Author: Nik Havert

I've been a music fan since my parents gave me a record player for Christmas when I was still in grade school. The first record I remember owning was "Sesame Street Disco." I've been a professional writer since 2004, but writing long before that. My first published work was in a middle school literary magazine and was a story about a zoo in which the animals could talk.

All Them Witches’ summer tour starts today.

All Them Witches begin them summer tour today.  They’re playing with Primus AND Mastodon May 6th – June 3rd. Tickets are on sale now.  Catch them if you can.  They’re great live.

For a full list of tour dates, head over to AllThemWitches.org
MAY 3 • Rose Music Hall • COLUMBIA, MO
MAY 4 • Slowdown • OMAHA, NE
MAY 6 • Red Rocks Amphitheater • MORRISON, CO ^
MAY 8 • The Criterion • OKLAHOMA CITY, OK ^
MAY 9 • White Oak Music Hall • HOUSTON, TX *
MAY 10 • South Side Ballroom • DALLAS, TX ^
MAY 11 • Austin 360 Amphitheatre • DEL VALLE, TX ^
MAY 12 • Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion • ROGERS, AR ^
MAY 14 • BJCC Concert Hall • BIRMINGHAM, AL ^
MAY 15 • Nashville Municipal Auditorium • NASHVILLE, TN ^
MAY 16 • Fox Theatre • ATLANTA, GA ^
MAY 18 • Portsmouth Pavilion • PORTSMOUTH, VA ^
MAY 19 • Charlotte Metro Credit Union Amphitheater • CHARLOTTE, NC ^
MAY 20 • Red Hat Amphitheater • RALEIGH, NC ^
MAY 22 • Diamond Credit Union Theatre • READING, PA ^
MAY 23 • Artpark Amphitheater • LEWISTON, NY ^
MAY 25 • Cool Insuring Arena • GLENS FALLS, NY ^
MAY 26 • Bold Point Park • EAST PROVIDENCE, RI ^
MAY 27 • Maine State Pier • PORTLAND, ME ^
MAY 29 • Blue Hills Bank Pavilion • BOSTON, MA ^
MAY 30 • Penn’s Landing – Festival Pier • PHILADELPHIA, PA ^
JUN 1 • Stone Pony Summerstage • ASBURY PARK, NJ ^
JUN 2 • Pier Six Pavilion • BALTIMORE, MD ^
JUN 3 • Ford Amphitheater at Coney Island Boardwalk • BROOKLYN, NY ^
JUN 6 • Mascotte • ZURICH, SWITZERLAND
JUN 7 • Caribana Festival • CRANS-PRES-CELIGNY, SWITZERLAND
JUN 8 • Download Festival • NEWBURY, UNITED KINGDOM
JUN 8 • Best Kept Secret • HILVARENBEEK, NETHERLANDS
JUN 9 • Donnington Park • NEWBURY, UNITED KINGDOM
JUN 10 • Donnington Park • NEWBURY, UNITED KINGDOM
JUN 11 • AB Box • BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
JUN 13 • Backstage Halle • MUNCHEN GERMANY
JUN 14 • Nova Rock • NICKELSDORF, AUSTRIA
JUN 15 • Z-Bau • NUREMBERG, GERMANY
JUN 16 • Maifield Derby Festival • MANNHEIM, GERMANY
JUL 14 • Ballard Seafoodfest • SEATTLE, WA
OCT 14 • Aftershock Festival • SACRAMENTO, CA

^ w/ Primus and Mastodon
* w/ Mastodon and Mothership
TICKETS

If you’ve ever fretted over staying in a relationship, Ric Wilson has written a song for you- “Split”

Ric Wilson Announces New EP, BANBA, Out May 18th on Innovative Leisure

Listen To “Split” (feat. Sen Morimoto)
https://soundcloud.com/ricwilsonisme/split-feat-sen-morimoto-prod-hirsh-2/s-FcagV

(BANBA EP cover art)

“…his work is grounded in political awareness and confident poetics. Yet more than anything, he seems interested in conveying his own personality through his music—both as a recording artist and as an entertainer.” — Noisey

“If you’ve yet to experience the jubilance of Ric Wilson, jump back and get familiar with one of our favorite young guns in the game. — Okayplayer

“He may be just old enough to drink, but it feels like he’s been making music for decades.” — Mass Appeal

“With his witty wordplay laid over soulful instrumentals, Wilson produces some of the most exciting new music to come out of Chicago.” — Chicago Tribune’s Red Eye
Chicago’s own nouveau disco-rap superstar, Ric Wilson, is pleased to announce his new EP, BANBA, out May 18th on Innovative Leisure. A 22 year-old community activist and artist based on the Southside of Chicago, Ric got his start with the legendary YCA (Young Chicago Authors), the Chicago-based storytelling and poetry organization which helped launch the likes of Saba, Jamila Woods, Chance The Rapper, Vic Mensa, Mick Jenkins, Noname, and many others. The EP’s first single, “Split,” premiered earlier this morning via Noisey.

“I wrote ‘Split’ in the middle of a relationship that was going south,” says Ric. “The song is about how sometimes the best decisions you’ll make in life are the ugliest and hardest, but the healthiest for you.”

BANBA is Wilson’s first release since 2017’s acclaimed Negrow Disco EP (stream here). “When I dropped out of college to do music, I caught myself trying to explain the music I do in a different light than what it really was because I was scared of other people’s perception of my ‘rap music,’ Ric says. “I feel like people don’t appreciate rap as an actual art form, which is insane because there’s an art to rhyming, every beat is a colorful canvas and every lyric and rhyme is a stroke of mine.”

As for the EP’s cover, it’s “an ode to Basiqaut and Hebru Brantley who are my favorite visual artists,” says Ric. I want people to feel like they’re in a Basiqaut and Brantley-inspired painting when they’re listening to this EP.”

Listen to Ric Wilson’s “Split” (feat. Sen Morimoto) — 
https://soundcloud.com/ricwilsonisme/split-feat-sen-morimoto-prod-hirsh-2/s-FcagV

Pre-order BANBA —
https://ricwilson.bandcamp.com/album/banba

Download hi-res images & album art — http://pitchperfectpr.com/ric-wilson/

(“Split” single cover art)

Artist Site | Soundcloud | Instagram | Twitter | Innovative Leisure

Keep your mind open.

The Goon Sax’s new album comes out this September. You can hear the first single, “She Knows,” right now.

THE GOON SAX ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM, WE’RE NOT TALKING, OUT 9/14 ON WICHITA RECORDINGS

LISTEN TO THE FIRST SINGLE “SHE KNOWS,”
CATCH THEM IN NEW YORK, LOS ANGELES, & CHICAGO

Freshly signed to Wichita Recordings, Australian trio The Goon Sax announce a brand new album, We’re Not Talking, due out on September 14th on Wichita Recordings. They will also be heading to the US for their first ever mini-tour in June.

Today they shared the first single, “She Knows”, which marries sublime indie-pop with frenetic, scratchy post-punk. The song is full of surprising angles and jagged sounds to create a perfectly awkward pop gem.

LISTEN TO “SHE KNOWS”
https://youtu.be/IJ2B7UsNncQ

Taking the lead on this track is James Harrison, who explains further about the song: “‘She Knows’ has become a very fast song, which took us a lot of practise to be able to finally hit and strum our instruments fast enough, with a lot of string breaking. I hope it makes people energetic and excited to listen to, its a song about losing hope, stubbornness and heartache. Im not sure if its our saddest song, but maybe if you lock yourself in your room for a couple of days and only listen to it you might not feel so happy, it is also okay if you feel happy to this song! Even better!!!”

The Goon Sax are James Harrison, Louis Forster and Riley Jones from Brisbane, Australia. Still in high school when they made their first album Up To Anything in 2016, their brand of awkwardly transcendent teenage guitar pop took them into end of year lists for BBC 6Music, Billboard and Rough Trade, and earned them raves from the Guardian, Pitchfork, Spin, Uncut, Rolling Stone and elsewhere.

The Goon Sax toured UK and Europe twice on that record, played shows with Whitney, US Girls, Twerps and Teenage Fanclub, graduated school, and then turned their focus to album number two. They flew to Melbourne to record with James Cecil and Cameron Bird, respectively former/current members of Architecture In Helsinki.

New album We’re Not Talking shows how much can change between the ages of 17 and 19. It’s a record that takes the enthusiasms of youth and twists them into darker, more sophisticated shapes. Relationships are now laced with hesitation, remorse, misunderstanding and ultimately compassion. Lines like, “When the bus went past your house and past your stop my eyes filled with tears” and “I’ve got a few things above my bed but it feels so empty, I’ve got spaces to fill and we’re not talking,” are quite simply heartbreaking.

Drummer Riley Jones really comes to the fore here, joining Louis and James in singing lead and writing songs for the first time, making the band the musical equivalent of an equilateral triangle (the strongest shape in physics). After the album was recorded, Louis spent some time being bohemian in a freezing Berlin apartment, but they are now all back in Australia, and keeping busy playing shows with Angel Olsen, Perfume Genius, and Protomartyr.

Delivering brilliantly human and brutally honest vignettes of adolescent angst, The Goon Sax brim with personality, charm and heart-wrenching honesty. We’re Not Talking is a record made by restless artists, defying expectations as if hardly noticing, and its complexity makes it even more of a marvel.

WE’RE NOT TALKING TRACKLISTING
1. Make Time 4 Love
2. Love Lost
3. She Knows
4. Losing Myself
5. Somewhere In Between
6. Strange Light
7. Sleep EZ
8. We Can’t Win
9. A Few Times Too Many
10. Now You Pretend
11. Get Out
12. Til The End

THE GOON SAX TOUR DATES
Tue. May 22 – Berlin, DE @ Kantine am Berghain w/ Frankie Cosmos
Wed. May 23 – Hamburg, DE @ Aalhaus w/ Frankie Cosmos
Thu. May 24 – Ghent, BE @ DOKbox w/ Frankie Cosmos
Sat. May 26 – Paris, FR @ Petit Bain w/ Frankie Cosmos
Mon. May 28 – Manchester, UK @ Gorilla w/ Frankie Cosmos
Tue. May 29 – London, UK @ Sebright Arms
Fri. June 1 – Sun. June 3  – Chicago, IL @ Do Division Street Fest
Sun. June 3 – Chicago, IL @ Subterranean
Wed. June 6 – Brooklyn, NY @ Union Pool
Sun. June 10 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo (PART TIME PUNKS)

PRAISE FOR UP TO ANYTHING

“This is the sound of growing up smart” – Pitchfork 

“Think Parquet Courts meets Talking Heads meets devastating,
crushingly aching longing” – Stereogum

“Drips with a self-deprecating but self-aware cool” – Noisey

“A gorgeous collection of slacker-by-default rock” – Billboard

Keep your mind open.

Crystales – self-titled

Los Angeles’ Crystales, named after a glass cathedral in Orange County, California, play a skillful style of shoegaze dream rock on their debut self-titled album.  The tight connections of the band mates (brothers Nick and Billy Gil on guitar and vocals, neighbor Jason Hanakeawe on drums, and cousin Tony Infante on bass) only help amplify their skill set.  It’s always good to hear new, good shoegaze, and Crystales fit the bill.

The album opens with a daring song titled “Boring.”  Trust me, the album isn’t.  The song’s about a boring wanna-be lover and how draining it can be to socialize with someone who can’t take the hint.  The sunny guitars on it seem to give the song’s subject a chance at romance, however.  “Séance” is just as bright, and I love the way the fuzz kicks in during the chorus like an unexpected wave knocking you over on a beach.

I also love that there’s a song called “Kate Blanchett” on this album, and that it’s one of the hardest rockers on the record.  Who doesn’t have a crush on her?  “Lie Awake at Night” takes a stroll into a psychedelic park on a sunny day and is about someone missing their lover.  It’s secretly melancholy, but the wall of dream pop sound hides it well.  Countering its love lyrics is the heavier “Shoggoth,” which refers to a Lovecraftian monster that can drive people mad just by looking at it.  Is it any coincidence that Infante’s bass is prominent throughout the track and thuds like a fearful heartbeat?  “When It’s Over” is brash and bold but it still keeps that shoegaze fuzzy edge that runs throughout the album.

“Ariel” is the sound of southern California road trips with the top down and the front passenger trying to make out with you while you’re driving.  That shimmering sound continues on “Donkey” and “I Don’t Care.”  “I Don’t Care” isn’t as apathetic as its title would have you believe, but it is about cutting ties with a lover who holds you back from your potential.  “Agrias” lures you into a bit of a trance, and the closer, “Honora,” brings back some hard-edged crunch to the guitars to send you off feeling like a bad ass.

This is a solid debut.  I’m loving the resurgence of shoegaze in the last few years, and bands like Crystales are giving us fans of the genre a lot to love.

Keep your mind open.

 

Levitation Austin artist spotlight: Oh Sees

Otherwise known as Thee Oh Sees and OCS, Oh Sees are a wild psych-rock band whose lineup goes through changes seemingly with every record but the hard, driving energy of their music never alters.  Both of their Levitation Austin shows at Barracuda on April 28th and 29th are sold-out, but you still might be able to get tickets for their show at Austin’s Hotel Vegas on April 30th (which is a charity benefit show, no less).  These shows are sure to be nuts, so get to one if you can.

Keep your mind open.

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Levitation Austin artist spotlight: Pow!

Synth-punk weirdos POW! are playing Levitation Austin at Barracuda on April 29th at 10:50pm.  It’s a sold-out show at with them opening for Oh Sees.  They pay a quirky, catchy brand of electro-rock that I think will be a treat live.  I hope you can make it.

Keep your mind open.

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Levitation Austin artist spotlight: The Black Angels

Austin’s own Black Angels not only play Levitation Austin again this year, they also help curate the festival every year.  The psych-rock heavyweights will close Stubb’s BBQ on April 29th.  I will see them at any opportunity, and it’s rare I get to see them in front of a hometown crowd.  Their set will be one of my favorite moments of the festival, I’m sure.

Keep your mind open.

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Levitation Austin artist spotlight: The Brian Jonestown Massacre

The psychedelic rock collective known as the Brian Jonestown Massacre hail from San Francisco and have had numerous lineups throughout the years.  Front man Anton Newcombe has always been the steady figurehead of the group, and their fans are legion.  The stories of their rock and roll lifestyle are wild and border on legendary.  Their Levitation Austin set at Stubb’s BBQ on April 29th will be packed to the gills, I’m sure.

Keep your mind open.

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Levitation Austin artist spotlight: Rishi Dhir

Primarily known for being the front man in Elephant Stone, Rishi Dhir is also now with the psych-rock outfit MIEN and has played bass and sitar for the Black Angels in the past.  Dhir will be performing a solo set (probably all sitar) at Stubb’s BBQ on April 29th at 6:00pm at Levitation Austin.  Don’t miss it.  He’s a good joe and a heck of a sitar player.

Keep your mind open.

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Levitation Austin artist spotlight: Dan Deacon

Electronic musician / DJ / avant-garde artist Dan Deacon will be closing one of the Empire garage sets at Levitation Austin (April 28th at midnight) this year.  His shows are apparently wild affairs with audience participation.  His videos are weird enough, so a live set from him should be a good time if it’s as odd as they are.

Keep your mind open.

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