NYS Music 202​0

Category: Bluegrass/Country

  • Follow The Light Virtual Music Festival Announced in Celebration of Irish Traditions

    Follow The Light virtual music festival was announced by We Banjo 3 in celebration of Irish traditions. The festival will take place on August 29, 2020 at 5PM EST. Festival Tickets, Artist Meet & Greets and Exclusive Festival Merchandise are on Sale Now at We Banjo 3’s website.

    Follow The Light  virtual music festival will work as an ode to the We Banjo 3’s Irish heritage. The festival will feature an evening of musical performances by Gaelic Storm, Sharon Shannon, Nathan Carter and The East Pointers, on top of We Banjo 3. The festival will also host non-music features throughout the evening.

    We Banjo 3 debuted in the U.S. in 2012 and are Billboard Bluegrass chart-toppers. We Banjo 3 create a fusion of shared and varied traditions of Americana, Bluegrass, and Celtic music with pop-sensible songcraft to create a unique signature sound. The quartet is made up of Ireland and Nashville sounds and is composed of two sets of brothers Enda & Fergal Scahill and Martin & David Howley. 

    We Banjo 3 has deep-dived into exploring alternatives to physically taking the stage due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They find connecting with fans through various online performances, fan Q&A’s, live interviews, poetry and book excerpt readings, general banter about topics of interest, and more, gives them a personalized approach to creating fan experiences. Their hope with Follow The Light is to create this immersive experience to a wider audience while shedding the light to the rich Irish culture that they were founded upon. 

    https://youtu.be/qc9GvnGR3wc

    General Admission Tickets, Artist Meet & Greets Upgrades, and Festival Ticket/Exclusive Merchandise bundles are available now on We Banjo 3’s website. The ticket purchase will give the buyer access to the stream for the festival. The stream will be supported on Chromecast,  Apple TV, Amazon Fire Stick. 

    https://youtu.be/YzdNABunUvk

    For more information on the Follow The Light Virtual Music Festival visit We Banjo 3’s website. 

  • Discover Local Music With EQXposure Featured Artists Of The Week

    WEQX has long been the preeminent independent station in the Capital Region of New York, broadcasting from Southern VT to a ever-expanding listening audience. Each Sunday evening from 7-9pm on 102.7 FM, you’ll find EQXposure on WEQX, featuring two hours of local music from up and coming artists. NYS Music will bring you a preview of artists to discover each week, just a taste of the talent waiting to be discovered by fans like you.

    WEQX dryer


    Dryer – “Occupation Suicide” and “Stupid for You”  

    These two songs make up the first new release since 2016 from this Saratoga Springs band. On Prodgnerd Dryer brings back the lo-fi sound of some of the bands that influence them like The Breeders, Pavement, and Guided By Voices. So if you’re into them and other cool 90’s alt rock stuff like Superchunk, Green Day, Weezer, or Varuca Salt, take 8 minutes out of your day and please listen to these new songs. Don’t you have 8 minutes? Actually it won’t even take you that long. And if you have more minutes, you can hear a decade’s worth of goodies by checking out Strut and Fret: A Collection of Songs from 1993-2003 You Missed the First Time Around. But if you only have 8 minutes at least listen to this.   

    Annie Scherer – “Andy Warhol”  

    This Voorheesville native has been playing piano since she was 6 years old and cites The Beatles and The Rolling Stones as early influences. Annie wrote her first song in second grade and taught herself guitar by the age of 12 when she began writing more seriously and even playing gigs. Fast forward to 2018 and Annie was rewarded with a trip to L.A. after being honored with the Producer’s Choice Award for the ‘Celebration of Music’ PBS special in Troy, NY. In L.A. she was taped performing this song and that recording will air internationally sometime this year.  

    Next Station – “Introspection”  

    Next Station formed in Niskayuna in 2009 and split up for a while due to different career paths. And though distance has kept them apart physically (one went to NYC and another to Dallas, TX) they managed to record their first new song in 4 years and are set to release their first new album since 2012. The songs were workshopped via e-mail and conference call after singer/songwriter Will Pedicone began writing new material in an effort to revive the band. And revive it he has! There is even talk of a tour when the world opens back up.   

    Carling and Will – “Lillie’s Lullaby”  

    These two Southern Vermont multi-instrumentalists specialize in, well, instrumentals. Take the rich drone of the electric guitar and add some warm open-back banjo and you get a sound that is both intriguing and soothing. But that’s not all they are capable of. Their new album Soon Comes the Night has much more to offer. It’s both melancholy and high-spirited as it weaves tender music and upbeat fiddle tunes together throughout. Hear more of their work and check out some videos of the duo on their website.

  • Discover Local Music With EQXposure Featured Artists Of The Week

    WEQX has long been the preeminent independent station in the Capital Region of New York, broadcasting from Southern VT to a ever-expanding listening audience. Each Sunday evening from 7-9pm on 102.7 FM, you’ll find EQXposure on WEQX, featuring two hours of local music from up and coming artists. NYS Music will bring you a preview of artists to discover each week, just a taste of the talent waiting to be discovered by fans like you.

    WEQX eqxposure joe mansman

    Tune into WEQX.com this Sunday night to hear music from Joe Mansman and the Midnight Revival Band, Underwater Cartographers, New Saviors, Grape Juice!, Ida Mae Specker and many more! Get a preview of these artists below.

    Joe Mansman and the Midnight Revival Band – “Blood on the Scales”

    These guys rock, plain and simple. Hailing from Glens Falls and have most recently released Fear In The Valley: Live From The Den, a collection of live acoustic songs recorded during quarantine. Joe Mansman says of the recording process which took place in an old boat garage:

    There was at least some comfort sitting in that moldy and dusty room with people you love, because it felt more normal than what was going on outside of it. We took our acoustic guitars, and just hit the record button most nights, letting it take us wherever. That felt normal. To me, this record will forever serve as a time capsule that’ll remind me of how we found a little bit of comfort in a strange and uncertain moment in the world’s history.

    Joe Mansman

    Underwater Cartographers – “Wave Goodbye and Watch it Go”

    Albany’s Joe Pasinella is staying busy as always. Look up Underwater Cartographers on Bandcamp to see what I mean. It’s crazy how many songs this dude cranks out. He sends me new music constantly and it’s always interesting both lyrically and musically, all done for fun recording on Garage Band. Just like you, or maybe not depending on your situation, he works a standard job. I have no idea what that job is but he makes music like it’s his job. This is from the new Album Benign Fascinations.

    New Saviors – “Pieces”

    Ryan, host of EQXposure, shares insight on the newest from New Saviors.

    Zack King’s latest project New Saviors are based out of Southern Vermont and Upstate New York. Zack plays guitar and takes on many other roles within the group. I’ve known him for well over a decade and have always known him to be in a band of some kind, even experimenting with rap as King Daddy Deucey (KDD) for a period of time. He’s a hustler for sure. When KDD merch was for sale you could see the t-shirts all over Bennington before Zack had even released any music under the name. I myself had at least three shirts, a hoodie, and a hat. That’s the thing about Zack. He’s just got the drive, talent, and personality to move any project forward.

    Grape Juice! – “Strawberry Pie“

    From Saratoga Springs, Grape Juice! is Hunter Fish (lead vocals, guitar, ukulele), Jesse Zuccaro (bass), and Michael Smith (drums, vocals). The three met in a creative writing class at SUNY Adirondack in 2017 and started the band at the beginning of 2018. “Strawberry Pie” was one of the first original songs they ever played and wrote together, and has been a favorite of their’s ever since. They recorded and mixed it all by themselves in their bass player’s basement, and if you listen closely, you can hear that it features his mom walking around upstairs toward the end of the song. They released our debut EP Outer Spvce EP on July 10, and are constantly writing, recording, and practicing. It shouldn’t be long before they have more music and start building their audience in the region.

    Ida Mae Specker – Billy In The Heartland

    Ida Mae Specker lives in Dorset, Vermont, having growing up in Andover, Vermont, where she began playing fiddle and singing in her family band, The Speckers. In addition to singing and fiddling, she’s also played drums and guitar in folk and indie rock bands. Her new EP Billy in the Heartland was recorded last year at Owl Sounds Recording and was the first time she recorded her original songs. The EP was to be followed up with some shows with the bands Upstate and Saints and Liars but the shows were unfortunately canceled due to COVID-19. Her web designer, photographer, and agent are all local VT women and you can see their work at on her website.

  • Hearing Aide: Upstate ‘Live at ArtsRiot’

    Upstate’s new live EP, Live at ArtsRiot is the quarantine album we all need right now. This group, formerly known as Upstate Rubdown, has soared through the Hudson Valley region since their debut release in 2015, and in an effort to cure our isolation blues, they have released this live EP to bring us back to the comforting clamor of live shows.

    This new release is familiar territory, featuring four songs from their 2019 studio album Healing. The new EP promises the same tight vocal harmonies, intricate lyrics, tight rhythmic strumming, and swirling energy from the first release of these songs. What you may not expect from Live at ArtsRiot is its production value – besides the excellent mixing and mastering, this live performance has eight performers, each with an interesting color to weave in and out of this picture. One of the best examples can be heard in “Who Knows”. The album version tends to rely on the folk-timbred acoustic guitar and standup bass, but the live version is daring in its switch to electric. In one song, a group that was once under the folk umbrella becomes a southern blues band. In the final song of the Live EP “Healing”, the band ditches the honky tonk-style piano solo and tosses in a keyboard for the solo section, marrying folk with almost a jam band timbre to support the blazing sax solo and keep the energy trailing right until the end of the performance.

    More than its musical intricacies, this live EP is a reminder of the comradery needed to put on a great show. In addition to having top notch songs, this band has a responsive following, which you can hear cheering throughout the entire EP. The vocalists have audible excitement in their voices, and with so many musicians on stage, you’re able to hear the push and pull of instruments to provide a strong and creative backdrop for the tight vocal harmonies that push centerfold.  This is a sound you can only get from a live show, and with performances few and far between these days, we can’t help but thank Upstate for reminding us of the live show vibes we miss so much.

    p.s., Upstate is headed to Rochester on October 16, and will hopefully visit ArtsRiot again this year, but check their website and Facebook to be sure.

    Key Tracks: Who Knows, Healing

  • American Singer-Songwriter Charlie Daniels Dies at 83

    Charlie Daniels, legendary American singer-songwriter, died at the age of 83 on July 6 after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke. He was a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and wrote the hit, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”

    Charlie Daniels
     Charlie Daniels in concert at the Chumash Casino Resort in Santa Ynez, California. Photo by Dwight McCann.

    Daniels was born on October 28, 1936, in Wilmington, North Carolina. He had a musical background with his father William Carlton Daniels who played fiddle and guitar. Daniels quickly learned both instruments while in school before forming his own group the Jaguars, in the late 1950s.

    Daniels started writing his own music after forming Jaguars and ended up writing “It Hurts Me,” which was a collaboration with Joy Byers that ended up being a Top 40 hit for the B-side of Elvis Presley’s album Kissin’ Cousins in 1964. After Jaguars broke up Daniels moved to Nashville in 1967 and teamed up with producer Bob Johnston. Daniels became a well known and successful session musician. He worked on albums like Bob Dylan’s “Nashville Skyline” and Leonard Cohen’s “Songs of Love and Hate.”

    Daniels then recorded his first album under his name in 1970. The solo album was titled “Charlie Daniels” and didn’t make much of a splash. He then signed with Kama Sutra label and recorded “Uneasy Rider” before he ended up landing with Epic Records in 1975. Having two dozen hits on the country charts and four then crossed over on to the pop charts including “The Devil” and “In America” Daniels was a house hold name. The hit song, “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” was written and released on the Charlie Daniels Band’s album Million Mile Reflections in 1979.

    Danial received the Pioneer Award by the Academy of Country Music in 1998. He than received the BMI Icon Award at the 53rd annual Country Music Awards in 2005. He joined the Grand Ole Opry in 2008 and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016.

    Daniels will be greatly missed from the music community. We mourn his loss and send our condolences to his family and friends. 

  • Virtual Northwest String Summit: Hiding Out at Home, Bluegrass Delivered

    For the past 18 years the Northwest String Summit has been a festival catering to all things string. Country, folk and bluegrass artists, well-known and just discovered, would descend upon Horning’s Hideout. Festival-goers can listen to the music and enjoyed a myriad of activities including but not limited to arts and crafts, glamping, yoga, and instrument building.

    Unfortunately, COVID-19 has created the conditions in which having a traditional festival would be dangerous. In the interest of public safety, the event has closed its on-site activities. Even though the physical festival is no longer possible, the lockdown has not stifled the creativity of the artists that were slated to attend the summit this year.

    Virtual Northwest String Summit
    To connect fans to artists, the Northwest String Summit has gone virtual.

    Over 28 different artists will be streaming their performances live or remote this July 17-19 on LiveXLive. Archival footage spanning the history of the event will be sprinkled in-between sets. Thirty hours of never-seen-before footage will be shown. All of the proceeds will go back to the artists, crew, and industry. The Early Bird special pricing of $29.99 will be available until July 7 for this three-night event.

    Check out this stream and more through our series NY Stream and Support. You’ll discover artists around the Empire State streaming nightly, with ways to support musicians and charitable groups close to home!

  • Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival Announce Plans for Virtual Benefit Festival

    Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival announced plans to put on a Virtual Festival. The “Spirit of Grey Fox” will take place on July 16-19. There will be never-seen-before footage of original 2020 artists for the festival. The festival will be a benefit fundraiser for COVID-19 relief for artists.

    Grey Fox virtual

    The festival will include archived performances from past years on top of the performances from the original lineup. Some of the highlighted 2020 lineup includes The Infamous Stringdusters, Jerry Douglas, and Delle Mae. Some of the highlighted archived lineup includes the Del McCoury Band, Sam Bush, and Hot Rize.

    The festival will benefit the IBMA Trust Fund COVID-19 Relief Fund to help artists crushed by the pandemic. This Fund is specifically trying to help the bluegrass community. The Board of Trustees set aside up to $150,000 for COVID-19 crisis assistance and has established an account specifically for COVID-19 Relief. Musicians can be awarded up to $500 of relief pay. People will be able to donate by going to IBMA Trust Fund COVID-19 Relief Fund’s website.

    The festival will stream for free on nugs.tv and Grey Fox’s YouTube and Facebook Page. For more information the “Spirit of Grey Fox please visit Grey Fox’s website.

    Check out this stream and more through our series NY Stream and Support, where you’ll discover artists around the Empire State streaming nightly, and ways to support musicians and charitable groups close to home!

  • Kitchen Dwellers announce release of ‘Reheated Vol.2’ featuring Pink Floyd covers

    Kitchen Dwellers have released Reheated Vol. 2, their take on Pink Floyd with three covers – “Welcome to the Machine.” “Hey You,” and “Pigs (Three Different Ones).” This release marks the second installment of their Reheated series featuring covers interpreted by Kitchen Dwellers through their eclectic and expansive approach to Bluegrass music.  Kitchen Dwellers launched their Reheated series in 2018 with Vol. 1, a four-song EP that reimagined songs from The Band.  

    Reheated started out as a way to play the music of some of our favorite bands while putting our own twist on it. We draw influences from all kinds of styles and types of genres, so diving into somebody else’s work is fun for us. It creates its own set of challenges and we tend to incorporate some of the things we learn along the way into our own songs and playing. For the first volume, we released songs from The Band. We love their approach to songwriting and singing so we really had a lot of fun with that one.  

    After many rounds of debate, we ultimately chose to do Pink Floyd for the second volume. Throughout their long career, they have been so inventive and experimental. As a kid, I used to think the band members of Pink Floyd wore lab coats and twisted nobs to make their music. Their songs also pose big questions about life and have the ability to make you think from different perspectives. We chose one song from three of their most influential albums; Wish You Were Here, Animals, and The Wall. All songs were recorded and mixed with Colin Bricker at Mighty Fine Productions in Denver, CO. We tried to recreate some of the iconic sounds that Pink Floyd managed to produce in the studio, this time, with acoustic instruments. Every single instrument track was recorded on one of our four instruments except for one, so we really had to work on getting it right. This release has been highly anticipated for us and It’s with great excitement that we can put this out into the world. 

    Max Davies (guitar/vocals)

    The Montana-based bluegrass band has performed for thousands at Red Rocks, shared bills with the likes of Railroad Earth, The Infamous Stringdusters and Twiddle, graced festival stages from Northwest String Summit to WinterWonderGrass, and transcended traditional genre boundaries. 

  • Meet Raquel and the Wildflowers, One of New York’s Best New Country/Rock Artists

    Based in Westchester, Raquel de Souza (Singer), Cat Lines (Fiddle), Luis Cruz (Guitar), Tommy Carlucci (Drummer), and Steve Riccio (Bass) are Raquel and the Wildflowers. This troupe have provided a breath of fresh air into the country/rock genre with Raquel’s first single “Run Towards The Highway” charting #32 on DRT top 50 Country Airplay charts in 2018.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rEvzv0d8sI

    After the bands public debut in 2019 they have been on a marathon of performances. The band has opened for multi-platinum artist Andy Grammer, award winning band Skeeter Creek, international country star Jessica Lynn, performed at The Cutting Room for Lauren Davidson’s first “Urban Country Jam”, Daryl’s House, qualified for the “Battle Ground Talent Show Case” finals at West Point Eisenhower Theatre and much more.

    Most recently the band played the virtual concert for the radio station BIG FROG 104, and have posted the lovely performance on their Facebook page. For this performance, the band played covers as well as some of their originals, “King of the Jungle”, “Hot July”, “Room 15”, in addition to soon to be released songs “At least that’s what they say” and “What’s Done is Done”

    In addition to online shows, the band will be doing “front lawn concerts” where they will be available to play for private shows and can be booked through their contact list on their website.

    Their fully released songs are available on all major music outlets and you can find Raquel and the Wildflowers on  their Facebook, Instagram, and website.

  • Midnight North Releases Latest Single “Good Days”

    Midnight North, the San Francisco based rock-country band just released their latest single “Good Days” which will be featured on their fourth album.

    Midnight North Good Days
    Photo by Jeffrey Bowling.

    This upcoming album will be their latest since Under the Lights which was released in 2017. The new album was recorded before the COVID-19 quarantine began, and although the band did not intend on fast tracking any songs from the album, they decided that releasing one song ahead of the rest would be a ray of light in this time of negativity and unrest. All four members of the band, who are quarantined in different parts of the country, decided unanimously to release “Good Days.” 

    Elliot Peck, who along with Grahame Lesh and Nathan Graham wrote the music and lyrics, says that the song’s chorus was stuck in his head even before he wrote the full tune. Peck states that his vision for the song “was of a small rustic cabin, where two people were sharing their time, and were happy enough with just each other’s company that they needed nothing else.” The image of a rustic cabin is present to the listener, as the song has a country notable feel to it. The song itself is extremely warm despite the fact that its message is somewhat somber.

    “Good Days” is also about yearning. “We are a culture always in wanting,” explains Peck. Despite the fact that we always yearn for more in our present and future, “when we really think about our happiest times, it was the simplest ones, when the company of someone was all we needed.” The song is a nostalgic look on the singer’s past as they remember the “Good Days” when they were happiest.

    Midnight North Good Days

    The song’s release in our current time is coincidentally perfect as we remember the “Good Days” before everything in our world changed seemingly in the blink of an eye. Elliot says that “The tune was written and recorded before the pandemic changed everything about our current lives. It was written in a time of hugs and handshakes, communal joints and sipping van whiskey straight from the bottle, small rooms full of close friends and large festival grounds full of complete strangers, frequent flyers with rarely a home cooked meal.” The song is a perfect way to currently reminisce on the past while simultaneously looking forward to the future. Even when everything seems horrible, we can always celebrate the good days.

    “Good Days” features Elliot Peck (vocals and acoustic guitar), Grahame Lesh (vocals, acoustic guitar, and 12 string guitar), Connor O’Sullivan (bass and mandolin), Nathan Graham (vocals, drums, and banjo), and Jason Crosby (piano). Lesh describes that Midnight North’s music tells their story, and that with their songs they hope to “transport you into [their] world for an hour or two.”

    Midnight North is excited for the world to hear their “entire new album of fresh new music.” There is no confirmed release date for the new album, but Midnight North asks us to be patient as we wait for the album’s release ‘in the coming seasons.’