In celebration of her recently released sophomore album Cactus, Elise Davis has announced a run of fall dates supporting Ray LaMontagne, SUSTO, and Lissie. Find a full list of tour dates below and on Elisedavis.com.
 
Cactus is now available via Apple Music, Spotify, and Amazon.
 
 For Cactus, Davis tapped producer Jordan Lehning (Caitlin Rose, Andrew Combs, Birdcloud's Jasmin Kaset) to helm her most personal work to date. The two worked together for six months straight, holed up in Lehning's home studio, looking to albums like Tom Petty's Wildflowers and Aimee Mann's Mental Illness for inspiration. Davis' melodies remain at the forefront of every mix, her voice honest and unflinching, stripped free of the reverb that had swirled its way throughout The Token.  
 
"Cacti are independent plants that sustain themselves," explains Davis about the new album. "They can be beautiful with bright-colored flowers on them, but if you touch them, they will hurt you. I see a lot of parallels with the way I have felt most of my life. It felt like the perfect album title for these songs."
 
Tour Dates:
 
10/5: Indianapolis, IN - HI-FI
11/11: Dallas, TX - Granada ^
11/12: Austin, TX - Antone’s ^
11/13: Houston, TX - White Oak Upstairs ^
11/16: North Charleston, SC - North Charleston Performing Arts Center #
11/17: Richmond, VA - Dominion Energy Center #
11/18: Wilkes Barre, PA - F.M. Kirby Center #
11/27: Decatur, GA - Eddie's Attic %
11/28: Asheville, NC - The Grey Eagle %
11/29: Charlotte, NC - The Evening Muse %
11/30: Wilmington, NC - Bourgie Nights %
12/1: Washington, D.C. - Gypsy Sally's %
 
^ - with Lissie
# - with Ray LaMontagne
% - with SUSTO's Justin Osborne
 
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Wed. Oct. 30 •NEW YORK CITY• Mercury Lounge
217 East Houston Street.
Showtime: 10 p.m.
Tickets: $10 - $12
Info: http://bit.ly/2piAysH
Tickets: https://ticketf.ly/2OxluSO

Brooklyn-based musician John Brodeur is the songwriter and musician behind Bird Streets, who released their latest album August 10th.  Audiophile Review said, "Bird Streets has no shortage of powerful pop gems… a most tasty slice of modern American indie rock pie." 

Lyrically, these songs draw heavily on internal conflict — self-doubt, anxiety, depression — with an overarching feeling of wistful resignation rather than blind optimism. Periodically difficult themes are delivered via unshakable melodies, a dichotomy that recalls the tightrope walked by artists like Elliott Smith and David Bazan/Pedro the Lion. In album opener “Carry Me,” Brodeur celebrates “new beginnings and bitter ends” over a bright, bristling bed of electric guitars, then laments the end of a friendship that was once “tighter than Steely Dan” in the eminently catchy “Betting on the Sun.” From there the album jumps between epic power-ballads (“Stop to Breathe”) and British Invasion-flavored power-pop (“Thanks for Calling”), the George Harrison-via-Radiohead melancholy of “Heal” and the grungy jangle of “Until the Crown.”
 
After years in the making — and decades on the outside looking in — Bird Streets is giving Brodeur a renewed creative energy, and a shot at reaching a larger audience.

​He will be appearing with his live band at the Mercury Lounge in Manhattan on October 30.

THE ORPHAN THE POET has seen spins from SiriusXM’s Alt Nation Advanced Placement show, as well as a flood of love from BBC’s Radio1 and alternative radio around the country with support from stations like ALT105.7 in Atlanta + Radio104.5 in Philadelphia, and making regular rotation on CD102.5 in Columbus + WEBN in Cincinnati. The band has recently been topping playlists like Spotify’s The New Alt + It’s ALT Good, Apple Music’s Breaking Alternative, and Youtube’s Alternative Hot List alongside artists like Bleachers + Walk The Moon.

Based out of Columbus,OH, the threesome come bearing their intense brand of take-it-or-leave-it alt rock, full of singalong hooks and charging guitars. Making their major music festival debut at Firefly Music Festival  2017, The Orphan The Poet have been rabidly gaining fans thanks to their captivating live show. Recently they released their new tune, "Money," a fabulous ear grabber with driving guitars, pulsating percussion and sweet lyrics celebrating the joy love brings that often surpasses all else.

Seminal Nashville songwriter John Prine has released a new version of his song “How Lucky,” as part of the new Amazon Original “Produced By” series, only on Amazon Music. The track was produced by the GRAMMY Award-winning, Memphis-based producer Matt Ross-Spang. The “Produced By” series pairs producers with a collection of some of today’s top artists across various genres to create exclusive, new recordings for Amazon Music listeners, and to spotlight today’s community of producers working behind the scenes to develop the best in music.
 
Stream "How Lucky" via Amazon Music:
https://amzn.to/2Mnzk8y
 
John Prine’s “How Lucky” is the second song to launch as part of Ross-Spang’s “Produced By” series for Amazon Music, which will continue with new releases throughout the week. Following yesterday’s release of “Leftovers” by Margo Price, additional releases will include Amazon Original songs from GRAMMY Award-winning artists including William Bell and Al Green. Future “Produced By” installments will feature acclaimed producers and artists from a variety of genres including Latin, Indie, Country, and R&B.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of their seminal album Feeling Strangely Fine, Semisonic will release a deluxe edition reissue of the record on October 19th via UMe. The album will be released on deluxe edition CD and digital, as well as a limited edition gold vinyl pressing, which marks the first time ever a Semisonic album has been pressed to vinyl LP. 
 
In addition to hits like "Closing Time," "Secret Smile" and "Singing In My Sleep," the deluxe edition features four B-sides taken from international CD singles that were released at the time of the album. Find a full tracklist below.
 
Today, Semisonic shared a previously-unreleased demo of "Closing Time" giving fans a glimpse into the evolution of the song. The Grammy-nominated, final version of "Closing Time" appears on the upcoming release out October 19.
​
Stream "Closing Time" (Demo):
https://youtu.be/t4NwblOuvuA
 
Stream "Closing Time":
https://ume.lnk.to/SemisonicClosingTime

Click here to watch official lyric video for “Clay Pigeons”

BLAZE: Original Cast Recording, the soundtrack for Ethan Hawke’s award-winning biographical drama BLAZE, is set for release September 21st via Light in the Attic Records on vinyl and CD.
​
The soundtrack is available to purchase now digitally here: http://smarturl.it/BlazeOST

Directed by Ethan Hawke, BLAZE stars newcomer Ben Dickey as Blaze Foley, the unsung songwriting legend of the Texas outlaw music movement whose unique artistic contributions gave rise to the likes of Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson and inspired both John Prine andLucinda Williams. Loosely guided by the narrative of Foley cohort and co-conspirator, Townes Van Zandt, played by Bob Dylan band guitarist Charlie Sexton, the film weaves together three different periods of time, conflating Blaze’s past, present and future in a poignant exploration of his love affair with Sybil Rosen, played by Alia Shawkat. Featuring an ensemble cast of inspired performers, the film explores the uniquely American art of storytelling through renditions of the Blaze Foley songbook, and examines the impact of both his art and his untimely death on his fans, friends, and collaborators.
 
An essential part of the story, the BLAZE: Original Cast Recording shines a light on Foley’s enduring influence by compiling performances from the film that underscore the unvarnished beauty of its idiosyncratic protagonist. As the cameras rolled, the actors began to sing and the singers began to act, and what’s captured on the record is the spirit of Foley and the film itself, most notably represented by the atmospheric noises of clinking beer bottles, birds, and the cast cheering each other on in the midst of a take. These hallmarks of natural conversation, of ebb and flow, are the makings of any good album - especially one made by a group of artists with a collective vision of creating something eternal, and doing it all, as Townes Van Zandt put it best, “for the sake of the song.”

Tony Joe White’s music is as primal as a lizard’s backbone. It echoes from the magnolia groves and bayous of his Louisiana childhood, and looms into the present every time he unleashes the molasses and tanned-leather combination of his guitar and voice. The legendary songwriter’s new blues-based album, Bad Mouthin’, which arrives September 28, 2018, comes straight from the swamps with its blend of classics and five White originals, including two of the first songs he wrote — just before penning his breakthrough hits “Polk Salad Annie” and “A Rainy Night in Georgia” in 1967.

“When and where I grew up, blues was just about the only music I heard and truly loved,” says White, who’s 75 and, if anything, an even more visceral performer than in his youth. “I’ve always thought of myself as a blues musician, bottom line, because the blues is real, and I like to keep everything I do as real as it gets. So, I thought it was time to make a blues record that sounds the way I always loved the music.”

And that’s down-to-the-bone raw. Over the course of Bad Mouthin’ ’s 12 songs, White conjures a world of meaning that transcends the lyrics of classics like Jimmy Reed’s “Big Boss Man,” Lightnin’ Hopkins’ “Awful Dreams,” and Charley Patton’s “Down the Dirt Road Blues,” using his deep river of a voice and the dark, spartan tones of his guitar to evoke the mystical South — a place where ghosts roam among abandoned pecan groves covered in Spanish moss and, indeed, the Devil might be encountered at a moonlit crossroads.

That White — who has written hits and cuts for a compendium of fellow legends from Elvis Presley (“Poke Salad Annie”) to Brook Benton (“A Rainy Night in Georgia”) to Dusty Springfield (“Willie and Laura Mae Jones”) to Eric Clapton (“Did Somebody Make a Fool Out of You”) to Tina Tuner(“Steamy Windows”) to Willie Nelson (“Problem Child”) to Kenny Chesney (also “Steamy Windows”) to Robert Cray (who recorded White’s “Don’t Steal My Love” and “Aspen, Colorado” just last year) — would now craft a blues album after more than 50 years spanning the rock, country, R&B, and Americana genres is an incredible testament to his versatility as well as to his roots. 

Mostly, Bad Mouthin’ features White accompanied solely by his road-worn 1965 Fender Stratocaster, the guitar he’s favored for his entire career. That’s all he needs to conjure the same kind of simmering emotional magic that John Lee Hooker distilled into his historic solo recordings — just one man and one guitar essentially defining what it means to be human in a story as simple and yet as profound as a Zen koan. His official NYC release show for Bad Mouthin’, out on Yep Roc on Sept. 28th, will be:

Wed., Sept. 26 • NEW YORK • City Winery Loft

155 Varick St.; Showtime: 8 p.m.; Tickets: TBA

https://citywinery.com/theloft/concerts.html/

Dear Friends,

Every once in awhile we all need to reset and recharge and over the past few months I have come to realize I have reached that point. So, I am taking the month of August off to do just that. I hope to be back in September with a renewed passion and vigor to bring you engaging content about your favorite artists and newer ones who may just become your favorite.

In the meantime, remember there is no right or wrong in regards to the type of music you like, so do not feel you have to listen to what the "experts" deem to be hip or cool. Follow your own musical drum and simply listen to the music that moves your spirit and makes you happy.

Yours, Tara

July, 2018 - “THE WILLOWS” is the new single from Connecticut Americana/Country Musician and Songwriter Jeff Przech. “THE WILLOWS” is the second release from Przech’s “JEFF PRZECH & THE OUTFIT” record and the first with an accompanying video.  “THE WILLOWS,” like all the songs on the album, illustrate what Eric Danton (WSJ/Rolling Stone/Paste) called a “winsome world-weary sensibility,” and feature Przech’s “pleasantly worn-in voice on songs cut from enduring alt-country cloth.” “THE WILLOWS” is the lone acoustic number on the album, highlighting Przech’s weighty baritone and acoustic guitar.​

WATCH “THE WILLOWS” VIDEO HERE

A native of Hartford, Connecticut, now calling Unionville, CT home, Jeff Przech (pronounced 'Presh') was called “as Americana as they come” by Chip McCabe of Lonesome Noise. Przech's music offers a different geographical take on the genre while still maintaining the characteristics of modern Americana music. Przech favors the narrative style of lyricism shown by modern artists like Jason Isbell as well as legendary artists like Kris Kristofferson, who Przech cites as his biggest influence.

Przech is touring this summer to support both the new song and the album as a whole, hitting the Pacific Northwest in late July and the Mid-Atlantic area in August. Like “THE WILLOWS” Przech’s shows will be solo acoustic, as the songs were written, enabling him to connect with audiences on a more intimate level.