Category: press releases

For Immediate Release
August 9, 2018

 

Alt-Folk collective Alright Alright set to release debut full-length album in October

Denver-based alt-folk collective Alright Alright – driven by the powerhouse husband-and-wife songwriting team of Seth and China Kent – is set to release its debut full-length album, Nearby, on October 5, 2018 via Hooves and Sugar Record Co.  The seductively atmospheric record was produced by the duo with Eric Dawson Tate and Ben Wysocki, mixed by Eric Dawson Tate, and mastered by Alan Douches of West West Side Music.

From the strings-and-choir-driven wishing-well aspirations of “Be Kind” to the slow-building smoky-twangy revelations of “By the Bed” to the zeitgeist temperature-taking of “Luckiest Girl in America” to the harmonic bent-truth yearnings of “The Liar,” Nearby deftly carries the listener through each gripping, successive chapter of the ever-growing, ever-evolving Alright Alright saga.

“Every song on Nearby is a combination of who produced it and who recorded it,” observes China, who gifts the music they make with vocals, piano, keyboards, and string arrangements. “And the challenge,” adds her partner Seth, who performs vocals and acoustic and electric guitar, “was in making it all into something cohesive.” Nearby also serves as a companion piece to Alright Alright’s 2016 Faraway EP, the titles of which China gleaned after reading Rebecca Solnit’s insightful 2013 essay collection, The Faraway Nearby. Points out Seth, “Our songwriting has become more and more personal. Each song on Nearby was more directly, yet sometimes obtusely, about us. The writing mode we’re now in fuses material about place with material about the personal.”

Each Kent channels an impressive C.V. into Alright Alright’s musical DNA. China attended Vanderbilt University and is a classically trained pianist, while Seth has spent time on record and on tour as a guitar tech with the super-successful Denver-bred alt-rockers The Fray (“Over My Head (Cable Car),” “How to Save a Life”). Together, the Kents have also helped compose the scores for a number of fine independent films including Brick, Blue State, The Brothers Bloom, and Jam. The sonic scope of these scores, well, underscore just how adept the married duo are when it comes to bringing such cinematic sensibilities into their own work.

Both China and Seth grew up in self-described “musically conservative” households before eventually finding common ground in their mutual love of U2’s 1991 game-changing and genre-challenging Achtung Baby. “Hearing that album on endless repeat opened up the idea that you could make a simple song say something really powerful,” Seth reports. Concurs China, “It was a total shift, especially for someone classically trained like me. I forced myself to listen to Achtung Baby over and over again because it sounded so dissonant to me, but I had to make my ears comply with what I was hearing.”

There was a brief period of time the Kents contemplated throwing in the towel altogether as they raised their kids, but something inside just wouldn’t give. “The creative pull was ultimately too strong,” admits China. “It was an epiphany to realize this was what I have to bring to the world.” Seth had his own creative epiphany following the end of a different outside gig. “Why go through the pain and agony of reinventing myself when I could do music with someone who I like?” he muses. “Musically speaking, we come from very different backgrounds, but we make it work.”

Perhaps there’s no better indication of Alright Alright being on the exact right path than the live audience response they’ve been getting to the recast version of “Luckiest Girl in America,” a onetime Song of the Month entry from 2016 that has since taken up a rightful position on Nearby. “We put that song back in the setlist a few months ago, and that was the one that brought total silence to the room,” marvels China. “People need that song right now. I mean, I could talk about America for so long. America is less a place and more an idea. We are right in the middle of this huge Venn diagram of what we believe about America, and what we think it should be.” Seth agrees, then adds, “We’re also saying to people that it’s okay to have that emotion — it’s okay to feel and care about this place we live in, and someone else doesn’t get to choose that we don’t.”

Concludes China, “I feel like the music on Nearby is our way of reclaiming these ideals by saying, ‘Nope — I live here too, and this is my way of doing things.’ And that’s the magic of music, isn’t it? It’s why I also love playing house shows and in small community listening rooms. We’re all experiencing this musical moment together. We sing these songs that pierce the heart. I mean, there are many, many tears at our shows sometimes, but it’s all part of this experience we have together that you can’t get outside of music.”

Sharing the musical magic in a live setting is in the cards, as the twosome plans to support the album with shows (see confirmed tour schedule below). Already they’ve enjoyed touring opportunities this year as varied as the Nowhere Else Festival over Memorial Day weekend, and in July, Seth, China, and their kids paddled the Colorado River for several days with the acclaimed Centennial Canoe Outfitters; each evening, the duo performed a combination of original songs, campfire songs, and beloved covers for the other river travelers.

Alright Alright Tour Schedule:
Aug. 18 – Silver Plume, CO – Bread Bar
Oct. 5 – Fort Collins, CO – Magic Rat
Oct. 11 – Lincoln, NE – Zoo Bar (w/Andrea Von Kampen)
Oct. 13 – Denver, CO – Syntax
Oct. 19 – Taos, NM – Adobe Bar at Taos Inn
Oct. 26 – Topeka, KS – Last Minute Folk
Oct. 27 – Kansas City, MO – Californos
… more dates to be announced soon!

http://alrightx2.com

https://twitter.com/the_alrightx2

https://www.facebook.com/alrightx2

https://www.instagram.com/alrightx2music/

For Immediate Release
August 6, 2018

 

ACCLAIMED ALT-COUNTRY SONGWRITER/PERFORMER
GREG HAWKS TO RELEASE NEW ALBUM IN OCTOBER

Chapel Hill, NC-based songwriter, frontman, and multi-instrumentalist Greg Hawks is set to release his latest album, I Think It’s Time, independently on October 12, 2018.  He casts a wide net with the record, which was inspired by the twang of classic country, the hooks of 1970s pop/rock, the rhythmic soul of old-school Stax records, and Hawks’ own roots in the American South. With influences that veer from Big Star to Buck Owens, I Think It’s Time shines new light on an enduring, eclectic musician who was making Americana music long before the genre had a name.

“The album is a culmination of all my influences, thrown into a big pot as separate ingredients and turned into something cohesive and new,” says Hawks, who recorded I Think It’s Time at his home studio in Chapel Hill. He produced the album himself, playing most of the instruments — from finger-style acoustic guitar to keyboards — along the way. He then turned to Chris Stamey (the dB’s, Whiskeytown, Alex Chilton), who had previously mixed Hawks’ debut album for YepRoc Records, Fool’s Paradise, back in 2001. Stamey reprised that role for I Think It’s Time, resulting in a DIY album whose songs mix Hawks’ sharp, melody-driven songwriting with plenty of social commentary.

Written during the early days of Donald Trump’s presidency, I Think It’s Time holds a mirror to the modern world, reflecting a swirl of partisan politics, social media debates, and the maddening echo chamber of America’s 24-hour news cycle. Throughout these songs, Hawks struggles to find his own place in a country that’s become increasingly divided. He’s torn between his desire to speak out in defiance of our leaders — as he does during “The King of Hate,” one of the album’s most sharply-worded tracks — and his need to preserve his own sanity by focusing his attention elsewhere. That push-and-pull between activism and purposeful unawareness adds a unique twist to these songs, turning I Think It’s Time into a record aimed at anyone who’s become disenchanted with the noise of the late 2010s.

“The right and the left have moved so far in their own directions that it’s hard for anyone to be in the middle,” Hawks says, pointing to the frustration that spawned the track “Living Between the Extremes.” He adds, “This country was founded on the principles of compromise, but everything now is about digging in your heels, and vilifying the other side.”

While the album tackles thorny subjects, I Think It’s Time also marks the most musically inclusive album of Hawks’ career. A diverse music fan who grew up on country music, discovered punk during his teenage years, and helped spearhead the early days of alt-country’s mainstream emergence during his days as a Yep Roc recording artist, Hawks makes room for multiple genres throughout his new album’s tracklist. The sunnily strummed “Hope I Never Know” evokes Tom Petty’s award-winning work with Jeff Lynne, while “Nothing Matters Anymore” channels the dark, impactful work of Johnny Cash’s final albums. On “Pretending,” Hawks croons his way through an oldies-worthy song like a reincarnated Roy Orbison, then stacks his voice into layers of gorgeous harmony on the Beach Boys-influenced closer, “It’s All Gonna Be OK.” Together, the songs on I Think It’s Time do more than examine the personal and political struggles of a divided country — they show the full range not only of Hawks’ interests, but his songwriting abilities, too.

It’s been more than three decades since the critically-acclaimed Hawks picked up his first instrument, kicking off a career that has found him leaving his mark on everything from alt-country to bluegrass music.  Hawks is planning to bring new tunes and old to a hometown area album release show on release day – October 12th – at the Carrboro Arts Center in Carrboro, NC.  Tickets for the show are already on sale and can be purchased here:  http://bit.ly/2vnyAtM.  He has also confirmed an album release show on November 1st at The Evening Muse in Charlotte, NC, with tickets available here.  Hawks plans to add additional tour dates to his schedule, which will be announced soon.

www.greghawksmusic.com 
www.facebook.com/GregHawksMusic
twitter.com/greghawksmusic

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 18, 2018

THE CONTEMPORARY YOUTH ORCHESTRA,

CONDUCTED BY FOUNDER LIZA GROSSMAN,

HITS MULTIPLE BILLBOARD CHARTS WITH

STYX FRONTMAN TOMMY SHAW

SING FOR THE DAY! RELEASED JUNE 29th

VIA EAGLE ROCK ENTERTAINMENT

ON BLU-RAY, CD, AND DIGITAL FORMATS

Sing For The Day!, the classical-music-meets-classic-rock collaboration between the Contemporary Youth Orchestra (conducted by founder Liza Grossman) and Styx frontman Tommy Shaw, has entered multiple Billboard charts following its June 29th release in Blu-Ray, CD, and digital formats via Eagle Rock Entertainment.  The audio version entered the Billboard Classical Albums chart at #5, the Classical Crossover Albums chart at #5, and the Rock Albums chart at #49.  The video version entered the Music Video Sales chart at #8, and the Top DVD Music Videos chart at #6.  It jumped to #2 in its second week on the Top DVD Music Video chart.

Says Grossman of this accomplishment, “Working with Tommy and guitarist/musical director Will Evankovich has been just as incredible as one can imagine.  CYO being recognized on the Billboard charts really validates our belief that providing quality music education can play a massive role in the lives of children.”

“I’ve gotten used to being part of the Classic Rock family of bands,” explains Shaw, “but the news of debuting at #5 on the ‘Classical Albums’ chart is something I never anticipated! It was a magical evening of music I’ll never forget. Sing For The Day! is a retrospective look at some of my favorite songs I’ve written and co-written, performed with Contemporary Youth Orchestra, now remixed in glorious 5.1, and it takes them all to a higher place I’d never imagined. It was truly a night to remember.”

Filmed before an enthusiastic audience at the intimate Waetjen Auditorium in Cleveland, Sing For The Day! presented unique versions of such classics as “Blue Collar Man,” “Girls With Guns,” and “Too Much Time On My Hands.” Under the direction of principal conductor / founder Grossman, with accompaniment by guitarist/musical director Evankovich, the 115-piece Cleveland-based Contemporary Youth Orchestra blended seamlessly with Shaw, who wielded a mandolin and an acoustic and electric guitar, to create a one-of-a-kind experience.  The songs of Styx / Tommy Shaw / Damn Yankees were infused with the energy of the finest high-school-aged musicians in Ohio, as evidenced by such performances as the epic duel between Shaw’s guitar licks and a prodigious young violinist / CYO alum Lavinia Pavlish on “Renegade.” Additionally, the career-spanning set included a special version of the Styx classic “Crystal Ball” featuring the debut of a lost verse that was never recorded.

Earlier this year, the CYO celebrated a jubilant night onstage with Kenny Loggins performing his music in May at Severance Hall in Cleveland, where the audience was treated to orchestral versions of Loggins’ biggest hits and deeper cuts from his catalog. In July, 50 members of the CYO embarked upon the group’s first-ever international tour to Ireland and Scotland.  Under the conducting baton of Grossman and performing the symphonic music of Led Zeppelin, the young musicians shared stages with the Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra (in a church in Drogheda, Ireland), the City of Belfast Youth Orchestra (at Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland), and InChorus (an adult chorus) in Edinburgh, Scotland, where CYO and InChorus performed a joint piece at the end of the show.  “It was a magical experience,” says Grossman.  “Seeing the CYO musicians enjoy the tour and spend time with each other was priceless, and they also experienced meeting and performing with peers from another country.”  Grossman hopes to have the CYO tour other international destinations, as well as undertake domestic touring, in the future.

ABOUT LIZA GROSSMAN AND THE CONTEMPORARY YOUTH ORCHESTRA:

The Contemporary Youth Orchestra, based in Cleveland, OH, is a revolutionary ensemble devoted to preparing students for a confident career in the creative industries. While youthful in energy and passion, CYO is professional in quality, delivery, and repertoire, which is dedicated exclusively to contemporary music. CYO was founded by the inimitable Liza Grossman 23 years ago, and her radiant, infectious energy and focus on the full spectrum of education for CYO participants has created a one-of-a-kind environment for music students. The performers participate in professionally run rehearsals, recording sessions, performances, collaborations with composers, guest artists, and film crews. This unique group has performed with the likes of Melissa Etheridge, Kenny Loggins, Ben Folds, Styx, Graham Nash, Pat Benatar, Twenty One Pilots, Jon Anderson, Ray Manzarek, Panic! At the Disco, Fall Out Boy, Coolio, Machine Gun Kelly, Bootsy Collins, Jefferson Starship, Weezer, and others.

In addition to serving as the Music Director of the Contemporary Youth Orchestra, Grossman is the tour conductor for the rock group Styx. She has conducted over 500 world premieres including 10 concertos with members of The Cleveland Orchestra, full-scale orchestral works by Pulitzer Prize-winning composers including Bernard Rands, numerous works by professional and young and emerging composers, and hundreds of orchestral rock works. Grossman, who is also a professional violist, has conducted orchestras including the Nashville Symphony, the Jacksonville Symphony, the Colorado Symphony, and CYO on stages including Red Rocks, Blossom Music Center, Severance Hall, Schermerhorn Symphony Center, Nautica, Interlochen, and Quicken Loans Arena. On top of winning multiple awards for teaching and adventurous programming, Grossman received the prestigious Cleveland Arts Prize Mid-Career Award in 2016.

www.lizagrossman.com

http://cyorchestra.org

For Immediate Release
July 9, 2018

 

Salim Nourallah’s fourth pre-album EP, South, scheduled for release on September 7th

Final pre-album bundle to be released in advance of album
Respected Dallas, TX-based singer/songwriter/producer/musician-of-many-trades Salim Nourallah is set to release a sprawling double-album, Somewhere South of Sane, on September 28, 2018 on Palo Santo Records.  In advance of the album release, Nourallah is releasing four pre-album “bundles” that will include tracks from the album as well as previously recorded but unreleased material or acoustic re-imaginings of tracks from past Nourallah albums.  Each bundle, (EP) will be accompanied by new online video content.

Bundle four, entitled South, is set for release on September 7, 2018.  Included on this release are two tracks that will also appear on Somewhere South of Sane – “Tucumcari” (a full-band version only available on the EP and the Sane CD version) and “Sweet As a Weed” – as well as a special bonus track entitled “Joykillers.”  There will be two videos accompanying this bundle – a clip for the song “Tucumcari” and one for “Sweet As a Weed” – and they will premiere the week of South’s release.

Nourallah explains “Tucumcari”: “I was raised in the Southwest. Tucumcari is a small town in New Mexico my family passed through on several occasions when I was a kid. There is a lone mountain just outside of Tucumcari with a tragic Apache legend attached to it. Basically, everyone dies for love. I hadn’t thought of Tucumcari since I was a kid, so it was cosmically strange when I woke up one morning singing the word Tucumcari over this melody I’d come up with the night before. It seemed to have come out of nowhere. The lyrics were inspired by something John Lennon said in the 1970s about long-term relationships being like climbing mountains. The analogy stayed with me many years until it somehow found its way into this song.”

“Sweet As a Weed” came out of a trip Nourallah took to the Show-Me State. “I was having pre-gig chips and salsa with a friend in Malden, Missouri,” Nourallah recalls. “We were talking about my daughter when he proclaimed, ‘Well, she’s about as sweet as a weed!’ I nearly spit out a chip. ‘What? Is that actually a saying?’ It was baffling to me. Weeds aren’t sweet! He swore it was a legit Southern saying after I grilled him on it. I stuffed it away in my file of things to consider for songs. A year later, I was fooling around with a guitar figure in drop B tuning. The first words out of my mouth were, ‘Sweet as a weed…’ The words are not about my daughter though. They ended up being about a kind of woman I’ve always been drawn to – especially in song, one of the first of those songs being, ‘For No One,’ on The Beatles’ Revolver.”

“Joykillers” was born from both memories of Nourallah’s youth juxtaposed with being a parent himself. “When I was about 12, my brother and I were happily bouncing a tennis ball off a brick wall on the side of our house in El Paso,” he recalls. “Our father came out and barked, ‘Stop doing that! The wall is going to fall down!!’ These kinds of things happened a lot. Now that I’m a parent it strikes me as sad when I see kids blissfully playing and having fun – totally engaged with the moment – and some adult bursts in with a joy killing warning. Sometimes I catch myself. I’m that adult, even though I don’t want to be. Although ‘Joykillers’ was a favorite of a couple friends I played it for, I didn’t think it quite fit in with the rest of Somewhere South of Sane. It has thusly been relegated to bonus track land.”

Already released bundles one, North (which came out June 1, 2018) and West (which came out June 29, 2018), precede bundle three, East (which will be released July 27, 2018), and South. The four EPs give fans a sneak peek into what is in store for them on Somewhere South of Sane. The 21 tracks that comprise the four-sided album are what he calls, “the work of a functional crazy person.” Nourallah is equal parts songwriter and producer, creating a shifting sonic landscape that could easily be mistaken for the work of multiple artists. This is the sound of someone trying to save his own mind. Nourallah did — in the end — and created nothing short of a musical odyssey.

As a solo artist, Nourallah has long mined the terrain between catchy and devastating. After gaining initial acclaim with the Denton, TX-based Nourallah Brothers, he went on to release six solo albums. His debut, Polaroid (2004), had Rolling Stone calling him “a singer-songwriter who can stop time.” 2015’s Skeleton Closet was cited by Dusted as a “masterful balance of the said and the unsaid… like a good novel, full of implications and shadowy contradictions and complexities.” As a producer, Nourallah boasts quite an impressive C.V. of production credits (Old 97’s, the Damnwells, Rhett Miller, the Deathray Davies). He’s also been involved in numerous other projects, including co-founding and running A & R for the Palo Santo music group. Over the years, his work on both sides of the sound booth has won him an armful of Dallas Observer music awards. That, and the consistent quality of Salim Nourallah’s music, have proven that some musicians actually can continue to stay relevant.

http://salimnourallah.com 
https://twitter.com/salimnourallah
https://www.facebook.com/salimnourallah 

For Immediate Release
June 18, 2018

Salim Nourallah’s sprawling double-album, Somewhere South of Sane,
scheduled for September 28th release

Respected Dallas, TX-based singer/songwriter/producer/musician-of-many-trades Salim Nourallah is set to release a sprawling double-album, Somewhere South of Sane, on September 28, 2018 on Palo Santo Records.  His seventh solo album, it is Nourallah’s boldest work yet, exploring the desolation of peace in America (“Relief”), the implosion of a marriage (“A Betrayal”), madness of a life lived among the record stacks (“Boy in a Record Shop”), and is nothing short of a musical odyssey.

Recorded and mixed mostly at Nourallah’s Pleasantry Lane Studio in Dallas, the self-produced album is an honest, often brutal introspective exercise that is relatable, heartbreaking, and amusing all at the same time. With the two-fisted melancholy of John Lennon and the elegant bluntness of Neil Finn, Somewhere South of Sane elevates Nourallah to the apex of his art, trading rock riffs for a classical guitar and assisted by the mind-bending instrumentation of guitarist Nick Earl, Nourallah’s bandmate in the Travoltas and a musician he calls a “total freak genius.” Nourallah further explains: “He has this ability to create worlds. Music is very visual to me, and I’ve always seen music in colors. Each of these songs has a sonic world, and Nick is responsible for that because he doesn’t play conventional guitar.”

The 21 tracks that comprise the four-sided Somewhere South of Sane are what the respected musician/producer admits is “the work of a functional crazy person.” He adds, “Spending a lifetime dedicated to any form of writing is a particular form of madness. Especially in the face of the unlikely event that you will ever see much or any monetary compensation.”

Nourallah, who is equal parts songwriter and producer, creates a shifting sonic landscape that could easily be mistaken for the work of multiple artists. From the gorgeous trance-inducing psychedelia of the opener “Boy in a Record Shop,” to the gut-wrenching self-realization in “I Missed My Own Life,” to the dueling Lennon/McCartney lyrical/melodic axis on display in “Tucumcari,” and the Nick Drake-esque “Moving Man,” Somewhere South of Sane traverses more artistic landscape in one album that some artists could in an entire career.

In the tradition of nakedly stark, confessional songwriters like John Lennon and Bob Dylan, Nourallah makes no bones about confronting his inner demons on Somewhere South of Sane. “When I was a kid, I was struck by the violence, greed and insanity of the ‘grownup’ world,” he says, “and the only way I found I could deal with it was music. I guess I’m still using the same, crude method of self-therapy.”

He continues: “The other interesting thing that struck me while working on this record is that songs are just photographs of feelings. There’s something to be said for singing a song, recording a song, and documenting it while you’re still in the moment of the feeling. Just like a photograph that happens instantly. Trying to circle back later and re-capture that feeling in a recording usually doesn’t work out.”

In advance of the album, Nourallah is releasing four pre-album “bundles” that will include tracks from the album as well as bonus material: previously recorded but unreleased songs or acoustic re-imaginings of tracks from past Nourallah albums.  Each bundle (EP) will be accompanied by new online video content.  Already released bundle one, North (which came out June 1, 2018), and already announced bundle two, West (out June 29, 2018), precede bundle three, East, and the final bundle; details for bundle four will be announced soon. The four EPs give fans a sneak peek into what is in store for them on Somewhere South of Sane.

As a solo artist, Nourallah has long mined the terrain between catchy and devastating. After gaining initial acclaim with the Denton, TX-based Nourallah Brothers, he went on to release six solo albums. His debut, Polaroid (2004), had Rolling Stone calling him “a singer-songwriter who can stop time.” 2015’s Skeleton Closet was cited by Dusted as a “masterful balance of the said and the unsaid… like a good novel, full of implications and shadowy contradictions and complexities.” As a producer, Nourallah boasts quite an impressive C.V. of production credits (Old 97’s, the Damnwells, Rhett Miller, the Deathray Davies). He’s also been involved in numerous other projects, including co-founding and running A & R for the Palo Santo music group. Over the years, his work on both sides of the sound booth has won him an armful of Dallas Observer music awards. That, and the consistent quality of Salim Nourallah’s music, have proven that some musicians actually can continue to stay relevant.

http://salimnourallah.com 
https://twitter.com/salimnourallah
https://www.facebook.com/salimnourallah 

For Immediate Release

June 5, 2018

 

Salim Nourallah’s third pre-album EP, East,

scheduled for release on July 27th

 

Four pre-album bundles to be released in advance of album

 

Album release date set for September 28th

 

Respected Dallas, TX-based singer/songwriter/producer/musician-of-many-trades Salim Nourallah is set to release a sprawling double-album, Somewhere South of Sane, on September 28, 2018 on Palo Santo Records.  More details about the album will be announced very soon. In advance of the album release, Nourallah is releasing four pre-album “bundles” that will include tracks from the album as well as previously recorded but unreleased material or acoustic re-imaginings of tracks from past Nourallah albums.  Each bundle, (EP) will be accompanied by new online video content.

 

Bundle three, entitled East, is set for release on July 27, 2018.  Included on this release is one track that will also appear on Somewhere South of Sane – “A Thousand Ways To Miss You” – as well as two bonus tracks from the album sessions called “You’re The Light” and “Easy To Hurt.”  The video accompanying this bundle is a clip for the song “A Thousand Ways To Miss You,” and it will premiere the week of East’s release.

 

“A good portion of my life has been spent simply letting ideas percolate and waiting for the moment when it all comes together in the form of a song,” says Nourallah.  “Late night and early morning are the best times for this because my brain is in an almost drugged state. The ticker tape of thoughts is either stalled or sputtering and ideas somehow seep in more readily.”  “A Thousand Ways to Miss You” was born from one of those bleary early mornings.  Recalls Nourallah, “The song title had been kicking around in me for a few days. I knew it would be challenging for the words to live up to the title. The feeling I was wanting to capture involved the constant, dull ache of missing. It seemed to always be there in me now, like the low, quiet hum of a refrigerator. No matter how much I busied myself, it was always running in the background. There was, in fact, a postcard in my kitchen, a box of letters by my bed, a book and a message on my phone that all served as entry point triggers for Monsieur Dull Ache.”

 

“You’re The Light,” on the other hand, was written while Nourallah was on the road, in a “chilly hotel room in Minneapolis.”  “I’d been writing songs with Rhett Miller and he ditched me one afternoon to go write with Gary Louris,” Nourallah says.  “Probably not a bad move! I’d recently fallen in love, so I had all these nice feelings floating around inside. I couldn’t have been in a more drab, depressing environment than where I was when the song came in. The lyrics sort of deal with what I ultimately think love can do for us. Something similar to music or art or many of the good things in life. It takes us away from the ugliness and offers comfort and relief.”  “Easy to Hurt” was one of the last songs recorded for Somewhere South of Sane. “I’m not a big fan of drama in relationships and I tend to avoid fights,” Nourallah says.  “This song deals with some feelings involved in a misunderstanding I had with my girlfriend. Pretty simple heart-on-the-sleeve sentiments.”

 

Already released bundle one, North (which came out June 1, 2018), and already announced bundle two, West (out June 29, 2018), precede bundle three East and the final bundle; details for bundle four will be announced soon. The four EPs give fans a sneak peek into what is in store for them on Somewhere South of Sane. The 21 tracks that comprise the four-sided album are what he calls, “the work of a functional crazy person.” Nourallah is equal parts songwriter and producer, creating a shifting sonic landscape that could easily be mistaken for the work of multiple artists. This is the sound of someone trying to save his own mind. Nourallah did — in the end — and created nothing short of a musical odyssey.

 

As a solo artist, Nourallah has long mined the terrain between catchy and devastating. After gaining initial acclaim with the Denton, TX-based Nourallah Brothers, he went on to release six solo albums. His debut, Polaroid (2004), had Rolling Stone calling him “a singer-songwriter who can stop time.” 2015’s Skeleton Closet was cited by Dusted as a “masterful balance of the said and the unsaid… like a good novel, full of implications and shadowy contradictions and complexities.” As a producer, Nourallah boasts quite an impressive C.V. of production credits (Old 97’s, the Damnwells, Rhett Miller, the Deathray Davies). He’s also been involved in numerous other projects, including co-founding and running A & R for the Palo Santo music group. Over the years, his work on both sides of the sound booth has won him an armful of Dallas Observer music awards. That, and the consistent quality of Salim Nourallah’s music, have proven that some musicians actually can continue to stay relevant.

 

http://salimnourallah.com

https://twitter.com/salimnourallah

https://www.facebook.com/salimnourallah

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 11, 2018

Ike Reilly plans to head to the East Coast on tour; NYC residency planned at Rockwood Music Hall in June

 

Chicago and Minneapolis residencies continue in May

 
Chicago, IL-based indie rock singer-songwriter Ike Reilly is set to release his seventh studio album, Crooked Love, on CD and digital formats on May 18, 2018 via Rock Ridge Music.  (A vinyl version will be released later this year.)  Today, he is announcing additional tour dates in support of the album release, including a late-June residency at Rockwood Music Hall in New York City, and shows in Boston, Philadelphia, Asbury Park, and Washington, DC. (See tour schedule below for a list of all confirmed dates.)

To kick off next week’s album release, Reilly is currently in the midst of dual solo residencies in Chicago (at Old Town School of Folk Music) and Minneapolis (at Icehouse).  The remaining residency show dates are included in the list of confirmed dates below.  When promoting the residency appearances in the Twin Cities area, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune admired his “hard-to-resist new album” as “a sharp collection of shambling folk-punk blues with Dylanesque echoes,” and gave his live show some props for “his facile and funny between-song observations and comments.”

The New York Times has praised Reilly’s performances in the past: “Ike Reilly is a kind of natural resource, mined from the bedrock of music. All the values that make rock important to people—storytelling, melody, rage, laughter—are part and parcel of every Ike Reilly show I have ever seen.  One of the best touring acts in the country, Reilly’s band takes it as a personal challenge to upend and amaze every room they play in.”

Since his major label debut, the groundbreaking Salesmen and Racists, Reilly has been making punk/folk/blues influenced rock ’n’ roll records that lean heavily on stories of outsiders with keen details and broad strokes that insinuate a crack in the American dream. Reilly’s band, The Assassination, has been called one of the best live bands in America, and the body of recorded work they’ve turned out has been poetic, rebellious, wholly original, and critically acclaimed.

For Crooked Love, joining Reilly (vocals, guitar, harp) and Phil Karnats (guitar) in the studio were Peter Cimbalo (bass, percussion), Dave Cottini (drums, percussion, vocals), and Adam Krier (guitar, keyboards, vocals), and the album shows how Reilly has landed himself squarely in the raw, emotional zeitgeist of the times.  This collection of succinct, tight-but-loose songs reflects the continuing evolution of Reilly’s ever-visceral wordsmithing, as married with a Murderer’s Row of backing tracks forged out of the intuitive interplay of his longstanding Assassination bandmates, not to mention the input of a few special guests, too, including guitarist Tommy O’Donnell, pianist Ed Tinley, and saxophonists Mars Williams and Bill Overton, as well as family legacies Mickey Reilly on vocals and Peter John Cimbalo on drums.  The album was co-produced by Reilly and Karnats.

Press praise for Reilly’s music has been extensive over the years.  Chicago Magazine praised Reilly’s “outlandish storytelling, underdog combativeness, and slapstick humor.” Minneapolis City Pages said, “Equal parts punk rocker, poet, and blue-collar barfly, Reilly’s stories are as bizarre and filthy and honest and pure as the people who come out to his shows. His songs reach out and grab people, shake them by the collars, make them jump up and down.”  Chicago Tribune admired that Ike “merges his affinity for folk-punk narrative and anthemic guitar chords with hip-hop’s vocal cadences and rhythmic drive.”  PopMatters.com called him “the best songwriter in America… Hilarious, unsettling, raw… but mostly just rocking.” USA Today hailed Reilly as “never less than original… ferociously intelligent… always worth listening to.” And Los Angeles Times described Reilly’s music as “…barroom rock narrated by a wiseguy who’s as comfortable regaling PhDs and poets as he is pimps and porn stars.”

Ike Reilly Tour Schedule
May 11th – Ft. Wayne, IN – The B-Sides
May 12th – St. Louis, MO – Off Broadway
May 16th – Icehouse, Minneapolis, MN (w/Hannah Vonderhoff)
May 17th – Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago, IL (w/Gia Margaret)
May 18th – Cedar Rapids, IA – CSPS Hall (Legion Arts
May 23rd – Icehouse, Minneapolis, MN (w/Natalie Lovejoy)
May 24th – Old Town School of Folk Music (w/Half Gringa [solo])
May 31st – Old Town School of Folk Music (w/actor-comedian David Pasquesi)
June 20th – Cambridge, MA – Atwood’s
June 21st – Cambridge, MA – Atwood’s
June 22nd – New York, NY – Rockwood Music Hall
June 23rd – New York, NY – Rockwood Music Hall
June 25th – New York, NY – Rockwood Music Hall
June 26th – Asbury Park, NJ – The Saint
June 27th – Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s
June 28th – Vienna, VA – Jammin’ Java
July 20th – Sturgeon Bay, WI – Makers Space (w/Brett Newski)

www.ikereilly.net
www.facebook.com/ikereilly
https://twitter.com/IkeReilly

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 3, 2018

 

Salim Nourallah’s second pre-album EP, West, scheduled for release on June 29th

Four pre-album bundles to be released in advance of album

Respected Dallas, TX-based singer/songwriter/producer/musician-of-many-trades Salim Nourallah is set to release a sprawling double-album, Somewhere South of Sane, this fall on Palo Santo Records.  In advance of the album release, Nourallah plans to put out four pre-album “bundles” that will include tracks from the album as well as previously recorded but unreleased material or acoustic re-imaginings of tracks from past Nourallah albums.  Each bundle, (EP) will be accompanied by new online video content.

Bundle two, entitled West, is set for release on June 29, 2018.  Included on this release are two tracks that will also appear on Somewhere South of Sane – “Moving Man” and “Going Through The Motions,” as well as a bonus track from the album sessions called “We Were Made to Fall Apart.”  The video accompanying this bundle is a clip for the song “Moving Man,” which was shot entirely by Nourallah’s 8-year-old and 14-year-old kids.  It will premiere the week of release.

Nourallah breaks down the stories behind the songs on West. “The terminally busy are only interested in busyness,” he says. “Sometimes I find myself caught up in ceaseless activity because it distracts from and numbs a multitude of other unpleasant things. ‘Moving Man’ is a rumination on such things.” Also delving into the everyday, “Going Through The Motions” was actually inspired by a movie. “There’s a surreal film I love called ‘The Adventures of Baron Munchausen’ where Robin Williams plays a character called King Moon whose head is literally detached from his body, floating around above it while he’s bickering with and then fooling around with his wife,” Nourallah says. “It’s simultaneously disconcerting and hilarious. I found myself often feeling like King Moon. My body was doing all the usual things – running on a treadmill, making lunch, writing checks to creditors – but my head might as well have been on Pluto. To defeat the feeling, I started writing this song. It exists in order to disprove its premise.”  The bonus track finds Nourallah grappling with the declining health of a loved one. “Having been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s over a year ago, my mother currently lives in a nursing home,” he explains. “‘We Were Made to Fall Apart’ came out of my attempts to internally deal with seeing one of the kindest people I have ever known suffer like this.”

Previously announced bundle one, North (out June 1, 2018), and West precede two additional bundles – details for each of the remaining two bundles will be announced soon. The four EPs give fans a sneak peek into what is in store for them on Somewhere South of Sane; the release date and more details about the album will be announced in June. The 21 tracks that comprise the four-sided Somewhere South of Sane are what Salim calls, “the work of a functional crazy person.” Nourallah is equal parts songwriter and producer, creating a shifting sonic landscape that could easily be mistaken for the work of multiple artists. This is the sound of someone trying to save his own mind. Nourallah did — in the end — and created nothing short of a musical odyssey.

As a solo artist, Nourallah has long mined the terrain between catchy and devastating. After gaining initial acclaim with the Denton, TX-based Nourallah Brothers, he went on to release six solo albums. His debut, Polaroid (2004), had Rolling Stone calling him “a singer-songwriter who can stop time.” 2015’s Skeleton Closet was cited by Dusted as a “masterful balance of the said and the unsaid… like a good novel, full of implications and shadowy contradictions and complexities.” As a producer, Nourallah boasts quite an impressive C.V. of production credits (Old 97’s, the Damnwells, Rhett Miller, the Deathray Davies). He’s also been involved in numerous other projects, including co-founding and running A & R for the Palo Santo music group. Over the years, his work on both sides of the sound booth has won him an armful of Dallas Observer music awards. That, and the consistent quality of Salim Nourallah’s music, have proven that some musicians actually can continue to stay relevant.

Salim Nourallah online:
Website:  http://salimnourallah.com
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/salimnourallah
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/salimnourallah

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 12, 2018

 

Salim Nourallah to release album in fall 2018

Four pre-album bundles to be released in advance of album
Respected Dallas, TX-based singer/songwriter/producer/musician-of-many-trades Salim Nourallah is set to release a sprawling double-album, Somewhere South of Sane, this fall on Palo Santo Records. The release date and more details about the album will be announced soon. The 21 tracks that comprise the four-sided Somewhere South of Sane are what Salim calls, “the work of a functional crazy person.” Nourallah is equal parts songwriter and producer, creating a shifting sonic landscape that could easily be mistaken for the work of multiple artists. This is the sound of someone trying to save his own mind. Nourallah did — in the end — and created nothing short of a musical odyssey.

In advance of the album release, Nourallah plans to put out four pre-album “bundles” that will include tracks from the album as well as previously recorded but unreleased material or acoustic re-imaginings of tracks from past Nourallah albums.  Each bundle will be accompanied by new online video content. Bundle one, entitled North and set for release on June 1, 2018, will include a track from Somewhere South of Sane (“Relief”) as well as a re-recording of 2015’s “The Bullies Are Back” (assisted by the mind-bending instrumentation of guitarist Nick Earl, Nourallah’s bandmate in the Travoltas and a musician he calls a “total freak genius.”). The other track on the bundle will be “Totally Lost,” a B-side that, along with “Relief,” was written and recorded at HEK studios, home of the Dixie Chicks’ Martie Maguire. In conjunction with the release of North, fans will be able to check out the music video for “Relief,” which will premiere at that time as well.

Additional bundles are planned leading up to the release of the full album, and full details for each will be announced soon.

“I took my sweet time making Somewhere South of Sane,” Nourallah says, “so I figured why not continue the trend and methodically enjoy the pre-release months? I also had almost an entire extra album’s worth of tracks I left off because a triple record felt excessive. I will be releasing that bonus material in each of the pre-album bundles we roll out.”

As a solo artist, Nourallah has long mined the terrain between catchy and devastating. After gaining initial acclaim with the Denton, TX-based Nourallah Brothers, he went on to release six solo albums. His debut, Polaroid (2004), had Rolling Stone calling him “a singer-songwriter who can stop time.” 2015’s Skeleton Closet was cited by Dusted as a “masterful balance of the said and the unsaid… like a good novel, full of implications and shadowy contradictions and complexities.” As a producer, Nourallah boasts quite an impressive C.V. of production credits (Old 97’s, the Damnwells, Rhett Miller, the Deathray Davies). He’s also been involved in numerous other projects, including co-founding and running A & R for the Palo Santo music group. Over the years, his work on both sides of the sound booth has won him an armful of Dallas Observer music awards. That, and the consistent quality of Salim Nourallah’s music, have proven that some musicians actually can continue to stay relevant.

Salim Nourallah online:
Website:  http://salimnourallah.com
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/salimnourallah
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/salimnourallah

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 9, 2018

 

Ike Reilly plans Chicago and Minneapolis

residencies in May to kick off

the release of Crooked Love

Chicago, IL-based indie rock singer-songwriter Ike Reilly is set to release his seventh studio album, Crooked Love, on CD and digital formats on May 18, 2018 via Rock Ridge Music.  (A vinyl version will be released later this year.)  To kick off the album release, Reilly is planning dual solo residencies in Chicago (at Old Town School of Folk Music) and Minneapolis (at Icehouse) in May.  The show dates are as follows:

May 2^nd – Icehouse, Minneapolis, MN (w/Laska) – tickets

May 9^th – Icehouse, Minneapolis, MN (w/Mary Bue) – tickets

May 10^th – Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago, IL (w/Michael McDermott) – tickets

May 16^th – Icehouse, Minneapolis, MN (w/Hannah Vonderhoff) – tickets

May 17^th – Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago, IL (w/Gia Margaret) – tickets

May 23^rd – Icehouse, Minneapolis, MN (w/Natalie Lovejoy) – tickets

May 24^th – Old Town School of Folk Music (w/Half Gringa [solo]) – tickets

May 31^st – Old Town School of Folk Music (w/actor-comedian David Pasquesi) – tickets

 

Tickets go on sale today for the shows.  Ticket links are included above beside each date.

 

Reilly has already been testing the songs from the new album live with band shows in March in the Midwest.  An album preview show in his hometown of Libertyville, IL is scheduled to take place on April 14th at Diamond City Studio (tickets: https://crookedlove.brownpapertickets.com/).  More dates in additional markets will be announced soon.

 

The New York Times has praised Reilly’s live show in the past: “Ike Reilly is a kind of natural resource, mined from the bedrock of music. All the values that make rock important to people—storytelling, melody, rage, laughter—are part and parcel of every Ike Reilly show I have ever seen.  One of the best touring acts in the country, Reilly’s band takes it as a personal challenge to upend and amaze every room they play in.”

 

Since his major label debut, the groundbreaking Salesmen and Racists, Reilly has been making punk/folk/blues influenced rock ’n’ roll records that lean heavily on stories of outsiders with keen details and broad strokes that insinuate a crack in the American dream. Reilly’s band, The Assassination, has been called one of the best live bands in America, and the body of recorded work they’ve turned out has been poetic, rebellious, wholly original, and critically acclaimed.

 

For Crooked Love, joining Reilly (vocals, guitar, harp) and Phil Karnats (guitar) in the studio were Peter Cimbalo (bass, percussion), Dave Cottini (drums, percussion, vocals), and Adam Krier (guitar, keyboards, vocals), and the album shows how Reilly has landed himself squarely in the raw, emotional zeitgeist of the times.  This collection of succinct, tight-but-loose songs reflects the continuing evolution of Reilly’s ever-visceral wordsmithing, as married with a Murderer’s Row of backing tracks forged out of the intuitive interplay of his longstanding Assassination bandmates, not to mention the input of a few special guests, too, including guitarist Tommy O’Donnell, pianist Ed Tinley, and saxophonists Mars Williams and Bill Overton, as well as family legacies Mickey Reilly on vocals and Peter John Cimbalo on drums.  The album was co-produced by Reilly and Karnats.

 

Press praise for Reilly’s music has been extensive over the years.  Chicago Magazine praised Reilly’s “outlandish storytelling, underdog combativeness, and slapstick humor.” Minneapolis City Pages said, “Equal parts punk rocker, poet, and blue-collar barfly, Reilly’s stories are as bizarre and filthy and honest and pure as the people who come out to his shows. His songs reach out and grab people, shake them by the collars, make them jump up and down.”  Chicago Tribune admired that Ike “merges his affinity for folk-punk narrative and anthemic guitar chords with hip-hop’s vocal cadences and rhythmic drive.”  PopMatters.com called him “the best songwriter in America… Hilarious, unsettling, raw… but mostly just rocking.” USA Today hailed Reilly as “never less than original… ferociously intelligent… always worth listening to.” And Los Angeles Times described Reilly’s music as “…barroom rock narrated by a wiseguy who’s as comfortable regaling PhDs and poets as he is pimps and porn stars.”

 

www.ikereilly.net

www.facebook.com/ikereilly

https://twitter.com/IkeReilly