Lash’s Propane Drive
A benefit show for the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota Sioux Reservation. All funds raised will be used to purchase propane to be used for heating the homes of the families on Pine Ridge, one of the most poverty stricken communities in the country. A grassroots effort from Larry “Lash LaRue” Dunn, who for 20 years orchestrated the Toy Drive For Pine Ridge. In memory of Dick Warsocki, a close friend of Lash’s. Dick and Lash shared a love of the Lakota people and their spiritual ways as well as a damn good sad roots song about heartbreak and heartache.
Volumes
Matt Mason
Semler – The Mirages Tour
Semler (Grace Baldridge, all pronouns), a queer singer-songwriter and content creator, has just announced their latest offering, Stages of a Breakdown, out April 13, 2022. The 5-song EP chronicles the saga of emotion following the demise of a pivotal relationship. This is not the first time Semler has rustled feathers through their strikingly honest and heartfelt music. Their February 2021 EP Preacher’s Kid, recorded independently and reaching over a million streams in the first few months, broke barriers when it rocketed to the #1 spot on the iTunes Christian music charts—making Semler the first openly queer artist to hold that position. In October 2021, Semler repeated the feat again rising to #1 – with their EP Late Bloomer. It racked up more than 250k Spotify streams in its first week, with double that on Apple Music. Semler’s bookends of Preacher’s Kid and Late Bloomer found humor, hurt, and healing at the intersection of queerness and faith and ignited grassroots support for the artist who began booking shows around the US – both headlining and sharing stages with Katie Pruitt and Relient K. Semler takes a leap of faith in questioning aspects of Christian culture and Christian responses to the LGBTQIA+ community through satire, love, and earnest feelings of hurt. Semler’s steady growth and candid songs & content have both touched a nerve and united a community, not to mention earned the attention of hundreds of thousands of listeners eagerly awaiting their next project. Stages of a Breakdown continues this momentum through a hard-hitting, brutally honest narrative of an EP. Over a two-week period in December 2021, Semler’s oldest friendship devolved into a total collapse because of anti-queer religious sentiment. Through the accusations, late-night text messages, and heartbreak, Semler wrote Stages… each song capturing a piece of what Semler felt during those two weeks. The first track “You’re Not My Friend,” released as a single with accompanying music video on April 1, 2022, is cathartic, tongue-in-cheek storytelling and sets the stage for the narrative to unfold. Next, “Don’t Tell Anyone” is a sultry, indie-pop bop written from Semler’s ex-friend’s perspective. “Twenties” then provides Semler’s response to that judgment and loss of love. The final tracks, “Raise Up” and “Outro,” narrate a resolution to the pain and find Semler once again searching for divinity amidst chaos.
DeVotchKa
In a serendipitous moment on “Morning Becomes Eclectic,” the radio station KCRW in Santa Monica changed the trajectory of both indie cinema and one of Denver’s most distinctive musical voices. When filmmakers Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris heard DeVotchKa’s evocative sound drifting through the airwaves, they knew they’d found the emotional heartbeat for their film “Little Miss Sunshine.” That instinct proved prophetic. DeVotchKa’s soundtrack and score for the 2006 film became inseparable from its story. The bittersweet orchestration to the Hoover family’s cross-country journey, captured the themes of hope, resilience, and beautifully imperfect dreams. The band’s signature sound gave the film its unmistakable soul, turning moments like young Olive’s final dance into cultural touchstones. The work earned DeVotchKa a Grammy nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album and the film won two Oscars. Introducing the world to the band’s cinematic, lush orchestral sound, songs like “Til the End of Time” and “How It Ends” transcended the screen to become anthems. Now, two decades later, DeVotchKa will be celebrating this landmark collaboration with a special 20th anniversary tour, “A Tribute to the Music of Little Miss Sunshine.” The performance honors not just the music that helped define a generation of independent film, but the unlikely journey that began with a radio station, a perfect song at the perfect moment, and a story about never giving up on what makes you different. Join DeVotchKa as they revisit the soundtrack and score that launched them into the cultural conversation – a reminder that sometimes the most beautiful twists of fate create the most lasting art.
Josh Meloy
From the plains of Oklahoma, Josh Meloy has built his career brick by brick. A storyteller at heart, Meloy will capture your imagination with every song. From wearing out the dive bars of Oklahoma to more recently playing the historic Ryman Auditorium, Meloy has finally captured a national audience. With a brand new album “Where You Came From” released in June of 2024, he shows no signs of slowing down.
The Impulsive
Nick Hexum
“Zoom in and obsess. Zoom out and observe. We get to choose.” Rick Rubin, The Creative Act You probably already know Nick Hexum, the crooner-voiced, laid-back California guy who has long been the lead singer, songwriter, and rhythm guitarist in 311. But do you? His three EP trilogy, Waxing Nostalgic, Full Memories, and Waning Time (yes, they are named in honor of the phases of the moon), features a Midwestern man from Nebraska who plays mandolin and pedal steel, and has many memories from the past he’d like to share. “I’m a person who pretends like stuff doesn’t bother me. So, I knew going into writing this record that it would be cathartic for me,” Hexum says. “I think Covid made me realize just how limited our time really is – it motivated me to create as much as possible,” Hexum said with a laugh. “Is it too late for a midlife crisis?” There is something about reaching not an age, but a stage of life, that forces everyone to slow down and inspires us to look around at what we’ve accomplished, who we’ve become, and what we’re leaving behind. For Hexum, that meant turning to a different style of songwriting. The songs on these EPs are influenced by his foray into Americana, both in instrumentation and songwriting. Reading Saved by a Song by Mary Gauthier and The Creative Act by Rick Rubin pushed him to explore writing far more personal songs inspired by his life. Listening to Americana artists like Sierra Ferrell, Faye Webster, k.d. lang, Patsy Cline, and Madeleine Peyroux was part of Hexum’s path to making these EPs. The idea to release his first solo albums came after starting SKP, a tech company that allows artists to release albums outside the major label system and retain the rights to their work. Realizing that system, and the distribution it offered, were at his fingertips, was all he needed to release these songs after giving himself permission to become more vulnerable in his songwriting. “I don’t have to wait for other people to say when I can release music,” he says. From Waxing Nostalgic, the slow dance opener that saw Hexum making his debut as a mandolin player, is “Cosmic Connection.” It’s a little more akin to a waltz, with a very ‘60s message about tapping into the universal and letting go of a tribal mentality of ‘us versus them.’ “We’re so much more connected and there is more harmony than feels apparent right now,” he says. “I choose to reflect on that, even if we feel more out of sync as a species than we have at other times.” Making a list of traumatic moments that Hexum felt he needed to explore in songs led to writing “I’m Open” on Waning Time about the time before his brother Patrick passed away following an overdose. Hexum, who is sober, discusses painful moments in the song, like offering to discuss sobriety with his sibling, giving him a guitar that he pawned, and accepting that all anyone can do is offer help. The EPs also contain a pair of covers, Chapppell Roan’s “California” on Full Memories and Billie Holiday’s “Solitude” on Waning Time. Both tap into his crooner-style voice, with Roan’s song speaking to a near-universal experience of Midwesterners who move to the coast, East or West, in search of a bigger life. It’s a crisis of confidence explored through the delivery of someone who has lived a whole life in California, and reckoned with the decisions made throughout that life.
AFI
Carly Cosgrove
