Cold Gawd is the flag under which California-based multi-instrumentalist Matt Wainwright creates stormy, wounded shoegaze music born of open tunings and R&B melodies. Inspired by these sounds, Cold Gawd presents a refined, modernized take on the genre.
Wainwright cites the thematic common ground between shoegaze and R&B as a central muse, both obsessively fixated on love, lust, and longing, in forms alternately grandiose and minor key. Lyrically, God Get Me The Fuck Out Of Here sways between oblique and desperate, yearning and resigned – with the exception of “Comfort Thug,” a brooding, largely improvised spoken word piece inspired by the notable lack of black musicians in shoegaze.
Cold Gawd is here to change that. God Get Me The Fuck Out Of Here— set for release on September 23rd via Dais Records— channels malaise and melancholy into gauzy, galvanized anthems of escape, change, and introspection. Today, Cold Gawd has unveiled the album’s lush, introspective second single “You Should Be Fine Down There.”
God Get Me The Fuck Out Of Here took shape in the winter of 2020 while Wainwright was working long solo shifts at a coffee shop in Chicago. Fueled by dreams of returning to his hometown of Rancho Cucamonga and reconnecting with old friends from past hardcore bands, Wainright holed up with his coveted pink Jazzmaster, an array of FX pedals, and a laptop, and wrote the entire album in a month. In March of 2021 he made the move, heading back west to the Inland Empire, where he booked sessions with Gabe Largaespada at Open Ocean to track and mix.
Despite recording every instrument himself, the results have the lived-in feel of a practiced live band (which Cold Gawd now are, fleshed into a six-piece). Cascading walls of guitar churn, surge, and ripple, framed by sunken rhythms and Wainright’s distant, defeated voice, veiled in violet haze.
Pre-order Cold Gawd’sGod Get Me The Fuck Out Of Herehere. Revisit the music video for album’s first single “Sweet Jesus Wept Shit”.
Today, Girl Talk – aka Pittsburgh-based producer Gregg Gillis – announces a fall/winter 2022 North American tour. Tickets are on sale now. This announcement follows the release of Full Court Press, Girl Talk’s “timeless” (HYPEBEAST) collaborative album with Wiz Khalifa, Big K.R.I.T and Smoke DZA, released this past spring on Asylum/Taylor Gang. Gillis rose to prominence off his meticulous construction of genre-smashing sample-based music, and these breakneck-paced party jams are championed in his euphoric live shows. Girl Talk’s forthcoming tour will see him performing in Las Vegas, Houston, Sacramento and more, all cities he did not play on the spring 2022 tour. Full dates are listed below.
In conjunction with the tour announcement, Girl Talk releases a remix of Full Court Press’ “Ain’t No Fun,” which blends the vocals with elements of Harry Styles’ hit “As It Was.” Additionally, he’s released an acapella version of Full Court Press as a free download. This is an opportunity for other producers or music enthusiasts to be able to use the vocals from the album in their own remixes or DJ sets.
With each Girl Talk album, from his breakout Night Ripper (2006) to Feed The Animals (2008) and All Day(2010), Gillis’ work has become increasingly detailed and complex. The last several years have seen Gillis focusing on production work for some of his favorite rap artists, including Wiz Khalifa, T-Pain, Tory Lanez, Young Nudy, Bas, Cozz, Erick The Architect (from Flatbush Zombies), Smoke DZA, Don Q, and Freeway. This year’s Full Court Press was a culmination of friendships going back ten-plus years and a “unique intersection of all of our work,” says Gillis.
Girl Talk Tour Dates Fri. Sep. 16 – Las Vegas, NV @ Brooklyn Bowl Fri. Sep. 23 – Richmond, VA @ The National Sun. Sep. 25 – Dover, DE @ Firefly Music Festival Thu. Nov. 3 – Columbus, OH @ KEMBA Live! Fri. Nov. 4 – Detroit, MI @ St. Andrew’s Hall Sat. Nov. 5 – Indianapolis, IN @ The Vogue Thu. Nov. 10 – Tulsa, OK @ Cain’s Ballroom Fri. Nov. 11- Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall Thu. Nov. 17 – Santa Cruz, CA @ The Catalyst Fri. Nov. 18 – San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore Sat. Nov. 19 – Sacramento, CA @ Ace of Spades Fri. Dec. 9 – St. Petersburg, FL @ Jannus Live Sat. Dec. 10 – Fort Lauderdale, FL @ Revolution Thu. Dec. 15 – Orlando, FL @ The Beacham Fri. Dec. 16 – Atlanta, GA @ Buckhead Theatre Sat. Dec. 17 – Nashville, TN @ Marathon Music Works
London-based band Dry Cleaning release a new single, “Anna Calls From The Arctic,” off their highly-anticipated sophomore album, Stumpwork, out October 21st on 4AD. On “Anna Calls From The Arctic,” Florence Shaw narrates an off-kilter conversation with a distant friend. The track is whacked-out and otherworldly. “The lyrics were partly inspired by phone calls with a friend who was living and working in the Arctic,” explain the band. ”The song developed from a keyboard, bass and clarinet jam. This then took shape during our pre-recording sessions with John Parish and Joe Jones in Bristol and finalized at Rockfield studios a month later, with some musical inspiration coming from the dramatic scores of John Barry. The song is observational and sensual.” Today’s visualizer features the band’s drummer, Nick Buxton, displaying perfect form while skating backwards.
Having already started writing their second record before 2021’s acclaimed New Long Leg was released, they proposed to producer John Parish that they spend twice as much time on the follow-up. Listen to the album and you can feel that increased boldness – vocals which coil tightly around deft and complex riffs, great meshes of instrumental texture and the willingness to launch into full-on abstraction. It is a heady mix that is entirely Dry Cleaning’s own, distinguishing it from their contemporaries.
Shaw demonstrated increased spontaneity in the studio, improvising many of her lyrics straight on to the album. The lyrics are almost entirely observational. There is one quote from the artist Maggi Hambling on the woozy title track, text from an old Macintosh computer virus on “Don’t Press Me,” and snippets from the press cuttings library of archivist Edda Tasiemka scattered throughout, but the use of ‘found lyrics’ employed in the band’s early years is now far in the past. “I wrote about the things that preoccupied me over this period, like loss, masculinity, feminism, my mum, being separated from my partner for little stretches in the lockdown, lust,” she continues, preoccupations from which wider political and social commentary emerges. “I think if you make something observational, which I think I do, it’s political,” Shaw says. “There were two murders of women in London that were extensively covered on the news, and the specific details of one of those murders were reported on whilst we were at Rockfield. That coverage influenced some of my writing and my state of mind.” The band’s instrumentation, too, may well reflect our increasingly bleak socio-political landscape, the way it can pick up intense and urgent momentum, or zone out into icy detachment.
The band’s loss of a number of loved family members over the last year would also have an impact on Stumpwork. Among them was bassist Lewis Maynard’s mother Susan, at whose home the band rehearsed in their early days, the location of which inspired the name of their debut EPBoundary Road Snacks And Drinks. On the day that the band appeared on Later With Jools Holland, she was in hospital and unable to receive visitors due to coronavirus restrictions. “It felt special that what we had achieved from the first record, could still entertain her and communicate with her while no one could see her,” says Maynard. New Long Leg was released a week before she passed away, so she was able to see it reach number four in the charts. “The success of the band became a distraction for the whole family while grieving. And it gave even more importance to what we are doing,” Maynard adds.
Stumpwork was made in the aftermath – they were in the studio writing the day before Susan died – but from their grief they found fuel for the record’s most joyous elements. “I see the album as a celebration of what she gave us and a reflection of how fortunate we were to know her,” says Buxton. Guitarist Tom Dowse also lost his grandfather who was extremely proud of the band’s success. “It’s of course devastating to lose close family members but their legacy in Dry Cleaning is wholly positive,” he says. “The moments in the songs which are upbeat and joyful made me think of them both the most.”
The breadth of influences on Stumpwork is dizzying, a definitive rebuke to those who might reduce Dry Cleaning as a post-punk band. Their music is bolder and more expansive, Shaw’s lyrics explore not only loss and detachment but all the twists and turns, simple joys and minor gripes of human experience too. Ultimately, what emerges from it all is a subtle but assertive optimism, and a lesson in the value of curiosity. As Shaw sings on “Kwenchy Kups,” “Things are shit, but they’re gonna be OK.”
DRY CLEANING TOUR DATES Sun. July 31 – Thirsk, UK @ Deer Shed Festival Sat. Aug. 6 – Katowic, PL @ OFF Festival Thu. Aug. 11 – Haldern, DE @ Haldern Pop Festival Fri. Aug. 19 – Crickhowell, UK @ Green Man Festival Thu. Aug. 25 – London, UK @ All Points East Sat. Aug. 27 – Manchester, UK @ Depot Mayfield w/ The National Sat. Sept. 17 – Solana Beach, CA @ Belly Up Tavern Sun. Sept. 18 – Los Angeles, US @ Primavera Sound LA Tue. Sept. 20 – San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel Wed. Sept. 21 – San Jose, CA @ The Ritz Thu. Sept. 22 – Big Sur, CA @ Henry Miller Memorial Library Tue. Nov. 8 – Paris, FR @ Le Trabendo Wed. Nov. 9 – Cologne, DE @ Club Volta Fri. Nov. 11 – Utrecht, NL @ Le Guess Who? Festival Sat. Nov. 12 – Kortrijk, BE @ Sonic City
Today, Halloween Meltdown – the spooky sister-festival to the beloved Mosswood Meltdown – announces the stacked lineup for their annual Halloween-themed event, taking place on Saturday, October 8th and Sunday, October 9th in Oakland’s Mosswood Park, featuring performances from Amyl & The Sniffers, Shannon & The Clams, Fuzz, Sheer Mag, The Spits, Lydia Lunch and more. Hosted by John Waters, the 2022 Halloween Meltdown will feature a costume contest with a $500 cash prize and a haunted house designed by East Bay musician and horror artist, Rob Fletcher.
Brooklyn band BODEGA shares the new single/video, “The Art of Advertising,” from Xtra Equipment, out today, July 15th, on What’s Your Rupture?. Xtra Equipment boasts eight new bonus tracks from the Broken Equipment sessions, and comes ahead of the band’s summer North American headline tour beginning next week. Much like the songs on Broken Equipment, BODEGA made these tracks extra breezy and hooky as well as more philosophically ambitious than their previous recordings. “Even when in the mode of social critique, I personally tend to think of my songwriting as more literary than analytic but here, the ‘The Art of Advertising’ and ‘Art and Advertising’ diptych functions as a sort of pop rock treatise on the subtle but crucial distinction between art and advertising (’Art creates cosmos’ whereas advertising ‘surface(s) status quo’),” says BODEGA’s Ben Hozie.
For the accompanying video, the band found inspiration from Godard, who, in the 80’s, said he’d fall asleep at the cinema during pre-film and trailer advertisements, later wake up and not be able to tell whether he was watching the feature film or the advertisements. Ben elaborates: “Today you can thumb through any magazine and find it hard to tell what is an ad and what is an article. All music videos (even the extraordinary ones) are essentially advertisements for their respective songs. Here, me and Nikki [Belfiglio] adopted the lyric video genre to playfully illustrate the various ways advertising is always (for better and worse) present in our apartment (and in BODEGA). Dissolves between shots in movies typically signify that time has passed but with screens and advertisements ever-present in our lives, our minds are always experiencing time in hazy ways.”
In some ways every recording on Xtra Equipment is a response to an earlier record; both records were written to expand upon BODEGA’s previous strengths as well as explore terrain outside of the post-punk milieu they found themselves painting in previously. The synth and drum machine led “Post yr Kilimanjaro” is a recent reworking of nu wave jammer “Doers.” BODEGA also recorded two covers very different in timbre from their original source(s): Fugazi’s “Provisional” was originally recorded for a Ripcord Records comp to raise funds for an animal shelter in Scotland. Stretch Arm Strong’s “For the Record” is a loving homage to one of the most important band’s in Ben’s life, who spent most of his youth in Columbia, South Carolina (where Stretch are from). “Everybody’s Sad” (the “Thrown” b-side) highlights and bemoans the connection between the current pop obsession with individuality and the aesthetics of melancholy (“everybody’s sad at the top of the billboard”). “Top Hat No Rabbit” (the “Doers” b-side) was written coming down from a Ulysses induced high, and is a flurry of thoughts attempting to reconcile free will (necessary for any change) with a deep-seated belief (and BODEGA obsession) that all thought is determined (or “thrown”) by external and/or physical stimuli. Conversely, Ben wrote the opening ballad “Memorize w/ yr Heart” (previously only available as a bonus track on the Broken Equipment CD) as a reminder to not get stuck on abstract mind games. Most of all philosophy should be done with the body (or at least with a steady backbeat).
2. Doers 3. Territorial Call of the Female 4. NYC(disambiguation) 5. Statuette on the Console 6. C.I.R.P.
7. Pillar on the Bridge of You 8. How Can I Help Ya? 9. No Blade of Grass 10. All Past Lovers 11. Seneca The Stoic 12. After Jane /// 13. Memorize w/ yr Heart 14. The Art of Advertising 15. Art and Advertising 16. Post yr Kilimanjaro (Doers 2.0) 17. Top Hat No Rabbit 18. Everybody’s Sad 19. For The Record (Stretch Arm Strong cover) 20. Provisional (Fugazi cover)
BODEGA Tour Dates:
Friday, July 29 – Houston, TX @ Wonky Power Saturday, July 30 – Austin, TX @ Antone’s Monday, August 1 – El Paso, TX @ Lowbrow Palace Tuesday, August 2 – Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress Wednesday, August 3 – Phoenix, AZ @ Trunk Space
Thursday, August 4 – San Diego, CA @ Soda Bar Friday, August 5 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo Saturday, August 6 – San Francisco, CA @ Cafe Du Nord Monday, August 8 – Portland, OR @ Holocene Tuesday, August 9 – Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Wednesday, August 10 – Seattle, WA @ Vera Project
Friday, August 12 – Boise, ID @ The Shredder Sunday, August 14 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court Monday, August 15 – Denver, CO @ Hi-Dive Wednesday, August 17 – Omaha, NE @ Reverb Lounge Thursday, August 18 – Minneapolis, MN @ Turf Club Friday, August 19 – Milwaukee, WI @ Cactus Club Saturday, August 20 – Chicago, IL @ Sleeping Village Sunday, August 21 – Cleveland, OH @ Mahall’s Tuesday, August 23 – Toronto, ON @ The Garrison Wednesday, August 24 – Montreal, QB @ Bar Le Ritz Thursday, August 25 – Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground Friday, August 26 – Boston, MA @ Crystal Ballroom Saturday, August 27 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Made
Louisville, KY’s multi-instrumentalist mainstay Jaye Jayle have reappeared with an unconventional and ultimately “Jaye Jayle-esque” cover of the song “Help!” by The Beatles. Bandleader Evan Patterson discloses the cover’s origin:
“A few months ago, I was riding in the car with my seventy-one year old father while he was listening to The Beatles’ song ‘Help!’ This is not out of the ordinary. My dad is a “Beatles Mania” guy with a ‘LENNON’ personalized license plate and stickers all about his car. Their posters and albums hang on his basement walls and he even has stuffed dolls of the Fab Four. What I’m saying is: The Beatles have been subconsciously a massive influence on my musical mind.”
Patterson continues, “For no particular reason I zoned in on the lyrics to the song ‘Help!’ and laughed about how much of a bummer they are in juxtaposition to the cheerful, childlike melody of the music. A few nights later I had a dream about making a cover of the song with music that is loosely based on the original, yet marries more to the sad cry for companionship and loneliness of the lyrics. My longtime bass collaborator, Todd Cook, and I made a demo with an 808 drum machine and sent it over to our favorite drummer in the entire world, Britt Walford. Two weeks later we recorded the song with such ease and enjoyment. There was a lot of laughter in the making of this song. It’s not meant to be taken as dark. It’s meant to make you smile. Though, I still haven’t let my father hear the cover song. I imagine that he will not dig it.”
Jaye Jayle’s standalone cover single surfaces with the group’s reemergence, playing midwestern shows and shaking off the dust over the course of the last few months. The band is currently preparing a new full-length album with details to be revealed in the near future.
Light in the Attic Records, in cooperation with LaurieAnderson, are thrilled to share Lou Reed’s May 1965 demo of “Heroin,” from Words & Music, May 1965, the inaugural title in their forthcoming Lou Reed Archive Series, out August26th. Released in tandem with the late artist’s 80th birthday celebrations, Words & Music, May 1965 offers an extraordinary, unvarnished, and plainly poignant insight into one of America’s true poet-songwriters. Capturing Reed in his formative years, this previously unreleased collection of songs—penned by a young Lou Reed, recorded to tape with the help of future bandmate John Cale, and mailed to himself as a “poor man’s copyright”—remained sealed in its original envelope and unopened for nearly 50 years. Its contents embody some of the most vital, groundbreaking contributions to American popular music committed to tape in the 20th century. Like the previously shared demo of “I’m Waiting For The Man,” this version of “Heroin” is the earliest known recording of The Velvet Underground’s beloved track, and offers another stunning peak into Reed’s creative process.
Words & Music, May 1965 will be available on August 26th in a variety of formats, including LP, cassette, 8-track, digital, and CD. The centerpiece of the inaugural Lou Reed Archive Series release is the Deluxe 45-RPM Double LP Edition of Words & Music, May 1965. Limited to 7,500 copies worldwide, this collection was designed by multi-GRAMMY®-winning artistMasaki Koike and features a stylized, die-cut gatefold jacket manufactured by Stoughton Printing Co. Housed inside are two 45-RPM 12-inch LPs, pressed on HQ-audiophile-quality 180-gram vinyl at Record Technology Inc. (RTI) featuring the only vinyl release of “I’m Waiting for the Man – May 1965 Alternate Version.” A bonus 7-inch, housed in its own unique die-cut picture sleeve and manufactured at Third Man Record Pressing includes the only vinyl release of six previously-unreleased bonus tracks providing a never-before-seen glimpse into Reed’s formative years, including early demos, a cover ofBob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” and a doo-wop serenade recorded in 1958 when the legendary singer-songwriter was just sixteen years old. An accompanying saddle-stitched, die-cut 28-page book features lyrics, archival photos, and liner notes. Also included is an archival reproduction of a rarely-seen letter, written by Reed to his college professor and poet, Delmore Schwartz, circa 1964. The set includes a CD containing the complete audio from the package, housed in a die-cut jacket.
The 11-track digital release of Words & Music, May 1965 will be available across all platforms, alongside the physical formats, on August 26th. A six-song digital EP, Gee Whiz, 1958-1964, drops on October 7th, offering the above-mentioned bonus content.
To help celebrate the release, Light in the Attic will also invite listeners to intimately experience Words & Music through a podcast hosted by TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe. In partnership with LittleEverywhere and Ruinous Media, this special program will feature exclusive audio, archival materials, and interviews with many of the album’s participants. Available on all podcast platforms on August 26th.
For those seeking an even deeper dive into Reed’s legacy, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (which houses Reed’s recently-unearthed recordings) will be hosting a special exhibit this spring, curated by Don Fleming and Jason Stern. Opening June 9, Lou Reed: Caught Between the Twisted Stars will chronicle the life’s work of the songwriter, musician, performer, photographer, poet, and accomplished tai chi practitioner—as through the voices, images, and music of Reed and his collaborators. For more information, visit nypl.org.
Throughout 2022 and beyond, Light in the Attic will continue to honor the music and influence of Reed through the Lou Reed Archive Series.Visit LightInTheAttic.net or LouReedArchive.com to learn more, and stay tuned for forthcoming releases.
There’s a sick irony to how a country that extols rhetoric of individual freedom, in the same gasp, has no problem commodifying human life as if it were meat to feed the insatiable hunger of capitalism. If this is American nihilism taken to its absolute zenith, then God’s Country, the first full length record from Oklahoma City noise rock quartet Chat Pileis the aural embodiment of such a concept.
Having lived alongside the heaps of toxic refuse that the band derives its name from, the fatalism of daily life in the American Midwest permeates throughout the works of Chat Pile, and especially so on God’s Country. Exasperated by the pandemic, the hopelessness of climate change, the cattle shoot of global capitalism, and fueled by “…lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of THC,” God’s Countryis as much of an acknowledgement of the Earth’s most assured demise as it is a snarling violent act of defiance against it. Within its over 40 minute runtime, God’s Country displays both Chat Pile’s most aggressively unhinged and contemplatively nuanced moments to date, drawing from its preceding two EPs and its score for the 2021 film, Tenkiller. In the band’s own words, the album is, at its heart, “Oklahoma’s specific brand of misery.” A misery intent on taking all down with it and its cacophonous chaos on its own terms as opposed to idly accepting its otherwise assured fall. This is what the end of the world sounds like.
In just a couple of years, Chat Pile have made nothing short of a profound impression on the underground music discourse. Formed in the spring of 2019 by Raygun Busch (vocals), Luther Manhole (Guitar), Stin (Bass), and Captain Ron (Drums), the noise-rock quartet would release two EPs that same year, titled This Dungeon Earth and Remove Your Skin Please. Spurred on by both a hearty run of live performances and a swiftly growing online fanbase, Chat Pile became a staple name among its genre contemporaries thanks to its hellish synthesis of noise rock, sludge, industrial, and mid 90’s nu-metal. In 2020, the band would sign with San Francisco underground music label, The Flenser, to put out its upcoming full length debut. That following year, Chat Pile kept its roll going, with accolades including composing the score for the indie film, Tenkiller, as well as releasing a 7” split with portrayal of guilt in the summer.
Now, the world braces itself for the release of Chat Pile‘s Flenser debut God’s Country on July 29th. The album is available for pre-order here and Chat Pile will play select shows this summer and fall.
Chat Pile, live:
July 29 Oklahoma City, OK @ The Sanctuary (Records Release Show)
July 30 Austin, TX @ Chess Club
September 15 Oklahoma City, OK @ The Sanctuary
October 21 Brooklyn, NY @ St. Vitus *
October 24 Brooklyn, NY @ St. Vitus *
*w/ Scarcity
Keep your mind open.
[Dance on over to the subscription box while you’re here.]
“This place is like the Borg cube of music venues.”
That’s how my friend described the Andrew J. Bird Music Center in downtown Cincinnati. It’s an interesting performance space with good acoustics, but the interior “has no personality,” as she put it. It has a stark industrial feel, and hosting some industrial or goth shows in the place would be ideal. The only fixed seats are in the multiple balconies. The main floor is open, but rows of seats were added for The Psychedelic Furs and X.
This was the second time I’ve seen the Psychedelic Furs. The first was on their “Singles Tour” and this one was promoting their latest record, Made of Rain. First up, however, were L.A. punk legends X. Bassist John Doe mentioned how they’d been playing in a lot of beautiful theaters, but “I keep expecting Tina Turner to come out and tell us we’re in the Thunderdome in this place.” They put on a fun set, with Billy Zoom still shredding both guitar and saxophone, Exene Cervenka blessing the crowd, and D.J. Bonebrake playing both drums and xylophone. People were dancing in the aisles the whole time, and one guy was pogoing front and center for nearly their entire set. Billy Zoom came back out after their set and signed a few autographs.
I knew we were in for a good set from The Psychedelic Furs when they opened their show with “I Wanna Sleep with You” – one of my favorite tracks that I wasn’t sure I’d ever hear live. “Mr. Jones” followed and then the first of many great tracks from Made of Rain, “You’ll Be Mine.”
“Dumb Waiters”
Other sharp new tracks included Made of Rain‘s opener, “The Boy Who Invented Rock and Roll,” “Wrong Train,” “This’ll Never Be Like Love,” “No-One,” and “Ash Wednesday.” “Their new songs are beautiful,” my friend said. She’s right. Guitarist Rich Good puts more emphasis on the psychedelic part of the band’s sound on these new tracks.
They played plenty of classics, of course, with “The Ghost in You” being the loveliest and “Love My Way” being even more popular with the happy crowd than “Pretty in Pink.”
“Imitation of Christ”
The encore included a solid version of “Heartbreak Beat” that had everybody dancing and a stunning, beautifully chaotic (as they’d describe it) version of “India” – the first track on their first album. It was another song I wasn’t sure I’d ever hear live, and it was a killer end to a great show. Saxophonist Mars Williams played so hard and with such frenetic passion that we all thought he was going to pass out on stage at one point.
Another highlight is how Richard Butler‘s voice never seems to age, or perhaps it just gets better. He’s still on top of his game, as is the whole band. His brother, Tim Butler, still has that rockstar style and slight menace about him, and the bottom end of his bass is the band’s secret weapon. Keyboardist Amanda Kramer doesn’t go overboard with her playing, which means she’s secretly doing a lot of stuff you can barely comprehend – and she adds a mystery to the band’s stage presence behind her ever-present shades (as does Tim Butler). The band’s new drummer, Zack Alford, has serious chops and ups the volume with pure rock beats.
