Benjamin Jayne is the musical project of Benjamin Wright based in Brattleboro, Vermont. On the 2019 debut album HI-LO the songwriting might be characterized as an introspective, gentle folk rock. For the follow-up 2021’s Theater introduced more electronic elements to craft the moody and thought provoking songs and included extensive contributions from Wright’s sister Amanda Wright in vocals, piano and bells as well as one of her own compositions. Since the start of Benjamin Jayne, Wright has enlisted the services of Drew Skinner for mixing and production including on the new album Broken (released October 13, 2023). The music for Broken is darker and heavier befitting the subjects of trying to reconciling who people are in comparison to who they remember themselves to be and the cognitive dissonance and distance we can experience as we try to come to terms with it all and how we want to live and be going forward.
Listen to our interview with Benjamin Wright on Bandcamp and follow Benjamin Jayne at the links below.
Speedy Ortiz started as a solo project for guitarist/singer Sadie Dupuis but expanded to a full band in 2011 that has gone on to release three EPs and four full-length albums including 2023’s Rabbit Rabbit. From the beginning Dupuis, also a visual artist, has done a most of the artwork for the band including its album covers and thus one gets a unique and personal aesthetic and perspective from the band’s music that has thankfully made its music challenging to pigeonhole outside of the umbrella term of indie rock. But there is also something immediately accessible about the pop songcraft and poetically and often cleverly observed lyrics that has set the project apart from artists more content with following an established style popular at any given moment. In October 2023 Rolling Stone magazine released a list of “The 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” where Dupuis charted at 176. And a quick listen to any of the band’s records reveals that Dupuis while an imaginative artist in her songwriting is also technically gifted musician who channels that talent into songs that come from the heart. Rabbit Rabbit is an album that explores various themes including survival mechanisms, those behaviors many of us undertake to get us through challenging times in our lives some of which we may not be consciously aware of adopting and which can affect us for much of the rest of our lives. And becoming aware of these patterns gives us some ability to guide our lives in ways we really want so that we can live instead of settling for mere survival. Its a complex and emotionally rich album that is also not short on humor and cultural Easter eggs for the perceptive listener that enrich the full meaning of the songs.
Mike Baggetta is the guitarist of mssv, a trio formed in 2019 that includes bassist Mike Watt (Minutemen, The Stooges et. al. ) and drummer Jim Keltner (Harry Nilsson, The Traveling Wilburys, Randy Newman, Bob Dylan, Richard Thompson, Neil Young, Phoebe Bridgers, Elvis Costello and numerous other collaborations). The latter has mostly been a songwriting and recording contributor to the project and veteran drummer Stephen Hodges (Tom Waits, Jonathan Richman, Wanda Jackson etc.) has been the percussionist for most of the band’s tours and now a contributor to the writing and recording music now as well. With the musical pedigree of the band with master musicians the music could be something mostly niche and for academics and the like but there’s a freshness to even the more tranquil passages of music that benefits from the spontaneous aspect of the songwriting and some real punk spirit in the performances. It’s a little like listening to a band that was equally rooted in jazz, angular post-punk and ferocious psychedelic art rock. The band’s new album Human Reaction is now available on 12” vinyl and digital download.
Listen to our interview with Mike Baggetta on Bandcamp and follow mssv at the links below.
Lance Lopez is a blues rock guitarist, singer and songwriter who was born in Shreveport, Louisiana but cut his teeth as a working musician in the French Quarter of New Orleans where he started getting paid work at age 14. At 17 he was recruited by former Stax Records hit-maker Johnnie Taylor and toured the Chitlin Circuit for half a year. He toured with Lucky Peterson for three years and spent some time playing for the Buddy Miles Express. At points in his career he was mentored by both Johnny Winter and Billy Gibbons, the later of whom remains a friend. Lopez released his debut album First Things First in 1998 and has had an active career with his own band since with an active touring schedule minus the pandemic period during which little if any live music was going on. On July 14, 2023 Lopez released his latest album Trouble Is Good (on Cleopatra Records), a vital and musically accomplished set of songs steeped in the tradition of blues rock commenting on the travails of everyday life. It’s also an album that comes off with a fresh take on an established style of music and an example of how great songwriting and creative musicianship doesn’t go out of style.
Listen to our interview with Lance Lopez on Bandcamp and follow Lopez at the links below.
Bark is a rock duo based in Water Valley, Mississippi comprised of Susan Bauer Lee (drums and vocals) and Tim Lee (Fender VI bass and vocals) . It’s sound is akin to the kind of imaginative yet zesty power pop and jangle rock one heard in the 80s among artists out of The Paisley Underground, C86, Flying Nun Records and the various projects in which Mitch Easter and Chris Stamey were involved. In fact, Tim Lee was a touring member of foundational indie pop band Let’s Active when it was supporting the release of Cypress (1984). Prior to that Tim was a member of The Windbreakers and later on Swimming Pool Q’s. In 2021 Tim published his memoir of his time as a touring and recording musician as I Saw a Dozen Faces…and I rocked them all: The Diary of a Never Was. It recounts the story of a musician who experienced success and played in important bands but never quite became a household name and yet there are significant stories of American cultural history in the tales Tim relates. For the past two decades Susan and Tim toured with both Bark and Tim Lee 3. The band’s latest album Loud dropped on September 5 on 12” vinyl LP, CD and digital download via Dial Back Sound/Cool Dog Sound. The record is a looking back on being a band in recent years and the joys and foibles of being touring musicians with some choice cultural Easter eggs in the various references made to enhance and deepen the meaning and impact of the songs. Also on the record is poetic and sage social commentary that reveal Bark’s collective sensitivity to the challenges all of us seem to face in the world as we know it now.
Listen to our interview with Bark on Bandcamp and follow Bark at the links below.
Dale Hollow got his start in music in his hometown Nashville, Tennessee but is now based out of New York City. Hollow refers to himself as THE Country Music Superstar (“Trademark Pending”) and his stage persona larger than life, his mystique as a fully-formed artist when his earliest released dropped in terms of songwriting and musicianship and the quality of his output supports a case for that designation regardless of that dubious claim on purely verifiable commercial grounds by the likes of Luke Bryan, Loretta Lynn, Jessica Simpson, Darius Rucker or Kenny Chesney. There is a thrilling earnestness to Hollow’s performance on recording and on stage that is commanding even when there’s an element of humor and playfulness to many aspects of Hollow’s craft. His new record Hack of the Year beats critics to the punch with the title and yet it speaks to the spirit of the underdog and the performative humility rampant in much of country music. Hollow takes on the tropes of the genre and and both embraces their virtues and upends the pretensions. Hollow’s use of humor doesn’t mean his songwriting is a joke or satire rather it plays the same role humor does in approaching life and putting everything into the proper perspective and injecting a little joy into some of the most downbeat moments we might experience. The songs of Hack of the Year are very much unalloyed country performed with a grace, elegance and passion one might hope for out of any record or any genre.
Bluphoria is a band now based in Nashville, Tennessee that originally formed in 2019 when lead singer and lead guitarist Reign LaFreniere moved to Eugene, Oregon to study film. LaFreniere grew up in the East Bay and South Bay in California loving horror shorts and went to an arts high school that allowed students to rent/borrow video equipment and production software. Raised in a musical family, LaFreniere didn’t really start playing music until high school in his sophomore year after getting a guitar. On a trip on the John Muir trail a friend only had Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and some Simon and Garfunkel songs on a player and being in a setting where music wasn’t as readily accessible for long stretches gave him a deeper appreciation of its importance listening to that music. When he returned from that hiking trip he got into Jimi Hendrix as someone who looked like him playing music of that caliber with Hendrix’s singing style an inspiration for LaFreniere’s fledgling attempts as a vocalist. But his focus was on film until he got to Eugene, Oregon when he met like-minded students like Dakota Landrum (rhythm guitarist, backing vocals) and Rex Wolf (bass).
At one of the band’s house shows an EDGEOUT Records intern was in attendance and signed the group to EDGEOUT/UME/UMG in January 2021 around the time when drummer Dani Janae joined the group. A year later Bluphoria drove to Tennessee to record their self-titled debut full length album which released on May 5, 2023. Even a casual listen to the songs and even the band’s 2020 debut EP Alone reveals a knack for entrancing melodic hooks in a power pop style mixed with touches of psychedelic rock and what might be described as soulful garage punk. With LaFreniere’s commanding vocals providing some of the grit and emotional resonance fans of The Replacements and The Plimsouls will find a lot to like about what Bluphoria has to offer.
Bison Bone recently released its new EP 40 Grit. As the name suggests the stories across the EP’s five tracks are tales of everyday endurance and honing the rough edges of life to where it more suits your existence in the moment and to get through more trying patches. Its warm melodies and Courtney Whitehead’s introspective yet direct vocal style engages thetpo listener and the elegantly orchestrated music pulls you into an intimate and vividly observed moments the highlight moments that aren’t the stuff of striving and grinding and performative positivity of a lot of pop and rock music. But they are the stuff of real life that anchor your memories and stay with you for a lifetime. Whitehead seems skilled in putting together his own experiences in contexts that can resonate with people who recognize the psychological and emotional truth in a well crafted narrative enmeshed in music. Bison Bone formed in the mid-2010s after Whitehead moved to Denver from Oklahoma via Texas and found a community in which he could share his songwriting and find collaborators who got his creative vision and style of working class stories that didn’t glorify the lifestyle so much as highlight the inherent dignity of experiences most of us have and which translate well to the style of music Bison Bone offers which is to say Americana and at times a touch of psychedelia and country but informed by the humanistic psychological insights and poetry of Bruce Springsteen and Uncle Tupelo.
Allison Young is re-launching Alley Cat Karaoke at The Skylark Lounge on Wednesday, October 18, 2023. The ongoing night runs from 9pm to 1am on Wednesdays at the Skylark and Young has all the appropriate gear for the event and a generous song library from which participants might choose for their time on stage. Young grew up in small town Perryville, Missouri where she got started singing in choir and making art as a kid and youth before going to college and connecting with underground culture and art more widely in and around Saint Louis. She studied theater before dropping out of college working various jobs and making trips around the country to see where she might like to make her life long term. As fate would have it on a month-long excursion the last stop on the way home was in Denver and it felt like a good fit for Young for its then unpretentious local art and music community and affordability. In 2000 she relocated to the Mile High City and early on got to know a number of like-minded people in her neighborhood who were into creative endeavors in music and art. By around the middle of the decade Young had the opportunity to take over the karaoke night at the now defunct bar Bender’s Tavern and within a couple of years or so she got a hold of her own gear for doing such nights and over the course of her time doing Alley Cat Karaoke she learned a good deal about running sound and curating the nights to make it a positive experience for everyone involved.
For several years Young ran Alley Cat Karaoke at Hamburger Mary’s on Seventeenth Avenue for both locations until the pandemic ended it in March 2020 like it did many in person events and dining and activities for over a year. It was then that Young took a break from that endeavor and focused more on her vintage retail business (Alleycat Kitsch) which she’d been running and growing in parallel with the karaoke night and working other jobs and in moments presenting her visual art and performing in bands. Young’s approach to the karaoke night is supportive and community-oriented and it’s definitely not American Idol.
Listen to our interview with Allison Young on Bandcamp and follow her goings on and event announcements on Instagram linked below.
GUJI (咕叽) is a quartet from Shanghai comprised of three Chinese nationals Klaire (synths), Alex (bass), Stacy (drum machine) and American ex-pat Round Eye guitarist and vocalist Chacy. The group released its self-titled debut EP on August 25, 2023 via Godless American Records and is currently available on digital and in a limited edition cassette. The group’s sound may be described as charmingly lo-fi New Wave with a clear lineage to the likes of Devo and The B-52s. Keen listeners may hear the earnest and unvarnished sound of 80s indiepop in that C86 vein or like something from Flying Nun. It comes across as a mysterious musical artifact from a not clearly discernible era and that gives it all a timeless aspect that requires no specific style references to appreciate.
The EP came about during the 2020-2022 severe lockdown measures imposed on Chinese citizens in cities like Shanghai with China’s “0-Covid policy.” Klaire and Chachy shared a living space and the citizens of Shanghai were subject to daily PCR tests and groceries and other goods delivered through limited openings into everyone’s homes. With not much to do the duo wrote and recorded with equipment on hand with smart phones and even made a video for the song “Build A Friend For Me” with footage samples including bits of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1973 psychotronic classic The Holy Mountain. It’s a real feat of creativity in limited circumstances and resources and the kind of thing you wish you’d see more often. The EP was produced by Chachy and mixed by famed Chinese studio engineer Li Wei Yu as well as Casey Anderson. The songs are playful and upbeat and at times have some choice words critiquing the oppressive situations and policies of the home country but all in the tradition of bands like Devo, They Might Be Giants and The B-52’s making observations and statements with creativity and without aggression.
Listen to our interview with Klaire and Chachy on Bandcamp and to listen to the EP and perhaps order a tape, please visit the Godless America Records Bandcamp embedded below.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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