GA-20’s forthcoming studio album “GA-20 Does Hound Dog Taylor… Try It You Might Like It!” (out 8/20/21 via Karma Chief Records and Alligator Records) is making a big splash with radio worldwide, where’s it’s currently airing on over 340 stations around the globe!

HUGE THANKS to all of the following stations for the spins and support!

 

SONG PREMIERE: BLACK LIGHT ANIMALS REFLECT ON NARCISSISM WITH SLINKY DARK POP ANTHEM “HALO”
By: Timothy Anderl

Black Light Animals are a psychedelic soul group hailing from the midwest. Taking equal influence from ’70s Italian horror soundtracks, Wu Tang samples, and Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie, their sprawling debut album explores themes of humanity, social media obsession, political division, and the concept of “amusing ourselves to death.” Sonically rich and full of spaghetti western guitars, psychedelic keyboards, hip hop rhythms, and lush vocals, Playboys of the Western World comes off as some forgotten ’70s film soundtrack, while exploring themes very much relevant to today.

Black Light Animals’ Playboys of the Western World will be available August 20 on limited vinyl, CD and streaming/digital formats via Groove King Records. [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE]

ALBUM PREMIERE: CELLO-DRUM DUO LUNG CREATES EXPLOSIVELY DYNAMIC ROCK SOUND ON ‘COME CLEAN RIGHT NOW’
by Neil Ferguson

Powerhouse art-punk, cello-rock duo, Lung, have a sound that is dark and commanding, evoking the driving sludge of early grunge with layered sinister undertones. The band is Kate Wakefield, a classically trained opera singer and cellist, and drummer Daisy Caplan, formerly of Foxy Shazam, Babe Rage, and Ayin. Lung is poised to release their third full-length album, Come Clean Right Now, on August 20th via Sofaburn Records (PRE-ORDER).

Come Clean Right Now was written in March and April of 2020 during the early parts of the pandemic. While a continuation of their previous work, the album is an evolution both in terms of process and final product. After being forced to cancel over 100 dates in early 2020, Lung discovered a rudimentary way to collaborate via email and began working on new music. “Daisy and I usually work on new music in the same room, but this record was written back and forth online,” Wakefield explains. “I would send Daisy a file, then he would send back something else for me to work off of. This was very different from our previous way of writing, but ended up providing us both with an outlet for everything that was going on. It was totally new since we used to write primarily on the road or between tours. This was the first time we were both planted in one spot, forced to deal with our own thoughts musically and lyrically.” Whereas on other records, Lung drew from a longer period of songwriting, Come Clean Right Now was almost exclusively written in isolation in under two months and rehearsed/recorded (as socially distanced as possible) in a few weeks.

“The record is indirectly or perhaps directly influenced by books I was reading,” says Wakefield on the meaning behind the music. “I read poetry daily over the past year. I love the poets Joy Harjo and Ellen Bass. I’m also into buddhist and consciousness literature, and was able to really dive into a lot of beautiful books that helped to keep me sane. There was an interesting divide between what I was reading and how I was feeling. It all just comes back to trying to practice what you preach, failing, and trying again, and the record reflects that. There is a lot of brutal honesty in this album: anger, sadness, the highs and insecurities of new love, and the realization that although we think we can control our lives, ultimately that is an illusion.” The members of Lung felt so strongly about this new direction that they temporarily shelved an already-recorded third album to release Come Clean Right Now. Other efforts have been sprawling and grandiose; this album is crackling and succinct, alive with the uncertainty of the dull chaos of the times.

Today Glide is excited to offer an exclusive premiere of the new album. Featuring plenty of crushing riffage and a melange of tweaked out instrumental effects, the album encapsulates the duo’s musical prowess as well as their harmonic abilities. Blending prog rock, grunge, punk, metal and even references to classical music, the album is a fast-paced roller coaster ride of explosively infectious music. For a duo that can easily be described as experimental in their approach not to mention their instrumental dynamic, the songs on the album are surprisingly melodic. It’s easy to hear inspiration from guitar-drum rock and roll duos, but Lung clearly takes their own path with the addition of a cello used for maximum rocking and only amplified by a gloriously relentless drum assault. Thematically, the duo ties in sadness and joy almost equally, making for a truly compelling listen.

READ MORE: https://glidemagazine.com/260034/album-premiere-cello-drum-duo-lung-creates-explosively-dynamic-rock-sound-on-come-clean-right-now/

Video Premiere: Charles Ellsworth “Max & Geraldine”
by Melissa Clarke

Americana Highways is hosting this video premiere of Charles Ellsworth’s song “Max & Geraldine,” a song from Ellsworth’s new album Honeysuckle Summer out now on Burro Borracho Records.

The video was directed and edited with cinematography by Neil Larson. In addition to Charles Ellsworth, characters in the video are Rae McKenzie as Geraldine and Jaron Call as stoner friend w/van. This is an exuberant video short that captures the liveliness of Charles Ellsworth’s songwriting that’s especially evident in this exuberant love song.

READ MORE:

https://americanahighways.org/2021/08/04/video-premiere-charles-ellsworth-max-geraldine/

mxdwn PREMIERE: Handsome Jack Shares Video for Empowering New Song “Servin’ Somebody”
by Matt Matasci 

Bluesy rock ‘n roll trio Handsome Jack are just a few months away from the release of their new album Get Humble, which is their third overall. It’s out October 29 through Alive Naturalsound Records and today we are premiering a new video for one of the album’s tracks “Servin’ Someone.”

“‘Serving Somebody’ is meant to have a simple empowering message; if you’re not happy with your life, you need to make some changes,” said Passuite. “If you’re not benefiting from a situation, go ahead and burn those bridges and don’t look back. We knew William Dunz’s claymation style would be a great fit for this one. The video totally has the same magical rawness, realness and positivity as the song. I see it as the band starting off in nature, then being forced into jobs (‘serving somebody’ in a restaurant), and then distancing ourselves further and further from humanity until we reach our ultimate destination. It must have been hard to pull off but our clay forms ended up looking even cooler than we do in real life!”
https://music.mxdwn.com/2021/08/05/news/mxdwn-premiere-handsome-jack-shares-video-for-empowering-new-song-servin-somebody/

B. HAMILTON ANNOUNCE NEW LP ‘NOTHING AND NOWHERE’, SHARE VIDEO FOR “NORTH SAN JUAN”
By Neil Ferguson

What started as a bedroom project in 2010 for songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist Ryan Christopher Parks (whose collaborative track with Boots Riley “OYAHYTT” features heavily in Riley’s 2018 film “Sorry to Bother You”) with the addition of Parks’ good friends Andrew Macy on bass, and Raj Kumar Ojha on drums (Once and Future Band, Shannon Shaw Band, Howlin’ Rain), B. Hamilton has since become one of Oakland, California’s staple rock-and-roll bands. With Parks’ moody, atmospheric guitar riffs and lyrical ability to encapsulate entire characters and scenes within a few short minutes, there is a decidedly driven, cinematic feel to B. Hamilton’s sound.

B. Hamilton’s fourth album Nothing and Nowhere is an album to drive late at night to, windows down, pounding along with Ojha and Macy’s urgent, yet steadfast tempos and rhythms on the roof of the car to stay awake. Parks’ vocals and guitar take us over potholed, winding terrain that has lead many from adolescence into adulthood. [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE]

Photo credit: Luke Judd

WINSTON-SALEM JOURNAL: Williamson Brothers from Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires to perform Aug. 13 in Gas Hill Drinking Room
by Fran Daniel | photo: Ann Sydney Williamson

Currently on tour, Williamson Brothers will perform with special guests Crenshaw Pentecostal and The Great Dying at 8 p.m. Aug. 13 in Gas Hill Drinking Room at The Ramkat in Winston-Salem.

Crenshaw Pentecostal is a local Americana band, and The Great Dying is how Will Griffith, a country singer-songwriter, is known musically.

Sharing songs from their self-titled debut album, Blake and Adam Williamson will be out front on vocals and guitars, joined by Matt Patton of Drive-By Truckers and The Dexateens bands on bass, and drummer Mike Gaut from Bohannons.

“The recordings evoke 1990s indie-rock noisemakers like Dinosaur Jr., Teenage Fanclub and Sixteen Deluxe,” according to a statement by Williamson Brothers.

The sessions were produced by Patton, recorded by Schaefer Llana and mixed and mastered by Bronson Tew at Dial Back Sound in Water Valley, Miss.

Raised in Birmingham, Ala., siblings Blake and Adam have been playing together for nearly 25 years in some shape or form.

“We’ve had a band together basically that whole time,” Blake said.

Most of those bands were rock ‘n’ roll groups.

Adam, who is the oldest of the two, initially started in a teenage punk rock band called Inner Stepchild. [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE]