New Jersey’s FRND CRCL (pronounced Friend Circle) comes in hot just in time for summer with their new single “ Loose Cannon” off their sophomore album Internet Noise.
Delivering their new single with angsty, punk-driven lyrics and catchy melodies reminiscent of early 2000s pop punk akin to the likes of Sum 41 and Blink 182, the track is essentially about embracing the mentality and spirit of punk rock, with lyrics referencing the choice of not selling out in college and even a comparison to the heartbreaker himself, Ben Stiller. FRND CRCL deliver their youthful hooks over crunchy and distorted guitar passages and twinkling lead melodies. If one thing is clear about this group it is that they certainly don’t cut the “pop” out of pop punk.
The track is produced by FRND CRCL and Tyler Skye of Monoplane Recording Studios, this is the second single premiering off of the upcoming sophomore album Internet Noise, which dropped May 1.
Formed in 2018, Aaron Smith (Drums) and Dom Giacalone (Lead Guitar), along with dual vocalists Zac Johnson (Guitar) and Adam Skirvin (Bass), combine their individual musical backgrounds to create a new approach to the genre. Utilizing 2010 era pop structures and punk rock riffage, FRND CRCL is not afraid to incorporate lyrical wordplay, the occasional pop culture reference, and influences from various genres across the board.
Beginning Monday, May 18, Nugs TV will kick off the free weekly series moe.ron Mondays. The first edition features moe.’s performance at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, CO on July 12, 2018. Two sets of seamless jamming are in store, including an encore featuring members of Pigeons Playing Ping Pong.
Set 1: Seat Of My Pants> Who You Calling Scared> Captain America> Buster> Pastorus*> Silver Sun> Akimbo> ATL> Puebla Set 2: Plane Crash> Buster> Four> Skrunk> Prestige Worldwide> Silver Sun> Plane Crash> Letter Home> Wind it up Encore: Fame^ *official title of segue/jam debuted at Summer Camp 5/26/18 ^w/ Greg Ormont & Jeremy Schon on guitar / vox from Pigeons Playing Ping Pong
From Live Oak, Florida the Suwannee at Home: Spirit Raiser 2020 will take place May 15th through 17th. This will be a virtual online festival streaming across multiple platforms. The festival’s intention is to raise the spirits of the music community and to raise some funds for festival support staff.
The festival is being presented by Spirit of Suwannee Music Park and Relix Magazine and will be hosted by Suwanee Rising Event Co-Producers: Beth Judy (Suwannee Spring Reunion, Suwannee Roots Revival) and Paul Levine (Hulaween, Purple Hatters Ball). The festival will take place Friday, May 15th from 4PM-9PM, Saturday, May 16th from 4PM-9PM, and Sunday, May 17th from 2PM-8PM.
Suwannee at Home: Spirit Raiser will Featuring Members of: Big Gigantic, Donna The Buffalo, Doom Flamingo, Dopapod, Dumpstaphunk, Eric Krasno, George Porter Jr., Grass Is Dead, Greensky Bluegrass, Jennifer Hartswick & Chris Chew, Jim Lauderdale, Joe Craven, Jon Stickley Trio, Keller Williams, Larry & Jenny Keel, Leftover Salmon, Lettuce, Luther Dickinson, Mike Dillon, moe., Nikki Talley, Railroad Earth, Rev Jeff Mosier, Roosevelt, Collier, Sierra Hull, Snarky Puppy, Steep Canyon Rangers, The Duhks, The Motet, The New, Mastersounds, The Nth Power, The Travelin’ McCourys, Toubab Krewe, Umphrey’s McGee, Van Ghost, Verlon Thompson, Weedie Braimah, Will Kimbrough, Zach Deputy, with more to be announced.
Artists are both performing live and sending in pre-recorded content from their respective areas of self quarantine. These artists are volunteering their time with performances to brief cameos to 30 minute slots to Q and A sections.
Suwannee at Home: Spirit Raiser will be able to be viewed online everywhere on Zoom via Facebook and Website. Live Oak Music and Art Foundation Inc, a 501c3 organization will collect and distribute any collected funds and will be the sole recipient of any merchandise sold.
For more information please visit Suwannee at Home: Spirit Raiser’ website.
The 8th Annual 2020 Beanstalk Music Festival will be moving forward in spite of COVID-19 with a little thinking outside of the box. The festival will go on for a two nights at Holiday Twin Drive-In Theater in Fort Collins, CO.
The festival will take place during the weekend of June 26th and 27th. The festival will feature two nights of music from Beanstalk festival founders and annual hosts Magic Beans. There will also be performances from Kitchen Dwellers and Cycles, as well as Colorado artists The Great Salmon Famine and Envy Alo.
The Beanstalk Festival will be observing all state & county social distancing protocols while providing the music and a brand new way of experiencing a festival. There will be a limited capacity in order to work with the drive-in theater’s layout. Beanstalk Festival producers have also decided that attendees will be parked with an empty spot between each vehicle to help ensure social distancing is properly being followed. This decision by the producers will cut down on capacity, and profits for the event but have decided it is the safest and best way to keep everyone safe. Attendees will be permitted to set up a “hang out area” directly adjacent to their vehicle that is safely distanced from other guests. In adherence with typical drive-in admission policies, there will be no entry after 8:30pm.
Existing ticket holders will be granted admission for themselves, a guest and their vehicle. Tickets for Beanstalk At the Drive-In are now on sale at www.beanstalkfestival.com and on Eventbrite.
For more information on the Beanstalk Festival visit their website or on their social media pages.
This year Twiddle will celebrate 15 years as a band. The much loved jamband that started at Castleton State College in Vermont in 2005 have grown into a touring powerhouse, with fans from coast to coast and their own festival held annualy in July in Burlington, Tumbledown.
A summer tour that included shows with Vampire Weekend looks like it will likely be shuttered as the music industry continues to be affected by the outbreak of COVID-19, but Twiddle has something up their sleeve, as seen from a retrospective and still mysterious video posted to Facebook and Instagram late on Friday night.
The trip down memory lane is worth repeated views for faithful Twiddle fans, but no details are given beyond the dates July 9-26 which are found at the bottom of the tour graphic.
How will the Roots 2020 Virtual Tour unfold? How will it be brought to the faithful Twiddle fans found across the country? We’ll have to stay tuned to find out. Visit Roots 2020 to subscribe for updates in the meantime.
In a statement on Facebook, organizers of the two-day event held within the Lake Champlain Maritime Festival, have announced that the 2020 Tumbledown edition is cancelled, due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.
It comes with great sadness that as a result of COVID-19, Tumble Down 2020 is cancelled. This was our Sweet Number 5 and we were so excited to drop an amazing lineup this year. We promise that we are working on something very special that we will be announcing very soon. There isn’t much that hurts us more than canceling our favorite event of the year, in our home town with all of you, but unfortunately we have no choice.
Refunds will be issued automatically to everyone at point of purchase. However there may be some delays, so please be patient. Please contact box@highergroundmusic.com if you have questions or concerns.
We love you, stay safe and healthy and we will get through this together – .
Tumbledown 2020 has been a staple of Burlington summers since 2016, with Vermont’s own Twiddle headlining both days of the festival. The event grew into the Lake Champlain Maritime Festival in 2017 with shows bookending Tumbledown for a four-day event that drew thousands to the Lake Champlain waterfront from around the Northeast. Check out our coverage from 2019 here.
In these uncertain times, we’re seeing an influx in live streams and album releases as bands try to find ways to entertain their fans and make the most of this strange situation. Cycles, a psychedelic-rock-fusion power-trio from Denver, released their new EP, Summer Dress, on March 27th and also joined the nugs.net family that week, a move that ensures they’ll find plenty of new fans despite having to postpone their Spring Tour for safety reasons. These five tracks are the bands first release in three years and were all produced by Josh Fairman of SunSquabi, who helped encapsulate the tremendous skill that all three band members share into a record with a great live sound.
The opening track starts with a peek at Colin O’Brien’s incredible drum work before the lyrics offer a well-timed reminder that just because we may be stuck at home doesn’t mean we have to be stuck staring at the countless screens around us. Tucker McClung’s flittering bass plays wonderfully underneath Patrick Harvey’s guitar licks and jam at the end of “Robot’s Breath” put an instant smile on my face.
Next up is “The Key,” an instrumental that really highlights what this band is capable of. The first half of this gem is a composed masterpiece that each member shines on before they all let loose in the funkier, psychedelic second half. Patrick’s soaring guitar is what grabs your attention during the first listen of this track, but the intricate bass playing and the intense drums will be all that you focus on when you relisten to it.
The title track, “Summer Dress,” start with a twisting, airy introduction and after a stratospheric guitar solo, gets punched up in a blast of funk. After another jam that is sure to be incredible live, it ends in a flowing send off with Tucker’s bass powering through to the very end. This band has such a fresh sound and are able to bring new and unique takes to each of these tracks.
“The Clock” starts off like a sports car and Colin’s drumming takes a front seat during this offering. This track has so many levels to it and it’s an exciting ride. The first jam has a psychedelic Deep Purple vibe which makes it way into a slower, blissful jam a third of the way though the song. This transitions into a grimey groove that morphs into a rocket ship of a guitar solo. Each member really shows what they’re made of before this one finishes up.
Cycles‘ EP finishes with “Sunrise,” a beautiful piece that musically showcases that specific time each morning. Starting off with a dreamy first half, it boils up into a sendoff as joyful as the rising sun. Summer Dress can be found on all streaming services and you can also find more information about the band and their current streaming plans on their Facebook page.
Returning for its 17th year in a row, the 2020 lineup has been released for Camp Bisco. Held once again July 9-11 at Montage Mountain in Scranton, PA, it will feature hosts The Disco Biscuits performing a total of six times, including backing up the psychedelic Shpongle.
Also on the lineup are favorites Bassnectar, GRiZ, Lotus, STS9, Subtronics, G Jones and Troy Boi. In addition, British sensational producer Tipper will perform two sets. Mysterious producer Deathpact is also slated to make his/her/its East Coast debut.
The announcement also notes that the event will feature an “immersive projection mapping experience” by Datagramma and Imaginex.
Check out the complete lineup below. Early Bird Pass 2 tickets are on sale now. For more information, head to campbisco.com.
Following an early report from The Sun on Tuesday, BBC Radio 2 is reporting this morning that Genesis will perform together again for the first time in 13 years but without Peter Gabriel. The trio of Phil Collins, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford confirmed the reunion on Zoe Ball’s BBC Radio 2 show. The trio will be joined by Collins’ 18-year-old son Nicholas, who will fill in for his father on drums, who had suffered nerve damage during Genesis’s 2007 tour and, like it or not, casted his future of drumming into limbo.
“We all felt, ‘Why not?’” Collins told BBC News. “It sounds a bit of a lame reason – but we enjoy each other’s company, we enjoy playing together.”
Instead of throwing it all away, Nicholas’ presence as drummer at Collins’ solo shows helped inspire the reunion, according to Banks. “He can sound like Phil and it gave us a whole idea of how we could do it, because we knew Phil couldn’t be the drummer on the road again,” said the keyboard player.
Before this, it seemed as if there was never a time that the trio would reform to bring hits like “Invisible Touch,” “I Can’t Dance,” and “Land of Confusion” back around, but they’ll kick off their ‘Last Domino?’ tour in Dublin, Ireland on November 16. They’ll also play two nights at London’s O2 Arena, as well as dates in Liverpool and Glasgow.
“I’m looking forward to doing it,” said Rutherford. “I worked it out and we’ve only done two shows in the UK in the last 28 years, so we haven’t overworked it.”
Founding member Peter Gabriel, who left the group in 1975, will not be taking part, and guitarist Steve Hackett will also miss the shows.
“Peter left the band 45 years ago and he’s been trying to live it down ever since,” said Banks. “When they put his birthday in The Times, they always say, ‘Peter Gabriel – Genesis singer.’ And I think, ‘What’s the guy been doing since then, for God’s sake?’” Banks said it wouldn’t make sense to bring Gabriel back because “most of the songs people know” came after his departure, but added,”We love Peter.”
The band, founded at Charterhouse School in Surrey in 1967, has gone on to have international success recording 15 studio albums and six live ones and selling at least 100 million worldwide. They have had 21 Top 40 hits and six number one albums. But they have not performed together since 2007, when they marked their 40th anniversary with the Turn It On Again Tour. Tickets will go on general sale at 9am on Friday, March 6.
Trey Anastasio adds to an already busy summer of Oysterhead and Phish with three additional orchestra performances in June. In addition to the previously announced performance on June 20 at Tanglewood with the Boston Pops, Anastasio joins the National Symphony Orchestra on June 17 in Washington D.C., the Philadelphia Orchestra on June 23, and the North Carolina Symphony on June 26 in Raleigh.
