THE OFFICIAL STONE PONY CALENDAR

THE DAMNED with Radkey and The Darts
Tickets: $26.50 in advance (plus applicable surcharges), $31.50 at the door

The Damned – said to be the greatest surviving British punk band – are back with their first new album in a decade, still firing on all cylinders, and breaking all the rules. Where their peers either burnt out, or faded away into mediocrity, this most spiritually chaotic of all punk groups have never been away, never surrendered their ideals, always forged onwards.

From 1977’s high-energy ‘Damned Damned Damned’, via the riotous ‘Machine Gun Etiquette’ (1979), to the macabre ‘Phantasmagoria’ (1985) and beyond, The Damned never stayed in one place for long. Colourful, anarchic, yet propelled by an indefatigable creative motor, they’ve expanded their remit with every phase, to become one of the top-flight UK groups of ANY pop era.

Since 2008’s ‘So, Who’s Paranoid?’, they’ve toured constantly, to raise awareness of that amazing body of work. They now capitalise on all that with ‘Evil Spirits’, an eleventh studio album, which is not only fit to rank high amongst its illustrious predecessors, but also within the great rock pantheon. As their guitarist, Captain Sensible, points out, “I have some incredible albums at home, by The Kinks, The Who, The Small Faces – I want ours to be as good as those.”

Far from merely trading on the shock value of bestriding the stage with just three chords and some lively egos, The Damned were always about proper music. Alongside The Sex Pistols and The Clash on the legendary ill-fated Anarchy tour in December ’76, they felt frustration rather than elation at being banned everywhere. Through ’77, they were courted by pre-punk giants who’d sniffed out their superior musicality, including Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, who checked them out at the Roxy, and Marc Bolan, whom they supported on his final tour with T-Rex.

Flipping the bird at punk’s diktat that you shouldn’t consort with ‘dinosaurs’, The Damned even tried to lure Syd Barrett out of retirement to produce 1978’s ‘Music For Pleasure’.

Fast forward to 2017, and they’ve collaborated with another legend from pop’s golden age – Tony Visconti, whose production on innumerable classic albums by David Bowie, T-Rex and more, mark him not only as a master of his craft, but a perfect match for The Damned.

Says singer Dave Vanian, “It was hearing Bowie’s ‘Blackstar’ that made me think about working with Tony, because it reminded of what we do sound-wise. We wanted a modern album like that, but not to lose sight of what made his records so brilliant in the past.”

Adds Sensible with characteristic gusto, “His ’70s records compare so favourably up against all the maxxed-out ultra-compressed autotuned guff that passes for records these days. We thought, ‘There’s a bloke who specialises in beautifully crafted old-school production – but how could we ever afford him?’ Then someone mentioned this new-fangled route of a PledgeMusic campaign…’”

To stump up cash for this exciting new phase, The Damned set up their first ever crowd-funding venture. All their graft on the road soon paid dividends, as their freshly galvanized global fanbase quickly coughed up a sum unimaginable to these lifelong DIY-ers. It turned out Visconti, now 73, had first heard of them from Bolan circa ’77, and was shocked they’d never approached him before. He duly signed up, without hearing a note of prospective music, as the band hadn’t actually finished writing any songs yet…

* * * * *

With four songwriters on the team – on top of founder members Sensible and Vanian, their keyboard wiz Monty Oxy Moron (joined in ’96) and drummer Pinch (1999) both contribute compositionally – each set to work in isolation. As their sticksman resides in San Diego, there were no full-band run-throughs of the 20 tracks they penned until they convened with Visconti in October ’17 for Day One of an intensive nine-day session at Brooklyn’s Atomic Sound.

Says Sensible, “The studio has a heap of wonderful-sounding antique valve gear and mics, and a lovely old Neve desk. Tony had us all playing live, bashing it out in the same room – the same way our debut album was made.”

Just before the sessions commenced, post-millennial bassist Stu West quit, making possible a short-term recall for Paul Gray, a Damned alumnus from the early-’80s purple patch that spawned the ‘Black Album’ and ‘Strawberries’. “Paul’s a spectacular bassist,” confirms the Captain. “He once told us that if he got paid by the notes he crams into a gig, he’d be a multi-millionaire.”

Lifelong fans and newcomers alike will be blown away by the sheer breadth and quality of ‘Evil Spirits’: there’s hurtling Scott Walker-esque chamber pop (‘Standing On The Edge Of Tomorrow’), Farfisa-stabbing garage-psych (‘Devil In Disguise’), even the sweeping Broadway-isms of ‘Look Left’. There’s diversity, too, in the character of The Damned’s main players: Vanian, often cited as the very originator of goth, brings his brooding nocturnalist perspective to ‘Shadow Evocation’, while the madcap polemicist Sensible serves up unforgettable agit-pop aplenty.

Crammed within ‘I Don’t Care’’s all-too-fleeting three minutes are a trio of distinct movements – one with Vanian musing amid piano and violins, and a second where his care-free feelings boil over into eruptive Who-esque rock, before we finally come to earth with a jazzy late-nite outro. It’s punk, Jim, but not as we’ve ever known it before.

Also a Damned constant are the premier-league tunes: songs are filled to bursting point with melodies, with scarcely a second of airtime wasted. The Captain’s swingeing critique of Blairite imperialism, ‘We’re So Nice’, bounces along gloriously on a Tamla beat and is supremely catchy.

“At the end of the day,” he observes, “it’s all about the tune, and making something fabulous that grabs the listener. The message is a bonus. The songs are mostly a reaction to the lunacy of today’s nonsensical politics. I started buying records in 1967, the Summer of Love. There were so many positive changes happening through the ’60s and ’70s – civil rights, feminism, the anti-nuclear demos. Whatever happened to all that? Where are today’s anti-war marches? Whatever happened to the beautiful hippy dream of worldwide peace and love?”

* * * * * *

Still a seat-of-the-pants DIY operation after all these years – it’s too late to stop now! – The Damned cut ‘Evil Spirits’ in nine days flat with Visconti – “a month’s worth of work in that short time,” shudders Sensible. Thereafter, Visconti really came into his own at the mixing stage. Says Vanian, “We’re in an age where technology’s taken over, and there’s generally a blandness to the mixes of things. You go back to Tony’s mixes, and they’re way more complex. There’s a depth and subtlety to the mixes he did for us that we’re really happy with.”

So, on every level, ‘Evil Spirits’ excels by the highest standards set by rock’s all-time greats. Armed with this late-career classic, The Damned can now look to the future, and rightfully claim the respect they’ve always deserved.

“In the early days,” reflects an unapologetic Vanian, “so much of the focus was on our craziness as people, and not enough was said about the fabulous music we were creating. We were termed ‘punk’, but that became a niche, where it only did certain things. We always believed in it being more open-minded and variable, and that’s what we’ve tried to maintain over the years.

“Our band has always predominantly gone forwards, and we think this album shows we’re a relevant band NOW, and what we’re capable of.”

From The Damned, makers of some of the most exciting and influential music of the last fifty years, these are no idle claims. Here’s dreaming of a better world.

The Damned are:

David Vanian – Vocals
Captain Sensible – Guitar
Monty Oxy Moron – Keyboard
Pinch – Drums
Paul Gray – Bass

THE BREEDERS
with Melkbelly

Tickets: $29.50 in advance, $35 at the door (plus applicable surcharges)

People change over the years, and the you that is you never changes. Yesterday you were a kid, and tomorrow you’ll be old, and you think you’re the same person you were, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Music slices you in time.

Once upon a time we lived in a world of information scarcity. We knew too little about things, and finding out about what we loved took time and effort and money and luck.

The first time I heard of Kim Deal, it was because the co-owner of Dark Carnival, the bookstore in San Francisco I was signing in had been mistaken for her the night before by a waiter, who had taken her protestations that she was a bookshop person as a cover story and brought her and the people she was with, bookstore people whom he believed to be the rest of the Pixies, free drinks all night. I now knew a band called the Pixies existed.

I owned a tiny black and white television that sat on the corner of my desk, and kept me company when I wrote, all alone, too late at night, playing badly dubbed European Detective shows, late night rock shows, cheap television. Somewhere in 1989 it played a Pixies video. A week later I had every Pixies CD you could find in London record shops. I loved the aesthetic as much as the music: the Vaughn Oliver art and typefaces.

Information scarcity. I didn’t know who these people were.
I was 29 years old, writing Sandman, in England, with two small children. I bought the CD of Pod, and I wrote Sandman to the jangly Breeders music.

I knew nothing of the Breeders beyond what I read on the minimalist CD notes. I knew the names of the songs because they were on the CD themselves, and I recognised “Happiness is a Warm Gun”, Lennon’s Snoopy-and- gun-ad inspired song of murder and addiction. It’s my favourite Beatles song and that seemed appropriate. Pod is a sequence of songs that come towards you, unstoppable, not needing to be liked. Not to be anything except themselves, glorious in their emotional flatness. The Berlin wall had crumbled and technology would save us all, and there was a new optimism in the air, and despite the optimism the Breeders music felt like a note of warning. Melodic and discordant all at the same time, women’s voices singing from the darkness, uncompromising; not soft, not strident, more like a chorus of ghosts, their faces set and expressionless, singing to us while fighting to feel emotions, to feel something.

After Pod came the Safari EP and then Last Splash. I was moving to America, to a little Wisconsin village, and I played both albums over and over as I wrote. I loved the feeling in the songs that there was something I couldn’t touch, something that slipped through my fingers if I tried to articulate it. It was what it was, and the sound was something that felt like late nights and old neon signs and people who stare at you from the shadows. I had a disturbed and shadowy cat named Pod whom almost nobody ever saw.

In 2002 I went back to Sandman for the first time in five years, and the Breeders CD Title TK came out. The title was a meta-title, almost a joke, but the music was as sharp as ever and no joke at all. Mountain Battles, with its glorious Vaughn Oliver cover, came out when my life was upside down, in the weeks between my divorce and my meeting the woman that I would, three years later, marry. I played it as I drove. I loaded it onto my iPod and the Breeders followed me along the silk road in China. The flatness of affect, the intersection between noise and intelligence that I expected from the Breeders was there, along with a surprising gentleness, an unexpected kindness.

Now I’m twice the age I was when I first heard Kim Deal sing, and I live an ocean away from the English village in which I first played Pod. All of the things that were going to make life brighter and easier make life stranger and more confusing. Nothing feels as good as it used to feel, nothing tastes like it did. I used to think that the world was run by conspiracies of brilliant people. Now I would love to feel that there was any agenda, other than short-sighted greed and power-hungry bluster. I’m writing this a two minute walk from what I am told was once the finest analog recording studio in the US, now a home for a man who hoards broken things. The locals whisper that it’s now a meth lab, but that’s just the kind of small town gossip you hear about the odd and the frangible. Everything went digital and the world went bland. In American small towns opiates really have become the religion of the masses, pills that have escaped their prescriptions pushed to dull the ache of living. The music I loved loses value and importance as it becomes audio wallpaper: Spotify as Muzak.

And then All Nerve arrives and it’s as if no time at all has passed. Music slices us in time, and I get to remember what it means to be excited by music all over again. For a start, All Nerve sounds like a Breeders album: it’s not retro, it’s not 90’s, it just is what it is: smart rock music with a Breeders sound and an oblique Breeders point of view.

There is too much information now. We could pay people not to know things on our behalf, pay them to forget our surplus knowledge. Still, Kim Deal is songwriting, deadpan vocals and guitar, Kelley Deal is still guitar and vocals, Josephine Wiggs is still steady on bass and vocals (and she co-writes two songs), and Jim MacPherson is still the rockingest of drummers.

And I don’t know much about the songs: I play them over and over, a sequence that burns through my brain.

Nervous Mary, Wait in the Car, All Nerve, Metagoth (Josephine’s words, based on a found poem written by her mother), Spacewoman, Walking with a Killer, Howl at the Summit (with Courtney Barnett’s mob on background vocals), Archangel’s Thunderbird (an Amon Düül II cover, and also my shame, as I played a voice-treated CGI monster in a sad film of the same name in the 90s), Dawn: Making an Effort (which startles me with its beauty each time it comes on), Skinhead #2 (I love the crushed beetles on lips), and Blues at the Acropolis, which lets us fade away with junkies of the world draped across the monuments.

People change over the years, and we hope that the we that is us never changes. Yesterday we were kids, and tomorrow we’ll be old, and we think we’re the same people we were, despite all evidence to the contrary.

But sometimes we play music that lets us be us then and us now and us still to come, and it’s all worth it, every minute, every aching second, every gaping now.

Neil Gaiman January 2018

MINUS THE BEAR: The Farewell Tour
with special guests Caspian
Tickets: $29 in advance (plus applicable surcharges), $34 at the door

Friends,

After almost two decades of writing and touring the world together, we have decided to close this chapter of our lives as Minus the Bear.

What started as a silly inside joke inside the dingy confines of Seattle’s original Cha Cha Lounge back in 2001 quickly snowballed into years of adventures, creativity, and friendship. We could have never predicted the wild journey about to begin. We’ve accomplished so much over the past 17 years, and we are grateful for the experience.

Undoubtedly we owe all of these adventures to you, our fans. Without all of you, the memories of traveling the world, exploring different cultures, and witnessing the delight of your beautiful faces singing along wouldn’t have been possible. Your support weathered us through storms that easily could have scuttled the band. Throughout the years, it’s you who kept us going. We cannot thank you enough.

This Autumn we head out on our final tour in support of our upcoming 4-song EP “Fair Enough” courtesy of Suicide Squeeze Records.

These final shows are a celebration for the community of fans who gave us so much through years of dedication. We’ll be digging deep in the MTB catalogue and we are honored for the opportunity to play our hearts out for you one last time.

Love,

Alex, Cory, Dave & Jake

CURSIVE
with Meat Wave 
and Campdogzz
Tickets: $20 in advance, $22 at the door (plus applicable surcharges)
Doors at 7 pm, showtime 8 pm

Over the past two decades, Cursive has become known for writing smart, tightly woven concept albums where frontman Tim Kasher turns his unflinching gaze on specific, oftentimes challenging themes, and examines them with an incisively brutal honesty. 2000’s Domestica dealt with divorce; 2003’s The Ugly Organ tackled art, sex, and relationships; 2006’s Happy Hollow skewered organized religion; 2009’s Mama, I’m Swollen grappled with the human condition and social morality; and 2012’s I Am Gemini explored the battle between good and evil. But the band’s remarkable eighth full-length, Vitriola, required a different approach — one less rigidly themed and more reactionary as the band struggles with existentialism veering towards nihilism and despair; the ways in which society, much like a writer, creates and destroys; and an oncoming dystopia that feels eerily near at hand.

Cursive has naturally developed a pattern of releasing new music every three years, creating records not out of obligation, but need, with the mindset that each record could potentially be their last. 2015 came and went, however, and the band remained silent for their longest period to date. But the members of Cursive have remained busy with solo records, a movie (the Kasher-penned and directed No Resolution), and running businesses (the band collectively owns and operates hometown Omaha’s mainstay bar/venue, O’Leaver’s). The band even launched their own label, 15 Passenger, through which they’re steadily reissuing their remastered back catalogue, as well as new albums by Kasher, Campdogzz, and David Bazan and Sean Lane. And like many others, the band members have been caught up in the inescapable state of confusion and instability that plagues their home country, and seems to grow more chaotic with each passing day.

Which brings us to 2018 and Vitriola. For the first time since Happy Hollow, the album reunites Kasher, guitarist/singer Ted Stevens and bassist Matt Maginn with founding drummer Clint Schnase, as well as co-producer Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, M. Ward, Jenny Lewis) at ARC Studios in Omaha. They’re joined by Patrick Newbery on keys (who’s been a full-time member for years) and touring mainstay Megan Siebe on cello. Schnase and Maginn are in rare form, picking up right where they left off with a rhythmic lockstep of viscera-vibrating bass and toms, providing a foundation for Kasher and Stevens’ intertwining guitars and Newbery and Siebe’s cinematic flourishes. The album runs the sonic gamut between rich, resonant melodicism, Hitchcockian anxiety, and explosive catharsis — and no Cursive album would be complete without scream-along melodies and lyrics that, upon reflection, make for unlikely anthems.

There’s a palpable unease that wells beneath Vitriola’s simmering requiems and fist-shakers. Fiery opener “Free To Be or Not To Be You and Me” reflects the album’s core: a search for meaning that keeps coming up empty, and finding the will to keep going despite the fear of a dark future. The album directs frustration and anger at not only modern society and the universe at large, but also inward towards ourselves. On “Under the Rainbow,” disquiet boils into rage that indicts the complacency of the privileged classes; “Ghost Writer” has a catchy pulse that belies Kasher chastising himself for writing about writing; and “Noble Soldier/Dystopian Lament” is a haunting look at potential societal collapse that provides little in the way of hope but balances beauty and horror on the head of a pin.

Vitriola raises a stark question: is this it? Is everything simply broken, leaving us hopeless and nihilistic? Maybe not. There can be reassurance in commiseration, and the album is deeply relatable: Cursive may not be offering the answers, but there is hope in knowing you’re not alone in the chaos.

presents

MIDLAND
with special guest DESURE

MIDLAND

Hailing from Dripping Springs, TX lead vocalist Mark Wystrach fronts Midland’s rich sound that is rounded out with lead guitarist Jess Carson and bass player Cameron Duddy. Rooted in tradition in both sound and style, the trio initially garnered attention playing clubs in the region. Their critically-acclaimed freshman album, ON THE ROCKS (Big Machine Records), features 13 tracks with songwriting credits from each member alongside hitmakers Shane McAnally and Josh Osborne. Launching to rave reviews from notable outlets like Los Angeles Times and Rolling Stone Country with Washington Post touting ON THE ROCKS as “the year’s best Country album.” The Dann-Huff produced album earned the No. 1 position on Billboard’s Top Country Album Sales chart upon release. Their debut No. 1 single “Drinkin’ Problem,” which offers an intentional nod to Country music reminiscent of the 1970s and 80s, earned the band their first GRAMMY® Awards nominations for Best Country Song and Best Country Duo/Group Performance. Midland recently joined forces with Jay De La Cueva of Mexico’s Moderatto music group to re-record a Spanish version of the PLATINUM-certified chart-topper – “Drinkin’ Problem (Brindemos)” – available now. Ahead of the April 15 live broadcast of the ACM Awards in Las Vegas, Midland have been named New Vocal Group of the Year and are the most-nominated debut artist this year with three total nods, also including Vocal Group of the Year and Single of the Year (“Drinkin’ Problem”). This year Country Radio Broadcasters voted the trio as one of the esteemed 2018 CRS New Faces. Midland is currently on the road with Little Big Town and Kacey Musgraves for THE BREAKERS TOUR and will join Thomas Rhett’s LIFE CHANGES TOUR this fall.

DESURE

Music is a powerful thing. And in the eyes of singer, songwriter  Desure, it can be the riff that rid you of that bad mood, or the chords that steer you through a smile. Born and bred in Los Angeles surrounded by a big, close family, Desure stumbled upon Neil Young and Bob Dylan at an early age, and his life would forever be changed.

A writer of deeply moving songs that’ll smack you in the face with emotion, Desure believes in the power of pure transparency in his music. “It builds a stronger connection,” he says of his affinity for raw, unbridled performances. That’s how the light gets in, to borrow a line from the great Leonard Cohen.

SAVES THE DAY
with Kevin Devine (solo acoustic)
and An Horse
Tickets: $24 in advance, $28 at the door (plus applicable surcharges)

Saves The Day have been through a lot over the past two decades: Van accidents,
member changes, the emo explosion, and the adventures that carried the act and their
fans from adolescence to adulthood. But they’ve never had a proper history of the band…
until now. Saves The Day’s ninth album 9 tells the story of the band from the perspective
of the band’s founder Chris Conley and does it in a way that’s as exhaustive as it is
poetic and makes the listener a part of the songwriting process. From a narrative
standpoint, 9 chronicles the epic story of a group of kids from New Jersey who realized
their dream and became international sensations. However, on a more existential level, it
shows how Conley “woke up” and became aware of his own consciousness through his
relationship with music and the unbelievable adventures it inspired since he formed the
act in 1997.
“A lot of the memories that I write about in the lyrics for this album I haven’t written
about because they were too painful or complicated. But for some reason when I was
writing, my brain kept coming back to thinking about my entire career from a sense of
reflection for the first time,” Conley says of the process of writing the follow-up to
2013’s Saves The Day. 9 opens with the upbeat “Saves The Day,” which serves
simultaneously as a mission statement and love letter to fans before segueing into
“Suzuki,” a song that features the opening line, “On a black and red couch playing a
burgundy Les Paul I played on Can’t Slow Down so many years ago, writing album
number nine right now.” Then again, this meta sentiment isn’t so surprising coming from
someone who famously penned lines like, “You want to know who I really am, well so
do I” on the song “See You” from the landmark 2001 album, Stay What You Are.
From there the album takes you back to the earliest days of the band’s history of playing
house shows on the crunchy, riff-driven “Side By Side” and drops you into what it’s like
to be to on tour with your best friends when all cylinders are firing on the instantly
catchy, psychedelica-tinged “Kerouac & Cassady.” Next we move onto the band’s
unplanned rise to stardom and relentless work ethic on the driving and uplifting rocker,
“It’s Such A Beautiful World.” “This song is about the Through Being Cool era and
things are starting to heat up,” Conley says of the latter track, which sounds like an
unholy amalgam between Weezer and glam metal. “At this point we are flying to
performances all over the world so in the first stanza I say, ‘If we get stuck on a plane,
we’re skydiving to the show.’ It’s such an incredible life to get to live and we were nuts
for it and enjoying every second of it.”

Unfortunately with every cataclysmic rise to fame comes the ensuing pitfalls of ego and

excess and that’s what Conley tackles on “Rosé.” “That song is a bit of a dis track about
certain rock star elements that started to be displayed in the band and I was kind of
surprised that I wrote about it because it isn’t something that I’ve thought about in a
while,” Conley says. The song also sees him approaching the vocals in a way he never
has before that unfolds itself more with each subsequent listen and is as ambitious as it is
artistic. This is followed up with “1997,” which sees Conley once again reflecting on the
band’s early days over a distorted bass line and groove that’s invitingly relentless and
calls to mind an emo version of Van Halen.
Finally, we arrive at “Rendezvous” and how grateful Conley is of the current lineup of
the band, which includes the virtuosic trio of guitarist Arun Bali, bassist Rodrigo Palma
and drummer Dennis Wilson, who are the band’s most consistent lineup to date and take
the musicianship on 9 to stratospheric new heights. “At this point, I’ve actually dealt
with the conflicts and the challenges in a lifelong career in music and now I have the
guys that I could do this with forever and I’m living the dream again. Life is beautiful, so
I intentionally reference the song ‘It’s Such A Beautiful World’ in the lyrics because that
song is about when things were going crazy for us and we were all so excited,” Conley
says of “Rendezvous” which is layered in distortion-drenched perfection. “We’re
through all the reflecting and growing at this point, and we’re still out here, and we’re
still doing it so the timeline essentially ends with ‘Rendezvous’ looking into the future.”
However, it wouldn’t be a Saves The Day album without a surprise twist–and in this
case it’s the album’s 21-minute-long climax, “29.” “The final track is seven songs in one
and it’s the internal personal timeline of my entire life,” Conley explains. “It starts with
‘Heartbeat’ because I was hypnotized by that sound as a kid and literally it’s my first
experience of waking up to life itself,” Conley explains. The finale goes on to introduce
Conley’s love affair with music via “So In Love”; Saves The Day’s near fatal van
accident in 2000 on “432”; and a difficult rift with a longtime friend on “Tangerine.”
“One of my main artistic passions is the fascination with how you can compose
extremely long pieces of music but also hold the attention of the listener,” Conley says –
and correspondingly “29” sounds less like prog-rock excess and more like an album
unto itself. Subsequently the movement “Victorian & 21st” recounts Conley’s meeting
with a longtime partner; “Angel” is a tribute to his daughter; and the epic experiment
ends with “New Jersey,” which sees him reflecting on his relationship with his parents
and his sometimes difficult but always captivating past one last time, culminating with
the line, “I know it’ll be all right, we are alive in the world.”
Ultimately 9 is sonic evidence not only that there’s a reason we are alive in the world,
but it’s a miracle that Conley rightfully encourages us to celebrate.
For press inquiries, please contact Rich Nardo: rich@ngage.com | 516.455.2116

REMEMBER JONES

BACK TO BACK TO BLACK

$25 ADV/$30 DOS (plus applicable surcharges)

Doors: 7pm – Show: 8pm

Bio

back to BACK TO BLACK: a tribute to Amy Winehouse
and revival of the entire 2006 Grammy-award winning album BACK TO BLACK featuring Remember Jones with a 12-piece orchestra band + guests
plus, an opening set of super-soul originals from Remember Jones!

#backtoBACKTOBLACK

Recently named one of Paste Magazine/Daytrotter’s Top Ten Soul/R&B artists of 2017, soul sensation Remember Jones brings a 12-piece orchestra to recreate the entire 2006 Grammy-award winning AMY WINEHOUSE album BACK TO BLACK, including a horn section, backing vocals, auxiliary instruments, and other special guests. Fronted by “one of the most enthusiastic, fiercely passionate powerhouses in the game” (Live for Live Music), Remember Jones will lead the ensemble through 17 songs, including the hit singles “Rehab,” “Tears Dry On Their Own,” “You Know I’m No Good,” “Love is a Losing Game,” and the title track, “Back to Black.” This one-of-a-kind show has sold-out most previous engagements.

The band includes musicians from some of the most acclaimed funk and soul bands in New York, Philadelphia, and Asbury Park’s music scenes. Remember Jones will play an opening set featuring material from his high energy, super-soul, original recordings!

Remember Jones
https://www.rememberjones.com/

ASHLEY McBRYDE
with special guest Dee White
Tickets: $18 in advance (plus applicable surcharges), $22 at the door

“I hear the crowd, I look around, and I can’t find one empty chair. Not bad for a girl going nowhere” sings Ashley McBryde on “Girl Goin’ Nowhere,” the seminal title track from her forthcoming LP. They’re words built from experience: over the course of her life, McBryde’s been finding her own way to fill those seats and sway those hearts since the very first time her teacher told her that her dreams of writing songs in Nashville would never see the light of day. Every time she was brought down, she persevered; trusting her timeless tone and keen, unwavering eye for the truth. It paid off. In April, Eric Church brought her on stage and called her a “whiskey-drinking badass,” confessing that he’s a massive fan. The rest of the world is quickly catching on, too.

Dubbed as one of Rolling Stone’s “Artists You Need To Know,” citing she’s “an Arkansas red-clay badass, with the swagger of Hank Jr. and the songwriting of Miranda Lambert,” McBryde fearlessly lays it all on the line, and it’s that honest all-in approach that has led to NPR critic Ann Powers to ask if McBryde could be “among the first post-Stapleton country stars?” McBryde’s album will showcase an artistic vision that will prove her to be one of the genre’s keenest working storytellers, bringing unwavering honesty back into a pop-preoccupied genre. Pulling tales from every corner of her human experience, McBryde sings with fire and fury, laughing and swigging that brown stuff along the way.

McBryde was raised in Mammoth Spring, Arkansas. At three, she’d secretly pluck her father’s guitar like an upright bass, and after about the 17th time being caught, her father bought her a guitar of her own. When she was twelve, she played her parents and grandparents her very first composition. It was at Arkansas State when, while a member of the marching band, McBryde finally started sharing her voice with others, and finally moved to Nashville in 2007 where steadily worked a circuit of dive bars, biker hangouts, and colorful joints fighting to have her songs heard.

Her first EP, the self-released 2016 Jalopies and Expensive Guitars was just a taste of what McBryde can do, and, on her full-length debut, she will meld her songwriting chops with the vision of producer Jay Joyce, peppering her tales with a touch of guitar-driven rock fury. McBryde isn’t afraid to tell the truth, get raw and real and use the spirits of country, folk and rock when it serves her greater purpose. And that’s to tell the stories that shake us, make us and tell us a little more about what it’s like to be human.

CHRIS LANE
with special guests
MASON RAMSEY
and
GABBY BARRETT
Tickets: $23 in advance, $26 at the door (plus applicable surcharges)

ABOUT CHRIS LANE:

True artists don’t just arrive on the scene fully formed, they have to find themselves. Even with a few hits in the bag, the search takes time, and it might be a few laps around the sun before things get dialed in – but when that happens it’s like a switch is flipped.

Heading into his second album for Big Loud Records, aptly titled Laps Around the Sun, that quest for self discovery was heavy on Chris Lane’s mind. Two whirlwind years of chart toppers and jam-packed shows had gone by for the breakout country talent, but the North Carolina native still felt restless. He found himself looking back to his early days, and back to the reasons he fell in love with music in the first place.

“I had a moment where I played a show with Kenny Chesney,” the lifelong country fan explains. “It was a festival right on the beach, and I watched him do his thing and I watched the crowd, and there was just something special about that night. I hadn’t seen him in a long time, and the way people connected to what he was doing … I had one of those moments like ‘Man, I really want my music to do that.'”

With Girl Problems, the 2016 album that launched Lane as one of Nashville’s most exciting new artists, the singer-songwriter got a taste of that connection. Its red hot romantic edge led to back-to-back, Gold-certified singles (“Fix” and “For Her”) and the first Country Radio #1 of his career, propelling the set to a Top 10 debut and sending Lane on tour with superstars like Florida Georgia Line, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill – all while helping him rack up 400 million digital streams worldwide, network TV appearances, and more.

But with Laps Around the Sun, this rising star had a bigger, bolder picture in mind, aiming for tunes “everybody can love, and everybody can feel.”

“There’s a certain vibe to this album,” Lane says, describing the serene confidence behind his new brand of modern country. Romance is still a big part of the equation, but now his stories dig deeper – somehow feeling both personal and universal at the same time. And instead of being lit by streetlights and neon, each song basks in the golden rays of a summer afternoon. “It’s a change for me this time around,” Lane says. “But this is what I truly love.”

Produced once again by studio ace Joey Moi (FGL), Laps Around the Sun feels more organic, building off the sandy arrangements of artists like Chesney and Billy Currington with an added touch of newschool cool. Lane and Moi recorded with a live band for the first time, fleshed out melodies on guitars rather than computer screens, and eased Lane’s vocal into its timeless natural register.

Fourteen tracks written by hitmakers like Rhett Akins, Ashley Gorley, Hillary Lindsey and The Warren Brothers made the cut – and in an important lesson learned while Lane put his “laps” in on tour, they were all chosen based on meaning and personal connection, not purely on energy or feel.

The album’s first single, “Take Back Home Girl” (featuring Tori Kelly) marks Lane’s coming of age. It builds on the sultry swagger of Girl Problems, but he and the Grammy-nominee aren’t singing about a steamy downtown hookup. Instead, the track reveals who Lane really is – a true country boy with deeply rooted family values – becoming Lane’s third Gold-certified single in a row.

The patient “I Don’t Know About You” charts a similar course – a hard-crushing, swollen-hearts anthem sure to inspire stadium wide sing alongs – while “Number One” takes a soulful look at regret, and “Without You” adds Danielle Bradbery for some sun-kissed romantic harmony.

On “Drunk People,” Lane’s good-natured sense of humor shines bright. The grinning mid-tempo is just smooth enough to not aggravate a hangover headache, but edgy enough to admit that drunk people do dumb things … like get back together. “That song is me to a ‘T,'” Lane says with a laugh. “Every time I have one to many tequila drinks, I think I’ve gotta FaceTime every girlfriend I’ve ever had.”

He throws some sunny shade on “New Phone, Who’s This,” a sly, smile-inducing strutter. And likewise, “Fishin'” feels as fun and refreshing as a secret honey hole on a hot day. Country to the core, its lyrics recall the innocence of young love – and the nostalgia of the genre’s most iconic hits. “I feel like it’s a great little summer song,” Lane says. “And for some reason, it lives in that same place that ‘Mayberry’ by Rascal Flatts does for me.”

Meanwhile, “Hero” reveals the man Lane has always been, and the artist he’s become. A slow, heartfelt ballad with an openly religious theme of personal conviction, Lane says he knew recording it could be risky, “but at the same time, there has never been a song that is more true to me.”

“I really prayed that I would get the song,” he explains. “And I don’t know if it will ever be a single or anything like that, but it speaks to my heart.”

Still, Lane named the album Laps Around the Sun for a reason, and the title track reflects how he feels about his journey to the here and now. Supremely relaxed, soulful, and full of mature optimism, it describes a hand-in-hand adventure which could be about Lane and the girl of his dreams … or it could be about Lane and country fans. Either way, he promises to keep on moving forward, together.

“Don’t you know we’ll never be done / Taking laps around the sun,” goes the chorus.

“I’ve learned a lot,” Lane admits. “With my first record, I was trying to figure out exactly what kind of sound I wanted to have, and now I know. I know what I truly love and what kind of artist I want to be. My goal was to make sure anyone who hears this album finds a song they can relate to. I hope I accomplished that.”

ABOUT MASON RAMSEY:

Skyrocketing to fame with an oversized voice, a huge love of classic country and enormous personality to match, 11-year-old Mason Ramsey is the biggest little star in country music today.

An internet sensation who’s captured the hearts of million of fans, Ramsey was discovered in 2018 when a foot-tapping video of the youngster yodeling in a Walmart located in Harrisburg, Illinois, went viral. Since then he’s charmed on national television and dazzled the trendiest music festivals, become the youngest Country artist to sign with a major record label in a generation, stood tall on the Grand Ole Opry stage and released an acclaimed debut single, “Famous” – but his journey is only just getting started.

Living the vast majority of his 11 years in the tiny, tight-knit community Golconda, Illinois, Ramsey was raised by his grandparents from the age of three weeks old. Describing their home as a time capsule of sorts (with no internet connection but an extensive stack of classic records), Ramsey’s grandfather would occasionally host huge karaoke barbecues which the whole town would attend, and by the age of three Ramsey was right in the middle of it.

“Literally before he was doing sentences and phrases, he was picking up on singing,” recalls Daysha Broadway, his older cousin. “Mason is a very old soul when it comes to music – and his temperament and personality.”

Influenced strongly by icons like Hank Williams Sr., Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, and Randy Travis, but also by new-school Country and Pop stars including Blake Shelton, Keith Urban, and Ed Sheeran, Ramsey made his first public appearance at the Kentucky Opry just two weeks after he turned four. Wowing the crowd with a dynamic vocal presence that’s impossible to ignore, he went on to sing with Country star Josh Turner that same year, opened a show for Gene Watson at age five, and took the stage with the legendary Kenny Rogers at seven.

But Ramsey’s big heart often shines brighter than the spotlight pointing his way. He loves entertaining the residents of local nursing homes, and since the nearest city is about an hour away from his home, his family would make a day of those trips. They’d stop by Walmart after his performance, and usually the gifted vocalist – who has never taken a lesson – would still be in a singing mood.

That’s what happened the day his viral video was filmed. Still dressed in his crisp white shirt, red bow tie and boots, Ramsey was singing aloud when a woman recognized his voice from two aisles over. She stopped and asked to film while he continued singing Williams Sr.’s iconic “Lovesick Blues,” and the rest, as they say, is history. Barely 30 days later, Ramsey was a bona fide pop-culture phenomenon, his Walmart video gathering views in the tens of millions.

Daytime TV star Ellen DeGeneres was one of the first to fall for the pint-sized crooner. Smiling, gregarious and sharp as a tack, Ramsey appeared on her show and sparkled under the big-city lights, unexpectedly setting his career in motion.

DeGeneres presented the singer with an offer to debut at the world-renowned Grand Ole Opry – Ramsey’s all-time dream. Walmart also chipped in a college scholarship and a globally-streamed concert. Within weeks he was touted as a high point of Southern California’s Coachella festival (where he shared the stage with DJ Whethan), and he backed that up the following weekend by being superstar duo Florida Georgia Line’s special guest at the Stagecoach festival.

“If someone was ever born to do this, it was Mason,” shares Broadway. “Whether it’s a nursing home show or a giant festival, he says, ‘It’s just a whole different world that makes me feel really good.'”

As his story continues to unfold, those good feelings are likely to spread. Now signed to Atlantic Records and Big Loud Records as the youngest major label Country artist since Billy Gillman, Ramsey’s debut single, “Famous,” is out now.

A heartwarming, aspirational anthem which speaks to his quick rise to stardom – but also finds him promising to forever stay a big-hearted country boy – the track was written by hitmaking tunesmiths Tyler Hubbard (of Florida Georgia Line), Corey Crowder, Sarah Buxton and Canaan Smith, and was produced by studio aces Joey Moi (Florida Georgia Line, Jake Owen) and Crowder (Chris Young).

Mixing Ramsey’s crystal-clear, all-natural vocals with the classic sonics he loves so much – plus a few modern touches – “Famous” bridges the gap between fans of traditional and contemporary country … and it’s just a hint of what’s to come for the first breakout star of 2018.

MORGAN WALLEN

with special guest HARDY

Tickets: $20 in advance (plus applicable surcharges), $25 at the door

You can’t step up as one of country’s most exciting new stars without knowing exactly what you’re about. Lucky for Big Loud Records breakout artist Morgan Wallen, that quality runs in his blood.

With his debut album, IF I KNOW ME, the hit maker behind “Up Down” (ft. Florida Georgia Line) and “The Way I Talk” lays his cards out on the table: Work hard. Love hard. Party down. Respect the past and make your own future. … Know yourself.

“I’ve never been the type of person who’s good at getting my feelings out, so for me music is a way to do that,” Wallen explains. “I just hope people get to know me and see my true colors.”

Still only 24 years old, those colors have already started to show. Working with a vocal blend which marks the spot where interstate blacktop changes over to gravelly, Smoky Mountain backroads, Wallen’s a rock and hip-hop loving country boy with a sound straight out of the modern South.

He mixes boondock bangers, amped-up anthems and sensitive, shade-tree poetry like a one-man playlist. He’s a fireball onstage, thrilling stadium crowds with superstars like Florida Georgia Line and Luke Bryan and headlining his own 2018 Up Down Tour. He’s a chart-topping songwriter with his name on tracks like Jason Aldean’s “You Make It Easy,” a Grand Ole Opry performer and an artist on the fast track with over 100 million Spotify streams, earning the respect of legends like Bill Anderson and country’s new generation at the same time.

Born and raised in the tiny, two-stoplight town of Sneedville, Tennessee, Wallen began singing in his father’s church at 3 years old and was writing songs by 18, melding a variety of influences right from the start. Sneedville is the home of bluegrass icon Jimmy Martin and Wallen went to the same high school as Kenny Chesney. But while his mother loved Christian music and he was into rap, his dad was a hard rocker all the way – laying the foundation for his son’s own fearless creative identity.

“It’s not something you would expect – a Southern Baptist preacher who loves Bad Company – but I think that’s part of what makes him genuine,” Wallen explains. “He wasn’t the kind of preacher who was throwing judgment toward anybody. He just found a way that helped him and he wanted to help other people, and if he liked a little rock-and-roll, then so be it. I looked up to it all.”

That willingness to break the mold peppers IF I KNOW ME, filled with equal parts confident charm and heartfelt vulnerability. Wallen co-wrote 6 of the album’s 14 tracks, working with established country hit makers like Craig Wiseman and Jessi Alexander, up and comers like Michael Hardy and crossover-rap tunesmiths like Ernest K. and Ryan Vojtesak (Kanye West, Young Thug, Post Malone).

Produced by studio ace Joey Moi – who also helped FGL, Jake Owen and Nickelback develop their bold sonic presence – Morgan didn’t bother trying to classify his work by genre. Instead he focused on feel, with swagger and sensitivity, heartbreak and desire all taking their place.

“Like a lot of people my age, I didn’t necessarily grow up listening to country music … I grew up living it,” he says. “The songs I wrote came from the heart, and I don’t really pay attention to what’s going on outside of what I’m doing. I just try to stick to what I know and what I love.”

With the album’s slow-burning title track, what Wallen knows and loves comes into view. Anchored by a tight, Top 40 club beat and a gotta-have-you theme, the song is all rhythm and quick hitting come-ons as Wallen looks to start a romance that lasts longer than just one night.

“It’s perfect for my first album,” Wallen says. “Like, ‘If I know me, then here’s what you get.’”

His anthemic 2016 breakout, “The Way I Talk,” takes a drawling look at putting your money where your mouth is, while “Up Down” – the irresistible thumper that features Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley of Florida Georgia Line – feels like typical Friday in Wallen’s mountain-valley hometown. Climbing up country radio, SiriusXM and digital streaming charts alike, it’s full of distorted twang, pounding drums, sly vocals and references to “Holdin’ it down here in ‘B.F.E.’”

“Some people have asked me, ‘What’s B.F.E.?’ And if you don’t know, you just don’t know,” Wallen says with a laugh. “I love a good time, I love to drink a little bit, I love being with my friends and I love fishing. Life is hard enough already, so if you can find a song that takes you away from that for three or four minutes, it’s a blessing.”

“Had Me at Halftime” scores with a heartfelt Hail Mary, “If I Ever Get You Back” updates the feel-good spirit of ‘90s country, and “Redneck Love Song” grooves with a blue-collar promise of everlasting love.

Meanwhile, “Happy Hour” toasts a relationship that was doomed from the start, mixing on-the-rocks lyrics and melodies into a potent, pure-country anthem. “Chasin’ You” smolders with the residual heat of a top-shelf bourbon, and “Whiskey Glasses” fuses sludgy guitars to a concept that’s basically a low-down, broken-hearted play on the idea behind beer goggles.

But with its booming beat, swampy guitars and sideways lyrics all about the country-boy good life – plus a nod to Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s archetypal country-rocker, “Fishin’ in the Dark” – “Whatcha Know About That” lies at the album’s thematic heart. It’s a place where being true to yourself is more important than playing by someone else’s rules. And that’s something Wallen knows all about.

“The song pays homage to the past, but I’m damn near rapping in part of it,” he explains, honored that the Grammy-winning Dirt Band – envelope pushing game changers in their own right – gave the track their support. “That’s one thing I love about country music right now. You get to express yourself and do what you want, and I think that’s why country is bigger now than it ever has been.”