New Potato Caboose has released a long awaited new album, It Ain´t a Thing.
With their signature Americana jamband musical style, New Potato Caboose go all the way back to the very beginning of the jam scene having played with the likes of the Dave Matthews Band, Blues Traveler, and Widespread Panic. They were the first band to ever play at the Wetlands venue in New York City, and played over 200 performance dates a year throughout the 1990´s.
It is no surprise, then, that fans have been waiting patiently for this album.
It Ain´t a Thing manages to seamlessly capture the history and sound of New Potato Caboose together with a fresh and up to date perspective. Classic songs include ¨Brave New World¨ and the punchy rock song “New Potato Stew.” Brand new songs to the mix include southern love song “Georgia Angel” and ethereal “The Whisper.”
Listen here:
It Ain´t a Thing is the result of a crowd-funding campaign, and is entirely independently produced.
New Potato Caboose are Doug Pritchett (acoustic guitar and vocals), Don Laux (rhythm guitar and vocals), John “Red” Redling (keyboards and vocals), Tim Pruitt (lead guitar and vocals), Mike Mahoney on bass, and John Trupp and John McConnell on drums.
The Maryland-based visual artist turned singer/songwriter Slim Sly Slender is a powerful creative mind who has been part of the art world for as long as he can remember. His work has been featured in countless group and solo exhibits and was inspired to start his music career after experiencing a warehouse jam session. His musical style is brit-pop inspired pop rock with a vibrance in style you won’t find anywhere else.
He just released his new single “Black Charger” from his upcoming album Pay to Play. It’s an interesting mash up between folk, hip-hop, and pop-rock. It’s almost like a Beastie Boys meets George Benson with the horns and the fast lyrics and upbeat tone and like Macklemore in the dynamic lyrics and playfulness.
“I wrote that while driving—every time I would see an angry and aggressive driver, they were always driving a black Charger,” shares Slim. The song is anything but aggressive, however. It’s more fun and playful, bringing some light to a frustrating situation. It’s a light song that brings some happiness to your day.
Listen here:
“I do this because I love it,” he says. “Music is unlike visual art because when a person buys a painting, they put it on a wall, and only they and their friends can enjoy the piece of art. Music is for everybody. I love sharing it, and I’m excited to get this album out there in front of more people.”
If you haven’t heard of Jeff Hilliard, you may be missing out on a unique talent. This professional comedian, who trained under the folks at Second City in Chicago, has always been interested in being an entertainer and knew from an early age that this was his calling. He’s been in a few indie films, including Paul Schrader’s Dog Eat Dog film starring Nicolas Cage and Willem Defoe, Officer Banks, in Bernard Rose’s award winning film Frankenstein starring Danny Huston, Carrie-Anne Moss, Xavier Samuel, and Tony Todd, and recently starred in Traveling Light along with Stephen Dorff, Tony Todd, and Danny Huston.
His provocative point of view on the dark, twisted reality of modern-day society proves his creativity knows no bounds. His controversial music videos have garnered millions of views and have won numerous awards at many film festivals. His new video and single, “Abandon,” showcases his multi-genre musical ability and genius songwriting.
“Abandon” takes gender norms and flips it on its head. The video depicts a sad and lonely guy stuck in the past, still living with his mom, who’s obsessively calling a woman he hooked up with, Vivian. It immediately points out what society deems as normal, typically a man initiates a one night hook up and he’s generally married while the woman is calling him. He’s also making fun of the toxic masculinity often seen in the 80’s metal culture. He’s looking for love and actually singing about his vulnerability rather than trying to be a “man” like the metal ballads of that time.
Lyrically speaking, the lyrics are funny and made for a visual medium. They easily get stuck in your head as you find yourself singing the chorus doing mundane things. He sings “I ain’t no pump and dump/ I believe in the power of love/ one night is not enough/ how could you abandon our love,” as he’s dressed in outlandish outfits reminiscent of what metal bands would wear. This sad character really thought that he found love. While he’s creepy and not someone you want to hang out with, you do feel a little sorry for him too.
George Collins is no stranger to the music industry. Back in his younger years, before committing to the world of high finance, he played in local restaurants and bars in Charlottesville to pay his way through school. He even became a local staple. He also played in an eleven-piece Earth, Wind & Fire-esque band called Common Knowledge which included Carter Beauford and the late LeRoi Moore. Beauford and Moore later became founding members of The Dave Matthews Band. “While backstage with Carter and Dave during their most recent concert in Prague in 2019, I joked that I was in The Dave Matthews Band even before Dave Matthews,” Collins says with a good-natured laugh. “They both burst out laughing, and Dave clicked his beer bottle to mine and said, ‘If anyone ever asks me about that, I will back you up one hundred percent!’”
George is back and better than ever with his upcoming solo EP, It’s Been a Long Time. He just released the pop rock title song “It’s Been a Long Time.” It has a Tom Petty meets U2 in sound and energy with a hint of Fleetwood Mac. In “It’s Been a Long Time,” George showcases his songwriting with lyrics that spew emotion. It’s about a lost love and missed opportunities. It can be taken literally and metaphorically, the sign of a great songwriter.
He sings “Never knew love before, never met no one like you/And I’m always gonna wonder what might have been/World spinning circles now, but there’s one thing I know/It’s gonna be a long, long time till I love that way again.” It can connect with any listener and that’s what makes George Collins’ music so special.
His songs feature instantly hummable melodies; subtle but smart counterpoint; clever chord sequences; ace musicianship; and vocals that ooze soulful rock n’ roll longing. As a lyricist, Collins is a poet, a sage, a storyteller, and an empath. He covers the full-spectrum of emotions and the human experience, and he writes with cinematic detail, visceral vulnerability, and clever turns of phrase.
Chris Baluyut, the New York electro-pop and dream pop artist, grew up surrounded by a musical family. His father, uncle, and godmother are in Versus, and another of his uncles started the indie-rock/math-rock band +/- {Plus/Minus}. “They were hip,” he affirms. “My parents had me when they were young. I remember the three B’s, Björk, Beck, and Built to Spill being played all the time in my house growing up.” From elementary school through high school, family members would bring Chris to gigs all around NYC. At 14, inspired by the classic rock and indie rock playing in his house, Chris started playing guitar, and eventually played a show with Versus when he was still in high school.
Today, Chris brings us the second release in his single series, “Come Back to the World.” The production here is both lush and lean, consisting of a gently unfolding melodic guitar motif, airy vocals, sparse rhythm guitars, electro ambience, and a hypnotic beat to tie it all together. All of these intentionally intertwining themes bring us a dark, yet hopeful resonance.
“Come Back to the World” has an electro-pop sensibility to it while also pulling in elements of dream pop, lo-fi, and downtempo. It’s emotionally raw and reveals Chris’s vulnerability in his songwriting. The song drips with feelings of regret and guilt for not helping someone you love. But there’s an air of hope and thoughtfulness behind that facade, that one day, you will get another chance to be there for someone else.
Chris’s music has evolved from folk into an exploring and experimenting with atmospheric soundscapes that are grounded by rhythmic pulses. His carefully-curated aesthetic spans dream-pop, electro-pop, post-rock, and folktronica. His latest songs are more impressionistic, conjuring landscapes, and visual representations of emotions.
Dan Hartman and Charles Ingram began making music together at age 15 united by a bold desire to explore the outer limits of alternately tuned guitars. The pair had an immediate intuitive connection, and hunkered down in a storage shed to home in on its avant-garde aesthetic. They emerged as Phantom Zell, a weird indie-punk band that specialized in curious guitar tunings and abstract and abrasive musicality. “We played punk shows, but we were the only band in the scene that broke the punk rules by not playing that typically fast and aggressive sound,” says Charles. By age 17, Dan and Charles’s songs were earning placements on compilations alongside diversely popular acts such as Of Montreal, Fugazi, Jawbreaker, Dillinger Escape Plan, and Converge.
Eventually, the band drifted apart, the scene changed, and Dan and Charles began to also go their separate ways. Though not actively creating together, the guys set out on parallel artistic paths finding inspiration in the synergy with films and soundtracks. And there were other uncanny connections. Over the years, they were bonded by unique correlating circumstances, including near death experiences such as near fatal car accidents, dying in a house fire, being struck by lightning, and escaping armed robberies.
“I had a 10-year relationship end, and, out of the blue, after a few years of not being in touch, Charles called me and said his marriage had ended at the same time,” Dan recalls. “At the time, I had completely stopped playing and creating music.”
The eerily similar life circumstances, the guys’ parallel creative paths, and the telepathic musicality they once shared made a powerful case to continue the musical dialogue. Inevitably, Dan envisioned a cohesive project and sent Charles that fateful text to start the impliers.
They just released their 3rd single, “Lightning,” which features their iconic experimental music with atonal sensibilities and playful nature. Their vocals provide a Beach Boys harmonic quality to it while their music provides a David Bowie meets Pink Floyd sound.
“Lightning” is chaotic in nature, with an ever changing tempo and a melody that’s just out of grasp. The music shares a story of the chaotic mind. They share yet another story with this song as they both were diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. The song is a beautiful reflection of that experience through their atonal music and gripping lyrics. “While ‘Lightning’ constantly shape-shifts in mood and genre, it has its roots in a part of a song Charles made in 2005,” shares Dan. “While writing the concept for our upcoming record ‘cocoon,’ the lyric from that old riff came to mind and surprisingly; the entire idea for the rest of the song came as if it was always there. In about an hour, the bones of the song were written and recorded (the verses recorded that day are in the final version). By sending recordings back and forth, we traded disarming forks in the creative road, sending the song down a meandering but distinct path and arriving at the final version in the following weeks.”
Modern Mystery 
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