Rochester artist Sam Nitsch is releasing his brand new album Under the Influencer, which expands on common criticisms of social media.
Photo Credit: Maddy Nguyen.
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Nitsch originates out of Rochester and is a multi-instrument recording artist and has been a member of several orchestras and chamber ensembles, eventually becoming an awarded concertmaster of the NY Conference All-State String Orchestra.
He has provided backup vocals for Josh Groban’s summer tour during his stop in Saratoga Springs and performed for Rochester Philharmonic League Young Artists Auditions Winners Recital and the Rochester Music Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.
Sam Nitch’s second album Under the Influencer comes out on Aug. 26, and it is written about the common criticisms of social media, and how it can be harmful to those who compare themselves to others. He wrote this during the pandemic when suddenly everyone became isolated.
His most recent single “Follow Me” is an upbeat, chill song with lyrics about social media and cancel culture. The chorus “Follow me/Like what I do/Tell all your friends to follow too/What can I say?/It’s what I do/Find what you want,” is a good comment about society and social media, and how we are so concerned with our followers and who is following us, it is addicting.
The brand new album from Sam Nitsch called Under the Influencer is out now on all streaming platforms.
Multi-instrumentalist Marco Benevento has announced additional tour dates to his upcoming fall tour including a stop at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn this November. The run is in support of the artist’s recent studio album released this June titled, Benevento.
Based in Hudson Valley, Benevento begins his tour on Sept. 3 in Portland, Maine, at the Ghostland Festival before closing out in Holyoke, Massachusetts, at Race Street Live on Nov. 19. The newly added dates and Brooklyn stop will bring the artist back to the place where he was a resident for almost 20 years.
Benevento recorded his recent album in the middle of the pandemic at his home studio in Hudson Valley. His solo jam sessions spurred inspiration as did the ability to experiment with instruments and equipment that had been unused for some time. While most of the record was solely Benevento, his wife and daughter contributed to the album as vocalists.
The album was released with rave reviews from listeners. The 11-track album includes elements of lo-fi dance jams, psychedelic, and West-African groove, and is a 40-minute record of creative experimentation.
For the complete tour schedule of the upcoming shows, see below. Tickets are on sale now and available on the artist’s website, here.
Ghost Light has announced their sophomore studio album The Healing, which will release on October 7 via Royal Potato Family with the new song “Take Some Time” and an accompanying tour. The Healing Tour will visit Brooklyn on October 14 and Albany on October 21.
Ghost Light. The Healing Tour. (L-R): Scotty Zwang (drums) Raina Mullen (guitar, vocals), Tom Hamilton (guitar, vocals), Holly Bowling (piano), Photo: David Veltri
Ghost Light is a five-piece American jam band formed in 2017 which consists of Scotty Zwang (drums) Raina Mullen (guitar, vocals), Tom Hamilton (guitar, vocals), and Holly Bowling (piano).
“The story is less the fallout as it is the recovery. Sticking with it. Staying the course in the face of adversity, uncomfortable conversations or situations. The path to health and healing is often not the path of least resistance but the path of perseverance and doing the work.”
Tom Hamilton
Their new song “Take Some Time” is a syncopated synth-heavy indie-rock song following the release of “Don’t Say Goodnight Just Yet.” It contains an earworm of a chorus with a nasty bass line and sparkling guitar solos perfect for a top-down end of summer road trip. The music video is also available on their official website.
Ghost Light will kick off The Healing Tour on October 6 and will play through the Midwest and East Coast and will back out west before their last stop in Los Angeles on December 16.
THE HEALING TOUR
OCT 6 @ TURF CLUB | ST. PAUL, MN
OCT 7 @ BACK ROOM AT COLECTIVO | MILWAUKEE, WI
OCT 8 @ PARK WEST | CHICAGO, IL
OCT 9 @ MAGIC BAG | FERNDALE, MI
OCT 12 @ THE WAREHOUSE | FAIRFIELD, CT
OCT 14 @ BROOKLYN BOWL | BROOKLYN, NY
OCT 15 @ BROOKLYN BOWL PHILADELPHIA | PHILADELPHIA, PA
OCT 16 @ THUNDERBIRD MUSIC HALL | PITTSBURGH, PA
OCT 20 @ BANK OF NEW HAMPSHIRE STAGE | CONCORD, NH
Alternative rock pioneers, the Pixies, have announced an intimate 4-date U.S. tour set to kick-off on October, 1. After being benched for nearly two years due to COVID, this set of performances will come on the heels of a massive global tour that begins in June. During that time, the Pixies will perform at a number of festivals throughout Europe, Asia and South America. Their return will be quickly followed by the September 30 release of their 8th studio album, Doggerel (BMG).
Their October run will see them perform at four intimate venues between California and New York. Beginning on October, 1 at SOMA and concluding on October, 5 at New York City’s Terminal 5 venue. As is the Pixies’ “standard,” the band will draw from their extensive catalogue to perform a different set every night. Attendees can expect the band to perform not only some of the most beloved Pixies songs, but also, new tracks from Doggerel.
Doggerel album cover
Pixies have been acclaimed as the most influential, pioneering band of the late 80s alternative rock movement, having served as a major influence for bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Radiohead, the Strokes, Weezer, and many more. The group has released seven studio albums including the Gold- certified Surfer Rosa, and the iconic Platinum, Doolittle.
Dates for the Pixies October slate can be found below, while tickets are on sale here.
Pixies October Tour dates
Sat. October, 1 – San Diego, CA – SOMA Sun. October, 2 – Anaheim, CA – House of Blues
Todd Snider has announced his “American Troubadour Tour” for September and October 2022. The dates will begin on the East Coast on September 7th at the Harvester Performance Center in Rocky Mount, VA. Then will kick off on Swyer Theatre at The Egg at 7:30pm, September 13.
Singer-songwriter Lilly Winwood, daughter of British rock legend Steve Winwood, will support Snider’s tour with songs in her 2021 debut album Time Well Spent.
Todd Snider American Troubadour Tour
Along with Snider’s “American Troubadour Tour” his new record Live: Return Of The Storyteller will release at the same time. It was captured during his first shows back from the pandemic and follows up the 2011 concert album The Storyteller. Snider also recently shared a new single, “First Agnostic Church Of Hope And Wonder,” which was highly recommended by the Associated Press.
Todd Snider
Tickets for the “American Troubadour Tour” are on sale now at toddsnider.net.
Todd Snider – American Troubadour Tour Dates
September 7 – Harvester Performance Center – Rocky Mount, VA*
September 9 – Infinity Hall Norfolk – Norfolk, CT*
September 10 – Narrows Center for the Arts – Fall River, MA*
September 11 – Infinity Hall Hartford – Hartford, CT*
September 13 – Swyer Theatre at The Egg – Albany, NY*
September 15 – StageOne – Fairfield, CT*
September 16 – The Center for Arts in Natick – Natick, MA*
September 17 – Sellersville Theater – Sellersville, PA*
September 18 – The Queen – Wilmington, DE*
September 29 – Paramount Theatre – Denver, CO+
October 1 – The Wilma – Missoula, MT+
October 2 – The ELM – Bozeman, MT+
October 3 – Egyptian Theatre – Boise, ID@
October 4 – Tower Theatre – Bend, OR@
October 6 – Revolution Hall – Portland, OR@
October 7 – Soreng Theater at Hult Center – Eugene, OR@
October 8 – Neptune Theatre – Seattle, WA@
October 9 – The Bing Crosby Theater – Spokane, WA@
October 12 – Arcata Theater Lounge – Arcata, CA@
October 13 – Raven Theatre – Healdsburg, CA@
October 14 – Great American Music Hall – San Francisco, CA@
October 16 – Rio Theatre – Santa Cruz, CA@
October 18 – The Fremont Theater – San Luis Obispo, CA@
October 19 – The Coach House – San Juan Capistrano, CA@
October 21 – Paradise Performing Arts Center – Paradise, CA~
October 22 – Bally’s Lake Tahoe Casino Resort – South Lake Tahoe, NV~
October 24 – The State Room – Salt Lake City, UT~
October 25 – The State Room – Salt Lake City, UT~
October 26 – Washington’s – Fort Collins, CO
October 28 – Knuckleheads – Kansas City, MO
October 29 – Scottish Rite Hall – Omaha, NE
October 30 – Wooly’s – Des Moines, IA
October 31 – Jamf Theatre – Eau Claire, WI
* with Lilly Winwood + with Nicki Bluhm @ with Ryan Montbleau ~ with Ray Wylie Hubbard
On Friday, 10 June, Brooklyn quartet band Living Room released their new album, New Years. After their growth in the last decade, the band performed their surprising leveling up in this album.
Living Room
Based out of Brooklyn, Living Room is anchored by a decade-long friendship between their members, and now joined indie label Fear Icon Records. It has Scott Fitzpatrick and John Nicholls on guitar/vocals, Kevin Dobbins on bass, and Fred Trumpy on drums.
Influenced by late ’90s and early aught acts, Living Room released a rich discography that blends emo, shoegaze, and post-punk. Their discography displays their evolving and precise musicianship with lyrics that reflect the complexity, vicissitude, and euphoria of life.
The first powerful impression of this album is its strong sense of rhythm. Based on the intense drumbeats, “Mauve Frame” successful built a cheerful but absurd environment. And the drum is the spine to support the emotional storytelling from the lyrics and vocals.
Guitar and bass played an important role in performing their shoegaze style. The long and droning riffs in “Flood” expressed the shoegaze style of the band. This album widely used such sound in guitar and bass performing.
Stand out tracks like “Petrol Head” and “Flood” have big choruses that shine with the production work of Gary Cioni. Cooperated with the Scott and John’s vocal, the big choruses amplified the emotion embeded in the songs.
Lyrically the album used metaphor to express their feelings. Written by the two vocals, the lyrics told the feelings of romance and life experiences. “All I saw was the mauve frame. It all looked burnt orange to me. I’m sorry, it’s not funny. A world so colorful yet so boring”, they sang in the “Mauve Frame”, with the bright melodies reflected the loneliness in the song.
$uicideboy$ have announced the upcoming Bring Grey Day Tour from August to October. The show will kick off on September 13 at the Brooklyn Mirage. An open-air sanctuary in the center of the Avant Gardner complex, the inner courtyard of Brooklyn Mirage is surrounded by towering walls and connected to views of the iconic city skyline by a singular catwalk.
$uicideboy$
$uicideboy$ is a hip hop duo from New Orleans, consists of Ruby da Cherry and $crim. The temptation will via G*59 RECORDS on July 29.
$uicideboy$ have announced the upcoming release of their new album Sing Me A Lullaby My Sweet Temptationon June 8th. To celebrate the album release, $uicideboy$ will start on a 40-city nationwide Grey Day Tour with special guests that include Ski Mask The Slump God, $not, JPEGMAFIA, Code Orange, Knocked Loose and Maxo Kream.
Previously, the lead single “THE_EVIL_THAT_MEN_DO” debuted last month and on June 10, the new single “Escape from BABYLON” from their new album which expressed both relationship opinions from Ruby and $crim.
Sing Me A Lullaby My Sweet Temptation is the group’s third official full-length following 2021’s The Long Term Effects Of SUFFERING. The Long Term Effects Of SUFFERING surpassed 300 Million streams on Spotify and covered by media outlets Pitchfork, HotNewHipHop, HipHopDX and more.
$uicideboy$
A full list of tour dates are below.Tickets go on sale Friday, June 10 at 10 am from G*59 RECORDS’s website: https://g59records.com/tour
2022 TOUR DATES:
6/18 – Manchester, TN – Bonnaroo Festival
8/2 – Chicago, IL – Huntington Bank Pavilion *
8/5 – Detroit, MI – Pine Knob Music Theatre *
8/6 – Minneapolis, MN – Somerset Amphitheater *
8/7 – Milwaukee, WI – American Family Insurance Amphitheater *
8/8 – Lincoln, NE – Pinnacle Bank Arena +
8/10 – Albuquerque, MN – Isleta Amphitheater +
8/12 – San Diego, CA – North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre +
8/13 – San Francisco, CA – Bill Graham Civic Auditorium +!
8/14 – Sacramento, CA – Toyota Amphitheatre +
8/15 – Reno, NV – Reno Events Center +
8/17 – Seattle, WA – Climate Pledge Arena +
8/18 – Boise, ID – Ford Idaho Center Amphitheater
8/19 – Portland, OR – Veterans Memorial Coliseum
8/21 – Salt Lake City, UT – USANA Amphitheatre
8/23 – Oklahoma City, OK – The Zoo Amphitheater
8/24 – Kansas City, MO – Azura Amphitheater
8/26 – Austin, TX – Germania Insurance Amphitheater
8/27 – Dallas, TX – Dos Equis Pavilion
8/28 – Houston, TX – 713 Music Hall
8/31 – Tampa, FL – Yuengling Center
9/1 – Jacksonville, FL – Daily’s Place Amphitheater
Welcome to the fuzzy synth, wet bass and glittery guitar that is Harry’s House. Superstar Harry Styles‘ third album release has some old formulas, new movement, and as always, a lot of falsetto. It shouldn’t surprise any fans that this record is also packed with mushy moments, breakup stories, and rather scandalous dirty talk, as this is Harry’s first record since landing his new lady Olivia Wilde.
Even in the throes of a public relationship, Harry does not fail to bring a variety of influences and ideas into his music to create something that feels truly like home.
Straight away, it is jarring to hear a brass band mixed into Harry’s energetic first track “Music For a Sushi Restaurant”. The masterful blend of disco rhythms and 80s influenced electronic elements creates the whipped cream that tops many songs on the album, including the pop marvel “Daydreaming”. This masterpiece of a track has an engaging hook that samples the Brothers Johnson and earns Quincy Jones a spot on the album’s writing credits. It’s clear that Harry Styles is doing his research into soul music, and songs like the sultry r&b number “Daylight” and the rhythmic “Grapejuice” have a modern, funky foundation to tie the album together seamlessly.
It’s satisfying to see Harry take so many new directions, but what needs trimming are the formulaic songs that round out this album. The acoustic love songs surrounded by waves of harmony or the ambient breakup anthems are very familiar, and it seems the rock and roll energy we’ve seen in Harry’s 2017 title album is missing in Harry’s House. His live shows are a huge affair, and harder rock songs like “Kiwi” and “Only Angel” are the perfect choice for these live performances. As he rightfully progresses into funk, he shouldn’t retire his rock frontman persona just yet. This is a chain of many great albums to come, but let’s hope he dives deeper into the realm of brass funk, leaves behind the old successes, and gives us more of the modern rock and roll we need right now.
Key Tracks: Music For a Sushi Restaurant, Daylight, Daydreaming
Albany pop-punk veterans State Champs have returned with their fourth studio album Kings of the New Age, a 35-minute montage of guitar-driven angst and lust that rarely slows down.
Kings of the New Age is the first release by the band to feature only one guitarist, after Tony Diaz stepped away in 2020. Nevertheless, the group’s sound isn’t any smaller, with the other four members nicely filling in the gaps. This is aided by some tight production from California based Drew Fulk a.k.a. WZRD BLD, whose collaborations include Lil Wayne, A Day To Remember, and Ice Nine Kills. Cleanly mixed, the band’s full arrangement shines through on Kings of the New Age, with no instrument or vocal sounding unclear, choppy or overshadowed.
While production does play a significant role in the band’s presence standing tall with a smaller lineup, credit has to be given to Tyler Szalkowski for his increased duties as both lead and rhythm guitarist. Songs like “Here to Stay” and “Just Sound” showcase guitar work that both maintains a loud presence while enhancing the song melodically.
Cover art for Kings of the New Age.
Lyrically the album generally focuses on topics of romantic lust and strife. “Being with you is like working on the weekend,” sings lead vocalist Derek DiScanio on the chorus of “Everybody But You,” the album’s lead single. Even though romance is a major focus of the record, songs like “Here to Stay,” which begins the album, reinforce the idea behind the album’s title. “The kings of the new age, the wrong time, the right place,” sings Discanio in the track’s opening lines.
With State Champs entering the scene of pop-punk after the genre’s boom in the late ’90s and early 2000s and before its recent renewal with Machine Gun Kelly’s pivot towards the genre hatching new commercial attention, the optics of this timing might not be great, but they don’t mind. “On our own it’s safe to say, we’re here to stay,” DiScanio sings at the end of the opener’s chorus.
State Champs attempt to reinforce this footprint on Kings of the New Age with four features scattered across the album, with appearances from Neck Deep’s Ben Barlow, Against The Current’s Chrissy Costanza, Nashville country pop singer Mitchell Tenpenny, and Four Year Strong’s Alan Day & Dan O’Connor.
Each artist is given a bridge to sing or maybe a little more on the tracks which they have feature duties, which is something that holds back the effort and impact of these guest contributions. Chrissy Costanza’s contribution on “Half Empty” slightly stands apart in this regard however, with her bridge and chorus near the song’s ending adding another perspective to this track about a struggling relationship.
And even though part of this album’s mission is clearly dedicated to not changing up the band’s formula, this leads to Kings of the New Age sounding repetitive at points. This is why slight deviations on songs such as “Act Like That,” which functions more as a straightforward pop rock track, and closer “Some Minds Don’t Change” with its loud, waltzy chorus are easily appreciable moments.
Nevertheless, State Champs’ classic pop-punk formula works out well overall, with loud anthemic choruses and relatable melancholy lyrics shaping a strong album for the seasoned band. Kings of the New Age doesn’t reshape the punk genre or push too hard on any boundaries, but it’s good enough on its own to prove that State Champs deserve to hang around.
Key Tracks: Here To Stay, Just Sound, Act Like That” (featuring Mitchell Tenpenny)
Long Island-based emo-pop duo poptropicaslutz! released their debut EP, just in case the world ends on May 6.
poptropicaslutz formed during the pandemic. Credit Eli Rae.
Composed of Nick Crawford and Christian Cicillia, the group’s seven-track project explores their inspiration with a no holds barred approach to making music.
Just In Case The World Ends is a project that started during the global pandemic, as poptropicaslutz! was forming, and the “end of the world” didn’t seem so farfetched,” the duo explained. “We thought about what album we’d make if it was our last chance to make one.”
The cover art for the debut EP, “just in case the world ends”, from poptropicasltuz!
The EP is released under Epitaph Records and is mixed by Matt Malpass, who previously worked with Blink 182 and MGK.
Most of the songs on just in case the world ends have a traditional pop punk song structure and content—self-aware lyrics and romantic themes. But poptropicaslutz! modernizes them with sparkly synths in their production. The combination of which makes for a fresh take on the hyper-punk genre.
poptropicaslutz! also released a music video for their lead track “this might be our last december” featuring Canadian artist 8485. According to the duo, this collaboration is the embodiment of the intersection of pop-punk and hyper-pop that they’re known for.
Throughout the EP the Gen Z duo showcase their interests in experimentation. Particularly with the track “lackluster at best, masterpiece at worst” which features an acoustic guitar as opposed to their usual hard hitting electric guitars of pop punk.
On “hysteria is impossible without an audience” they offer up some classic emo music before closing out the track with some impassioned screamo.
just in case the world ends is accompanied by a series of animated music videos from Rob Fidel. The 3-part cartoon series follows the mishaps of a group of evil genius pigs with mohawks who desperately search for a way to fly.
