Secret Monkey Weekend / The Mad Starlings
Secret Monkey Weekend – Family rock trio from Durham NC have been playing clubs, festivals and civic events since 2017. Ella handles the bass, Lila is a powerful drummer and lead singer. Papa Jefferson is on guitar and vocals. With their debut album already having gotten great reviews, and their second album release coming soon (both produced by Don Dixon — R.E.M., The Smithereens), it may not be long before they’re playing bigger venues. The MAD STARLiNGS — Born from the ashes of 90s rock band Gravity’s Pull, Durham, NCs the Mad Starlings take inspiration from music they listened to growing up as brothers in Wilmington, Delaware. Veterans of touring and sharing the stage with bands like Hootie & the Blowfish, Dillon Fence, Dave Matthews Band and others, their goal has always been to create that perfect electric pop/rock song on stage and in the studio. Their latest studio work with Ryan Pickett (My Morning Jacket, Ray LaMontagne) will be released later this spring.
Gold Connections / Kristoff Walkenson
“This sounds like hard-won hope as one who’s surviving–or trying to–on the other side of the algorithm…Gold Connections bring it all back home. Where the hurt and the heart is.” – Paste “A dynamic effort from one of today’s best up-and-coming rock bands [A TOP ALBUM OF 2024]” – Garden & Gun “A vivid, gothic soundscape for the ages.” – KEXP “Timeless, trend-averse stuff, just killer songs with deft arrangements executed with flair.” – Stereogum
Austin Royale / Monsoon / Colormekrazy
Monsoon is a two-piece indie rock band from Athens, Georgia who weave together unorthodox styles to create music that dips between the conscious and subconscious. Their new album Ghost Party is now available on all streaming platforms. After the release of Monsoon’s debut album “Ride A’Rolla” the band garnered the attention of Toyota and were contacted about using the title track for a Toyota Corolla commercial. From there, the placement landed a spot just after the 2016 Super Bowl half-time show and the band was invited to participate in the world’s first “360 multi-cam music video” launched by Google. Between the reach of the placements and touring, Monsoon gained a small cult-like following along the East Coast. Now, after the release of Ghost Party in 2022, Monsoon stays busy, relentlessly touring up and down the East Coast, Midwest, and Canada.
Mellow Swells / Spaced Angel
“Mellow Swells is a band from the triangle area that soar blasts funk, rock, and intense improvisation to its listeners. Their influences range from traditional music all the way to modern funk/pop. Expect to get beef blasted by some low end bass, sweaty by some deep grooves, and slapped by soulful vocals and soaring riffs.”
andmoreagain Presents: Starcrawler / Newspaper Taxis
Starcrawler are a rock band for a new generation. Best known for their explosive liveshows, the 5-piece band consists of full-throttle frontwoman Arrow De Wilde,guitarist Henri Cash and brother Bill Cash on pedal steel/guitar, drummer SethCarolina, and bassist Tim Franco. With two studio albums under their belts, theirupward trajectory continues to roll full steam ahead in 2022 with the release of theirbrand-new single,“Roadkill.” Fully leaning into their own epic vision of acontemporary Hollywood Babylon, they’ve morphed into a modern day take on LAlegends X, with a sprinkle of The Go-Go’s, a smattering of The Distillers and someRolling Stones sleaze thrown in for good measure. Since their early days,Starcrawler have won the love of such legendary artists as Shirley Manson, EltonJohn, Iggy Pop, Jack White, Dave Grohl, and more all while opening for the likes ofJack White and My Chemical Romance, and previous support slots with luminariessuch as Beck, Foo Fighters and Spoon among others. Now embarking on a new‘era’,Los Angeles’ most thrilling rock’n’roll collective are as raw and hungry as ever, butrefined, refreshed and ready to take on whatever’s thrown at them.Newspaper Taxis are a three-piece indie/alternative band from Raleigh, North Carolina. After meeting at an open mic at Ruckus Pizza in Raleigh in 2020, the three formed the band and began recording their first release, “Rolling in Roses”. The Taxis, who are heavily influenced by classic rock bands such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, create short and punchy rock songs with catchy melodies and lyrical hooks. The band’s line-up features Ben Armstrong (vocals/guitar), Stephen Catalano (bass) and Matios Kubbs (drums).
Palm / Water From Your Eyes
Palm — the Philly-based band of Hugo Stanley (drums), Gerasimos Livitsanos (bass), Eve Alpert (guitars/vocals), and Kasra Kurt (guitars/vocals) — announces their new album, Nicks and Grazes, out October 14th on Saddle Creek. Today, they present its lead single/video, “Feathers,” marking their first new music in four years. On Nicks and Grazes, Palm embraces discordance to dazzling effect — capturing the spontaneous, free energy of their inimitable live shows while integrating elements from the traditionally gridded palette of electronic music. Citing Japanese pop music, dub, and footwork as influences on the album’s sonic landscape, the band also found themselves revisiting the artists who inspired them to start the group over a decade ago such as Glenn Branca, Captain Beefheart, and Sonic Youth. Returning to the fundamentals gave Palm a strong foundation upon which they could experiment freely, resulting in their most ambitious and revelatory album to date.”Feathers” marries Palm’s off-kilter artistic sensibilities with an impossibly catchy vocal melody that unspools around the refrain “Make it up! Like a performer!” As the song progresses, all that’s left is a skeletal arrangement. The stark, black and white medieval video was directed by Daniel Brennan. “‘Feathers’ went through a few drafts — I was initially playing a plodding line on the bass guitar but something about the arrangement wasn’t working. It was only once I switched to bass synth that there was a strong enough center for the atonal guitar and synth pads to make sense,” says Livitsanos. “The first one we tracked in the studio, ‘Feathers’ became an undanceable dance song at the last minute.”Palm’s live performances are revered for their uncanny synchronicity; one gets the sense that, on psychic levels unseen, the members share an intuition unexplained by logic. Over the last decade, the costs of maintaining such intense symbiosis consumed the lives of its members to a point of exhaustion, and to a place where they were unsure if they’d make another record. It was only after multiple freak injuries followed by a pandemic, forced a pause — from touring but also from writing, rehearsing, even seeing each other — that the four were able to regroup and see a way forward again. “I used to think of Palm as an organism, a single coherent system, and at a younger point in our lives, that seemed like the ideal way to be a band,” Alpert reflects. “I’m realizing now that it’s unrealistic, that for this band to grow we had to tend to ourselves as individuals — little pieces — who create the whole.””Music isn’t about things. It is things,” Richard Powers wrote in his novel Orfeo. While making Nicks and Grazes, Kurt found himself returning to this quote as a guiding philosophy. Though a single narrative remains elusive throughout the album, echoes of the members’ individual and collective experiences come into focus through the use of samples. Snippets of conversation on tour in Spain and the blare of a Philly high school marching band’s early morning practice are just a few examples of daily sonic flotsam the band incorporated with instrumentation to create a new communal experience. The album’s titular track is a prime example; Anderegg combined the band’s disparate field recordings into a diaristic kaleidoscope of sound, as much a collection of memories as it is its own composition. “We’re constantly grabbing at sounds that move us,” Stanley says. “In a sense, the record is cobbled together from these pieces of our lives.”
Tiger Beach / Raygun Superstar / Through the Tallwoods
Tiger Beach EP release party! Come hang!
Zeta / Wolves x 4 / Oort Patrol
The South American rock group known as Zeta (originally from Venezuela, now based in the United States) embraces their identity through music in collaboration with The Abajo Cadenas Orchestra (a collective of musicians spread out across the world) to publicly share a new album that connects them to their roots more than ever. Experimenting thoroughly with musical elements that anyone who grew up around Latin American culture will have engrained in their psyche such as calypso, cumbia, salsa, bossa nova and the distinct afro-Caribbean rhythms among other sounds that have left a cultural imprint that represent the places where the musicians grew up and formed their musical identities.
Screaming Females / Ghosh
Formed in New Brunswick, NJ in 2005, Screaming Females is Marissa Paternoster (guitar, vox), Mike Abbate (bass), and Jarrett Dougherty (drums). Over six albums and more than a decade of music making, the band has remained deeply individual and steadfastly DIY. They have also grown into one of the most dynamic and devastating touring bands going today. Out February 23rd, All At Once is the trio’s most expansive and imaginative works to date–a double LP that swings between surreal miniatures and solo-heavy sprawl. Concision takes a backseat to experimentation, with arrangements meant to evoke the energy and spontaneity of their live shows. It’s music built across a timeline that’s longer than our internet-enhanced moment typically tolerates and a testament to the band’s dedication and perseverance.