Artist Category: Rock | Page 4

Melanie Brulée & Her Bad Manners

Born in Cornwall Ontario to bilingual parents, Toronto-based Melanie Brulée interweaves her native language into her art like she crisscrosses musical genres: with ease.

From the first listen, you can hear how her years living in Australia and France have influenced her style and sound. The first offering rich surf-style guitar tones and catchy hooks and the latter blurring the lines between audience and performer, like a speakeasy cabaret. What most might call Americana, folk-rock or country music, Melanie colours with her own distinctive essence, bringing a vintage respect to a modern sound. Seeing her ease onstage, it’s clear that’s where she feels most at home, quickly winning over audiences with her charisma.

Melanie’s striking stage presence, unique vocal stylings and expressive confidence have opened several doors for her since the release of her French album Débridée (2015), giving her the chance to build a solid team including management, booking, distribution and publishing. Critically acclaimed by media in Québec as well as across Canada, the album earned Melanie a Stingray Music Rising Star Award as well as three Trille Or nominations at Canada’s largest recognition of excellence in the arts outside of Québec. Melanie was featured on the official Ontario 150 anthem ‘A Place to Stand’ which was highly distributed across the province during 2017.

Connor Garvey

Connor Garvey is an award-winning singer-songwriter from Portland, Maine, with the amiable presence of an entertainer, the lyrical depth of a poet, and the enchantment of a storyteller. Garvey leaves audiences uplifted and inspired through a positive message delivered in a way The Portland Press Herald says “proves you can be optimistic and self-aware without being boring.”

This combination of songwriting and performance strength helped Garvey make his music scene start with numerous awards including being named winner of the Kerrville New Folk, Rocky Mountain Folks Fest, SolarFest, Wildflower Art and Music Festival and Maine Songwriters Association songwriting competitions, voted as Most Wanted artist at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, nominated for Best Male Performer in the New England Music Awards, and a top new singer songwriter by Sirius XM’s The Coffeehouse. He has since gone on to perform around the country at many of the most notable folk/acoustic venues, festival stages, and teaching songwriting at some of the more distinguished song schools.

While the pandemic brought a sharp drop in live performances, Connor dedicated his time to finishing an acoustic EP in 2020 and a full length band album (to be titled: Another End of a Year) being released this summer. Both of these projects were recorded locally in Portland featuring some of the area’s best gigging and recording artists. Connor has made a name for himself as a solo artist but this 2022 release, and the shows that accompany it, highlight the band that has been the backbone of Connor’s albums since 2011 and closest musical collaborators. Audiences should expect the same dedication to the intimate song delivery but allow themselves the opportunity to get lost in the rhythms and textures that these exceptional musicians bring to the experience.

Come catch this exclusive Boston area album release to hear the full band bring these songs to life and be some of the first people to take home the music with you (in hand or on your device).

The Loomers

The Loomers are a band of friends who have been passionate about making music an integral part of our hectic, full-time lives for almost 25 years. Our songbook is a trip through the American musical landscape –– infused with the classic sounds of driving rock, heartland folk, rock & soul, and retro-1980s pop –– filled with the joy, hope, sorrow and wonder of growing older.

Our musical family has expanded over the years. These days it’s comprised of JON SVETKEY (acoustic guitar, lead vocals, songs), EVERETT PENDLETON (electric guitar, harmony vocals), JACK CAVALIER (bass guitar, harmony vocals), MICHAEL CAHILL (drums), ROB LAURENS (keyboards), HEATHER QUAY (harmony vocals), and TOM SIMONS (electric guitar). Occasionally some of our incredible friends — like Jeff Isen (guitar, mandolin, trombone), Jakub Trasak (violin), Josh Kantor (keyboards) or Jim Wooster (electric guitar) — will sit in with us.

Some cool things we’ve been lucky enough to do over the years: we backed John Mellencamp at a party at the 2004 Democratic National Convention; performed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Fenway Park, The House of Blues, Club Passim, The Somerville Theatre, and CBGBs, among many venues; and, we won the Berklee College Of Music “Battle Of The Executive Bands” twice. We’ve released five albums — Reeling Down A Road (2010), Tomorrow Today (2006), SHINE (2004), Simple As That (1998) and escalation(1997) — and our songs have been played on CBS, Cinemax, MTV, NBC, & PBS, as well as internationally online and on cable. We have been immensely honored to have performed at events that have raised tens of thousands of dollars for charities big and small.

Sean Trischka

Sean Trischka brings a reverence for the old with his visions of the new. With his finger on so many pulses of so much music, and a brain entrenched in history and tradition, all of Sean’s influences shine through in his songs and playing while still funneling a poignant, coherent and razor sharp vision of his sound. Hard-funk drumming sensibilities mash with the sensitive poet mash with the folksy songwriter to create a bed of introspective, soulful and groovy music. Playing drums and vocals when with a band, guitar and vocals when solo, his music stabs like a knife and softens like a cloud. Sean Trischka is rock-hard.

Asa Brebner

Johnny Irion

Johnny Irion is a rocker in and out of time.

There’s something kind of timeless in the way he wrings out the sweetest melodies and deeper passions of both ‘60s Californian rock and Guthrie-era folk, and something so timely about the way he does it – there’s a reason Bernie Sanders asked him to sing at a rally in his sometimes-home of Santa Barbara.

Best known for his folk explorations with his wife Sarah Lee Guthrie, including their recent Wassaic Way produced by Jeff Tweedy, and his latest rock venture with US ELEVATOR, which Will Hermes of Rolling Stone Magazine praised for its “songs that are hand crafted as lovingly as the jeans on the back of After the Goldrush,” Irion has earned a reputation as one of the most exciting artists across the folk-rock spectrum, from his uncannily Young-Nilsson-esque voice to his melodic and lyrical mettle.

Irion has just wrapped up a solo record, Driving Friend, with members of Dawes, Wilco, Nicki Bluhm, and The Gramblers, due out this spring.

Steve Forbert

Years before Americana music earned its own category at the Grammy Awards, Steve Forbert helped pioneer the genre’s mix of folk, roots-rock, and richly delivered storytelling. He’s been a torchbearer of that sound for more than four decades since, navigating the twists and turns of an acclaimed career that’s taken him from gold records to Grammy nominations, from New York City’s CBGB to Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe, from his 1978 debut album to 2022’s vital and versatile Moving Through America.

Forbert has been at the forefront of Americana ever since his start in the late 70s. In 1979, “Romeo’s Tune,” a track from Forbert’s breakthrough, Jackrabbit Slim, became a hit and his career took off. When New Wave bands began to dominate the FM airwaves several years later, Forbert stuck to his guns, continuing to fly the flag for organic roots music that proudly blurred the lines between genres. Releasing 20 albums in twice as many years, he has remained prolific well into the 21st century, serving as an elder statesman of Americana music while still writing music that’s spry and steadfast. He’s also a member of the Mississippi Music Hall of Fame, author of the lauded memoir Big City Cat: My Life in Folk-Rock, and a Grammy nominee for his tribute to Jimmie Rodgers, Any Old Time. Meanwhile, his older songs continue to resonate in today’s world, with Keith Urban recording his own version of “Romeo’s Tune” on the artist’s platinum-certified album Greatest Hits: 18 Kids.

Ry Cavanaugh

Ry Cavanaugh was 22 when his father – a country and honky-tonk singer in the late 1970’s – died of heart failure after several years of struggle with chronic depression and prescription opiate addiction. A big-hearted and hard-dreaming man, George Cavanaugh had created a vibrant, often chaotic home life in which music and community were the twin, magical threads.

In 2019, having reached the age at which his father died, Ry carved out time in the midst of recording and touring with his band Session Americana to cut his first solo album in 20 years. The result, Time For This, is the realization of a long-ripening desire to recover and document the songs his father had written four decades prior. A singular departure for an artist who has made his career within the fabric of community, Time For This shifts the focus squarely on his own voice, offering up stark and intimate renditions of the songs that framed his childhood: resurrected, re-worked, and recorded knee-to-knee with Duke Levine, with Jennifer Kimball adding exceptionally delicate harmonies.

Thank God for Science

Thank God For Science is a one of a kind musical medium that explores sonic and musical vocabulary searching for harmony, chaos, enlightenment and everything in between.

Jeremy Moses Curtis (Booker T, Jeffrey Foucault, Twinemen) penned the first two volumes while settling into Fatherhood after a long run of touring throughout the world as a bassist for hire. On keyboards, James Rohr and on guitar, Mike Castellana, both from one of the most well respected groups in Boston, The Blue Ribbons. On drums, Peter MacLean (Township, Maceo Parker). A drummer who can induce a meditation on “pocket” after a mere 8 bars. Laurence Scudder (Spotted Tiger, Brothers McCann) adds his refined blend of natural and effected Viola while Barry Rothman (Radio Swan, Kosher Ham) maintains the voodoo on vintage turntables and effect pedals to create an atmosphere that is wholly unique. On Perfectly placed guitars, Marc Pinansky (Township, Bored Of Health). Marc was kind enough to lend his talents producing “Volume One” along with recording Maestro Dave Westner (Peter Wolf, Wooly Mammoth Sound) at Armory Sound in Somerville, MA in March of 2015.

Mary Gauthier

Dark Enough To See The Stars

“Writing helps me sort out confusion, untangle powerful emotions, and ward off desperation. It helps me navigate the powerful emotional weather systems of life.”
– Mary Gauthier, Saved by a Song: The Art and Healing Power of Songwriting

As she has so eloquently accomplished over the past 25 years, acclaimed singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier has used her art once again to traverse the uncharted waters of the past few years. “I’m the kind of songwriter who writes what I see in the world right now,” she affirms. Thankfully, amid dark storms of pandemic loss, she found and followed the beacon of new love: Her gift to us, the powerful Dark Enough to See the Stars, collects ten sparkling jewels of Gauthier songcraft reflecting both love and loss.

Her eleventh album, Dark Enough to See the Stars, follows the profound antidote to trauma, Rifles & Rosary Beads, her 2018 collaborative work with wounded Iraq war veterans. It garnered a Grammy nomination for Best Folk Album, as well as a nomination for Album of the Year by the Americana Music Association. Publication of her first book, the illuminating Saved by a Song: The Art and Healing Power of Songwriting, in 2021, brought her more praise. Brandi Carlile has said, “Mary’s songwriting speaks to the tender aspects of our humanness. We need her voice in times like these more than we ever have.” The Associated Press called Gauthier “one of the best songwriters of her generation.”

Gauthier’s early work, which began at 35, reflected her newfound sobriety, delving into events from a troubled life, which persisted after she became a renowned chef in Boston. Dark Enough to See the Stars returns Gauthier to the scintillating confessional mode on such albums as her breakthrough release, 2005’s Mercy Now, as well as such ear worms as the hook-laden “Drag Queens in Limousines.” In addition to crafting instantly memorable songs, Gauthier has never shied away from difficult self-exploration, as with 2010’s The Foundling, on which she explored the repercussions of her adoption from a New Orleans orphanage and subsequent search for her birth mother.

On Dark Enough to See the Stars, she mourns recent devastating losses: the deaths of John Prine, David Olney, Nanci Griffith, and her beloved friend Betsy. But she also sings open-heartedly of love. All ten tracks prove Gauthier’s belief, as stated in Saved by a Song, that “songs can bring us a deep understanding of each other and ourselves and open the heart to love.”

Deep emotion resonates throughout Dark Enough to See the Stars. “It kicks off with three love songs,” says Gauthier. “Somewhere along the work I’ve done in therapy through art and 32 years of recovery, I’ve somehow stabilized enough to be in a relationship that works – and I want to express that in these songs.” The joyous triad – the catchy “Fall Apart World,” the lilting ballad “Amsterdam,” and gospel-tinged “Thank God for You” – each punctuated with Danny Mitchell’s evocative keyboards – comes alive with poetic imagery.

“Thank God for You” contrasts her former life – “another junkie jonesing on a Greyhound bus” – with the state of grace she’s found. Lush instrumentation perfectly underpins the anthemic “Fall Apart World,” which Gauthier calls “adult music.” While on a writing sojourn in Key West, she explains, “It’s understanding that things come together and things fall apart. The awareness of that is an opportunity for gratitude. Right now, I’m looking out the window – and I can’t believe I get to be here! I don’t take it for granted for one millisecond!”

Gauthier’s partner, Jaimee Harris, who sings harmony throughout the album, co-wrote the paean to one of Gauthier’s favorite cities. “I have a long history with Amsterdam,” Gauthier recounts. “My first record deal was on a Dutch label, and I tour there regularly, and much of Mercy Now was written at my favorite hotel there.” A canceled flight to Denmark landed Gauthier and Harris in Amsterdam for an unexpected three days during the pandemic. “To return to that hotel and be able to share that with the person I love and show her the city…,” Gauthier pauses. “It’s complicated – because all around the edges was the pandemic. But you’ve got to express your joy – a joy that’s not free from pain. There’s grief all around us, but there’s this ability to still love and still be aware that the sky is beautiful and the hand that I’m holding is filled with love…”

The album’s bittersweet title track, “Dark Enough to See the Stars,” cowritten with Beth Nielsen Chapman, resonates with that very same emotion. “When things get really hard and the walls are closing in and it starts to get dark, you realize what really matters,” Gauthier says. “And what really matters, of course, is love. Even though my friend Betsy is gone, I get to hold on to her love. And I get to hold on to the love that John Prine showed me, and Nanci Griffith and David Olney. It occurred to me while working on the title track that love didn’t die with them. That was a gift that was given to me that I get to keep.”

As on the memory-rich track, “The Meadow,” Fats Kaplin’s haunting pedal steel guitar expresses the sonics of fleeting time, a theme Gauthier explores on one of the first songs written for the album, back in 2019. After performing in Albany, New York, the solitary troubadour found herself yearning for her newly discovered soulmate’s “candlestick fingers on my skin”: The poignant “About Time” documents that lonesome highway, while the singalong waltz “Truckers and Troubadours” acknowledges musical vagabonds’ kinship with long-haulers; in fact, Gauthier and co-writer Darden Smith collaborated with Paul “Long Haul” Marhoefer on the ear-catching lyrics. “Paul said that when Darden and I get together and start talking,” says Gauthier, “we sound like two truck drivers.”

Finally, Dark Enough to See the Stars bids farewell to Gauthier’s tragically departed friends: “Where Are You Now” paints an autumnal picture of the trails where she and Betsy roamed; “How Could You Be Gone” expresses in detail the disbelief inherent in our goodbyes; and “Til I See You Again” offers a prayer “to all those I hope to reunite with,” says Gauthier.

As throughout Dark Enough to See the Stars, all three compositions exemplify Mary Gauthier’s songwriting brilliance: They offer beauty in sorrow, healing in loss, and a perspective only an artist of uncommon generosity can give. Thank God for Mary Gauthier.