also since then i’ve been proselytizing… sending it along, playing it for friends in my car, loading it in the chamber for the inevitable “what are you listening to?”…

i like ELIZA NIEMI’s music because it never feels stuck in one mode. musically, it’s both intricate and sophisticated yet solidly vibed out. lyrically, it can be droll and peculiar enough to convince you that NIEMI is inaccessibly cool up until you hear her sing: i can’t stop laughing (do i wanna be crying?)/am i living or just dying… slowly… there are tracks that amount to a thirty second voice memo and then there is “DM BF”, ribbits and all.

perhaps most impressively it has the ROGER MOUTENOT seal of approval. he may not know how to spell her name, but he knows good production when he hears it. don’t take my word for it… give it a spin.

shows i saw

WILCO + WAXAHATCHEE1 / U.S. GIRLS / CRATE + TOTAL WIFE / THE BAKERY RAT + SWAN CHALANT / TOTAL WIFE + SIX FLAGS GUY + OFF TO SLEEP + STUNT GIRL /TAYLOR DAUKUS + ZOOK + TOM BARRETT

shows i wish i saw

SWAMP DOGG / MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME ALBUM RELEASE PARTY

shows i’m seeing

FLORRY / ORNAMENT / BEING DEAD / ABOUT YOU + RUNNER AND BOBBY + LO NOOM

probably, i’ll highlight a record (current or otherwise) and a show. i’ll let p****fork wrangle all of the new stuff. see you in June!

in the meantime… click the album artwork because substack doesn’t support bandcamp embeds. but they do spotify! of course.

possibly something to do with vibrations. typing that i fear i sound like RFK Jr., which i generally try to avoid. but occasionally my dad will attempt to explain the difference between songs recorded with analog equipment and songs recorded in the digital age. like when he and my mom and i were listening to a (recently remastered) album by THE BEATLES.1 all i can say as a sort of crude summary is: analog=beneficial physical limit, whereas digital=infinitely rising ceiling. at the moment i don’t feel called or qualified to investigate it further. the feeling is enough. and if i’m full of shit, then chalk it up to the fatigue of staying abreast of new releases. and yet it is my sworn duty to you.

i am grateful for LOU REED and JOHN CALE and queen JONI MITCHELL. like great russian literature, these records sound “contemporary”—lyrically and sonically—in a way that never fails to floor me. but i guess that’s just another way of describing timelessness…

and then there are new songs that affect oldness. that tack rarely does the trick for me, but the SHARP PINS record “RADIO DDR” is an exception. of course the guy behind the project, Kai Slater, is twenty and signed to Matador. of course.

really, i’m glad people like him and MJ LENDERMAN and LOMELDA and RYAN DAVIS AND THE ROADHOUSE BAND and GREAT GRANDPA are making music, putting it out into the world. i’m grateful to hear it. things that never existed before.

CASSANDRA JENKINS played at The Blue Room with ADAM BRISBIN continuing to accompany her, making the most delightful, kaleidoscopic noise on his guitar. CHARLIE HILL continues to fill the basement at Momo’s Basement with smiling faces and cheering friends. i missed HOVVDY :(… oh, and i went to Big Ears and saw YO LA TENGO and TORTOISE and ASTRID SONNE.

this month, i’m looking forward to seeing a stacked bill at Soft Junk—MERCE LEMON, STYROFOAM WINOS and BATS. BEN KWELLER at Basement East. YOUTH LAGOON at Exit/In. SHANE PERRY at East Side Bowl. nothing like a show to stave off these blasted tornado watches.

SHOWS IN MARCH: HOVVDY / ANNIE DIRUSSO / THE SEWING CLUB / CHARLIE HILL at MOMOs / JOSH HALPER / BIG EARS / CASSANDRA JENKINS

SHOWS IN APRIL: TOM BARRETT / MERCE LEMON + STYROFOAM WINOS + BATS / BEN KWELLER / SHANE PERRY / YOUTH LAGOON / whatever you invite me to

in that spirit, today i will reminisce on a childhood of cd samplers from Paste Magazine, where i’m sure i heard BEN KWELLER’s music in the early and mid-2000s.

a new single with WAXAHATCHEE heralds an upcoming album “COVER THE MIRRORS”. an april show is on the calendar at Basement East. BEN KWELLER returns to my consciousness as if he never left.

it’s been over 20 years since he released his debut album “SHA SHA”. listening to it today, i recall its significance when i was a mere eight years old. and again at 20, in 2015, when i was living in LA and driving everyday in a compact car that my parents graciously rented for me to commute to an internship at an arts nonprofit. ha ha. i listened to that album a lot then too.

i’m inclined to describe it as proto-MJ-LENDERMAN, as if no corner of indie rock can exist outside of His cultural context. but it’s the other way around. MJ LENDERMAN will feature on “COVER THE MIRRORS”, and it’s likely that he encountered “SHA SHA” or “BEN KWELLER” in much the same fashion as i did, and was shaped by it in kind.

Trevor Powers, under his moniker YOUTH LAGOON, released a new album titled “RARELY DO I DREAM”. it is its own kind of time capsule. my friend Lily wrote an excellent review on p****fork. she ends it by highlighting a moment that also stood out to me, from the affecting closer “HOME MOVIES (1989-1993)”: we hear the artist’s parents—their voices absolutely drenched in affection for their kid—entreating him to announce his story. he rises to the occasion not for the last time.

the home tape thing could have been schmaltzy, but somehow it never came off that way. i felt a real gratitude to “witness” this universal parental exercise in preparing somebody to live their story; and the artistic exercise in bracing yourself to tell it. my mom had the wherewithal to digitize our family’s cache of home tapes. excuse me while I go watch them and feel no shame, only awe.

P.S.

ALLEGRA KRIEGER smashed her opening set for CHRISTIAN LEE HUTSON at The Blue Room. i became friends with her boyfriend Kevin who i can confidently say is the man and lives in southern vermont near where i used to live, which is so great. RYAN DAVIS AND THE ROADHOUSE BAND played the best set i have ever seen at Soft Junk under the threat of a tornado watch and eventual rain. the scene could not have been any better.

SHOWS IN FEBRUARY: CHRISTIAN LEE HUTSON + ALLEGRA KRIEGER / GREG MENDEZ + MELAINA KOL / RYAN DAVIS AND THE ROADHOUSE BAND + STYROFOAM WINOS + OLD PUP / ESTHER ROSE + TWAIN / whatever you invite me to

SHOWS IN MARCH: HOVVDY / ANNIE DIRUSSO / THE SEWING CLUB / CHARLIE HILL at MOMOs / CASSANDRA JENKINS

i believe i only listened to GILLIAN WELCH’s “I DREAM A HIGHWAY” for a few days straight this month. the song is mesmerizing. it’s a spiritual pilgrimage, at once lucid and hazy. much has been written about this song, so i don’t need to pile on. just enjoy it, take a walk, don’t get too lost… or do.

people are digging CAMERON WINTER’s debut album “HEAVY METAL”. he is ingeniously frenetic where GILLIAN WELCH is profoundly languid, but the record is absorbing all the same.1

other news in new music: YVES JARVIS is putting out some exciting new singles ahead of an album set to release in february. BLACK COUNTRY NEW ROAD announced a new album “FOREVER HOW LONG”. JAPANESE BREAKFAST and TWAIN are both back in the saddle and due in Nashville soon—The Blue Room and The Ryman respectively.

“DANCING ON THE EDGE”, RYAN DAVIS AND THE ROADHOUSE BAND’s debut album is new to me, despite coming out in 2023.2 better late than never—the band opened for MJ LENDERMAN & THE WIND at Brooklyn Bowl and i felt it my duty to acquaint myself with the record ahead of the show. as far as the lyrics go i get SILVER JEWS in spades, but not in a way that feels derivative. i dare say lyrics this inventive could ever feel derivative, and i love the feeling of both surprise and conviction at the end of certain lines: i could never imagine it that way / it couldn’t be said any other way. if you can believe this—and, in many ways, you should—RYAN DAVIS AND THE ROADHOUSE BAND will be back this month at Soft Junk. get yer tickets now.

i reckoned with a personal haunting after the MJ LENDERMAN show. he’s 25. he’s handsome. he’s smart. he’s really good at guitar. his band all seemed like dear friends.3 he was wearing brown Dansko clogs. so… oh well. as i’ve said, compare and despair. and the truth is: the songs feel good to listen to—like how Jackass is funny and the earth is round, they are a comfort that I have no desire to resist. Brooklyn Bowl felt like the right place to surrender. the sound was strong and the sight lines clear. near the end of the set, Rick, a talent buyer and friend, leaned over and said: he’ll be at The Ryman next time. probably. all the luckier were we to catch him this time around.

in other news my thing was published on GUNKYARD and the response was favorable. nobody publicly shamed me. one guy commented “interesting”.

sad to be missing a chunk of shows in February, but i’ve got a date with a pair of skis and a torn acl. a strong opportunities to see MELAINA KOL open for GREG MENDEZ. do take a look at what’s coming up and go, go, go! see ya at Soft Junk.

SHOWS IN JANUARY: HALF WAIF / MJ LENDERMAN & THE WIND + RYAN DAVIS AND THE ROADHOUSE BAND

SHOWS IN FEBRUARY: CHRISTIAN LEE HUTSON + ALLEGRA KRIEGER / GREG MENDEZ + MELAINA KOL / RYAN DAVIS AND THE ROADHOUSE BAND + STYROFOAM WINOS + OLD PUP / ESTHER ROSE + TWAIN / whatever you invite me to

• i felt ample love for Nashville this december. early in the month ALI SPERRY and co. delivered another joyful A SPERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS at the 5 Spot. ROSEANNE CASH sang a surprise number; JOE PISAPIA led the band in a song from one of the greatest Christmas albums of all time: his own. december 5th never felt more like the 25th.

  SHANE PERRY (of THE MEDIUM) put together a homegrown bill at Random Sample, which culminated in a charming run-through of his forthcoming solo album. WILL MANN and Delaney Esper of SON OF THE CHALLENGER took the first and second slots respectively. And my own father, ROGER MOUTENOT, capped the YK Records 15-year anniversary holiday party at the 5 Spot, where he debuted two new absolute heaters and concluded with his Christmas original: “LETTER TO SANTA”.1 shout out to Michael Eades for assembling a really one-of-a-kind roster of artists over at yk records. that’s what i call a labor of love.

• speaking of Nashville love. i wrote a humble guide to the nashville d.i.y. scene for a zine in NYC called GUNK. they should publish a longer version of the guide to their substack, GUNKYARD. check it out if you’re interested. i felt mostly unqualified but enthusiastic all the same. the important thing is: d.i.y. music is alive and well in Nashville.

• the New Commute year-end roundup of albums is still hitting and sending me down rabbit holes in the North Carolina music scene (see: SLUICE). i can’t get over that NAP EYES album for all of its idiosyncrasies. and ARMLOCK continues to scratch the indelible PINBACK itch i never knew i had.

• MJ LENDERMAN is finally coming to Nashville after postponing his show in October. i’ll be seeing him at Brooklyn Bowl on the 25th. hope to see you there.

• my friends and i threw a new years eve party. it was fun. there was dancing. there was karaoke. here’s the playlist (without the night-of laundry-room audibles)

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musical presents abound. none more generous than new commute’s year-end roundup.1 scroll for what feels like an eternity, check out their showcase of graphic artists, or listen to their 203-song sampler and feel enriched by the most thorough and thoughtful survey of This Year In Music. i haven’t fully wrapped my ears around everything on there, but there is clear and unanimous love for NALA SINEPHRO’s september release, “ENDLESSNESS”, as well as ALEX IZENBERG’s “ALEX IZENBERG & THE EXILES”. both records are sumptuous.2

red hot’s new project “TRANSA” is an equally sufficient cross-section the Scene these days: ADRIANNE LENKER, ANDRÉ 3000, L’RAIN, YAYA BEY, KARA JACKSON, etc… only the project’s purpose—celebrating and supporting trans lives—supersedes the impressive roster. check it out, buy their stuff.

that’s right. i’ve kicked off my newsletter by highlighting other masterful compilers of music. like a local promotor for your favorite neighborhood drug dealer, i am a middleman for a middleman. do i have anything original to say?3

i could tell you about seeing ADRIANNE LENKER play at The Eastern in Atlanta just a day before the “TRANSA” compilation came out. she did not play her contribution, “FEEL BETTER”. she did play a bunch of other songs—some new ones, songs from all but one of her solo albums, and stuff from BIG THIEF’s catalog too. NICK HAKIM and JOSEFIN RUNSTEEN—two of the three close collaborators who played on “BRIGHT FUTURE”—joined her on stage for most of the show. and what a show it was. true to the process by which she cut the record, ADRIANNE LENKER and her friends didn’t so much perform as they did sit and play with one another—there just so happened to be a couple thousand folks watching (rapt). it’s all about ~being there~ with her music and, for me, the proof was in the pudding. it was the best show i’ve seen all year for so many reasons, but especially for how grounded i felt during it. for as long as they played and sang, there was nowhere else i needed to be, nothing more important to do.

musings on other shows this month: KYLE HAMLETT and JOE KENKEL (of STYROFOAM WINOS) each played memorable sets on a great bill at Vinyl Tap. KYLE HAMLETT closed his set out with a beautiful, haunting cover of “FLANAGAN’S SONG”. over at The Blue Room JESS WILLIAMSON played a stripped-down set—alternating between keyboard and guitar before taking a beat to recount her pandemic experience making demos in isolation with a free drum machine app on her phone. as it turned out the demos sounded so good that several of the songs on her record “TIME AIN’T ACCIDENTAL” were constructed out of their stems. she then preceded to close out the show with her phone as the back-up band.

in new music, 22° HALO released “LILY OF THE VALLEY”, a grief-stricken and tender album about that miserable font of creativity: cancer. HALEY HEYNDERIDCKX’s “SEED OF A SEED” was a welcome companion to the wind and leaves and clouds. and against all odds, i’m hardcore rooting for SHAWN MENDES after the release of “SHAWN”. we are solidly in the age of commercialized vulnerability and sometimes i have no choice but to tip my hat to the major labels when they pull it off.

there have been murmurings that december is jam-packed with activities. small-talk soirées and milestone birthdays, caroling in the streets and holiday feasts. personally, one of the best things about being in Nashville during the holidays is the music. ALI SPERRY’s 5 Spot show A SPERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS is sure to get the local legends on stage for a holiday song or two. THE ORNAMENTS are gonna do their thing. my dad is going to blow the roof off at the YK 15 year anniversary. get your rest while you can. i’ll see ya out there.

SHOWS IN NOVEMBER: THE DESLONDES + SABINE MCCALLA / TOM BARRETT + KYLE HAMLETT TRIO + JOE KENKEL + JORDAN VICTORIA / JESS WILLIAMSON / ADRIANNE LENKER / HOTLINE TNT / RATBOYS

SHOWS IN DECEMBER: A SPERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS / ADVANCE BASE + KYLE HAMLETT UNO + THE COMPANY CAR / KATIE GAVIN / SHANE PERRY / YK RECORDS 15 YEAR ANNIVERSARY HOLIDAY PARTY / FEEBLE LITTLE HORSE + SWORD II / whatever you invite me to

i saw a lot of shows. one fewer than expected after MJ LENDERMAN postponed his gig at The Basement East to attend to the devastation in his hometown of Asheville. no matter—he’ll be at Brooklyn Bowl in january. as a consolation, i saw the world’s biggest pop star spit on a clear plexiglass stage a lick it up during a little number called “VON DUTCH”. HORSEJUMPER OF LOVE brought heavy, heavy sound to The Blue Room. and yours truly is now a regular at a humble open mic night at—and i never thought i would type the name of this establishment in bold letters—Ethel’s Tabernacle.1

after witnessing some 50 shows this year, i’ve now stood on the other side of the microphone. and it feels pretty good. mostly. my first go was nerve-wracking despite playing to a crowd of two (2), but every subsequent night has been sweet and fresh and satisfying in a way previously unknown to me.2

it’s gotten me stewing on amateurism, on performance, on the way we relate to the people who play our favorite songs. after my first open mic, i scooted over to The Basement East to see NILÜFER YANYA lead her airtight band through a blistering set full of intricate riffs and magically layered rhythm parts. i stood in the crowd, my sense of awe renewed and colored by my own experience. i compared the effort it took for me to string together the right chords and words to play a few songs with the living, breathing organism that emerged from the living, breathing people on stage playing their parts, singing their harmonies. and not a single mistake… that i could hear at least.3

but what sort of pressures are exerted on the people playing shows at that level? or on bigger stages? from the sound of it, CHARLI is pretty strung out… i needn’t add to the excess of commentary on CHAPPELL ROAN. near the end of his show at Exit/In, PORCHES finished a song and said “i’m broken”. the crowd laughed, he didn’t. was it part of the snarling garage rock bit or a genuine admission? hard to say, but Justin Vernon had just done an interview that i read and liked, and for the rest of the PORCHES show i felt myself watching with a sense of guilt, apology.

maybe we should never fill arenas and instead just play our stuff in the nearest dive bar, waiting for someone to stumble in, or in our living room for our loved ones. not possible, obviously. and besides i’d have nothing to blog about.

maybe playing songs for people feels good until it doesn’t and then something has to change. we’re watchers, i guess. here’s a SUN KIL MOON song about the time the Korean boxer Kim Duk-koo died after getting knocked out during a bout in Vegas. the crowd was probably pretty big.

SHOWS IN OCTOBER: CHARLI XCX + TROYE SIVAN (SWEAT) / HORSEJUMPER OF LOVE / MJ LENDERMAN / COLTER WALL / NILǓFER YANYA / PORCHES / KATE BOLLINGER

SHOWS IN NOVEMBER: THE DESLONDES + SABINE MCCALLA / JESS WILLIAMSON / ADRIANNE LENKER / HOTLINE TNT / RATBOYS / whatever you invite me to

here we go.

shreddingest guitar solo

ALLEGRA KRIEGER released her fifth album, “ART OF THE UNSEEN INFINITY MACHINE”, this month. it didn’t disappoint—i dare say it was never going to disappoint based on the four tantalizing singles she dropped starting in june.

the whole record is a treat, but pay particular attention to the penultimate track “WHERE YOU WANT TO GO”. what starts as a whisper (morning came with the hope/of lifting the weight of your feet with a rope) builds to release—of anger, of control, which is illusory anyway… the dread of dying. by the time the guitar gets ripping, unspooling into delirium, i am persuaded by the possibility that life is simply motion, vibration; at times we stumble, others we sprint. no matter what, as KRIEGER advises, “you better keep up/fuck what you feel”.

deepest throwback

it saddens me that i can’t remember the artist playlist where i reconnected with this track from YO LA TENGO’s “AND THEN NOTHING TURNED ITSELF INSIDE-OUT”, but oh well. it’s a gem.2 it’s impossible to decide what about the song i love most: the rainfall ride cymbal and pattering drums, the warmth radiating from the layers of guitar and bass, or, when i played it in my parents’ kitchen the other night, the fact that my dad, with his characteristic sincerity, asked “did i do this one?” he did.

hardest opening track(s)

after totaling up the scores, it’s a tie between the detached indie heartthrobs of our time: PORCHES and MJ LENDERMAN. both released albums this month, both are playing in Nashville in the coming weeks, but only one was recently written about by their ex, FRANKIE COSMOS, for being (surprise!) kind of a tool even if his music is good—PORCHES’ “RETURN OF THE GOAT” felt like the perfect link between his previous, more celebratory and carefree album “ALL DAY GENTLE HOLD!” and his new loud, garage-grunge-y album “SHIRT”. the record showcases Maine’s knack for reinvention without betraying what makes PORCHES well… PORCHES: the sleepy, suave, did-he-steal-his-parents’-xanax? kind of vocal delivery, the innate pop sensibility, the subtle undercurrent of depravity.

by contrast, MJ LENDERMAN’s opener “MANNING FIREWORKS” for his album of the same name, is not a slapper per se, and yet it may be my favorite of the entire record for how it smolders. at the end of the first verse, the violin and drums, the upright bass, come in and back up the lonely schmuck singing and playing guitar. by the time he’s talking about “sneakin’ back stage to hound/the girls in the circus”, they’re really cookin’; LENDERMAN’s statement has been all but made and will be reasserted with every subsequent song. like everyone else, i love this album. i need not say any more.3

biggest legend

after a 14 year hiatus, DAN REEDER performed in the states, and it had to be Nashville, where is label, JOHN PRINE’s oh boy records, is based. after a short set at Vinyl Tap, he and his daughter PEGGY REEDER played two sold out sets at Soft Junk. with only a limited familiarity of his catalogue i went mostly on faith and NIC’s encouragement. and of course it was magic. the father-daughter combo lent REEDER’s songs an even more pronounced intimacy than can be found on the already poignant recorded versions.

REEDER interspersed the songs with what can only be described as flash fiction… tales of watching a blind guy bash a porsche with his white cane, the singular, childhood joy of eating cold ravioli from a can. and then they played a cover of “FIX YOU” by COLDPLAY—on top of the several JOHN PRINE covers—and that just about sealed the deal. whether or not you’re a fan, i trust you’ll understand why he’s more represented than any other artist on this month’s playlist. “it’s actually simple but it’s hard to explain.”

most reps

not that touring musicians really live anywhere, but i’m starting to wonder if MJ LENDERMAN’s moving to Nashville. this past month he played a stripped-down set at The Blue Room with bandmate KARLY HARTZMAN, and then a double shift at The Basement East, playing both his own set and lead guitar for WAXAHATCHEE at ANTI-record’s 25th anniversary showcase. he’s coming back to play a sold out show at The Basement East on october 5th.

thanks to my one true live music plug, Tyler King, i got one of the 50 day-of tickets for the ANTI showcase, where CHRISTIAN LEE HUTSON and MADI DIAZ wore their hearts on their sleeves, MJ went back to his roots with “KNOCKIN’”, and WAXAHATCHEE not only played “TIGERS BLOOD” from front to back, but debuted a new song “MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING”. thanks Tyler.

longest hype

and on the 10th of september, SOUR WIDOWS played at DRKMTTR. MELAINA KOL and YOUBET got things started as the room filled up. each act voiced what we were all thinking: how lucky we are to have an all-ages d.i.y. venue like DRKMTTR, where teens can positively geek out with their favorite bands when they assume their post behind the merch table; where the sound tech is literally right over there.

SOUR WIDOWS mostly stuck to songs off their new album “REVIVAL OF A FRIEND”, although they did play two unreleased songs, the names of which i’m dying to know. i’m told i was beaming the entire time and i believe it. i fell into the pocket and stayed there until, suddenly, the set was done and the band assumed their post behind the merch table.

other notable album releases: NILÜFER YANYA, STYROFOAM WINOS, LEIF VOLLEBEKK

SHOWS IN SEPTEMBER: SOUR WIDOWS + YOUBET + MELAINA KOL / FLORRY + JOSH HALPER + ABBY JOHNSON / PETER CAT RECORDING CO. / MJ LENDERMAN + KARLY HARTZMAN / DAN REEDER / ANTI-RECORDS 25TH ANNIVERSARY SHOWCASE

SHOWS IN OCTOBER: CHARLI XCX + TROYE SIVAN (SWEAT) / HORSEJUMPER OF LOVE / MJ LENDERMAN / NILǓFER YANYA / PORCHES

but i caught the trains that counted, pedaled up and over a few steep mountains, and spent way more time biking in france than i realized. thanks to my friend nate, who helped plan my trip, one theme of my days on the bike was the looks of confusion from fellow cyclists, hikers, and drivers whenever i steered my bike onto a seemingly untrodden path.1 i’m happy to say it always paid off.

another theme, of course, was music. there’s something magical about listening to music on a bicycle.2 you have the rhythmic, propulsive experience of running without the impact on your fragile bones. pedalstrokes can synchronize with the beat of a song as you slice through the air. and unless you’re white-knuckling a hairy descent or bleeding out of your eyeballs on a steep climb, biking affords you the chance to drink in the scenery, to contemplate your small place in the big world. uptempo songs drive you forward, and serene tunes prompt you to sit up and take a deep breath, rolling, rolling, rolling all the while.

i listened to my august playlist. i listened to a playlist of my favorite songs i made for a friend. i listened to a beautiful playlist my pal tyler made for me, cataloguing the musical eras of his own life. and of course i listened to the songs that you all added to the playlist for my trip. there’s nothing quite like hearing “E SE DOMANI” while winding up the switchbacks of piccolo san bernardo.

i listened to a shit-ton of TWAIN, whom i’ve praised here before. Davidson’s music is buoyant, spiritual, and contemplative in a way that felt perfectly suited for the many hours i spent rolling through foreign countries in solitude. never-ending climbs into the heavens, delirious descents back down from said heavens, flat roads yawning into the horizon—TWAIN paired nicely with all of it.

so, go bike and listen to music, any music, or, if you want, this playlist. you’ll hear a few of the folks i saw live before leaving. pay particular attention to the four acts who i caught at a house show.3

nashville groups MELAINA KOL and TOTAL WIFE bookended the bill while my new favorite band 22° HALO and chicago-based MIA JOY took the second and third slots respectively. the band tees were plentiful.4 the outside energy between sets brought tears to my eyes. 22° HALO’s bassist Joey Degrado cheerfully mingled with everyone and smoked reservation cigarettes. drenched in sweat and wearing a knee brace, he called to mind someone you might have to guard at YMCA pick-up ball. between songs, MELAINA KOL’s Logan Hornyak attributed his languor to a new blood pressure medication. and through it all i struggled to wrap my head around the sheer amount of talent crammed in that basement.

later in the month Cassie Berman helmed fellow members of SILVER JEWS at Julia Martin Gallery. WILL OLDHAM joined them for “WILD KINDNESS” and one of my favorites, “PUNKS IN THE BEERLIGHT”. as always, Cassie sang with her characteristic mix of grace and force and OLDHAM, eyes closed, fist in the air, just fully sent it. i think he might’ve left his body.

a very special musical august indeed. and you’re telling me we’ve still got the SOUR WIDOWS show to look forward to?!?

nashville’s still popping! suck it milan!

SHOWS IN AUGUST: MELAINA KOL + 22° HALO + MIA JOY + TOTAL WIFE / DEHD / TWEN + ENUMCLAW + PRESSURE HEAVEN / BRENNAN WEDL / SILVER JEWS

SHOWS IN SEPTEMBER: SOUR WIDOWS / FLORRY + JOSH HALPER + ABBY JOHNSON / PETER CAT RECORDING CO. / MJ LENDERMAN + KARLY HARTZMAN / DAN REEDER / SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE

it’s one moment tossed onto a heap of precious moments at Soft Junk in the past year. like a really cool dragon, I curl up and sleep on my bounty and feel rich. 

what else? NIC SCHURMAN upstairs with his hair in a bun, adding gels to the spotlight, taking them out again, looking for that perfect halo. the parking lot moonlighting as a Nicoletto’s for MEG ELSIER’s raucous album release party. ANNIE WILLIAMS stomping her jump through a ring of (not) fire at her may 29 album release party, but also Brett proposing we offer cash to Hunan Express across the street to see if they’d let Annie actually light the dang thing on fire. the possum that reliably shows his face and scrambles up the rocks up to the HOWDYWOOD sign. 

but something about the nerf football did it for me this time. for many of us that whistle carries the echo of nostalgia—fitting that it should come on the heels of LOGAN LEDGER’s opening set, a masterclass in evoking bygone musical eras (60s crooning a la ROY ORBISON and the california country-inflected folk rock of the 60s and 70s from groups like THE YOUNGBLOODS) without sounding kitschy or affected.

LEDGER had just finished when, from my spot underneath the loft, I spied a familiar silhouette in the parking lot just beyond NIC’s beloved red carpet and velvet ropes. the silhouette was doing agile things: reaching, tossing, running routes like they were up on the jumbotron at the super bowl. as if they had no clue JENNY LEWIS was about to play her last show as a resident of east nashville.

our parking lot QB—and his wide-receiver wife, who happens to fucking love JENNY LEWIS—did know about the show, they just failed to get one of the 69 available tickets for sale the day before. so they brought their nerf vortex aero howler football. they made it sing. they threw it to some of the lucky few who did secure tickets, at one point dropping it into the arms of an unsuspecting friend with pinpoint accuracy, the ball’s song the only warning of an incoming projectile. even i stepped out of Soft Junk’s jurisdiction to run a few slants. somehow it made perfect sense—the familiarity, the fun of the place. our most exciting acts go there to play, yet it never feels self-serious. and despite its proven success as a straight-up venue, the place continues to change, experiment, mess around. understatement of the century: NIC has ideas.

when my friends tired from the howler, they sat on a bench on the periphery and took in the scene—two people in love, happy just to be around it all. the best part is: they were on the guest list the entire time

i am by no means a Soft Junk veteran, but i hope to go there as long as NIC feels like running it. you can read a more thorough account of the show from my friend Eli. he’s a real journalist who pays close attention to things. i was alternately preoccupied with ensuring i didn’t stare directly into one of the cameras recording the show to vhs and seeing if KACEY MUSGRAVES would organically talk to me. only one of the two prophesies came true.

what i do remember: LEWIS and her band nailing a cover of KEITH WHITLEY’s “MIAMI, MY AMY”; LEWIS playfully dancing with a superfan in the audience and Justen Cheney yelling down from the loft, instructing him to “give her a spin, dude”; LEWIS asking if anyone in the crowd was poly before rolling into “SLIPPERY SLOPES”. as Eli notes, the set-list was diverse but “JOY’ALL” forward, the band (THE DAFFODILS) was elite.

it made my head spin to think that, less than a week before, i was eating garlic bread and spaghetti ahead of MEG ELSIER’s album release party. ELSIER’s album “SPITTAKE” isn’t particularly long, but its range gives it an odyssean feeling as it winds between loud and soft, shimmering and unvarnished, triumphant and defeated. as far as debuts go, this one succeeds in being singular—it takes courage and tact to block out the zeitgeist and put out songs bear one’s fingerprints. i found myself holding on to the odd moment of unexpected intonation, the word i might never have landed on.

other shows delivered on the hype i’d internally manufactured in my head. COLA’s Tim Darcy broke a guitar string on the first song at The Blue Room, had to borrow one from openers THE SEWING CLUB and proceeded to refer to the guitar as if he were borrowing a friend’s horse. at Basement East Jenn Wasner of FLOCK OF DIMES played a stripped down set and joyfully talked to everyone who bought her merch before PEDRO THE LION fired up a “SANTA CRUZ”-heavy set. after opening with “IT’LL ALL WORK OUT”, David Bazan promised the crowd three (3) songs from “ACHILLES HEEL”, which turned twenty this year and, i think, made him feel old.

feels like a lot of music came out recently, too; some albums were refreshing for how the artist evolved or changed; others were simply long-awaited, by me and maybe you too. as per usual, plenty of albums felt brand new to me despite having been out in the world.

JAKE XERXES FUSSELL’s “WHEN I’M CALLED” is a delightful study of folk songs through the ages, each given a thorough spit shine to sound glistening and new. CLAIRO’s “CHARM” helped me dance through domestic life. “MY LIGHT, MY DESTROYER” ended my wait for a follow up to CASSANDRA JENKINS’ magical album “AN OVERVIEW ON PHENOMENAL NATURE”.1 i shamelessly mined songs from HORSEJUMPER OF LOVE’S 110-song playlist, “HORSE JUMPER’S FAVORITE SONGS”, where i discovered 22° HALO, a project from philadelphia-based Will Kennedy.2 i listened to a shit ton of reggaeton and house music with my friends Robert and Javier in los angeles. i can confirm that SOUR WIDOWS’ album “REVIVAL OF A FRIEND” is still hitting.

i said last month that i would spend some more time on “REVIVAL OF A FRIEND”, but i’m kicking that can down the road until 1) they play their DRKMTTR show in september and 2) do an interview thing with me on this here substack.3 but you should give it a listen if you haven’t yet. you’ll hear generous songs from a generous band—an abundance of lock-pick riffs and five-minute-plus songs thanks to the way the band settles into a bridge or an outro with seemingly no intention of leaving. and why would they?

but until then, i’m going to italy to either successfully bike in the alps or perish somewhere magnificent. i’ll see my beautiful, betrothed friends Alex and Sara before i set off and after (if) i return. definitely burying the lede here BUT! i’m soliciting contributions to a ~general admission subscriber playlist~ to source some tunes to carry me up and over those steep alpine passes. i hope some of you actually make it this deep in the post and contribute, but if not i can handle it—what’s another playlist? :)

talk later. i’ll send you off like JENNY LEWIS did us. joy y’all.

SHOWS IN JULY: PEDRO THE LION + FLOCK OF DIMES / COLA / MEG ELSIER / JENNY LEWIS / ROSALI

SHOWS IN AUGUST: JESSICA PRATT + @ / 22° HALO / DEHD / TWEN + ENUMCLAW + PRESSURE HEAVEN / BRENNAN WEDL / whatever you invite me to / ciaoooooo

HAVE YOU BOUGHT A TICKET TO SOUR WIDOWS + YOUBET, 9/10???

thanks Eli Motycka for helping me edit this

like a salmon running up the river—wait… didn’t i exploit the mysteries of the animal kingdom to introduce last month’s playlist? whoops.

what i’m trying to say is by some grace we reached the month of june in this fresh new year. and upon arrival, my subconscious mind craved the songs from junes gone by (and also particularly sticky songs from mays prior).

picture it: this june i’m driving around with my arm lolling out of the car window when all of a sudden i feel inclined, no, obligated, to listen to Amber Bain’s project THE JAPANESE HOUSE, whose album “IN THE END IT ALWAYS DOES” entered the world last june. songs like “INDEXICAL REMINDER OF A MORNING WELL SPENT” and “OVER THERE” plant me firmly in last summer, a strange time in my life by all accounts: a kind of hot, sad stupor. my dear friend lindsey may or may not have dropped in on me one day while i was listening to “ONE FOR SORROW, TWO FOR JONI JONES” and said “so this is what you’re listening to”.

maybe it’s the other way around. maybe the songs beget the feeling. i find it difficult hearing Bain’s lilting voice over a gauzy, shimmering piano and not conjuring a certain summer—languid to the point of invertebrate; a house with its windows flung open to the heat and flies.

SNAIL MAIL’s debut album “LUSH” came out six junes ago. when i told my wonderful friend Maddie that i’d been obsessively listening to it this june, she responded with: “Lush!!! Album of the summer always.”1 when i asked why, she went on to describe it as a “humid album” with “thick malaise”. sure, there’s also a song called “HEAT WAVE” but as a dissertation on the agony of desire, the entire album smolders like the dying fire at your friend’s backyard cookout.

speaking of women at once disaffected and deeply feeling, CHARLI XCX’s album “BRAT” is another that will surely define this and future summers. it’s funny how musically different SNAIL MAIL’s Lindsey Jordan and Charli XCX are, and yet… to listen to either artist is to join them in pendulum swinging between caring and not caring, puzzling over a slight and hurling them at the world, stage-diving into the crowd and hiding from family and friends. you’ll have to forgive me for only including the album’s clubbier songs. i have to find ways to net out the melancholy where i can. my wish for all of you this summer is to get bad tattoos on leather-tanned skin and fall in love again and again. we can compare notes in september.

have i beaten this whole summer thing into the ground? no? great. my friend Brett knows how to do summer. he sniffs out pools like a pig finds truffles, travels with a magic cooler that never runs out of ice, water, or beer, and at 10:50pm on a recent thursday, he went to see whatever iteration of LYNYRD SKYNYRD is in rotation these days. he might have been the only human to do a targeted strike on cma fest. in and out. clean.2

i didn’t go—SKYNYRD is not my bag, per se, but i can’t deny that southern rock is best deployed when the days are long and hot. so when Brett went off to revel in “THAT SMELL” i revisited an all-time favorite in BIG STAR. not really a southern rock band, but a rock band from the south (Memphis) whose musical impact can be heard, explicitly and otherwise, in acts like WILCO, WAXAHATCHEE, and WEDNESDAY to name a few projects currently bending southern music to their respective wills.3

BIG STAR for me is pure pop music that, despite coming from a bygone era, has never once sounded stale. the opening licks on their more uptempo songs (“FEEL”, “SEPTEMBER GURLS”) take you straight to the mountaintop, while their more poignant tracks (“THIRTEEN”, “GIVE ME ANOTHER CHANCE”, “I’M IN LOVE WITH A GIRL”) are perfect in their artlessness.

what else… songs like XTC’s “GRASS” might play during a consciousness-expanding picnic (rolling around, optional); FRANK OCEAN’s “PROVIDER” during a sultry 2am drive; “ITCH” by PORCHES before you do something naughty. or you can surrender completely to the spotify algorithm. you are free to do whatever you want.

other standout releases this month include: GOOD LOOKS’ new album “LIVED HERE FOR A WHILE”, “BOX FOR BUDDY, BOX FOR STAR” from THIS IS LORELEI4, COLA’s “THE GLOSS” and singles from MJ LENDERMAN, HORSE JUMPER OF LOVE, and ALLEGRA KRIEGER.5

SOUR WIDOWS and WILCO closed out the month with releases: debut album “REVIVAL OF A FRIEND” and EP “HOT SUN COOL SHROUD” respectively, but i’m saving those for next month.6 sue me.

as far as live shows go, it was another month in a string of months stretching infinitely in both directions for good music, SKYNYRD included. nashville-native Jess Awh’s project BATS kicked off SOCCER MOMMY’S solo show at The Blue Room. she claimed to be nervous, but from where i stood, captivated in the crowd, i only saw an assured performance on acoustic guitar and frank, at turns sobering, winking lyrics.

i joined a friend for LAURA ELLIOTT at The End. for several reasons—size of crowd, age of crowd, amount of fun the band was having on stage—it felt like a house show. things only briefly got weird when the band played a cover of COLDPLAY’s “YELLOW”—a song that came out the year ELLIOTT was born—and i realized that i was the second oldest person in the crowd. i survived and left The End tempted by the prospect of another show there later in the month: FLYTE.

i was always going to get a ticket… but i waited a few weeks to follow through. something like pride kept me from being overeager, from expecting too much from a folkpop group whose music has innocuously entered and exited my orbit over the years. their most recent album (“FLYTE”) in particular is a little SIMON & GARFUNKEL, a little THE BEATLES but you know… not.

here’s my confession: FLYTE makes the type of earworm music that i feel a little guilty liking. not a guilty pleasure because, as i’ve said before, those don’t exist, but a brief communion with the snob in me i’m constantly trying to shed—the one who faults bands like FLYTE for writing heart-on-their-sleeve ballads that a lover might play for you on their couch at the end of the night, candles and all.

but guess what motherfucker? the songs are catchy. they are good. they feel good. and when i walked into a packed, sweltering The End during the middle of opener FAIRHAZEL’s set, i found myself a little giddy with anticipation.7 what followed was a magical show and the last one on the band’s tour to boot. the two frontmen, Will Taylor and Nick Hill, had serious chops (guitar, bass) and sang intricate harmonies. the crowd was hushed when it needed to be and accordingly exultant.

near the end of the set, Taylor declared there would be no encore, or rather, no formality surrounding the encore. in addition to only having a closet-sized room to retreat to off-stage, he appeared to dislike the whole pretense. instead, he said, they would bring down the house lights, the band would stand still and allow the crowd to make whatever noise it wanted, whereupon they would play their final song. respect.

they closed with the opening track from “FLYTE”: a tender caress of a love song called “SPEECH BUBBLE”. the mind meld between crowd and band that had been forming over the course of the show crystallized just in time. the audience nailed the utterly charming backing vocals while Taylor, eyes closed, reckoned all of the ways we reach out, fall short, try again—keep trying and trying and trying—until we get a grasp on the moments that constitute love. i think that moment constituted a kind of love. and many others this month. many others.

SHOWS IN JUNE: LAURA ELLIOTT / SOCCER MOMMY + BATS / UMBRELLAS + ORNAMENT / FAUX FEROCIOUS / FLYTE + FAIRHAZEL

SHOWS IN JULY: PEDRO THE LION + FLOCK OF DIMES / COLA / SHOULD I GO TO PITCHFORK WHILE IN CHICAGO FOR A WEDDING??? / ROSALI / whatever you invite me to

thanks Eli Motycka for editing

i’m open to the possibility that some might find the following section a bit navel-gazey. “just give us the playlist, malcolm,” you might be saying. fair enough. feel free to skip to fun part of the playlist. i’ll never know.

people around me questioned the point of the cicadas. i wondered myself when i witnessed the cicada-as-icarus moment described above. i’m sure they serve certain ecological functions. they must, right?

must we? my friend Alex, for instance, believes that we’re some kind of virus meant to infect the planet.1 i’m not sure that theory explains why we make music. cicadas do it to mate, which is definitely part of the appeal for the modern-day musician. but to my knowledge cicadas don’t have an entire industry built around the creation, recording, distribution, and performance of their songs. and that’s where things get tricky.

CINDY LEE canceled the rest of their tour, which rendered my trip to nyc and philadelphia a bit less purposeful, though not meaningless. the openers FREAK HEAT WAVE could only say the tour ended “for reasons beyond our control" and i haven’t seen much else by way of explanation. footage from the few concerts LEE did play was bemusing… NPR’s Meaghan Garvey described LEE’s on-stage expression as “too severe to be called shy, but deeper than disinterest. Happy? Well, no.”

ever since the announcement (and the cicadas) i’ve found myself puzzling over the link between art and suffering 🤢.

SPARKLEHORSE ended up on my 5/24 playlist by way of Katie Crutchfield’s playlist HOUSE MUSIC 🩸. the band’s leader, Mark Linkous, died by suicide in 2010. JUDEE SILL’s soaring, ornate “THE LAMB RAN AWAY WITH THE CROWN” had me singing but i laughed so hard i cried right along with her, dizzily triumphant. she died from an overdose. the first verse in Jason Molina’s song “HAMMER DOWN”—recorded under his basically-SONGS-OHIA-project MAGNOLIA ELECTRIC CO.2—ends with the lines: sometimes i forget how i’ve always been sick/and i don’t have the will to keep fighting it. still, there are glimpses of tender, bashful hope in the song too. i listened to PURPLE MOUNTAINS a lot this month but refrained from throwing it on the playlist to limit the despair.

all i can come up with is the recognition that making great art seems to require exposing oneself to the full spectrum of human feeling. in the case of CINDY LEE, i wonder about the way in which the art is then consumed and shared and claimed—what happens to the artist when they come to embody the complex emotional landscape contained in their music?3

shout out to Katie Crutchfield (WAXAHATCHEE) for her beautiful playlist (Spotify) featuring a range of incredible artists. i checked it out after catching her at The Ryman. WAXAHATCHEE has adoring, expectant fans, and for good reason. true to the parasociality of stardom, folks in the pews screamed and wept and begged her to never stop writing songs. she threw a “KC” trucker hat into the crowd during the opening song, “3 SISTERS”. i caught it. i briefly wore it, to feel something, and then gave it to someone who loved her more than me.4

Crutchfield owned the stage. her bassist, Eliana Athayde, sang dialed-in harmonies. JEFF TWEEDY’s son Spencer was on the drums. MJ LENDERMAN periodically shuffled onto the stage like a fifth grader giving a presentation in class. true pandemonium struck when WYNONNA JUDD and LUCINDA WILLIAMS each sang a duet with Crutchfield for the encore. talk about an endorsement. the melbourne-based opener, GOOD MORNING, swapped the lo-fi sound i typically associate with their songs for a heartfelt, buoyant set. check out their new album “GOOD MORNING SEVEN”.

NEIL YOUNG played a few days later, and actually postponed due to those pesky thunderstorms. my parents and i schlepped down to the FirstBank Amphitheater, which i will forever call the Poor Man’s Red Rocks.5 he opened with “CORTEZ THE KILLER” and the rest was kind of a done deal. humongous sound coming from a humble four-piece band. a surfeit of guitar solos from a seemingly tireless 78-year-old YOUNG. a stretch of solo acoustic songs in the middle of the set. i overheard more than one person say they could die happy having heard YOUNG play “VAMPIRE BLUES”.

i wonder if artists with careers like WILLIAMS and YOUNG serve as a kind of counterpoint to the notion that artistry and tragedy are inevitably intertwined; that bright flames always burn out quick. maybe longevity demands its own sacrifices and compromises. maybe NEIL’s kind of a dick in person, maybe he’s impenetrable. maybe he’s blissed out. i pictured him finishing the second encore and wordlessly walking back to the fleet of tour buses i glimpsed on my way in, unfeeling, workmanlike, settling in for well-earned sleep. who knows. LUCINDA WILLIAMS is an oft-referenced north star for some of today’s most effective songwriters, like WAXAHATCHEE, who covered “FRUITS OF MY LABOR” on “SAINT CLOUD +3”, and ADRIANNE LENKER and BUCK MEEK, who apparently just had a co-writing session with their BIG THIEF bandmates and WILLIAMS. i much prefer connecting artistry with survival.

SUN KIL MOON’s searching, dreamlike fourteen-minute song “ONE DAY IN MAY” works its way toward a similar kind of meditation on longevity, on persistence; on intimate connections, new connections, creative idols, etc. it’s a shame Mark Kozelek is a creep.

FUN PART OF THE PLAYLIST

clear vibe shift (for the most part, i’ll never fully be rid of sad songs) with “BOYS”, a track off of AMEN DUNES’ new album “DEATH JOKES”. maybe the weather finally warmed up. maybe Amanda Petrusich’s pieces on DUA LIPA and OLIVIA RODRIGO, highlighting each woman for their respective brands of maximally pleasurable megapop made an impression on me. so, i give you YOUTH LAGOON’s BLUE NILE fever dream “LUCY TAKES A PICTURE”; all of CRUMB’s new album “AMAMA”, but especially “GENIE”; CHARLI XCX not being bothered by anything; BILLIE’s horned-up “LUNCH”; DUA LIPA’s effortlessly cool “FRENCH EXIT”; and (holy shit why did nobody tell me about her?) CHAPPELL ROAN.

i can’t forget HOLLY HUMBERSTONE, who kicked off her tour at Basement East and opened the set with “PAINT MY BEDROOM BLACK”. everyone’s favorite quirked up dude MEDIUM BUILD came out for “COCOON” wearing a green wig. at great personal cost i missed a CRYSTAL EGG/JOE’S TUBATORIUM show at Rosie’s Twin Kegs to see KARA JACKSON and JOY OLADOKUN at (should i be putting this in bold???) Soho House. it was worth enduring the strangeness of that place pantomiming as a music venue to see OLADOKUN sing with big-stage energy to a room of maybe twenty people. in the middle of her song “LOOK UP”, with eyes closed, she began playing “BLACKBIRD”, beautifully and possibly in a nod to BEYONCÉ’s important rendition of the song. i actually had to check and make sure OLADOKUN wasn’t one of the singers featured on BEYONCÉ’s version.

i felt pretty chuffed to be closing the playlist out on a high note. and then i regressed and got around to talking to a friend about shoegaze—a label that nowadays feels liberally deployed and often misapplied.

we reminisced on DEERHUNTER (i know, shoegaze came around way before they did) and wondered why they haven’t released anything since 2019. i went on a mission to listen to all of their songs and indulged in some of their best (“HE WOULD HAVE LAUGHED”, “VOX CELESTE”). “NITEBIKE” was a new song for me and an affecting one. the lyrics felt so perfectly relevant to the gauntlet of professional musicianship that i couldn’t quite believe it. but it be like that sometimes.

waiting in line for beers at The Blue Room, my friend meaghan asked me for my top show this month. we were about to see BUCK MEEK play; JOLIE HOLLAND had just finished her set, where normal, english words shapeshifted under the spell of her otherworldly voice. i wagered that it was going to be BUCK. sorry NEIL and WAXAHATCHEE.6 i was right. if you weren’t there, i sure am sorry you missed guitarist ADAM BRISBIN do things on a Telecaster that, as BUCK said when they came out for the (four song!) encore, “may not be legal in Nashville”. it was lickfest 3000. two of the best indie rock guitarists sharing the stage, their guitars breathing life out onto the crowd and my empty beer can rattling in my hand all the while. listen to any guitar solo on BUCK’s album “HAUNTED MOUNTAIN”, but especially BRISBIN’s solo on “CUERO DUDES”, to get a feel for the way these guys create a delirious, gasping space between the dissonant and distorted notes they manage to find on the neck. i’d like to see their pedalboards. they played a handful of unreleased songs (“OUT OF BODY”) and by the end, when the houselights finally came on, BUCK smiled and said: “i want to remember everyone’s faces.”

they don’t do $4 40s in the big apple. and i didn’t find any backyard pools in philly. it’s summer in nashville. let it rip.

SHOWS IN MAY: WAXAHATCHEE / HOLLY HUMBERSTONE / NEIL YOUNG / CINDY LEE / KARA JACKSON & JOY OLADOKUN / REAL ESTATE / BUCK MEEK / ANNIE WILLIAMS + SHRUNKEN ELVIS + STYROFOAM WINOS

SHOWS IN JUNE: SOCCER MOMMY / MEDIUM BUILD / UMBRELLAS + ORNAMENT / wait why so few shows??? / whatever you invite me to

thanks Eli Motycka for helping me edit this

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many liters of sweat into their sold out show at Basement East, MANNEQUIN PUSSY’s Missy Dabice asked everyone to be quiet.  

synth warbled behind her. guitar twinkled. the crowd’s collective panting slowed to a steady breath. some people held up their hands in the shape of a heart, which was nice. weren’t we just slamming our bodies into each other? 

Dabice considered why were were all there—hundreds of swaying bodies, her bandmates, SOUL GLO, a fellow Philly band who killed their opening set: to participate in a live show, of course. but Dabice had something less literal in mind. 

she held her hand against her very dope leather bustier and mentioned a pit in her stomach. maybe we harbored such a pit, she suggested. maybe we felt anger. and maybe anger was, for us, too, a fraught emotion. 

why, she asked, are we encouraged to suppress our anger? or contort it? or turn it against ourselves? and when we do feel it, how do we express it? can we scream? if so, where? our car? our pillow? why can’t we scream together? 

i pictured a town square out of Invisible Cities built for public screaming. i realized she was asking us to scream on the count of three. 

one

two

three

i don’t remember what song MANNEQUIN PUSSY went into after we screamed (see set list), but we resumed slamming our bodies into one another. we screamed, sang, and jumped. it was the sweatiest heaven i’ve ever known.

if you haven’t listened to MP’s latest album “I GOT HEAVEN”, you should. it’s the kind of pop-punk (much like JEFF ROSENSTOCK) that might be a gateway into the real stuff. it is every bit as good as the real stuff, albeit a little sweeter. and if it never delivered you to bands like SOUL GLO or CHAT PILE, that’d be just fine too. you still get to scream your fuckin lungs out. “SPLIT ME OPEN”, the album’s final track after a smattering of more hardcore fare, may be an all-time song for me. the concert, too, will probably remain one of the best live shows i’ve experienced.

that was tax day. two days earlier i saw STYROFOAM WINOS play at Betty’s. I saw them for the first time ever when they opened for WILD PINK at O.G. Basement on 4/8. i’m late to the party but i concur that WINOS are a local treasure. great chemistry, great musicians, and honest, original songs. it’s hard to avoid a comparison with another, two-guys-one-woman-where-one-of-the-guys-is-married-to-the-woman three piece YO LA TENGO, and i mean that in the best way. WILD PINK was great too—full band, pedal steel, impressively faithful to the quality of their studio tracks—absolutely rocked out.

when i went back for another cup of STYROFOAM WINOS, things were a little different. i think they were celebrating a friend’s wedding? and all three acts on the bill (JOELTON MAYFIELD, WILBY) were playing covers? still a blast, but my friends and i were maybe the only non-wedding-party people in the crowd. we danced to DOLLY PARTON (LOVE IS LIKE A BUTTERFLY) and a slate of 90s/00s treasures (KISS ME, TUBTHUMPING, SOAK UP THE SUN)1. the WINOS donned their JJ’s aprons for the occasion. 

so, naturally MANNEQUIN PUSSY and WINOS (but not CHUMBAWAMBA) made it on my 4/24 playlist. how to describe the rest of it?… since march my playlists have jumped in song-count. march had 83 songs at 5hr5min. april clocked 94 songs, 5h51min. lots of big releases contributed: LIZZY MCALPINE, BEYONCE, VAMPIRE WEEKEND, BABEHOVEN, ENGLISH TEACHER, HOVVDY to name a few.2 CINDY LEE’s DIAMOND JUBILEE would have overpowered the whole playlist if it were available anywhere other than the famed geocities site.3

i’ve also been a bit more adventurous in my listening, including songs that may not be in a daily rotation but nonetheless feel important to capture (MOUNT EERIE’s “TINTIN IN TIBET”, POLVO’s “MY KIMONO”, “MEMORY LANE” by ELLIOTT SMITH"). lastly, i’ve been relying more on artist playlists. why not listen to the music your favorite musicians are listening to?

this month, after SOUR WIDOWS blessed us with a long-awaited release date for their debut album (“REVIVAL OF A FRIEND”) and a new single to boot (“CHERISH”), i listened to their SPRING REVOLUTION🌱 playlist and really connected with BABEHOVEN and DARI BAY—additionally, songs 35-47 either came directly from the playlist or were discovered thanks to the songs on there.

listening to BUCK MEEK’s “FRIENDS/HEROES” playlist, i uncovered yet another Michael Buishas project, this time REALLY BIG PINECONE, last time 0 STARS. Buishas is an intriguing character to me. he played in a band with BIG THIEF’s ADRIANNE LENKER and BUCK MEEK, called PENCIL. he’s both prolific and diverse in his musical output, with at least three different projects that i know of in addition to PENCIL. he makes zines, collages, comics, and ceramics. apparently he tunes pianos in his spare time. i emailed him once to say thanks for making music, but i never heard back.  

i was powerless over LIZZY MCALPINE’s new album “OLDER”. i’m a sucker for expertly rendered pop and her music really does it for me. lots of heart-rending arrangements and thoughtful production. her voice is incisive and full of feeling. there’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure.

also on BUCK’s “friends/heroes” playlist was Mat Davidson’s project TWAIN. at a BIG THIEF show I saw at Radio City Music Hall, ADRIANNE LENKER said that they once asked Davidson to join the band and he politely declined, but he’s a nearly ubiquitous presence in the BIG THIEF creative universe. he was one of three musicians who played on nearly every song on ADRIANNE’s album “BRIGHT FUTURE”. he’s an integral part of MEEK’s “TWO SAVIORS”. he played on and produced “HAUNTED MOUNTAIN”. TWAIN’s songs fit nicely among these other projects that pass through his hands. the lyrics are wry and profound (“a few more years of paradise/ then i’ll go to find my maker”). the guitar is intimate and familiar, yet the chord progressions are inventive. i cherish his near-constant presence in my musical world.

i think i threw some WYE OAK/FLOCK OF DIMES songs on the playlist by way of TŌTH (“DAFFADOWNDILLY”) by way of TWAIN, just because they seem like they’d be friends if they aren’t already. but also because Jenn Wasner, the genius behind both WYE OAK (duo with Andy Stack) and FLOCK OF DIMES, is playing at Basement East on 7/8 with PEDRO THE LION. i’ll be there. her album “HEAD OF ROSES” remains one of my favorites—stripped down acoustic pieces and hard-rocking, guitar-soloing tracks abound and her powerful, soaring voice graces each and every one of them.

i’ll end my playlist review with a group that’s near and dear: HOVVDY. two sensitive dudes who grew up in the south, so that resonates with me. i’ve long felt that we could enjoy each other’s company, share hobbies, be friends. Now that Will Taylor’s moved to Nashville anything is possible. their music reminds me of high school and driving in the summer. All of the best things that music can evoke. it reminds me of my actual friends. their new album only added to the catalog of songs that I can crank on a bike or in a car or any time I’m outside with the people I love or inside with the people I love. pitchfork threw it an 8.3 and i’m very happy for them.

why else is my playlist long and brimming with great music? probably because i’ve been doing a lot of the above… spending time with the people i love, making the most of spring’s arrival, the sun, the warmth, the fragrance. i drank my first $4 40oz beer at Schulman’s (peep the shirt). perhaps my healthiest, happiest month in recent memory. PEACE.

SHOWS IN MAY

WAXAHATCHEE / HOLLY HUMBERSTONE / NEIL YOUNG / CINDY LEE haha / KARA JACKSON / REAL ESTATE / BUCK MEEK / ANNIE WILLIAMS + STYROFOAM WINOS / whatever you invite me to

thanks Eli Motycka for helping me edit this

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