Best of What’s New

Welcome to Best of What’s New, and I hope your Saturday is groovy. In this installment of my weekly new music revue, I decided to feature six tunes. The first five tracks are from releases that came out yesterday (April 14), while the final song appeared on April 7.

Kara Jackson/Pawnshop

Kara Jackson is a poet, published book author and singer-songwriter hailing from Oak Park, Ill. She was named the 2019 U.S. National Youth Poet Laureate. The title is awarded annually to a young person who, according to Wikipedia, demonstrates skill in the arts, particularly poetry and/or spoken word, is a strong leader, is committed to social justice, and is active in civic discourse and advocacy. In 2019, Jackson released her debut EP A Song for Every Chamber of the Heart. Now she’s out with her first full-length album Why Does the Earth Give Us People to Love? Here’s Pawnshop, a great tune co-written by Jackson, Kaina Castillo and Sen Morimoto.

Fruit Bats/Waking Up in Los Angeles

Fruit Bats are an indie folk rock band around singer-songwriter Eric D. Johnson. The group I first featured in a March 2021 Best of What’s New installment, was initially founded in 1997 in Chicago as a side project for Johnson who also led space rock group I Rowboat and played guitar in several other bands. Fruit Bats evolved into a band in 2001 when I Rowboat members  Dan Strack (guitar) and Brian Belval (drums) joined Johnson’s project. They released their debut album Echolocation in September that year. Since then, the group has had many lineup changes, with Johnson remaining as the only constant member. Waking Up in Los Angeles, penned by Johnson, is from Fruit Bats’ latest and 10th studio album A River Running to Your Heart – pretty catchy!

Brian Dunne/Bad Luck

Brian Dunne is a singer-songwriter based in New York City. From his website: Born and raised in Monroe, NY, Dunne learned to roll with the hits when he moved to NYC roughly a decade ago, barely scraping by at first as he forged his early career one hard-fought show at a time…In the years that followed, he would go on to release a trio of widely respected albums, share bills with everyone from Cat Power to Caroline Rose, and earn praise from the likes of Rolling Stone, who hailed “Chasing Down A Ghost” from his most recent album, 2020’s Selling Things, as “a stunner.” In 2021, Dunne landed an unexpected hit in the Netherlands with “New Tattoo,” a standalone single that reached #2 on the Spotify Viral 50 and landed him on a slew of Dutch national TV and radio programs. This brings me to Dunne’s new album Loser On the Ropes, which as his website puts it explores defeat and denial, fortune and faith, shame and redemption, all set against the backdrop of a world run by blowhards and bullshitters who manage to perpetually skate by without cost or consequence. Unlike its title may suggest, Bad Luck, written by Dunne, sounds pretty upbeat.

Hippo Campus/Moonshine

Hippo Campus are an indie rock band from Saint Paul, Minn. They were formed in 2013 by five students who met at Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists: Jake Luppen (lead vocals, guitar), Nathan Stocker (lead guitar, vocals), Zach Sutton (bass, keyboards) and Whistler Isaiah Allen (drums, vocals). After three EPs in 2013, 2014 and 2015, they released their first full-length studio album Landmark in February 2017. In addition to the co-founders, it featured DeCarlo Jackson (trumpet), who also had studied at SPCPA. Moonshine, credited to the group’s co-founders, Caleb Wright and Raffaella Meloni, is a pleasant pop rock tune from the band’s new EP Wasteland.

Danko Jones/Guess Who’s Back

Danko Jones are a hard rock trio formed in Toronto in 1996 by frontman Danko Jones (vocals, guitar), John ‘JC’ Calabrese (bass) and Michael Caricari (drums). Following a succession of various drummers that started in 1999, the band’s line-up has been stable since 2013 when Rich Knox joined. From a press release: Powered by a DIY punk rock spirit, and inspired by the good, great and grotesque of electrified rock ‘n’ roll, they have steadily built a colossal international fan base and become one of the most acclaimed live bands around, embraced by everyone from mainstream radio-rock fans to diehard metalheads. Along the way, they have released ten widely praised studio albums, generating a peerless repertoire of fists-in-the-air crowd-pleasers into the bargain. Now they announced their forthcoming 11th studio album Electric Sounds, scheduled to drop September 15 on German rock/metal label AFM Records, and released the first track, Guess Who’s Back. Co-written by Calabrese and Knox, it’s a pretty kickass tune from what the above-mentioned press release called “the undisputed kings of balls-out rock’n’roll.”

Greta Van Fleet/Meeting the Master

This brings me to my last pick for this week, the first track from Greta Van Fleet’s upcoming third full-length studio album Starcatcher, scheduled for July 21. Greta Van Fleet, who I covered on various previous occasions, were formed in Frankenmuth, Mich. in 2012 by brothers Josh Kiszka (lead vocals), Jake Kiszka (guitars, backing vocals) and Sam Kiszka (bass, keyboards, backing vocals), along with Kyle Hauck (drums). Other than Hauck who was replaced by Danny Wagner in 2013, the band’s line-up hasn’t changed. Starcatcher, which follows April 2021’s The Battle at Garden’s Gate, was produced in Nashville by the band and Dave Cobb, who has worked with the likes of Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile, John Prine, Sturgill Simpson, Jason Isbell, The Highwomen and Rival Sons. “We had this idea that we wanted to tell these stories to build a universe,” Wagner said about what appears to be a concept album in a statement, as reported by NME. “We wanted to introduce characters and motifs and these ideas that would come about here and there throughout our careers through this world.” Here’s Meeting the Master, which appeared on April 7 – sounds pretty epic!

Last but not least, here’s a Spotify playlist of the above and a few additional tunes.

Sources: Wikipedia; Brian Dunne website; NME; YouTube; Spotify

The Year that was 2020 – Part 2 of 2

This is second and last installment of my two-part year in review. In case you missed part 1, you can read it here.

Celebrating new music one song at a time…

With more than 150 songs highlighted since the launch of the Best of What’s New feature, I find it impossible to call out the best tunes. As I wrote in the inaugural March 21 post, While I don’t see myself starting to write about electronic dance music or Neue Deutsche Haerte a la Rammstein, I’m hoping to keep these posts a bit eclectic. I realize the characterization “best” is pretty subjective. If a song speaks to me, it’s fair game. I should perhaps have added that I don’t need to like other tunes by an artist to include them. It’s literally about the specific song.

Best of What’s New installments have featured tunes ranging from prominent artists like Sheryl Crow, The Rolling Stones and Tom Petty to lesser known acts like rock bands Brother Man and Mondo Silicone and Austin, Texas-based band leader Joe Sparacino, aka. Dr. Joe. Frequently, these posts triggered new album reviews, e.g., LeRoux (One of Those Days), Mick Hayes (My Claim to Fame) and Niedeckens BAP (Alles Fliesst). Following are four songs I discovered in the context of Best of What’s New.

Dr. Joe: Believer

From Dr. Joe’s website: Based in Austin TX but raised on a farm outside Salina, Kansas, band leader Joe Sparacino spent his early childhood learning piano from a southern gospel choir matron and listening to his family’s old vinyl collection of Ray Charles, Leon Russell and James Booker. Released on April 10, Believer was Dr. Joe’s then-latest single and it’s cooking!

The Reverberations: Under Your Spell

The Reverberations are a five-piece band from Portland, Ore. Their Bandcamp profile characterizes their music as “’60s influenced psychedelic jangle.” I’d call it psychedelic garage rock. Under Your Spell, the B-side to their single Palm Reader released May 28, features some cool Byrds-ey guitars and nice keyboard work. Did I mention it’s also got a quite catchy melody? And check out the lovely psychedelic cover art – super cool all around! For more on this great band, you can read my review of their February 2019 album Changes, their most recent full-fledged studio release.

Kat Riggins: No Sale

Kat Riggins is a blues artist hailing from Miami. According to her website, She travels the world with the sole mission of keeping the blues alive and thriving through her Blues Revival Movement. She has been vocally compared to Koko Taylor, Etta James and Tina Turner to name a few. The nice blues rocker No Sale, which has a bit of a ZZ Top vibe, is from Riggins’ fourth album Cry Out released on August 14. That woman’s got it!

Greta Van Fleet: Age of Machine

Age of Machine is the second single from Greta Van Fleet’s next album The Battle at Garden’s Gate, which is scheduled for April 16, 2021. I think this kickass rocker provides more evidence the young band has evolved their style, moving away from their initial Led Zeppelin-influenced sound. Looking forward to the album!

Live music in the year of the pandemic…

Except for two tribute band concerts in January, pretty measly for the ‘King of the Tribute Band,’ I didn’t go to any live gigs this year. Shows for which I had tickets, including The Temptations and The Four Tops, Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band, and Steely Dan with special guest Steve Winwood, were rescheduled until April, June and July 2021, respectively. Perhaps with the exception of the last concert, I hope all other shows will be rescheduled a second time and moved back to the second half of the year. For somebody who loves live music and over the past 4-5 years has gotten into the habit of seeing an average 20-30 shows per year (counting lower cost tribute band and free summer type concerts), seizing live concerts it’s a bitter but necessary pill to swallow until this lethal pandemic is behind us.

I ended up watching two live concerts via Internet stream: Southern Avenue at Instrumenthead Live Studio in Nashville, Tenn. last week, and Mike Campbell’s band The Dirty Knobs at the Troubador in Los Angeles in late November. It was fun and also a nice opportunity to support music via voluntary donations in lieu of buying official tickets, but no virtual experience can replace the real deal.

Some final musings…

While my primary motivation for the blog has always been the joy I get from writing about a topic I love, i.e., music, it’s nice to see continued growth in visitor traffic, followers and feedback. Just like in 2019, the most popular post remained my January 2018 piece about Bad Company’s live CD/DVD collection from their May 15, 2016 show at Red Rocks Amphitheatre; personally, I find the post average at best. By comparison, my July 12, 2020 post about the mellotron, which I’m proud of, received less than one percent of traffic than the Bad Company post. Perhaps, it was too geeky! 🙂 It’s funny how these things sometimes go.

I’d like to thank all visitors of the blog. If you’re here for the first time, you’re welcome back anytime. If you’re a regular, I hope you keep coming back. I also enjoy receiving comments, including different opinions. All I ever ask is to keep things civil.

Last but not least, I’d like to leave you with a great song by Southern Avenue they also played during the above noted virtual concert. I feel it’s a great message, especially during these crazy times: Don’t Give Up, from their eponymous debut album released in February 2017. Since I couldn’t capture footage from the above gig, here’s an alternative I can offer: a clip I recorded during a show at The Wonder Bar, a small venue in Asbury Park, N.J. in July 2019.

Sources: Christian’s Music Music Musings; YouTube

Best of What’s New

After having compiled this weekly recurring feature for about nine months, I’ve developed a pretty good methodology to find new music. As more frequent visitors of the blog know, the madness doesn’t include the mainstream charts. Sometimes it’s pretty easy, other times it requires more work. This week fell into the latter category. I’m still quite happy with this new installment that features various flavors of rock, including alternative, kickass classic, indie and country.

Glom/Merit

Glom from Brooklyn, New York are a classic alt-rock inspired, fuzzy alt-rock act, according to their profile on Bandcamp. Based on this interview with Two Story Melody from March 2019, it sounds like while members of Glom have been friends and played together in various bands since their early high school years, the group only formed in 2017. Bandcamp lists Sean Dunnevant (guitar, bass, vocals), Peter Beiser (guitar, piano, vocals), Sahil Ansari (guitar, drums, percussion, synthesizer), Jonathan Crandall (synthesizer, piano, percussion), Jonathan Harwood (percussion) and Jordan Wolfe (drums, percussion, synthesizer). Merit, written by Dunnevant, is the title track of Glom’s new album released yesterday (Dec 4). It’s a quite catchy tune. Based on sampling a few other tracks on the album, these guys seem to have a knack for melodies that are easy on the ears.

Greta Van Fleet/Age of Machine

Age of Machine is the second single from Greta Van Fleet’s next album. When the kick-ass rocker appeared yesterday, the Michigan band also revealed their second full-length studio release will come out on April 16, 2021 and be titled The Battle at Garden’s Gate, Spin reported. “There was a lot of self-evolution happening during the writing of this album that was prompted by experiences I had, experiences we all had, so a lot of contemplation occurred,” explained vocalist Josh Kiszka.  “It’s reflecting a lot of the world that we’ve seen, and I think that it’s reflecting a lot of personal truth,” observed guitarist Jake Kiszka. “I suppose that everything has changed except what got us here in the first place,” added Sam Kiszka, the third of the Kiszka brothers and bassist of the band that also includes drummer Danny Wagner. Greta Van Fleet’s classic rock orientation has generated lots of excitement and, as you’d expect, some criticism over its Led Zeppelin-influenced sound. I think the new single provides more evidence that Greta Van Fleet have evolved in finding their own unique style. Really looking forward to hearing more from that album!

Juniper/Angelina

Juniper are an indie rock band from the Boston area. They were formed in the spring of 2017 by Scott Johnson, Ahren Shreeve and Alejandro Marin. In September that year, they released their eponymous debut EP. Another EP, For the First Time, came out one year later. On their website, Juniper describe their sound as “unique” with “diverse influences of alternative rock, folk, R&B and bedroom pop” – the latter being yet another genre I had not heard of before. Currently, they are working on their debut album. Meanwhile, here’s their new single Angelina. And, nope, the lovely young woman in the video isn’t Angelina.

The Wild Feathers/My Truth

Let’s wrap it up with The Wild Feathers, a country rock band founded in 2010 in Nashville, Tenn. According to a bio on AllMusic, they prefer the term “American” over Americana when describing their sound, which falls somewhere between the earnest, neo-Southern rock of the Black Crowes, the bluesy swagger of the Black Keys, and the wide-open-road country-rock of the Eagles. The band’s current lineup features founding members Ricky Young (guitar, vocals), Taylor Burns (guitar, vocals) and Joel King (bass, vocals), as well as Ben Dumas (drums). The Wild Feathers began touring frequently in 2013, playing with artists like Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and ZZ Ward. Their eponymous debut album appeared in August 2013. My Truth is a new original song from the band’s most recent fourth album Medium Rarities, which according to a review in Glide Magazine is a collection of covers, demos, B-sides and a handful of new tunes. My Truth is a great track co-written by King, Young and country singer-songwriter Brett James.

Sources: Wikipedia; Bandcamp; Two Story Melody; Spin; Juniper website; Juniper Facebook page; AllMusic; Glide Magazine; YouTube