To start this round off, I’ll mention I recently visited Nashville, TN
on a business trip. It’s unreal the amount of music down on Broadway. I also
learned a bit of the local culture and met up with some musician friends on
mine one night where we chatted about music until the week hours of the night.
One thing I learned was the tourist scene, AKA Broadway in downtown Nashville is ALL cover
bands. There great musicians and it’s a heck of a time, but its also been noted
its where artists go to kill their music career and turn it into a 9-5 as you
make great money playing at those clubs bringing in the tourist who get drunk
and spend a lot of money. Meanwhile the original artists, those who have a
passion for the arts are hesitant to fall victim to the big street. They’re
bands like I’ll kick off the list with,whom I would never have known about
without a one on one talk with local Nashvillians at a local bar serving
locally brewed craft beer.
Year of October –Trouble Comes
As I made my way upstairs at the Tennessee Brew
Works where
good buds of mine Zach and Tom of the band Howling Giant work at, on a Thursday
night I was greeted by Zach and another local band made up of husband and wife.
These guys are doing quite well touring as of late and I’ve been following the
band for quite sometime.
“An eclectic barrage of pop-stricken heavy blues, sweltering
vocal melodies, and swanky riffs with a groovy garage rock swagger.”
Chico
– Ballet for Bastards
After being introduced to Phlecia and Josh of Year of
October I was introduced to this long wavy dirty blonde-haired dude that kind
of looked like a young Robert Plant. Carson Mays who Zach had highly
recommended I check out his band Chico
who were a great local band. Surely enough on my plane ride home I had their
album Ballet for Bastards queued up in my Bandcamp Wishlist and I adored what I
was hearing. A mixture of styles ranging from progressive rock, to psychedelic
garage rock back to poppy alternative at times. Check these guys out. Imagine
they’d be great to see live and getting to know Carson briefly I can attest they’re solid
people.
Oginalii – Cause & Affection
Carson and I ended up getting into some pretty deep
political, societal conversations, but they were grounded in music and his top
recommendation of a local act I had to check out was a band called Oginalii.
Not only does that band name roll off the tongue with class, the music
absolutely lives up to the hype set by Carson of Chico. Man, this one is both
dark, light, heavy and fuzzy. I think many of you will really dig this and it’s
the kind of music that if the right person pushed into the spotlight would blow
up. I’m doing my part to push it, now you should go click the link and have
your mind blown as well.
Ttotals–Skyview
Drive
Hot damn, although this band wasn’t brought up in our Tennessee bar talk on my
visit, I recently stumbled onto this band on an Instagram post of my buddy Matt
Bacon of Dropout Media. He preaches a ton of best practices in the music
industry on how to utilize technology, social media, and trends in the current
market and ironically, I was reading the comments on one of his posts and saw a
band name commenting I hadn’t heard of before. I clicked over to their profile
and noticed it was a rock band from Nashville.
That was enough to dig a little deeper. Since they didn’t link Bandcamp in
their profile I had to go the old-fashioned route and type their name into the
Bandcamp search and there it was loud and clear. Fairly established band with
multiple full-length albums out on vinyl. I hit play and was pleasantly
surprised. The tags on the page were accurate and the music kicked ass. If I
wasn’t on a vinyl budget right now, I’d have bought up their available albums
right then and there, but I am testing my self-discipline right now and its
painful.
Okay enough about Nashville,
it was miserably hot there anyway. Let move onto some more albums that were
just as hot as the record drought conditions in Nashville in early October, except minus the
humidity. In fact, lets just head south down to Austin, TX
for a couple albums in my collection to share.
Mortales – Death Rattle Valley
Death
Rattle Valley
shakes the desert floor with another round of scorching doom, high octane
rhythm and groove and vocals dry-aged with smoky grit. Insta-purchase over
here.
Sheverb – Chapter One
Gotta love that band name. What a great dose of spaghetti
western licks, complete with killer groove and bluesy swagger. I wish there
were more vocals, but it works great as is.
One Eleven Heavy – Desire Path
I practically wore their previous album out on vinyl and
bought the splatter version here without hesitation. They're that kind of band
and after digging in, I can confirm I made the right choice. Every song is
brimming with progressive Americana
twang and psychedelic intent. These albums just keep growing better each
listen.
Charley Crockett – In The Night
As a matter of fact, I am listening to this stud as I write
up this review. The vinyl is spinning on the turntable as the entire
discography available was purchased after been given a recommendation to check
him out from a friend on mine on Facebook that kind of knows I’m into the Honky
Tonk sector of country music. Charley Crockett is an enigma within country
circles and as soon as I pushed play on the album In The Light, I completely
lost my shit. I told all my friends who I know would love, I bought all their
records online, I checked the tour schedule and booked a weekend trip to
Sacramento to see him in just a couple weeks. I haven’t been more stoked on an
artist find as I was when I found Charley Crockett. He’s only got this album on
Bandcamp but be sure to go online and seek out his other albums, they are all
gold. His latest called “The Valley” was recently released and is growing on my
top albums of the year list as we speak. Combined Texas blues, Cajun soul, and good old Honky
Tonk making it his own, this singer songwriter is a power to behold and has a
great story to go along with where he’s at now.
Black Pumas – Black Pumas
Well, just so happens we have another Austin Texas band
here. This one I shared on social media a few weeks back claiming album of the
year accolades depending on what circles your hanging in. This is Texas Soul to
the finest degree. Holy god damn shit another band coming out of nowhere found
while digging around on the outskirts of the underground Bandcamp feed. Vinyl
ordered and patiently awaiting as of today. Starting to get nervous as Black
Pumas is surely an album you can plop on the turntable and turn some heads in
the room. So much energy, groove and overall style. Check it out for yourself.
-The Huntsman
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