alive!
Photo by Lisa Foldenauer Thompson
Lung (Cincinnati, OH)
157 Shows
Cincinnati rock duo Lung sound HUGE. With only an electric cello, drums and vocals, they have a sludgy post-rock sound that could fit inside a stadium. Formed in 2016 by Kate Wakefield on cello/vocals and Daisy Caplan on drums, the duo met after Daisy’s former band Babe Rage had Kate collaborate with them during a residency. They have since played over 500 shows in the US and toured Europe. In that short period they’ve made a name for themselves sharing the stage with bands like Screaming Females, Fucked Up, Priests, Downtown Boys, Shellshag and more. Their sophomore record All The Kings Horses was released in fall of 2018 on Sofaburn Records, and they’re currently working on their third album.
AF: What is your craziest tour story from this year?
Kate Wakefield: We played a show in Tallinn, Estonia that was incredible but went super late. After the show we took a 5AM ferry across the Gulf to go play a benefit show in Helsinki for Girls Rock Finland. So many people came out to support, and all the bands were amazing! The folks putting it on also fed us delicious vegan food, and the night ended with us all hanging out in a sauna.
AF: What are the advantages and challenges of DIY touring?
KW: Advantages are that you immediately are immersed in so many great music scenes. We like playing anywhere and everywhere and some of the best shows are in the most unexpected places. Challenges are being as frugal as possible and living without a kitchen. We’ve become pros at sleeping anywhere and cheap grocery store meals.
Snailmate (Tempe, AZ)
More than 100 Shows
Snailmate are a nerdcore duo that have been touring since their formation in 2015. Composed of Kalen Lander (vocals/synth) and partner in crime Ariel Monet (drums/vocals), they book/fund their own tours, screenprint their own shirts, design all their posters, make their own buttons, and do basically every other aspect of managing a tour with a master DIY work ethic. Kalen was formerly in TKLB? (The Kalen Lander band), but after he tired of touring with a DJ in the traditional hip hop sense, was inspired to perform everything in Snailmate live. Snailmate has racked up 15 releases on theirBandcamp and claim to have had a “light” year of touring because they are working on their new album. In total, they did nine shows in two weeks in Japan, sixteen shows in three weeks in Europe, and over 100 shows in the USA. In 2020 they have plans to return to Europe and Japan as well as tour Brazil for the first time.
AF: What is your craziest tour story from this year?
SM: Well, touring is a never ending stream of crazy events. Sometimes we begin to feel like we’ve seen it all, and nothing is surprising. But being in another country turns everything upside down. Not only had we never been to Germany before, but we were scrambling to salvage a tour that had been tossed together by a “booking agent.” When we realized that their promises were not going to be fulfilled, we started piecing the tour together despite not having any contacts in Germany. A friend of a friend of a friend led us to a wonderful little house party in Braunschweig. We had a great time performing for the friendly locals, and everyone was smoking lots of pot. Suddenly there was a knock on the door, and eight German police officers came storming in. We were all seated on the floor, with the cops barking orders and asking questions in a language we didn’t understand. All of our bags were searched and we were patted down. It was all very surreal. Everything ended up okay – we don’t smoke – but it was still scary. Once we got past the language barrier, the police ended up being far more polite and chill than we are used to here in America. But it was all an experience we never expected to have, and hopefully don’t have to go through again. Yay tour!
AF: What are the advantages and challenges of DIY touring?
SM: DIY touring definitely has its pros and cons. We make our own schedule and route, and get to go to the places that we love. All of the money comes back to us, which we funnel back into printing more shirts and supplementing our merchandise. Since we already screen print our own merch and design all the artwork, it can leave us feeling stretched thin. We are just two people trying to book shows and promote ourselves, while also writing and drawing, driving and navigating. Sometimes we feel like we could use some help. But we also know people who’ve hired tour bookers and have gotten stuck with totally fucked up routes, dropped shows, and endless days off. We like to keep a rapid pace and play every night, and that’s a lot to ask of a booking agent. We even tried a different approach with our European tour, and ended up getting screwed over by an individual who didn’t care about our band and just wanted our money. Nobody cares about Snailmate as much as we do, so we find we are usually the best qualified people to do Snailmate work. It’s exhausting but so incredibly rewarding.
Soraia (Philadelphia, PA)
90 Shows
Fronted by ZouZou Mansour, Soraia (which means “bright guiding star” in Arabic), are a four-piece rock band with influences ranging from ’90s alt-rock and the early ’00s garage rock revival to the entire classic rock gamut. Since the band formed in the mid-2000s they have released three albums, one featuring five songs the band co-wrote with Jon Bon Jovi. Their latest record Dead Reckoning was recorded at Steven Van Zandt’s Renegade Nation Studios, featured two songs produced by Van Zandt, and released on his label Wicked Cool Records in October 2017. They didn’t stop there and have released two more 7″s since. They play everywhere from dives to arenas, and credit their love of the non-stop tour life to a thick skin they’ve developed from being a Philly-based band. Soraia haven’t toured as much as usual this year due to a line-up change, but still managed to play close to 100 shows.
AF: What is your craziest tour story from this year?
ZM: We played The Viper Room in Los Angeles this past April, and we had a lot of people there that night, including Clem Burke from Blondie. During our last song, “Beggar,” I always get really wild and climb on things I find on stage, jumping around a ton. I climbed onto the bass rig and did not have a sturdy stand, totally threw my head right into the corner of the bass cab and came down on the stage, just short of knocking myself out. I finished super dizzy and semi-blacking out. But spent a lot of time after talking to people who were thrilled with the fire of the last song, but basically knowing I needed to go to the hospital right after. I still performed with our friend’s band the same night – so it’s not sooooo crazy – but a feat of modern humanity still.
AF: What are the advantages and challenges of DIY touring?
ZM: The advantages are you get to plan your route, and play at places where you already know the sound and areas, and also, delve into new places that you’ve wanted to for a while. The disadvantages is the not knowing if other bands are going to show – we had that happen last tour, and it was a surprise to us. But in new areas where you don’t have that foothold, it’s expected at times.
Radiator King (Boston, MA)
84 Shows
Radiator King is the solo endeavor of punk/blues singer-songwriter Adam Silvestri. His songwriting captures the essence of old blues mixed with modern songwriting pirates like Tom Waits, Dropkick Murphys and Fugazi. Radiator King has perfected this folk/punk/blues sound over three records and countless tours since his project’s official inception in 2011. His most recent EP Roll The Dice was released on SoundEvolution this year, and features many great musicians including drummer Brian Viglione (Dresden Dolls, Violent Femmes, NIN), bassist Mark Stewart and guitarist Adam Brisbin. He is most recently coming off a month long solo European tour, and closing out the decade with shows in upstate New York and Asbury Park, NJ.
AF: What is your craziest tour story from this year?
RK: The craziest story that comes to mind was when I played in Berlin, Germany on a solo tour about a month ago. The place I was staying in was about a 15 minute walk to the venue. After dropping off my bags at the apartment, I made the walk to the club for soundcheck with a backpack and guitar in hand. The route to the venue required that I cut through a park. At the time I was heading to the venue, which was around 6pm, there was still daylight and the park seemed like any other ordinary park. However, after the show on my walk back around 2am, the park took on quite a different atmosphere. There were not many people around besides a few homeless folks who were sprawled out along the pathway. As I walked along I noticed a man coming out from a wooded area had started walking behind me. He began to get closer and started saying in broken English “stop for a minute, I want to talk to you.” At first I ignored him and walked faster. However, he began to walk faster, pleading with me to stop. I told him no, that I was in a rush and kept on walking, as I figured I would soon be out of the park and onto the streets where there would be people around again.
As the man continued to harass me from behind, I noticed that three other men came out of the wooded area up ahead of me, blocking the pathway where I was to walk. I quickly realized that they were in cahoots with the guy trailing me and that I was going to get mugged if I didn’t act fast. Getting my guitar stolen would mean that I could not finish the rest of tour and there was no way in hell I was going to let that happen. As the men closed in, my mind quickly recounted a lesson my father had once told me: “If you are ever in a conflict and are outnumbered, lose control and go crazy. Scream, yell even punch yourself in the face if necessary. Because no one ever wants to fight a crazy person.” So that’s exactly what I did (although it never got to punching myself in the face). I screamed obscenities, threatened violence, and flailed my arms like I was scaring off a grizzly bear. One by one they began to retreat, receding into the woods in which they came. Thanks for the advice Pops – who would of known it would one day save my guitar from getting stolen!
AF: What are the advantages and challenges of DIY touring?
RK: I’d say the biggest advantage in DIY touring is the personal connection you develop with the people involved with the shows. In doing all the booking and managing on my own, I am in effect building a relationship with whomever handles booking at a venue; whether it be the talent buyer, owner, promoter etc. In most cases this is usually a person who is involved with the music scene in their community quite heavily, whether playing in bands themselves, booking shows or just going out and seeing shows in their neighborhood regularly. And usually these folks introduce you to their crew of friends who are also involved with the music scene in the area. It’s usually these people that we end up crashing with after the shows. So really you are building lasting relationships with a community of like-minded people in the places you are going and that’s an amazing thing to be a part of.
Since it’s just myself who handles tour booking duties, the biggest challenge would be ensuring that all the moving parts of tour come together as they should. After the show is booked, it’s my job to make sure that we get to where we are going on time, load in and do sound check, sell merch, play the show, break down and load up equipment, get paid out at the end of the night and find us a place to crash. It’s really involved and is a lot of work but it’s undoubtedly worth it.
Remember Jones (Asbury Park, NJ)
81 Shows
Remember Jones is a soul/pop band that has toured close to six months of this year as a 12-piece band led by Anthony D’Amato. The band has played clubs, ballrooms, and theaters of all sizes over the country and opened for bands like Darlene Love, George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic, Ronnie Spector & The Ronettes and more. They toured in support of their two records released in 2016 and 2017, and also do runs of shows that adapt beloved albums like Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black, Jeff Buckley’s Grace (in collaboration with co-writer Gary Lucas), and Kanye West’s 808s and Heartbreak with 15-25 piece orchestras. Their next US tour is set for February/March of 2020.
AF: What is your craziest tour story from this year?
RJ: Craziest story of 2019? We were about to go on with an outside show in Duck, NC and there was a hurricane-like storm minutes before we started! It was absolutely wild. Another: after slammin’ shows in Victor and Hailey, Idaho… we had a day off that we couldn’t find proper housing. We really wanted to relax and enjoy the Grand Teton Mountains and beautiful scenery of Idaho or Wyoming. By some chance, after a show, the owner of a house he called “The Cowboy Spaceship” offered to host us for a day/night. After some proper vibe-checking, we decided to go for it. There was great hospitality, but the experience was completely wild. Many bathrooms or bedrooms weren’t functional, many locals were stopping by to hang and see “what the party was,” neighbors loudly fighting, etc. While we were welcomed to anything in the fridge and many libations, we were unsure all throughout the day as things evolved where exactly things would go. But hey, we were able to crash for the night – all of us!
AF: What are the advantages and challenges of DIY touring?
RJ: DIY touring with a band this large has many unique challenges. While we have a great agent and are growing as we see the country, it’s maintaining a great vibe that overall keeps us tight. We have had different band members over the past few years because having people that really get it and really want to be on the road to see the vision come to light is important. Respecting everyone’s time, effort, space, etc. is just as important as the music and promotion (which in itself has its own issues). I also find that trusting a promoter or venue to take care of your show is not realistic. They are just as busy and consumed as you are… you really need to sell your show and spend time doing the DIY stuff you would do in your own home town.
Calliope Musicals (Austin, TX)
67 Shows
Austin’s Calliope Musicals have the most colorful show in any town that has ever existed. With a plethora of stage props, lighting and sequined body-suits, the band brings a stage setup like no other. Frontwoman Carrie Fussell has a presence akin to Freddie Mercury and Prince, and her banter makes you wish she had a show on Nickelodeon in the ’90s. The six-piece psych glam rock outfit spent this year touring in support of their latest record Color/Sweat, and also recorded a Wild Honey Pie Buzz Session featuring a cover of The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby.”
AF: What is your craziest tour story from this year?
CF: Wayne Coyne came to our show in OKC this year – that was pretty bad ass and exciting. One night in Brooklyn, five of us ended up sleeping in our van after a show. Turns out peoples’ favorite opening line on Tinder is not “hiiii so can me and my four very nice and respectful bandmates crash at your place? <3 we make breakfast :)” – but it was okay because $1 slices and whiskey.
AF: What are the advantages and challenges of DIY touring?
CF: I think the advantages would be all the amazing people you meet. You’re kinda putting yourself at the mercy of the universe and the people around you and you’re counting on people to be honest and generous and helpful, and when it works out it’s very comforting and inspiring. Challenges for me are self care and quiet time, and I think the rest of my bandmates might say the same thing. There are definitely financial challenges, especially having more people on the road; we’ve become quite good at quietly piling into one hotel room.
Zach Ellis of Dead Tooth + Wives (Brooklyn, NY)
63 Shows
Zach Ellis spent the year touring in two bands, Dead Tooth, which he is the frontman for, and the Queens, NY quartet, Wives. Dead Tooth is the new incarnation of The Adventures of the Silver Spaceman, Zach’s solo moniker that he put out music under from 2011-2016. He renamed the project Dead Tooth when it started to feel more like a band than a solo project, consisting of members Dylan DePice, Andrew Bailey, Jason Smith and River Allen. At the beginning of this year, Zach embarked on a three month cross-country tour with Dead Tooth and his bandmate/partner River Allen’s sparkle-house bedroom-pop project Ghost Piss. Zach also spent most of spring and fall touring Europe as a member of Wives as they supported their latest record So Removed.
AF: What is your craziest tour story from this year?
ZE: In Switzerland this really sweet Swiss guy gave me handful of ‘shrooms on stage to which I ate immediately. They looked small and different than any mushrooms I had never seen before and after I ate them I couldn’t help but wonder if they were poisonous and I was gonna die. I was fine but there was a moment there where I thought “I just ate a random fungus from a complete stranger.” I caught up with him later and he assured me he knew what he was doing and had actually foraged them from the Swiss Alps earlier that day. I thought that was pretty neat.
AF: What are the advantages and challenges of DIY touring?
ZE: Touring DIY is advantageous in that you get to really hang with the people who set you up for shows. You get to choose your own adventure and connect with friends who’ve moved to different cities or towns all over the world. You also get a truer experience of the place you’re in when you stay with someone living there as opposed to just playing a show and going to a hotel outside of town; they show you their favorite cafes and bars. On the flip side of that it can be extremely exhausting self managing, booking, driving, loading in and out, running social media, and selling merch all yourself. All of that is part of the job and sometimes things go haywire. You’re constantly rerouting and adjusting and glued to your phone while trying to remain present for the people who set you up as well as put on the best show every night. It’s a real balancing act and definitely not the vacation it can seem like from an outsider’s perspective. It truly is a job but one I love to do.
Bethlehem Steel, May 2019
Bethlehem Steel (Brooklyn, NY)
59 Shows
Brooklyn’s Bethlehem Steel toured for seven weeks this year after their sophomore self-titled record was released via Exploding in Sound. Originally a three piece formed in 2012 with Becca Ryskalczyk (guitar/vocals), Jon Gernhart (drums), and Zephyr Prusinski (bass) their latest record features guitarist Christina Puerto, who has been touring with them since the band’s debut. In 2019, along with their massive post-record release tour, they played regularly in NYC and the surrounding area all year!
AF: What is your craziest tour story from this year?
BS: Hate to have to say that the craziest story is get getting roofied after a set in Oklahoma.
AF: What are the advantages and challenges of DIY touring?
BS: A big advantage is that you basically meet the best people this way. You’re able to constantly meet new people who share the same values and are doing the same work as you. A challenge to DIY touring would be sometimes having to suck it up and play to no one.
Shadow Year (Brooklyn, NY)
52 Shows
Brooklyn quartet Shadow Year is co-fronted by Tyler Wright (vocals/guitar), and Scout Gillett (vocals/keys/guitar), with Terd Germison on bass and John Mason on drums. Their debut record Hush Hush Panic showcases their ’80s-esque vocal duets and minimal arrangements that float between dream pop and post-punk. After the release of their debut record summer 2019, they spent a few weeks on the road touring from Florida to Chicago. Scout recently started her own booking company Road Dog Booking and in 2020 Shadow Year are set to release an EP titled Godspeed. They are leaving for their first 2020 tour (probably of many) on January 24th.
AF: What is your craziest tour story from this year?
SY: Shadow Year was gifted a mini short bus in June of 2018 and we got to tour the nation three times in our short bus Rene. On our last tour our bus Rene broke down in Chattanooga after our Nashville show. The band had made an agreement that if the bus were to have any more problems that we would have to sell it… We still took it to a mechanic just to see if it was a little problem. The men working said they don’t work on diesel but could give it a try. After waiting for two hours they said the bus was fixed and ready to go. We paid them $150, hopped in in the bus and start driving away. Fifteen minutes later the bus overheated again – bastards fucked us over! We had to make some serious moves to make our gig in Atlanta. We slowly got the bus to the Chattanooga airport and rented a tiny Kia Soul just to get our guitars and bodies to the gig. I started posting the bus on Craigslist. We get to the gig. No one’s had food or enough sleep – we take the free drinks at the bar. We play a show and were planning to stay at our friend Alejandro’s (from Dinner Time) place after the show. Tyler drove the wrong way for an hour and after realizing it we decided to just crash at a Walmart in this small Kia Soul. The next morning we woke up to a ton of responses to our craigslist add, traded the smaller renal car for a passenger van and got back to the Chattanooga airport, cleaned out the bus and took the bus to a shell gas station to sell it to a man named Salamon, who had gold grills that read ” Salamon” across in case you forgot his name. It was very cinematic. It was pouring rain and there were no restrooms nearby and we had to walk far with no umbrellas to an Office Depot to pee and clean up. Salamon gave us $800 cold cash for our little bus Rene. We didn’t miss a show and we had to do some serious game planning. I laugh out loud every time I think of how dramatic it all felt.
AF: What are the advantages and challenges of DIY touring?
SY: I’d say the advantages are you have a better chance of making money touring DIY, and all ages shows rule. Kids like to move their bodies more. I don’t know what happens to people at 21 or why after 21 people try to take themselves more seriously and are concerned about looking cool. Kids usually don’t give a fuck and just love to let loose and that’s really fun energy to play off of. A disadvantage… is it’s a lot of work… but that’s also good because you learn and grow a lot… and that’s something we are all trying to do.
Miss Eaves (Brooklyn, NY)
43 Shows
As a solo artist, Miss Eaves (aka Shanthony Exum) really does do it all herself. The feminist electro-rapper and multi-media artist is self-managed, books every show, directs and edits her own music videos, and drives herself from city to city as she tours mostly alone. In the summer of 2017, “Thunder Thighs,” a track off her debut release, became a viral body positivity hit, leading to an op-ed in The New York Times, and getting on lists alongside Aretha Franklin and Beyonce. She has successfully booked four DIY tours, playing shows and festivals with Tune-Yards, Wheatus, and MC Frontalot, and chronicled her experiences for The Creative Independent. This year she toured in support of her follow-up EP Sad and brought her empowering and hilarious tracks like “Bush for the Push” and “Fuccboi Salute” to new crowds in the US and Europe.
AF: What is your craziest tour story from this year?
ME: Me and my tour mate were playing in Chicago and we found out there was a huge blizzard coming into town that night. We had a gig in Madison the next day, so we decided to drive to Madison that night after our show (around 1am) to avoid potentially being stuck in Chicago. She fell asleep, so I had to drive by myself playing Robyn really loudly, singing the whole time. We made it luckily, and the storm was really bad so we made the right choice!
AF: What are the advantages and challenges of DIY touring?
ME: The advantages are really connecting with my community, and establishing great relationships with promoters, venues, and other bands. It’s also nice to not wait around for someone to “discover me.” I have the power to make my own path, which is quite liberating. One huge challenge is everything seems to change frequently, so I have to stay really flexible and also be really quick to problem solve.
I usually travel totally alone, so things can get really lonely. That being said, that loneliness also makes me more open to meeting new people (which ultimately is a good thing). It can be a bit discouraging when I have a show isn’t well attended; however, having a sold out show feels even more amazing because I know it’s from DIY efforts.
Previous Year Honorable Mentions
North By North: 204 Shows + completed their first UK tour, and finished their third album which will be out February 2020 on their label Double Hex Records.
Thelma & The Sleaze: 130 Shows + released their record Fuck, Mary, Kill.
A Deer A Horse: 87 shows + released their EP Everything Rots That is Rotten.
photo by Tim Nagle
Stuyedeyed: 62 shows + released Moments of Terribleness EP.
Vanessa Silberman : 60 shows + relocated to NYC from LA and released Brighter In Bloom EP.
Welcome to our weekly show recommendation column RSVP HERE – your source for the best NYC shows and interviews with some of our favorite local live bands.
New Myths are a Brooklyn-based alt rock power pop trio comprised of Brit Boras (guitar/lead vocals), Rosie Slater (drums/vocals), and Marina Ross (bass/vocals). In 2019 they released three new singles (including a cover of “Unbelievable” by EMF), made two music videos, and went on tour with The Joy Formidable. I saw a lot of great New Myths shows last year, but my favorites were their direct support slot for Crazy Town at Sunnyvale and their Halloween cover set as The Go-Go’s, where they dressed as The Beauty and The Beat album cover, complete with their hair wrapped in towels and white face paint to look like face masks. Their first show of the decade is on 1/6 at Our Wicked Lady with Looms, Jelly Kelly, and Color Tongue, and we chatted with them about their favorite gas station food, Brooklyn bands and future plans.
AF: How did you meet? What was the first movie you all watched together?
Brit Boras: We met a long time ago individually – Marina and I went to middle and high school together and were on the same school bus, but didn’t become friends till after high school. Rosie and I met at music school; we were two of only like six females in the whole program which is part of why I really wanted to start a band together. Also ironically, Marina and Rosie played in a band together throughout high school. I don’t know if we’ve ever watched an entire movie together honestly… If the three of us are in a room together we are usually chatting, writing, rehearsing, recording, playing shows, or dancing.
Rosie Slater: Marina and I had been playing together in another band through high school and college, and then Brit and I went to college together. I’m not sure what movie? We talked about Spinal Tap a lot?
AF: Who are your favorite Brooklyn bands to play with? Who is your favorite band that you opened for?
MR: Oh my god, Wet Leather, Jelly Kelly, Ash Jesus, Mother Feather, Yella Belly, Power Snap, Lola Pistola, Desert Sharks, Catty, Max Pain and the Groovies…we’re just surrounded by endlessly talented people.
BB: All of the above plus Darkwing, Grim Streaker, Monograms, Stuyedeyed, Sharkmuffin, Slow Caves… My favorite bands that we’ve opened for are Metric, Warpaint, and The Joy Formidable.
RS: My favorites are Jelly Kelly, Wet Leather, Sharkmuffin, and The Muckers! Opening for Metric was wild… I’ve been a huge fan since high school.
AF: What are your favorite gas station snacks?
MR: Smart Food popcorn, git OUTTA here with anything else.
RS: Peanut M&Ms and the red Doritos.
BB: Cheetos, Cheez-Its, Goldfish all the way. Basically anything with cheese…
AF: I love your cover of “Unbelievable.” Why did you decide on that one and are there any other covers you plan on recording?
RS: Thank you! “Unbelievable” kind of just happened… Brit suggested it when we were in the studio recording something else, and Marina and I were super into it but thinking about making it really sludgy and then we recorded it the next day! There may be some other top secret covers coming soon…. maybe!
MR: It was the one we were all stoked about! Years and years of middle of the night texts of “Wouldn’t it be funny if we covered…” and this was the one we were all, like, yah…yah, that would be sick.
BB: Yeah we were in the process of recording our original songs and I was listening to “Unbelievable” on the way to the recording studio, thought it’d be a cool cover, brought it up to Marina and Rosie, they suggested we slow it down and sludge it up, we worked on it, and then recorded it the next day. We are in the process of recording another cover but that is in the vault for now!
AF: What were your favorite moments of the past decade and what are your plans for 2020 and beyond?
MR: Christ, there’s so many good ones. Our first show ever was of course one of my faves – opening for Lucius at Cameo Gallery. We played a street fair in Worcester YEARS ago which has grown to be one of my favorite moments because we still to this day get support from them and everyone has just been lovely. Watching Metric up close and personal after opening for them at Music Hall of Williamsburg was amazing. There are so many “moments” that I love so much that are so small but so indescribable.
BB: Yeah this decade has been really fun. I love the weird shows; dressing up in towels and face masks and performing as The Go-Go’s for Halloween was super fun. SXSW festival is always a blast to play every time. Going on tour with Cindy Wilson of the B-52s and The Joy Formidable were also times I’ll never forget. We have a lot of new music that’s still unreleased so we are looking forward to putting those out. A new music video and single are currently in the works. We’re playing Treefort Festival in Boise Idaho in March which I’m really looking forward to as well.
RS: The last decade was a doozy! I don’t know if there’s anything specifically planned except to keep doing what we love, making music, and seeing what happens next!
In my experience, listening to Aphex Twin is a willful crawl towards chaos. Richard D. James has managed to manifest an auditory minefield that calls forth visions of an underground orgy of electrical wiring, a realm beyond the strictures of the Logos. Passively listening to a track like “Metapharstic” is like tumbling up an M.C. Escher staircase, or getting a seemingly ceaseless skull spanking. Aphex Twin has been known to hasten the pulse, induce an itch, and summon the sweats. Comparatively, you are little more than a sluggish bystander to this brilliance. Your mortal human mechanics had not anticipated this din. This sensation seems to be exactly what Aphex Twin seeks to inspire. RDJ long ago abandoned the pursuit of equal temperament, detuning and tinkering with varied electronic equipment in order to produce his own scales and circuits. In an interview with Pitchfork, he explains the intent behind this process: “You’re working out a new language, basically. New rules. And when you get new rules that work, you’re changing the physiology of your brain. And then your brain has to reconfigure itself in order to deal with it.” Welcome to the sonically hypnotic maze of anarchic confusion and jubilant delusion that is Aphex Twin.
I was probably introduced to Aphex Twin in a speeding car after dark. I can’t recall the specifics of this episode, but I can almost guarantee that the introduction was made by one rogue beatnik boyfriend, and that the initiation track was the ever-haunting “Alberto Balsalm.” Aphex Twin, in addition to this particular relationship, nurtured a mind-bending realization at 16 years old. Like a synthesizer untouched by RDJ’s capably disturbed hands, my own internal wiring required some major adjustments. I would have to drastically reassess my own media consumption and greater existential priorities, else I continue to live a life most ordinary. In other words, both man and music proved to be psychically jarring. For the first time, I felt comfortably alien and happily unclean.
My first Aphex Twin purchase was the 1997 Come to Daddy album, in the form of a treasured compact disc. This album nearly sent me spinning off the road on several occasions, usually in the demonic grip of the title track. The song itself is sonic electrocution, but if you seek an even greater jolt, its accompanying music video – directed by the inimitable Chris Cunningham – offers further twisted hilarity and proper visual assault.
This early purchase was followed by a seizure of Classics, RDJ’s 1995 compilation album featuring the best of the brutal. As high school miserabilism and hometown cabin fever continued to mount, this album was almost always party to my late night roving. My twilight highlights included “Digeridoo,” “Phloam,” “Tamphex – Hedphuq Mix,” and the ever dreamy “Polynomial-C.”
I didn’t discover Syro until years later. At the time, I was attending community college in Portland, Oregon, a move which was likely little more than spontaneous stupidity. Downtown Portland was host to my gloomy wandering. On my lengthier romps, I inexplicably clung to “minipops 67 [120.2][source field mix],” the first track on the LP. I suspect that this isn’t a song you listen to if you are a reasonably content and/or jovial person. I can only describe it as a bout of haunting sonic schizophrenia, both cartoonish and sinister, like the sneer of a certain corporate clown. “Windowlicker,” the title track off of RDJ’s 1999 release, is similar in this respect. I was delighted to find it featured in Gaspar Noe’s 2018 film, Climax, as its disorienting quality lends itself beautifully to horrors of the psychedelic variety.
Much like Noe’s films, Aphex Twin is a gleeful usher towards the archetypal rabbit hole. Historically, the allure of the absurd has proven to be dangerously seductive. I am not immune to such seduction. Indeed, a wayward Aphex Twin lyric once proved to be the impetus for a date with a festering creep, who may or may not have tried to slip me a mickey. This is, regrettably, a true story. I was reluctant to meet with this person, yet was stupidly intrigued when he shot forth a garbled quote from Aphex Twin’s “Milk Man” over text. In my depressive dormitory solitude, I concluded that this properly perverse gent would at least be far from dull. Right. This malicious character, a sharp-featured man who only met my shoulders, managed to eject the most sinister laugh I have ever encountered in my twenty-three years. In fact, he wore an aura of quiet, simmering malevolence that I have not known since. This particular story was one of successful escape. However, the sour taste remains. We pay in these ways for getting seduced by the strange. Aphex Twin is one such worthy seductress.
Let’s face it: country music isn’t known for being the most welcoming genre to women. Since its inception circa 1920, women have long been embroiled in a battle of equal airplay and representation, a battle that still rages on today. But the female artists who are the fabric of the genre’s history have been vocal about equality and social awareness, particularly through song.
From Loretta Lynn to Margo Price and many others along the way, women have delivered a variety of feminist anthems that show country music exactly where they stand. This theme is still relevant today, with new artists and burgeoning superstars alike stepping into the forefront with songs that speak directly to women – here are some who did just that with power and eloquence in 2019.
The Highwomen – “The Highwomen”
When Maren Morris, Brandi Carlile, Amanda Shires and Natalie Hemby united to form The Highwomen, they told the world that women’s voices are even more powerful when they come together. The namesake song that opens their revered self-titled album puts a spin on the Jimmy Webb classic made famous by Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson with new verses – penned by Carlile and Shires – that finally give a voice to feminine archetypes. Each verse sees one of the members taking on a fictional character who sacrificed her life during a distinct era of history, from a woman wrongly accused during the Salem Witch Trials to a Freedom Rider during the Civil Rights Movement, the latter of which is made even more compelling with a guest vocal from up-and-comer Yola. “The Highwomen” is one of the best jewels country music has to offer in 2019.
Best lyric: “We are the daughters of the silent generations/You sent our hearts to die alone in foreign nations/It may return to us as tiny drops of rain/But we will still remain.”
Maren Morris – “Flavor”
While her chart-topping single “Girl” gets plenty of attention for its female empowerment theme (and rightly so), “Flavor” is the hidden gem on Morris’ acclaimed 2019 album, Girl. Throughout her young career, Morris has been building a reputation for supporting women, whether by publicly speaking out about inequality on country radio or hopping on the trend of taking an all-female lineup on tour with her. She demonstrates her sharp tongue with the song’s opening lyrics “ain’t gonna water down my words or sugar up my spice/sometimes the truth don’t always come out nice.” What follows is an anthem about originality and celebrating those who challenge the norm, all delivered with confidence and conviction that comes through in her voice. It’s a shining moment on the project that earned her an Album of the Year distinction at the CMAs – and one that defines her as an unflinching creator.
Best lyric: “Yeah I’m a lady/I make my dough/Won’t play the victim/Don’t fit that mold/I speak my peace/Don’t do what I’m told/Shut up and sing?/Well hell no I wont.”
Runaway June – “Buy My Own Drinks”
The trio of Naomi Cooke, Jennifer Wayne and Hannah Mulholland released a direct female empowerment anthem to country radio this year in the form of “Buy My Own Drinks.” The song chronicles a young woman’s solo night on the town, not needing a lover or even her friends to keep her company. Between paying her own tab and spinning herself around on the dance floor, the upbeat track raises a glass to those who are perfectly content enjoying their own company. The empowering message also made Runaway June the first female group to reach the top 10 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart in 14 years since SHeDAISY.
Best lyric: “I can walk my own self to the front door/I can take my own self to bed/I can medicate my own headache/I can be my own boyfriend.”
Ingrid Andress – “Lady Like”
Ingrid Andress released several new songs this year that proved her to be a sharp songwriter with lyrics that reject all the traditional country norms. But no song does that better than “Lady Like,” her ode to the “untamable,” “unframeable” women who drink tequila straight, don’t own a dress and kiss on a first date. The lyrics are pure defiance against all the double standards and stereotypes placed on women, and in a genre that’s dominated by straight white males singing about trucks, beer and life in God’s country, a voice like Andress’ cuts through in a potent way.
Best lyric: ““Sometimes I forget/Not to talk ’bout politics/When I’m in the middle of me gettin’ hit on.”
Katie Pruitt – “Loving Her”
Pruitt may be a new voice in country, but the truths she delivers are ones the genre desperately needs to hear. Take “Loving Her,” the gentle, lullaby-like ode to her girlfriend. Raised Catholic in the suburbs of Atlanta, Pruitt is honest about her previous fears of her sexuality being revealed. But “Loving Her” is a beautiful response to that suppression. Using clips from the 2019 Nashville Pride parade to tell the story in the video, the lyrics paint a striking picture of someone stepping out of the closet and into the light, relying on clever wordplay and poetry to convey the profound love they’re no longer ashamed to express.
Best lyric: “But if loving her is wrong/And it’s not right to write this song/Then I’m still not gonna stop/And you can turn the damn thing off.”
TW: The following contains the author’s recollection of childhood sexual assault.
I remember the day only in fragments – like my head is broken. The sweet spring air rustled my short blonde locks, and white-hot sun peeked through the piney overhang. We were standing there on the grassy knoll. I was four, and he wanted to play soldiers. “You be the woman,” he said. Wide-eyed and hungry for adventure, I happily obliged. The next flash is an M-80 going off. I’m lying on my back. The sofa was a froggy kind of green, and a Carolina blue cotton sheet decorated with soft yellow petals rubbed cool against my skin. His whispers played as burning sapphires in my ears, compact and scalding, and he took off his pants.
In truth, I must have packed that day away as you do all of your trauma. It’d been tucked away between my father’s abuse to my sister and my mother’s own personal tragedies – and me, still somehow just a child, dangling in a purgatory somewhere in between. I was suspended in that moment, innocence both destroyed and forever dancing on my eyelids. When I first heard Kesha’s power piano ballad “Praying” for the first time, I bawled all the pain down upon my chest. It came back like a waterfall had just been turned on for the first time or a tidal wave had crashed through my front door.
I initially wrote my confessions here, and it was the very first time I shared my story of abuse in a public forum. Two years later, I’ve realized details I got wrong. Memory is like peeling a giant red onion. Its pungent odor has a kick every single time, and you can never be ready for it. Emotional senses never erode; they might lie dormant for a time before a smell, a touch, a sight, a sound will trigger it again.
Details are clinical. The color of his skin. The smell of his chestnut brown hair. The way his glasses rode the tip of his nose. It’s detaching and cold to think in detail. I was a ghost, out of body, peering through the sands of time, the details slipping away with each passing minute. The trauma was there, and it’s always been there. Honestly, I had never considered my molestation as sexual assault. I was always comparing it to other more brutal traumas that I couldn’t even fathom – but you can’t assign value to trauma. Trauma is trauma.
My relationship with my body, around my identity, and to the trauma never fully registered until 2017. Kesha’s Rainbow had just arrived in the world, and its themes of abuse, retaliation, redemption, forgiveness, and rebirth were fresh on my mind like bubble gum on the bottom of sneakers, sticky and pink. My wounds had been reopened, and I was confronted with the past in a way I had never thought possible.
“This record, quite literally, saved my life,” the pop star said at the time. “It talks about me personally going through something very hard, lots of very hard things, making it through, not giving up, and finding empathy on the other side — which is incredibly hard sometimes.”
The defining record of the 2010s, an underdog comeback that saw Kesha liberated from her demons, Rainbow saved me from myself, too. In my ignorance, perhaps blissfully tragic, I was consumed by the assault; its lingering effects had eaten away at my ability to hold relationships, how I viewed the duality of identity and sexuality, and any sort of understanding of that afternoon at all.
Songs like “Praying” (the blood-curdling battle cry “and you said that I was done / well, you were wrong and now the best is yet to come” pounding against my rib cage) and “Learn to Let Go,” a fervent, woodsy prayer, were and still are cathartic. Listening now, I’m cleansed further with their healing, peace-bearing power, and the past quickly becomes another time or even another existence. “I think it’s time to practice what I preach / Exorcise the demons inside me,” she persuades on the latter. Her vehement empowering of others – often at the expense of her own well-being – serves her well as a patriarchal-defying suit of armor. She soon emerges victorious, howling, “The past can’t haunt me if I don’t let it / Live and learn and never forget it / Whoa, gotta learn to let it go.” She learns that her words don’t mean anything unless she allows herself to heal, too.
The title song is another vocal statement piece, predominantly of piano, string work, and a growling bass harmonica. “Yeah, maybe my head’s fucked up / But I’m falling right back in love with being alive,” she coos – the symphony swelling beneath her. “Rainbow” contains a starstruck lullaby quality, as if to say she’s finally accepted her trauma in its many, serpent-like forms. There’s a finality to the performance, too. She’s journeyed through the “darkness” and a “heartless” existence, an unimaginable depression wrought of true pain, and it was during the aftermath that she came to this realization: “You gotta learn to let go, put the past behind you / Trust me, I know, the ghosts will try to find you.”
“Woman” is a pillar of great female power for me. “I’m a motherfucking woman, baby, alright / I don’t need a man to be holding me too tight,” she slaps on the hook. It’s a devilish, proudly ravenous performance, polished with The Dap-Kings’ brilliant horns. I grew up in a very strict Christian community, with a super-macho father, so boys were supposed to be boys. I could never express my femininity without feeling ashamed for it. Kesha freed me from that.
Then, with “Hymn,” a hippie puff of psych-pop euphoria, I ventured through myself to accept my goof-ball eccentricities (I whole-heartedly believe in ghosts, for instance). “Pretty reckless, pretty wild,” the soul-child offers. Later, “Old Flames (Can’t Hold a Candle to You)” (a song her mother Pebe Sebert co-wrote) stars the biggest queer icon of all time, the one and only Dolly Parton. The collaboration, sashaying from the past to the present, gives clearance to let your heart guide you in a totally bonkers, uncertain world.
It is, perhaps, on the (very Kacey Musgraves-esque) country-inflected closer “Spaceship” that Kesha reaches complete enlightenment, marrying her new-found self-worth with her wonderfully endearing infatuation with aliens. “I knew from the start I don’t belong in these parts / There’s too much hate, there’s too much hurt for this heart,” she warbles on the second verse. Her gaze returns to the cosmos, stretching out like a wondrous, firefly-flecked blanket, and her body floats outside of itself to wash it all away. “Lord knows this planet feels like a hopeless place / Thank God I’m going back home to outer space.” Only in forgiveness – of yourself as much as your abuser – can you find the kind of heavenly escape and psychological freedom you deserve.
Rainbow – not without plenty of cheeky badassery (“Bastards,” “Hunt You Down,” Godzilla”) – remains an exhilarating manifesto. As I listen to it now, the lyrics and vocal performances hit me all over again, and I can’t help but cry – not in pain, but because I made it through another decade. Because I confronted my own demons and slayed my ghoulish, fang-toothed, blood-sucking monsters. I haven’t named my abuser publicly, but for me, it is not necessary that I do. Trauma does not define me. Rainbow does.
Pip the Pansy may change everything you know about pop music.
There’s only one day left in the decade, y’all. Like it or not, 2020 is almost here. Whether you’re ready to send it out with a bang or trying desperately to figure out where the last twenty years went, there’s no denying: the time has flown, and we’re on the cusp of a brand new decade.
Time to put some serious thought into those New Year/New Decade Resolutions, huh?
While you’re working on those resolutions — or just trying to detox after a month of nonstop Christmas music — PLAYING ATLANTA is here to offer a break from the jingling and jangling and remind you that not all music insists that it is, in fact, the most wonderful time of the year.
Full of sultry melodies, blazing rock ’n roll, and enough swampy Southern soul to call forth the dearly departed of Capricorn, FAME, and Stax, PLAYING ATLANTA has been a joy and an ongoing surprise to write. Over the last year, we’ve explored loss, self-love, and life’s long roads, traveled to Colorado with Sam Burchfield, and brought it all the way back home to witness the soul-stirring rock power of The Pinx.
All of that in a year, too. Who knows what the new decade will sound like.
And now, without further ado, PLAYING ATLANTA’s Top 10 of 2019:
Atlanta indie-rock group Lesibu Grand, founded by lead singer Tyler-Simone Molton and bassist John Renaud, blends sharp vocals with a Debbie Harry nonchalance, zesty synth, and new-wave-meets-hip-hop prowess to craft a debut EP that sounds like anything but. Weaving introspective lyrics between tracks like “Miranda,” which tells the story of a loveless suburban marriage launched into out-of-this-world adventures following an alien invasion, The Legend of Miranda is a zingy debut by a band who has already made a name for themselves.
The Pinx rock… and roll, and boogie-woogie all night long, especially in their latest music video, “Mercy!” Shot in the ballroom of a haunted hotel, The Pinx disturb a few guests and draw listeners out of the mundane with each single, music video, and concert.
Featuring the lead vocals and guitar work of Adam McIntyre, lead guitarist and vocalist Chance McColl, bassist Charles Wiles, and drummer Cayce Buttrey, The Pinx takes rock back to its roots and reminds us all of the true meaning of rock ‘n roll: to break down barriers and get everyone dancing.
Actress, filmmaker, indie label co-founder, and singer-songwriter Victoria Blade wear a lot of hats, but she wears them with an incomparably jaunty ease. The Brooklynite-via-Chicago-turned-Atlantian has an uncanny ability to craft an EP that listens more like a diary, chronicling the life and love of a creative nomad. Equal parts studied and effortless, good-natured and introspective, Blade blends lo-fi folk with the sweet sensibility of indie pop, resulting in the breath of fresh air that is Lo-Fi Love Songs.
Athens-based, New-York-born, Ecuadorian-and-Nicaraguan singer-songwriter Sarah Zúñiga brings an intimate sensibility to her unique brand of alternative folk, blending sharp observation with the textured poeticism of traditional Spanish folk music. When we last checked in with her, she had released her latest single, “Heart of Mine,” gearing up for a few highly anticipated winter releases.
The stop-you-in-your-tracks single was followed by a two-song EP featuring Fish, What Is Love To You, and the single “I Like Knowing You’re Around,” but there’s something about the deeply personal “Heart of Mine” that I love. Tackling the weighty, often indescribable effect anxiety has on the heart, “Heart of Mine” features Zúñiga’s unique vocal styling and showcases her ability as a songwriter and musician.
Sam Burchfield’s wanderlust-inducing, Appalachian-folk inspired single “Colorado” was the perfect track to usher in autumn (and I’m still listening to it now!). Based in Atlanta but born and raised in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Burchfield returned to his roots and crafted a stunning ode to the natural world – and the breathtaking beauty of Colorado – with this track.
Atlanta’s chillest electro-pop artist and producer Seersha – aka Kara Revnes – spent two years crafting her latest release, but it was definitely worth the wait. Her seemingly effortless ability to create ambient soundscapes that are equally driving and oh-so-chill is unrivaled, but it was her onstage presence that drew me in from the start. Calm, subdued, and self-assured on stage, she takes that easy confidence with her into the studio, imbuing each song she writes and produces with her own indelible style.
Blues-rock quartet Death Mama is one of the newest – and loudest – players in the rock scene. Committed to a shroud of mystery that envelops the slinky, smoldering sound, the foursome has already made a name for themselves in the Atlanta area. Following the release of two singles, the group dropped their debut album, High Strangeness, featuring seven tracks as jolting as the band’s name.
Atlanta sextet Sarah and the Safe Word had me hooked before I ever heard their music. Their one-line bio – “Jay Gatsby died, we played the funeral.” – wraps the group in their own brand of the operatic, twisted rock ‘n’ roll ethos. Crafting stories that range from a demon-powered car race in “Formula 666” to the swashbuckling battle on the open sea in “Dead Girls Tell No Tales,” the group manages to create a world that’s as outrageous as it is inclusive, a place for anyone and everyone to join in and enjoy the dark, swinging sounds of the 1920s.
Melodic and unassuming, Cicada Rhythm has a way of subtly blending the sweet simplicity of ’60s and ’70s folk music with the hustle and bustle of 21st century life between the slide of fingers on acoustic guitar strings, the swell of a stand-up bass, and crisp harmonic vocals. Featuring bassist Andrea DeMarcus and guitarist Dave Kirslis, Cicada Rhythm has the most down-home sound of any group I’ve heard this year, perfectly showcased in their take of Simon & Garfunkle’s “Cecilia,” the latest installment in their Stuck in My Head cover series.
Combining haunting piano melodies with fuzzy synth and driving rhythms – and the occasional flute solo – Pip the Pansy dispels every notion I ever had about pop music and replaces it with a lilting, quirky melodicism. Uniquely creative, she has a way of entrancing listeners with the effortlessness of a Greek siren, weaving a hazy dreamworld of myth, magic, and melody.
With a powerful live show and a brand new EP, Love Legends, Pt. 1, Pip the Pansy is proof of the magic of reinvention, a perfect send off into a brand new decade.
Keep on rocking, Atlanta – wishing you the happiest of days and a wonderful new year.
Kathleen Hanna on stage at Riot Fest Chicago 2019. Photo by Ashlee Rezin Garcia for the Chicago Sun-Times.
Nineties vibes are at a fever pitch in 2019 and women’s rights are still at stake, though the ripple effect of the original Riot Grrrl movement continues. For feminists who’ve repeatedly seen women demeaned without consequence during the Trump era, the passion of punk is vital. Luckily, Bikini Kill is back to arm another generation for Revolution Girl Style Now. It might be a coincidence that Bikini Kill formed — and reformed — within a few months of the congressional testimonies of Anita Hill and Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford. But the band’s second iteration isn’t a feel-good nostalgia trip — it’s a call to action by a band of punk superheroes fighting misogyny.
Old school riot grrrls gasped in excitement in January at the news that Bikini Kill would reform to play a few dates in London, LA and Brooklyn, with a headlining Sunday spot at Riot Fest Chicago in mid-September. I was transported back to a day nearly 20 years ago, when my mom interrogated me about my Kill Rock Stars mail order catalog – I eventually bought The C.D. Version of the First Two Records from the label, but opted to have it shipped to the house of friend with chiller parents. He listened to that Bikini Kill record and told my crew of skateboarding stoner friends that it sucked. So, until I met like minds in college, I kept the band’s music to myself. Info on Bikini Kill was not abundant on a farm in the central Midwest – it was just me and the CD. But there was a lot to that CD – from Kathleen Hanna telling white boys to “just die” to the validation of singing “I’m so sorry that I’m alienating some of you/Your whole fucking culture alienates me” right along with her. It was basically my gloriously rebellious introduction to ’90s-era radical feminism.
In 2019, I just had to travel 2.5 hours south to Chicago to experience the show — and attend to a sizeable outdoor music festival, which I hadn’t felt the energy to do in about five years. Bikini Kill was the only band that’s ever given me reason to make it to Riot Fest, despite one of my best friends attending without fail every year. But this year, I couldn’t miss it.
I was immediately glad I’d made the trek; the effects of Bikini Kill’s first incarnation were on full display just inside the gates, where a group called OurMusicMyBody handed out buttons to raise awareness about sexual harassment in the music scene and promote “fun and consensual music experiences for all.” The booth bore a handmade sign parodying Wu-Tang Clan’s C.R.E.A.M. that read “Consent Rules Everything Around Me” (the remaining members of the legendary NYC rap collective had headlined Riot Fest the night before). Vendors hawked T-shirts with feminist slogans, which would have been taboo 25 years ago. Bikini Kill helped normalize this resistance. In a crowd full of women wearing whatever they fucking wanted, the joy in freedom was palpable.
Mere hours earlier, Against Me! And Patti Smith had performed (separately) as a new generation of riot grrrls moshed and screamed along to anthems that spit in the face of the patriarchy. The original members of Bikini Kill, with guitarist Erica Dawn Lyle standing in for guitarist Billy Karren, took the stage with the gusto of a group that had never left it. Style icon Hanna donned a holographic silver dress, hot pink tights and her trademark high ponytail and side-swept bangs. As the band rolled through their quick and dirty anthems, drummer Toby Vail took a turn at the mic in a short, tight dress.
The monumental set included songs that were revolutionary at the time, though their subject matter might seem commonplace today – songs about normalizing women’s pleasure (“I Like Fucking,” “New Radio,” “Don’t Need You”) and critiquing slut shaming, decades before it was a widely known concept (“Rebel Girl”). Bikini Kill also rolled through “Jigsaw Youth” and “Resist Psychic Death,” which encourage listeners to thwart the status quo and live authentically – very apropos in late capitalism.
During Bikini Kill’s first go-round, men — and some women — would attend Bikini Kill shows solely to hurl insults at the band. Those men didn’t dare show up in 2019. During the set, Hanna requested that straight white cis men in the audience notice the space they’re taking up and who around them might need more space to feel safe. She stopped saying “Girls to the front,” she told Pitchfork, in part because she didn’t want to misgender anyone, and also because the audience majority was now femme presenting.
The DIY origins of Bikini Kill encouraged women to start their own bands, create their own zines and be their own culture. And many have taken up that mantle. Compared to the ‘90s, technology in 2019 is a DIY wonderland: digital recording technology, streaming, printing. And people are using it to disseminate girl-style revolution. Bikini Kill’s underground hit “Rebel Girl” is now a staple of Girls Rock Camps across the world (and was even featured in Guitar Hero spin-off game Rock Band 2). Yet there’s always more work to be done.
I left Riot Fest giddy with the teenage satisfaction of seeing my heroes headline a festival. I was invigorated by the energy of a new generation of young feminists with ever so many more resources than just the CD I had mail-ordered from Kill Rock Stars. I also exited the festival grounds knowing I couldn’t safely take public transport home or stray too far from main thoroughfares, particularly in a short dress and knee socks – empowerment goes a long way, but there’s still so far to go. May Bikini Kill’s baker’s dozen of 2020 tour dates reenergize first-gen riot grrrls to continue our work and introduce our younger siblings to an ethos that will incite change and freedom over time.
With the end of the year comes a time of reflection. Looking back on this year in country music, the firestorm of conversation about the lack of women on country radio spilled into 2019, while new artists like Lil Nas X and Blanco Brown broke down barriers, and names including Billy Ray Cyrus and Tanya Tucker saw a resurgence in their careers.
Renaissance Moment
In 2019, country fans saw two legends experience an unexpected, but celebrated resurgence in Billy Ray Cyrus and Tanya Tucker.
Though known as ’90s country star with the breakthrough hit “Achy Breaky Heart” and as the father of Miley Cyrus, his name is now synonymous with the global hit that is “Old Town Road.” While the Nine Inch Nails-sampling Lil Nas X penned rap gained traction as a viral favorite on Tik Tok, it was a remix version featuring Billy Ray Cyrus that came to define the newish genre of “country rap.” Kicked off the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart based on the claim that it “does not embrace enough elements of today’s country music to chart in its current version,” “Old Town Road” quickly grew into a smash hit that broke the record as the longest running No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 – and Cyrus was a significant part of this. Though the song was already a jam in its original state, the unlikely pairing of the millennial rapper and baby boomer country star made for an important moment in pop culture. The song feels complete with both on the track, and Cyrus’ affinity for the song and ability to see how it connects to the history of country music is part of what gave him a second life in the genre.
Billy Ray Cyrus and Lil Nas X. Photo by Derrek Kupish/ dkupish productions
Tucker enjoyed her own renaissance moment in 2019; the 61-year-old icon, who had her first hit single at age 13 with “Delta Dawn,” released her first album in 10 years, While I’m Livin,’ produced by Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings. Partnering with a new generation of talent gave Tucker an edge and refreshed identity while still delivering a strong body of work, and earned her four 2020 Grammy nominations. It was gratifying to see two iconicstars rise like phoenixes for a new phase in their lives.
Diversity
It’s disappointing to think that even in 2019, you can count the number of mainstream African American country artists on one hand. Over the past few years, we’ve seen acts like Kane Brown become rising superstars, while Jimmie Allen reached No. 1 with his debut single “Best Shot” last year. But with Lil Nas X breaking down the walls for artists creating country trap, it feels like the beginning of a tidal wave of diverse artists who we’ll see breaking through in the next few years.
Yola is one of the many artists blazing this path. The elegant British country singer had a banner year with her debut record Walk Through Fire. Her spell-binding voice and awe-inspiring songwriting solidified her as a major breakthrough act this year, so much so that Kacey Musgraves invited her to be one of the opening acts at her first arena headlining show in Nashville and Elton John declared himself a fan after hearing her cover of “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” She’ll embark on her own headlining Walk Through Fire Tour in 2020.
Blanco Brown also took country by storm with his original “Cotton Eyed Joe” style dance song, “The Git Up,” which was the longest running No. 1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart and spent 13 weeks as the top selling country single in the U.S. Meanwhile, former X Factor contestant Willie Jones spent the year building momentum with songs that range from the sweet (“Down For It”) to playfully observing the influx of bachelorette parties in downtown Nashville with “Bachelorettes on Broadway,” while up-and-coming singer-songwriter Tiera was named to CMT’s Next Women of Country class of 2020.
Jimmie Allen also joined forces with dynamic duo Louis York for a poetic number titled “Teach Me a Song” on the twosome’s American Griots album, and when they all performed on the Grand Ole Opry, it marked the first time three African American artists have appeared on the Opry stage at one time. With Louis York set to make their own Opry debut in February, it feels like we’re at the start of a revolution of multi-racial artists finally becoming a mainstay in a genre that has been sorely lacking in diversity.
Women in country
The conversation surrounding the lack of women on country radio was a dominant theme in 2018, with the likes of Carrie Underwood, Kacey Musgraves, Maren Morris, Miranda Lambert and countless others speaking out. At 2018’s end, there were no women in the top 20 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart for the first time in the chart’s near 30-year history, and they didn’t fare too much better in 2019, as there are no solo female artists on the year-end list of Billboard Country Airplay songs. With the conversation being so loud, it instilled a false sense of hope that radio would take action and begin to move toward more balanced playlist.
But where radio faltered, women united in the form of all-female tours in 2019. Underwood set this precedent by inviting duo Maddie & Tae and trio Runaway June as her opening acts on the Cry Pretty 360 Tour, proving that a troupe of half a dozen women can sell out arenas across the country. Lambert followed suit, as her Roadside Bars & Pink Guitars Tour featured a massive all-female bill with openers including Maren Morris and CMA New Artist of the Year Ashley McBryde, along with newcomers like Tenille Townes, Kassi Ashton and many more.
https://youtu.be/zPacGAykVQg
Morris also set a standard by joining forces with Carlile, Amanda Shires and Natalie Hemby to form The Highwomen, whose debut album serves as one of the year’s best (and their surprise performance with Dolly Parton at 2019 Newport Folk Festival is arguably one of the highlights of the year in music). Morris continued with her support for women by bringing a mix of five female friends and rising artists in country on her aptly titled Girl: The World Tour named after her CMA Album of the Year. Even legends like Trisha Yearwood stepped up, taking an all-female bill out on the road with her for the Every Girl on Tour.
In addition, several new female artists not only made an impact on fans and the industry alike, but brought a distinct element with them: empathy. It’s the foundation of Townes’ “Somebody’s Daughter,” a compelling narrative inspired by a woman she saw on the side of the road who was homeless that should have been a No. 1 hit, but just barely made the top 30 on the country charts. Meanwhile, Ingrid Andress broke hearts in the best way with her powerful debut single “More Hearts Than Mine” that made her the only female artist to have a debut single reach the top 20 in 2019.
Though the fact that Carrie Underwood lost Entertainer of the Year to seven-time winner Garth Brooks during a year where she put on an impeccable production that led to growth as an artist while supporting deserving young women felt like another major blow to the cause, it was inspiring to see so many women uniting in the face of adversity – there is something truly special about seeing a group of gifted women lifting one another up in a bold way.
But in order to see real change, there needs to be integration, and there seems to be signs of that going into the new year. Dan + Shay, the country duo behind the wildly successful, Grammy winning crossover hit “Tequila,” recently announced that Andress will be joining them as an opening act on their 2020 Arena Tour. Jordan Davis, who has two country hits to his name, is bringing a pair of compelling singer-songwriters, Ashton and Hailey Whitters, as his openers on the 2020 Trouble Town Tour. I hope this is a trend that turns into a movement in 2020.
“Dance, it’s all I wanna do, so won’t you dance?” Kylie Minogue asks at the start of “All the Lovers,” opening her 11th studio album, Aphrodite. Taking her cue from the goddess of love, the Australian pop star began this decade with a 12-track celebration of dance and romance that became one of the finest moments of her career. Aphrodite was a commercial hit, debuting at the top spot on the British charts and becoming her second highest charting album in the U.S, and spawned the successful Aphrodite: Les Folies/Aphrodite Live tour.
In 2001, Minogue kickstarted the sound of the ’00s with “Can’t Get You Out of My Head.” A rousing piece of synthpop that hints at an ’80s influence, it reflected what was going on in indie electronic music at the turn of the century (Ladytron and Miss Kittin and the Hacker come to mind), but became a global phenomenon. At the Brit Awards the following year, she performed “Can’t Get Blue Monday Out of My Head,” bringing together her hit with the New Order classic and putting mashups, still an underground trend at the time, on a much more visible stage. With “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” the accompanying video and the “Blue Monday” mashup, Minogue created a mood board for the first decade of the new century that both established and rising pop artists (Gwen Stefani, Madonna, Rihanna, Lady Gaga) would follow.
Minogue is well-known as a pop artist who is unafraid to experiment (as on the 1997 album Impossible Princess), but her skill as a tastemaker is woefully understated. With the release of Aphrodite in 2010, she played up on what was influential about her work in the ’00s while subtly foreshadowing what would become the next-big-thing in first half of this decade.
Aphrodite was a creatively successful album, its impact more apparent now at the end of the decade. It’s a stylistically eclectic collection of songs. Tunes like “Put Your Hands Up (If You Feel Love)” and “Closer” pump the disco vibes with which Minogue has long excelled. “Cupid Boy,” a standout on the album, plays up the New Order-influenced indie dance groove that she helped bring to mainstream popularity nearly a decade earlier. “Better Than Today” gives a little taste of the country-dance style she would delve into on her 2018 album, Golden. Aphrodite pits Minogue as more than a pop goddess capable of inspiring love on the dance floor. Here, we see the full extent of her power, from the influence she had on pop music in the first decade of the 21st century and how that would continue in the second.
In an unusual move for Minogue, she enlisted an executive producer to oversee the direction of the album as a whole. As a producer and remixer, Stuart Price was integral to the sound of dance music in the ’00s. His remixes of artists ranging from The Killers to Royksopp to Gwen Stefani, released under various names, permeated nightclubs. Moreover, he was a producer for Madonna’s landmark 2005 album, Confessions on a Dance Floor. Minogue and Price hadn’t worked together before – in an interview, Minogue mentions that they connected via mutual pal, Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters – but their aural aesthetics were strikingly similar. In fact, back in the late ’90s, Price (under his Les Rythmes Digitales moniker) remixed Bis’ club hit “Eurodisco” with a Depeche Mode vibe that was a precursor for the synthpop revival Minogue brought to the mainstream with “Can’t Get You Out of My Head.”
Under Price’s watch, a slew of collaborators brought Aphrodite to light. They included some names recognizable to indie music fans of the time. Shears (who previously worked with Minogue on the 2004 song “I Believe in You) co-wrote “Too Much.” Tim Rice-Oxley of Keane helped pen “Everything Is Beautiful.” Richard X, who made a name for himself during the initial mashup craze and went on to work with artists like Annie and M.I.A., was a writer on “Can’t Beat the Feeling.”
Aphrodite also benefited from the work of a few up-and-comers who would see their own careers blossom in the following years. Calvin Harris, who co-wrote “Too Much” with Minogue and Shears and produced the track, was a rising star who had collaborated with Minogue on her 2007 album X. However, it would be another year before his collaboration with Rihanna, “We Found Love” became a monumental hit. He would go on to spend more than half of this decade as the world’s highest paid DJ. Meanwhile, “Cupid Boy” was co-written and co-produced by Sebastian Ingrosso, who was right on the cusp of superstardom with his pals in Swedish House Mafia. Sisters Miriam and Olivia Nervo (you might know them best by just their last name) co-wrote “Put Your Hands Up (If You Feel Love).” They were already acclaimed songwriters, but as this decade progressed, they became known for their own dance hits and DJ sets.
In some respects, Aphrodite was an incubator for the artists who would go on to mold the sound of dance music in this decade. But, it also foreshadowed what Minogue would do in her own career. In 2015, she appeared on Nervo’s debut album, Collateral, alongside Shears and Nile Rodgers on the song “The Other Boys.” In 2018, she merged country and dance music on Golden. At the time of that album’s release, she told Billboard how Aphrodite played a role in the development of the songs, thanks to a “Dolly Parton litmus test” that she and Price had developed. In the summer of 2019, she played the Legends spot at Glastonbury. BBC reported that her set drew the highest viewership in the festival’s broadcast history. When this decade started, Minogue cast herself as part of the Greek pantheon but, by its end, she became part of the pop pantheon.
Doja Cat photo by Vijat Mohindra courtesy of RCA Records).
Sex has long been a popular topic among musicians. But what’s unique about the past few years, 2019 included, is that artists are consciously using their platforms to promote sex positivity. Here are some moments in 2019 where musicians combatted sex-shaming and taught people to embrace their sexual identities.
Ariana Grande Responds to Vogue
Nobody plays the role of sex-positive pop princess like Ariana Grande. She’s long been spreading sex positivity through songs like “Sweetener” and “God is a Woman,” but her biggest sex-positive moment of this year was undoubtedly when Vogue’s Rob Haskell asked what it was like to sing songs like “Side to Side” to nine-year-olds, and she replied, “They’re for sure gonna have it. I promise. I promise that your kid’s gonna have sex. So if she asks you what the song’s about, talk about it.” Talking to kids about sex instead of pretending it doesn’t exist? What a novel idea.
Harry Styles’ “Lights Up” video
The video for the first single from Harry Styles’ second album Fine Line gave people plenty to get excited about. Not only do we get closeups of Styles’ sexy tattooed upper body; it’s being touched by a variety of attractive men and women, leading some fans to dub the song a bisexual anthem. Styles himself hasn’t confirmed this but has said it’s about “freedom” and “self-discovery,” two things our society sorely needs when it comes to sex.
Kablito’s “Yo Nunca te Quise” video
Ecuadorian pop artist Kablito told PAPERin August, when her “Yo Nunca te Quise” video came out, that she intended it to be an ode to self-pleasure. “I thought it was a really cool thing to talk about masturbation and sexuality in women and girls. It’s a topic that we don’t talk about,” she said, explaining that the song is about staying with someone just for the sex, while the video presents the obvious alternative. The imagery is subtle and centers on Kablito’s own self-expression as she feels herself in a bedroom.
Summer Walker’s Over It
There were lots of things to celebrate about singer-songwriter Summer Walker’s debut album, one of them being refreshingly unabashed lyrics (she confronts a demanding lover on “Stretch You Out” and points out double standards of desire on “Girls Need Love”). She told Clash, “I feel like ‘Girls Need Love’ is a song that’s trying to make sure people know that we have an even playing field when it comes to intimacy.”
Doja Cat’s Hot Pink
Doja Cat gave us yet another album full of no-holds-barred sexual empowerment this year. She celebrates the safest form of sex in “Cyber Sex”: “Pussy all pink with a tan / And I play with it ’til my middle fingers are cramped up.” In “Juicy” featuring Tyga, she raps, “Okay, he on his knees, attend the mass / He beg for that, I bend and snap.”
Miley Cyrus’s She Is Coming
Miley’s been standing up for her right to sexual expression ever since she licked a sledgehammer in the “Wrecking Ball” video, but her sex-positivity reached new heights on She Is Coming, an album as full of sexual innuendos as its name would suggest. For the accompanying tour, she released merchandise including a $20 condom and a shirt with her photo behind the words, “she came.”
Teyana Taylor’s “Morning” Featuring Kehlani
For all the songs out there about sex and all their mentions of dicks, it’s refreshing to actually hear the word “clit” in this one: “Talk that shit, play with that clit and watch it rain on you, baby.” Taylor and Kehlani, who both identify as queer, unabashedly love on each other in the sensual video.
Let’s hope for even more sex-positive musical moments in 2020. These artists have certainly set the stage for them.
Saara Untracht-Oakner is a woman who wears many hats on the Brooklyn scene: musician, visual artist, booker, DJ, and model. Perhaps best known as guitarist in BOYTOY (co-founded and c0-fronted with college buddy Glenn Van Dyke), she has also made guest appearances in other bands, like Roya and Habibi. Her latest project SUO showcases her solo work.
Saara has tour all over the United States, Europe and the UK, booked countless bands at The Broadway, slung drinks all over Brooklyn, and DJed around the borough. She has created visual art through illustration, painting, photograph collaging, and more, while still finding time to surf. She does this all while rocking the dog mom hat with style too; she is parent to a precious Puerto Rican pup named Pachi. Hear about Pachi, Saara’s history with music, art, animals, and her plans for the new decade below!
Pachi and Saara (Photo Credit: Juliet Wolf).
AF: Please introduce us to your current furbaby.
SUO: Pachi is my current fur baby. He’s a Puerto Rican street dog mix. 32lbs and 18”x18” (I had to measure him once for an airline).
SUO: My roommate was going to Puerto Rico for vacation, actually a week before hurricane Maria. I had taken home a Puerto Rican dog a few years before; sadly he was hit by a car six months after being in NY. He was extremely special and his name was Rico. I have his name tattooed on my arm. So knowing I loved Puerto Rican mutts (they’re called Satos), and knowing I had some time off in between BOYTOY tours, I asked my roommate to keep an eye out for some street puppies. She texted me about two days before the hurricane and said she wouldn’t have time to go to a shelter because they were trying to get off the island ASAP. An hour later she sent me a picture of baby Pachi (three months old) in the back seat of her car. She pulled over to look at a map in the middle of nowhere and he ran out from the bushes, chewing on a T-shirt. A vet check up and rabies shot later and he was on a plane to NY and escaped the hurricane. We’ve been in love ever since.
Pint-sized Puppy Pachi
AF: Did you have pets growing up? If so, what species?
SUO: Growing up I had a few pets. I really just wanted a dog but my parents weren’t convinced so they got me turtle named Nikki that only ate ground beef, then a guinea pig named Ginger who died while we were on vacation, and then they finally caved and got me a dog. She was a chocolate standard poodle and she loved to hug but definitely thought she was above me in the pack. I had a gerbil I got from school named cinnamon, and of course goldfish every now and then. I had sea monkies three times but every time they got spilled.
AF: When did you first know you wanted to be a musician? Was there a particular moment, icon, or song that you can recall?
SUO: I was always singing and sitting at the piano and messing around. There’s a video of me when I was four and I got a microphone toy for my birthday. I was going to a pre-school where we put on plays and so I sang the whole medley front to back and got mad when my dad interrupted me. I loved performing. I remember sitting at the piano and making up songs with melodies. Melody was always something that stuck out to me. I would sing all the songs from Disney movies, especially The Lion King, and have contests with friends of who could sound the most like Simba. I was also obsessed with Raffi. I would know the track order when listening to his tapes before the next song started.
Saara during a SUO performance (Photo Credit: Remy Holwick).
AF: What was the first instrument you learned to play?
SUO: I think it was piano. I took lessons in Kindergarten because my parents thought I was interested since I always sat down to play. I was interested, just not in learning scales and chords. I wanted to make up my own stuff. I played cello from 3rd-5th grade, trumpet from 4th-12th and sang in chorus. One summer I brought home a clarinet and taught myself how to play from a book. I was in plays at summer camp a lot too.
AF: What was your first favorite song?
SUO: When I first started talking I used to go around saying “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” So probably that. I still love reggae.
AF: Tell us about SUO. How did the band form and what is your writing process like?
SUO: SUO is my solo project I created with a handful of songs – some that were meant for BOYTOY but didn’t make the cut, some older personal songs, and some new ones. I recorded with Kyle Mullarky who made the last BOYTOY record Night Leaf with us. We brought Nick Murray into the Topanga studio to track drums and then Kyle and I formed the songs from the scratch tracks to what they are on the record. I knew I wanted a full band to cover all the parts from the album and have lots of harmonies, so I sent out some feelers to some other NY musicians and curated a supergroup. Everyone in the live band now currently fronts or has fronted other bands or has multiple projects.
AF: What about BOYTOY?
SUO: BOYTOY started when Me and Glenn’s previous projects ended and I moved back to NY. The writing process was a collaboration. Sometimes songs would come from jams we made together or something was part of a song that one person would bring to the group or a whole skeleton that the other members would then add their parts to.
BOYTOY Reunion Show at Market Hotel 11/21/19 (Photo Credit: Natalie Kirch).
AF: Have you ever written a song about a (non-human) animal?
SUO: One of my first songs I can remember writing was about animals. I was with my parents and my dad’s mom in LA and we took a trip to Joshua Tree. My grandma and I wrote a song a capella in the backseat that went:
“Cats and dogs run free in Joshua Tree
Cats and dogs run free in Joshua Tree
They eat lots of plants
They eat lots of bugs
They eat whatever they find
Cats and dogs run free clapclapclap
In Joshua True “
I still remember the melody.
AF: Favorite song about (non-human) animal(s)?
SUO: “I Wanna Be Your Dog” by Iggy Pop. I was actually just thinking about this song as I was snuggling Pachi the other night. I read in an interview with Iggy that this song is about seeing women with their dogs, how they love them and cuddle and kiss them, how the dogs have the most intimate relationship with their owners, and how he wants to be treated like that by a woman. It’s hard to not kiss Pachi tbh.
Saara Getting Some Smooches from Pachi.
AF: What is your favorite country to tour in?
SUO: Australia was really amazing. It’s so beautiful and the crowds are so nice and rowdy! We got to surf. Spain and France are also really fun. The food is incredible and the crowds are the best.
Flyer for BOYTOY Australian Tour (Photo Credit: David Evanko).
AF: Favorite US city or state to tour in?
SUO: Miami and Chicago have really fun crowds and people really come out. LA is fun cause I get to see so many friends and play with bands I love. These are my favorite for partying. Then there’s the little random small towns that have the best hospitality and nicest crowds because everyone is just so excited that something is happening that isn’t a cover band.
AF: What do you miss the most about your pup when you’re on the road?
SUO: I miss sleeping with him and just having him around. He’s comforting. And he’s a good excuse to take a walk, although you do that on tour anyway to kill time.
Sweet Pachi.
AF: What non-human animal do you think reflects your personality the most?
SUO: I think I’m probably some kind of large cat.
AF: What is your favorite mythological creature?
SUO: God.
AF: You are also a visual artist. What is your favorite medium?
SUO: I realized I don’t really have definite favorites with anything. What I’m into always changes. But it’s mostly painting/drawing, building and photos.
AF: Have you ever created any visual art inspired by (non-human) animals?
SUO: I made this painting awhile ago and kept trying to paint a fox. It wasn’t working out right so I painted a snake instead. The painting ended up being unintentionally really political and prophetic (this was before Trump’s election). I believe there is a divine touch in creating art beyond human reasoning. I also painted a cartoon cat for my sister-in-law which now resides in my niece’s bedroom.
AF: If your pup could have a human career, what field do you think he would be in?
SUO: He’s very passionate and strong and fun and also a bit anxious. He loves being near people and always wants to make sure everyone is safe. Maybe a volunteer fire fighter or something.
AF: If he were in a band, what instrument would he play and what genre of music would he write?
SUO: He’d probably be the singer and write songs like Ricky Martin.
Pachi Living La Vida Loca.
AF: If he were a visual artist, do you think he would be more of an illustrator, painter, or sculptor?
SUO: Maybe an illustrator. He’s very clean and thoughtful.
AF: How did you transition into the booking field?
SUO: It kind of fell into my lap. A mutual friend of the owners of The Broadway told me his friends were opening a spot and if I knew any talent buyers. I was in LA at the time and didn’t have a job lined up for when I got back. I figured with my ten years of touring, booking my own gigs, all the bands I knew, and the knowledge of what makes good clubs good, that I could do the job well.
AF: Any big plans for the new decade?
SUO: I’m going on tour in Europe with SUO in February and will probably spend a couple weeks in LA in January and play a show out there. It’s about to be the roaring ‘20s!
