Category: music

Gable Price and Friends’ new single Easy To Love You

Easy To Love You is the third single from their new album The Consequence of Being Alive. Courtesy photo, used with permission.

Gable Price and Friends is a 4-piece alternative rock and roll band with a whole lot of damage to do and a whole lot of cities to play. Currently residing in Northern California; 3 Midwest boys and a Californian—Gable Price, Cameron Pablo, Daniel Vargas, and Adam Elizararraz—continue to gain ground, turn heads and provide a euphoric live and recorded experience. From recording their demos in a garage to recently signing with Capitol CMG, the boys have no intention of slowing down anytime soon. Easy To Love You is the introspective new single from their new album The Consequence of Being Alive, which is out now via Capitol CMG. (Gable Price and Friends, 2022)

On this the third and final single, front man Gable Price confesses, “It’s easy to love until you have to tie love in with trust. The two don’t always coexist well,” he continues, “Nearing the end of the album this song is meant to provide a tension, and also guide you to accept the tension for something that will always be there.” As the song builds, Price’s words pierce through the chorus, a visceral plea of sorts, as he lays it all on the table.

Fans can listen to “Easy To Love You” now, check out the previously-released music video for “Brother Jack,” and listen to their second single “Upside.”

Gable Price and Friends are known for sentimental, provocative lyrics regarding the human condition, screaming guitars and bass, with driving drums that make you wanna get a speeding ticket. This group of 20-somethings is eager for the public to hear their new record and excited to share the songs with a group of sweaty people in a venue somewhere, sometime. Keep your head straight, hopes up, heart right; and remember to be a good friend.

With the release of The Consequence Of Being Alive, the band is redefining who Gable Price and Friends is. With a more indie-rock sound and songs that are less spiritual and more personal to Price’s life, The Consequence Of Being Alive is a lesson in forging a new path. It does not hurt that there are some killer album credits, too. Gable’s friend and mentor Jon Foreman (Switchfoot) is a featured artist on track #8 “How It Sets You Free,” which they co-wrote together with Tim Foreman. Other noteworthy writing credits include Judah Akers (Judah & the Lion) on “I Don’t Wanna Live Like This” and Caleb Chapman (Colony House) on “Tough Love.”

The Consequence Of Being Alive track list:
Upside
Brother Jack
Tough Love
I LOVE TO STRUGGLE
Treason
I Don’t Wanna Live Like This
Jesus Christ (Hold Me Steady)
How It Sets You Free (with Jon Foreman)
Lucky #17
Easy To Love You
The Consequence Of Being Alive

New album release: Isaac Hoskins’ Bender

Isaac Hoskins’ upcoming album Bender is an ode to unhealthy coping strategies and life on the other side. It will be out November 18, 2022. Courtesy photo, used with permission.

After the global pandemic came to a head in 2020 and the live music world evaporated, things spun to a dark head for singer and songwriter Isaac Hoskins. The writing was on the wall: something had to change. After three days alone in the desert, Hoskins came home and started over. Today, Hoskins is 12 months sober, 30 pounds lighter, and performing full-time after side-hustle stints as a bartender, construction worker, beer truck driver, and ranch hand had previously left him unfulfilled. Every page of Hoskins’ story is laid out throughout his upcoming LP, Bender—out November 18, 2022. (Isaac Hoskins, 2022)

Recorded at The Finishing School in Austin, Texas, and produced and engineered by Gordy Quist of The Band of Heathens, Bender conjures Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Guy Clark, and John Prine in an ode to unhealthy coping strategies and life on the other side. And on the other side, Hoskins has already found hope-giving success, namely his upcoming inclusion in the mega-hit television series Yellowstone. From meeting the show’s creator Taylor Sheridan after a show in Ft. Worth, Texas, to having multiple songs featured in Yellowstone’s upcoming season, the larger world is about to discover Hoskins and his story, as well.

Hoskins shared the first single from Bender, “Panhandle Wind.” All at once Country-tinged and Rock-driven, the baritone and steel guitar-led tune embodies Hoskins’ uncanny ability to match up a good story with a catchy refrain, leading to a windows-down, Sunday cruise sing-along. “The idea for this song came to me while driving to Lubbock to play a show,” remembers Hoskins. “That was just one of many very windy, dusty drives to and from the Panhandle of Texas and Northwest Oklahoma.” Outsider premiered “Panhandle Wind” along with an in-depth interview with Hoskins, noting, “his sound straddles the fence between folky heartland Americana and Texas country.” 

Of his music, Hoskins has said that every song comes from his roots. The people, places, and events that unfold around him provide the resonance, and Hoskins himself draws those memories into stories about love, loss, and everything in between. The music is how Hoskins participates in the culture that has shaped him. Country music is known for its traditions and conventions, but Hoskins feels there is a way to honor these without reducing the audience to a caricature of itself. For Hoskins, the work is keeping one foot squarely in country and “roots” music while still exploring new ways to express yourself as an artist.

Bender track list:
H-Town Turnaround
Back to the Saltmine
Panhandle Wind
My Memory
Harder than the Blues
The Pistol and the Prayer
Moments I Would Never Trade
If It’s Meant To Be
Off the Wagon
Leon’s Blues

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New music release: Moon and Aries’ Break The Matrix – Episode Two

Break The Matrix – Episode Two is the second EP of a planned three in the Break The Matrix concept series. Photo: Moon and Aries, used with permission.

German composer and producer Tom Aries and Canadian writer / singer Jordana Moon team up as Moon and Aries to bring warmth and assurance for a brighter future. The dynamic duo is back with a new EP: Episode Two of Breaking the Matrix. At first they arrived. Then they activated Paradise. Now they “BREAK THE MATRIX.” Moon and Aries is back with a big and bold statement. They will overcome the old World and build the new World with a fusion of nostalgic and futuristic celestial sounds, like nothing you have heard before. The self proclaimed, Synth Pop Opera Duo have a deep driving desire to raise the vibrations and activate a higher version of reality with their music. Break The Matrix – Episode Two is out now. (Moon and Aries, 2022)

With Tom Aries’ memorable, seductive melodies and captivating instrumentals, blending with Jordana Moon’s thought provoking and poetic lyrics and emotionally intimate vocals, they are back with a new Trilogy of music. A three-part music series, broken up into different episodes, Moon and Aries hope to hook you into their sensual, uplifting and spiritually charged Universe of sound. Episode 1 was released September 8 and Episode 3 will come out in the first quarter of 2023. All these 3 x 3 songs are part of a concept/connected story.

BREAK THE MATRIX (Episode 1-3):

3 x 3 songs with a fusion of Electro Pop, Trip Hop, cinematic Synth Pop – the dynamic duo has brought a slightly new vibe to their classic Synth Pop Opera sound. Expect music that is a little more confidential and closer to their chest. As they release, you will release and relax as you receive the upgrades. Riding off the success of The Arrival album and Paradise EP, Moon and Aries keep striving to bring the most relevant music and stay at the forefront of the movement. So, it is. Moon and Aries proudly present:  Break The Matrix – Episode Two with three new songs.

Three new videos will be out on YouTube:

  1. Rescued – lyric video on November 3
  2. The Butterfly Effect – lyric video on November 4
  3. Codes and Circles – full video on November 5

Listen on Spotify

Listen on SoundCloud

Watch on YouTube

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Jordana Moon is a singer songwriter from Western Canada who composes and creates lyrics and melody with the goal to inspire and empower her listeners. Her approach to music is to mix a higher level of consciousness and concepts and bring these more philosophical ideas to modern music. Jordana composes her music with a wide variety of instruments, playing the piano, acoustic guitar, Bass guitar, electric guitar, mandolin, ukulele, and violin. Jordana studied creative writing at Vancouver film school, and she enjoys writing music with themes of high consciousness, sexual healing, and empowerment. Jordana finds inspiration from old jazz, 70s and 80s soul / pop / RnB music, trip hop and current neo soul and artists like Portishead, Shivaree, Eliza, Tori Amos, Joni Mitchell, Lauryn Hill, Massive Attack and composers like Cole Porter and Steven Sondheim.

Tom Aries is an electronic synthesizer musician, songwriter, and producer from Western Germany. He is a composer of mostly instrumental tracks, analog and digital synthesizer sequences. Tom’s music fuses his classical piano education with influences stemming from synthesizer sounds of the 80s. He produced songs and sounds for computer games and soundtracks for short videos and films. Influenced by bands and artists like Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk, Jean-Michel Jarre, Massive Attack, Portishead, Röyksopp – and the sound of the 80s, he created more and more songs, instrumental ideas, and music. The combination of pictures, films and art with music has been Tom’s first creative base. Tom composes his songs mainly on the piano. After this first acoustic piano melody version he is producing the songs within his little home studio.

Jordana and Tom started the cooperation officially as Moon and Aries on March 1, 2021 – only working together via file sharing and communication across the ocean. (With 9hrs time distance between Canada & Germany = Jordana still living in Canada and Tom still living in Germany). Since then, they have released 14 songs to date: one concept album The Arrival with 9 original songs and one EP Paradise with 5 songs. Played on more than 100 radio stations in Australia, Europe, Africa and America, including New York City Radio station in 2021 and 2022.

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Barrett Davis releases acclaimed debut album The Ballad of Aesop Fin

The Ballad of Aesop Fin is longtime Carolina songwriter Barrett Davis’ solo debut album. Courtesy photo, used with permission.

“I just came to this serious point in my life where I realized that if I want to make music and perform, then it’s now or never—I’ve got to make something of it,” remembers 29-year-old musician Barrett Davis of the time leading up to his debut album The Ballad of Aesop Fin. Luckily, for us listeners, Davis’ dedication to his dream paid off in spades. Released last week, The Ballad of Aesop Fin delivers a vibrant tapestry of songs, ranging from modern Americana to classic country, indie-folk to the “high, lonesome sound” of bluegrass—the last of which comes with a little help from Woody Platt, longtime lead singer for Davis’ hometown, Grammy-winning bluegrass outfit, Steep Canyon Rangers. The record itself is a kitchen sink of tones—as heard on “Quiver,” “Lazarus,” and “Carolina Still”—one which ideally showcases the wide-range and unknown depths of Davis, his musical pursuits, and exploits. (Barrett Davis, 2022)

Fans can hear The Ballad of Aesop Fin in its entirety and check out some intimate, in-studio videos of “Carolina Still,” “Lazarus,” and “Quiver feat. Woody Platt.” 

The Ballad of Aesop Fin In The News: Fretboard Journal premiered Aesop Fin’s first single, “Quiver,” writing, “We love this track from Davis and we especially love seeing Woody Platt, formerly of Steep Canyon Rangers, helping out on backing vocals.” JamBase premiered the album’s penultimate track, “Lazarus,” a song about “friendship and renewal.” The Bluegrass Situation premiered the video for “Carolina Still,” an ode to Davis’ ancestry, his family’s deep roots in North Carolina, and his great-grandfather Gus.

John Apice reviewed the album for Americana Highways, commenting, “North Carolina’s Barrett Davis has style, ear-caressing sincerity in his music & an arresting voice in many of these well-crafted songs.” 

The Ballad of Aesop Fin track list:

  1. Highway 64
  2. Carolina Still
  3. Quiver
  4. Oh Sleeper
  5. Bama Shores
  6. Your Worth
  7. Lazarus
  8. Aesop Fin

“Aesop Fin is a mythical character, raised in the woods. His dad is a moonshine runner, his mother nowhere to be found,” Davis says. “Aesop finds a lover and ends up getting killed in a gambling incident, then she ends up tumbling into a waterfall—it’s symbolic of the vicious cycle of tragedies in these mountains of Appalachia.” 

Growing up in Lake Toxaway, North Carolina, a rural outpost community in the mountainous ridges of Transylvania County, Davis was surrounded by music from an early age—exposed to the blues licks of his guitar-playing father, the swirling classical sounds of his mother’s piano playing or the inner echoes of his sister, now a professional opera singer. Davis himself went on hiatus for several years, getting married and raising a young family, all while starting his own construction business to put food on the table for his wife and two kids.

New album release: Petra-Fi by Stephen Akina

Petra-Fi is the new album by Stephen Akina. Photo: Google

Stephen Akina is a music composer and arranger who enjoys collaborating and producing original music. Following the premiere of his work “Seven,” commissioned by the Pasadena Pops Orchestra in 2006, Stephen began writing for films, television, and video games. His compositions and arrangements have been performed worldwide. Along with his future wife Kimberly, they founded Special Blend Music, a music service provider for the Film & Television industry. Over the years he has scored original music for over two dozen films, composed production music for over 100 + television shows worldwide and supplied soundtracks to highly acclaimed video games. Several of these scores have been converted into music that can be enjoyed on its own and available on all music streaming services. (Stephen Akina, 2022)

His new album Petra-Fi features new and popular remasters of downtempo/chill piano inspired by the ancient petroglyph locations throughout Hawai’i.

Petra-Fi 12 songs, 43 minutes

Track list:

  1. Glass Pagoda (04:11)
  2. For Sure (02:45)
  3. Wavedancer (Remaster) (04:56)
  4. Electro Peace (Remaster) (06:17)
  5. Moon Over Kahala (02:23)
  6. Beatitude (03:00)
  7. Greek Holiday (03:04)
  8. Simple Life (02:20)
  9. Makani (04:01)
  10. Mirage (03:50)
  11. Nightfall (03:07)
  12. Makani Solo (Piano) (4:01)

Petra-Fi is is available on all streaming/digital stores.

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Award winning fiddler Jason Carter’s new album Lowdown Hoedown

Jason Carter gathers all-star lineup and good times tunes for new album Lowdown Hoedown. Courtesy photo, used with permission.

For thirty years, Jason Carter has been the fiddle player for the Del McCoury Band—the most awarded group in bluegrass history. He has won three Grammy awards, including 2018’s “Best Bluegrass Album” with the Travelin’ McCourys, of which he is a founding member. He has taken home five IBMAs for “Fiddle Player of the Year,” a staggering number that is not quite so crazy once you realize just how many bluegrass greats have turned to Carter for collaboration. (Jason Carter, 2022)

Jason Carter has spent years collaborating with a laundry list of all-time great musicians across a multitude of genres—not to mention his three decades as a member of the Del McCoury Band and being a founding member of the Travelin’ McCourys—but, never before have all of his friends, from all those years, joined Carter on his own solo album. That is, until now.

On November 4, 2022, Carter will release Lowdown Hoedown, a thirteen-song collection featuring Carter’s own rich vocals and red-hot fiddling backed up by a stunning lineup of musicians whom he calls friends. Imagine that Carter is throwing the pickin’ party of the century and we are all invited to join in. The guests? Well, there is Dierks Bentley, Aiofe O’Donovan, Vince Gill, Billy Strings, Sarah Jarosz, Jon Fishman, Marty Stuart, and that is just for starters. The multitude of guests speaks not only to Carter’s long-known stellar musicianship but also to his personality, lighting up the backstage hangs of music festivals nationwide. 

Carter shared the opening track from Lowdown Hoedown, “King of the Hill,” a Bruce Hornsby tune that features Sam Bush on mandolin, Jerry Douglas on dobro, Russ Carson on banjo, Dennis Crouch on Bass, and Cody Kilby, Carter’s longtime Travelin’ McCourys bandmate, on guitar. “The story is about a guy who is unhappy with his job and relates to it like a prison. I think it made a great bluegrass song,” says Carter, who was introduced to the song by Kilby. “This was the first song we recorded for the record and the band knocked it out of the park.” 

Fans can hear “King of the Hill” right here and pre-order or pre-save Lowdown Hoedown ahead of its release at this link. 

Lowdown Hoedown track list:
King of the Hill
The Six O’clock Train and a Girl with Green Eyes
The Likes of Me
Paper Angel
Dust Bowl Dream
Hoedown for My Lowdown Rowdy Ways
Good Things Happen
Midnight Flyer
Queen of the Nashville Night
Kissimmee Kid
You Led Me to the Wrong
Highway 52
Bird Song

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Chris Shiflett’s new single ‘Born & Raised’

Chris Shiflett blends West Coast nostalgia and heartland hooks with brand new single “Born & Raised.” Courtesy photo, used with permission.

While Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Chris Shiflett gets recognition for his role in Foo Fighters, the modern-day guitar hero has seemingly always had one foot in the country music world—and, these days, he has been spending plenty of time making music in Nashville. Just last week, Shiflett played the Grand Ole Opry alongside a best-of-Nashville band—Sierra Hull (mandolin), Mike Bub (bass), and Michael Cleveland (fiddle). Now he has released his second of two singles recorded with legendary producer Vance Powell, “Born & Raised.” Shiflett began writing the tune while surfing his hometown Santa Barbara coastline but finished it in Music City where a group of Americana studio all-stars—bassist Jack Lawrence, drummer Julian Doro, keyboardist Mike Webb, and steel guitarist Luke Schneider—brought “Born & Raised” to life. (Chris Shiflett, 2022)

A swirl of West Coast nostalgia, heartland hooks, and Deluxe Reverb drive, the song unfolds like a love letter to one’s roots, delivered by a man who has spent most of his adulthood on the move. “Born & Raised” and Shiflett’s recently released “Long, Long Year” are both songs that find Shiflett in a reflective mood, looking at where he has been before heading toward whatever is next. Fans of Shiflett should certainly be keeping an eye out for even more new music over the next year. They can save “Born & Raised” here and watch the lyric video now at this link. “Long, Long Year” is also available right here.

“My trip out to Nashville in March of 2021 was my first time recording any solo material since I made Hard Lessons. I hadn’t done much traveling post-covid lockdown so I was a little nervous heading out there to work with a producer and roomful of musicians I didn’t really know. In true Nashville style we made our introductions and got right down to work, hammering out the basic tracks in a few hours. Vance was great and made me feel right at home, and the group of players he put together were on point.” – Chris Shiflett

Catch Chris Shiflett on tour:
September 17 – Redondo Beach, CA – BeachLife Ranch Festival 2022
December 3 – Tempe, AZ – Marquee Theatre
December 8 – Anaheim, CA – House of Blues Anaheim
December 17 – Las Vegas, NV – House of Blues Las Vegas
December 28 – Los Angels, CA – The Belasco

A longtime member of Foo Fighters, Shiflett has already played an integral role in shaping the sound, swagger, and scope of rock music throughout the 21st century. He joined the band in 1999, after kicking off his career playing guitar for seminal pop-punk groups like No Use For a Name and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. While flying the flag for modern rock & roll, he also made time to pursue projects outside of the band. Groups like Jackson United and Chris Shiflett and the Dead Peasants found him in the driver’s seat, establishing his credentials as a front man, while the long-running Americana podcast Walking the Floor found him shining a light on his heroes and contemporaries, its 200+ episodes highlighting the storytellers, songwriters, and road warriors of contemporary roots music. Two critically acclaimed solo albums, 2017’s West Coast Town and 2019’s Hard Lessons, marked Shiflett’s own entry into the Americana world, mixing classic Bakersfield influences with greasy guitar riffs, Marshall amplifiers, and country-rock crunch.

 

Jeremy Squires announces new album Hymnal

Jeremy Squires’ new album Hymnal will be out October 14, 2022 via Blackbird Record Label. Photo: Jeremy Squires

North Carolina songwriter Jeremy Squires’ new upcoming full length album Hymnal will be out October 14 via Blackbird Record Label. The music video for the single “Into The Fog” is out now. Hymnal is an album with a tender and life-affirming quality, where Squires’ warm singing voice, shimmery guitars, sparkling ukulele voicings, and Brand’s vocal harmonies and heartfelt violin melodies stand out just as much as the poignant lyrics. Squires handled almost all the aspects of the album’s making, including the recording of his vocals and string instrument parts, production, and mixing. (Jeremy Squires, 2022)

“These songs are true stories that I wanted to tell without any clutter. I didn’t add any overdubs of instruments. I recorded my parts here at my house live and then sent the album to Autumn Rose Brand, a fantastic violinist and singer who lives here in North Carolina, who played and sang her parts and sent them back to me.” – Jeremy Squires

What sounds like a simple process, though, is anything but. The events, trials, and tribulations that led up to Hymnal center around his dissolving marriage, and the music, reflecting the subject matter, is scaled back compared to his previous full-length efforts. The Alternative shared the music video for “Into the Fog” off of Hymnal, a tenderly strummed song about, in Jeremy’s words, “realizing that you can’t save someone—no matter how hard you try—if they won’t put forth the effort to truly help themselves. It’s about delusions, dreams, and eventually, reality shining through like rays of light at the end.” Brand’s violin highlights the song’s ending refrain: “Oh, I won’t see you in the morning.”

Fans can watch the “Into the Fog” video now and pre-order or pre-save Hymnal ahead of its October 14 release with Blackbird Record Label.

Hymnal track list:
1. Don’t You Cry
2. Lament
3. Moon Coin
4. Hymnal
5. Juniper
6. To the Moon and Back
7. Balancing
8. Into the Fog
9. Echo Roads
10. Nightingale

Catch Jeremy Squires on tour:
September 15 – Nashville, TN – ACME Feed & Seed
September 16 – Nashville, TN – Brown’s Diner

Hymnal, due out October 14, 2022. Courtesy photo, used with permission.
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Tod Lippy’s new EP Midterms available now

Artist, author, and musician Tod Lippy has released a new EP titled Midterms. Photo: Tod Lippy Music, used with permission.

Tod Lippy, the polymath creative force behind the award-winning arts publication Esopus, has released his latest musical project, Midterms, a six track EP this month following the recent release of the single “Bob” which features on the project. (Tod Lippy, 2022)

Midterms is the third album from Lippy following the well-received LPs Here We Are (2019) and Yearbook (2021), both produced by the legendary Kramer (Low, Galaxy 500). The message behind the rest of Midterms EP is anything but vague: “This country is grappling with a dark period of hyper-polarization, distrust in institutions, and economic instability,” Lippy says. “Midterms is my attempt to come to terms with, and maybe even try to make some sense of, this reality.” The other songs on the album deal with issues ranging from toxic television personalities and celebrity culture to armchair activism and apathy in general.

Acclaimed artist Steve Keene, perhaps best-known for his iconic album art for bands like Pavement, The Apples in Stereo, and Silver Jews, has painted a series of 7 different covers on 50 chipboard sleeves containing the forthcoming lathe-cut 10” vinyl release of Midterms. The paintings include Keene’s interpretations of the EP’s original cover in addition to 6 images corresponding to each track on the release.

Lippy has always been at the forefront of creating art that helps find meaning in life. Starting in 2003, he produced ESOPUS, the esteemed arts publication declared “a thing of lavish, eccentric beauty” by The New York Times. For his “one-man magazine,” Lippy handled all design, editing, publishing, distribution, and selection of/interaction with contributors, ranging from writers like Karl Ove Knausgaard and Francine Prose to art world superstars like Jenny Holzer, Marilyn Minter, Anish Kapoor, and Kerry James Marshall, from filmmakers such as actor Lisa Kudrow and director David Lynch to musicians and composers like Kimya Dawson, Sharon Van Etten, and Carter Burwell. 

Lippy has also made a name for himself as a book designer, most recently creating the cover for Louis Menand’s critically acclaimed The Free World (FSG); artist, earning a coveted MacDowell Colony Residency in 2018 to complete a series of drawings related to his work on Esopus); curator, responsible for exhibitions at White Columns and Pioneer Works, among other venues); writer for Artforum and other publications; and filmmaker, whose 2000 short film Cookies played at 20 film festivals around the world.

Tod Lippy may be best-known as the creator of the award-winning arts journal ESOPUS, the multidisciplinary publication that attracted readers from around the world over the course of its 25-issue run and is now in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art and the Library of Congress, among many other institutions. Every issue of ESOPUS included a CD of brand-new music Lippy commissioned from musical acts such as Grizzly Bear, Dirty Projectors, Neko Case, Cloud Nothings, and Kimya Dawson. Lippy, who studied classical guitar for over a decade, was inspired by their contributions to start making music on his own. When ESOPUS ceased publication in 2018, he started spending a significant amount of time honing his songwriting and recording skills.

The California Honeydrops’ new album Soft Spot

The California Honeydrops let loose in the studio for new album Soft Spot, due out October 7, 2022. Courtesy photo, used with permission.

In their fourteenth year together, bay-area soul/R&B favorites The California Honeydrops hits the post-lockdown ground running. Tour dates and festivals returned, including the Honeydrops’ first headlining show at Red Rocks, and, much to the delight of the band and fans alike, the group returned to the recording studio to lay down a new full-length album. The Honeydrops are sharing the very first taste of their upcoming release Soft Spot—out October 7, 2022. (The California Honeydrops, 2022)

The first single “Takin’ My Time” kicks off with a slinky groove that the Honeydrops are known for, having made a career out of their signature blend of Bay Area R&B, Southern soul, Delta blues, and New Orleans second line. With tasty horn-section interjections dancing around well-timed background vocals, “Takin’ My Time” embodies exactly what guitarist, trumpeter, and lead singer Lech Wierzynkski wanted to channel with the song’s lyrical content—as he describes, “Slow down, erase your social media, smoke some weed, watch the sunset, get out of the rat race.” 

The Honeydrops have come a long way since Wierzynkski and drummer Ben Beaullieu started busking in an Oakland subway station, but the band has stayed true to that organic, street-level feel. Listening to Lech sing, it can be a surprise that he was born in Warsaw, Poland, and raised by Polish political refugees. He learned his vocal stylings from contraband American recordings of Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, and Louis Armstrong, and later at Oberlin College and on the club circuit in Oakland, California. With the additions of Johnny Bones on tenor sax and clarinet, Lorenzo Loera on keyboards, and Beau Bradbury on bass, they’ve built a powerful full-band sound to support Wierzynski’s vocals.

Fans can listen to “Takin’ My Time” now and pre-order or pre-save Soft Spot ahead of its October 7 release.

Soft Spot track list:
Honey and Butter
Gonna Be Alright
Nothing at All
I Miss You Baby, Pt. 1
Tumblin’
Takin’ My Time
The Unicorn
Soft Spot
In Your Arms
Lil Bit of Love
Sneakin’ into Heaven
I Miss You Baby, Pt. 2

Catch The California Honeydrops On Tour:
September 9 – St. Helena, CA – Charles Krug Winery
September 10 – San Luis Obispo, CA – SLO Gathering
September 11 – Perris, CA – Same Same But Different Festival 2022
September 19 – Buena Vista, CO – Ivy Ballroom at Surf Hotel
September 20 – Crested Butte, CO – Center for the Arts
September 22 – Telluride, CO – Sheridan Opera House
September 24 – Aspen, CO – Belly Up
October 14 – Tempe, AZ – Marquee Theatre
October 16 – Flagstaff, AZ – Yucca North
October 18 – Durango, CO – Animas City Theatre
October 19 – Santa Fe, NM – Meow Wolf
October 21 – Denver, CO – Mission Ballroom
October 22 – Kansas City, MO – Knuckleheads
October 23 – St. Louis, MO – The Big Top
October 25 – St. Paul, MN – Turf Club
October 26 – St. Paul, MN – Turf Club
October 27 – Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall
October 29 – Indianapolis, IN – HI-FI Annex
October 30 – Ferndale, MI – Magic Bag
October 31 – Kalamazoo, MI – Bell’s Brewery
November 2 – South Burlington, VT – Higher Ground
November 3 – Portland, ME – Aura
November 5 – New York, NY – Sony Hall
November 6 – Boston, MA – Royale Boston
November 8 – Philadelphia, PA – World Cafe Live
November 9 – Washington, DC – Lincoln Theatre
November 11 – Charlottesville, VA – The Jefferson Theater
November 12 – Asheville, NC – The Orange Peel
November 13 – Highlands, NC – Highlands Food and Wine Festival 2022
January 15-22, 2023 – Fort Lauderdale, FL – Sandy Beaches Cruise 2023

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