In the summer of 2025, Los Angeles-based country artist Jonny Fritz released his first recorded music after a near decade-long hiatus from the music business. “Debbie Downers”, however, would not be the start of your typical record release cycle, but a multi-album, genre-spanning spectacle meant to bring Jonny’s songwriting to new sonic worlds and challenge the consumption-obsessed nature of the modern digital music landscape. Debbie Downers part one, a classic sounding Americana album recorded in Nashville, was released in October, 2025. The next installment, Debbie Downers – Woodwinds, sees the original album’s nine tracks reimagined with an all-woodwinds ensemble, composed by Andrew Conrad. 

“I love woodwinds and have wanted to make this type of record for as long as I can remember. I’ve had this vision of clarinets playing chicken pickin style telecaster solos. Just imagine a Jerry Reed covers album played with clarinets and piccolos. There’s something about the staccato tonguing of a reed instrument that seems to me as enjoyable as playing roadhouse country solos. I’ve never played one so I don’t know but I do think about it all the time. I couldn’t be happier to finally hear it out loud and share it with the world.

The version of this record I brought to Andrew Conrad was very different from what it became. My version was Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and he made it into The Star Wars Theme (or something like that). He was so clearly over-qualified for the job and it made me appreciate him even more.” – Jonny Fritz

photography by Mama Hotdog (Bobbi Rich)

Two more versions, to be released later in 2026, will complete the collection. Continue reading to learn more about the project and the enigmatic Jonny Fritz:

For 15 years, Jonny Fritz relentlessly traveled the world as a country music eccentric. You could find him everywhere: onstage, singing songs about laser hair removal and the age old debate of Ford VS Chevy; in Jackson Browne’s recording studio, tracking his debut for ATO Records; in the writing room, penning Top 40 hits for Dawes and cult classics for himself. Fritz put in the hours, climbing the music industry’s long ladder with a novelty-golf-ball-concession-stand sized personality whose sheer weirdness didn’t overshadow, but rather magnified, his genuine talent at songwriting.

Then, one day, he just quit. “I think I kinda overdid it,” he says, thinking back to his decision to leave the road for nearly a decade. “I worried that if I kept making music not only as my passion, but also as my paycheck, it was going to ruin it for me. I needed music to be kept pure and free from the burdens of economics.” What followed was a long break from the limelight. Jonny became a father, settled into his new home in Altadena, and rebranded himself as “L.A.’s Only Realtor,” bringing his wild brand of creativity to the real estate market. For years, he avoided the recording studio and the road altogether. When he finally returned, it was to make Debbie Downers: a collection of four interlinked records, each one featuring a wildly unique interpretation of the same album. First on the menu is the country version, recorded in Nashville, produced by Jordan Lehning and a band of world-class studio musicians. Think of this as the album. Three variations of the album follow in stride. The next course features a version that was arranged and recorded with a quintet of woodwinds. The only real note that arranger Andrew Conrad was given was to “make it sound like tea time on The Titanic”. Here Fritz traded guitars for a wholly unexpected mix of clarinet, flute, and piccolo. Two more albums with different themes TBA.

“I had an idea — a dumb idea, maybe, and I followed it through, making these albums exactly

as I’d envisioned. And hey, at least it was expensive —” he says. “It’s so easy to fall into a pattern of saying, ‘Well, the label wants things to sound a certain way’ or ‘I’m not sure we can afford this,’ but I didn’t want any of that to influence my decision making. I just wanted to stay true to myself. Artistic integrity is worth so much more than any monetary payback, so this project has already been a major success to me, simply because I haven’t compromised or done anything conventional yet. I think that’s the key to success, actually.”

There’s an ancillary benefit, too. “When you release a record, everyone forgets about it a week after it comes out,” Fritz explains. “But I made four different versions of the same record and I’m going to release them over the course of a year. Now I can say, ‘I made a record! … Oh, you forgot about it? Well, HERE IT IS AGAIN!’” (Used-car salesman voice)

Years spent in the real estate market haven’t dulled Fritz’s sense of humor. On the Nashville recording of “Hot Chicken Condos,” he blasts the city’s celebrity and bachelorette party culture, mixing mischief and melody in equal amounts. “I love Nashville,” he promises. “I lived there for a decade, but I think it all just got too L.A. for me… so I moved to Los Angeles. I watched all my favorite places in Nashville get torn down, then rebuilt and rebranded as hot-chicken-themed tourist traps.” On “Have You Seen Her,” he croons his way through a plot summary of the Spike Jonze film “Her” while also delivering some unexpectedly moving thoughts about partnership and romance. “Love transcends the boundaries and the limits of the eye,” he sings, backed by a loping, trail-riding groove on the album’s Nashville recording and flanked by single-reed instruments on the woodwinds version. It’s a moment that’s both poignant and preposterous in the same breath, and it’s there — in the grey space between the humorous and the heartfelt — that Fritz has always done his best work.

Case in point: “Tea Man,” a gorgeously breezy tribute to his favorite caffeinated beverage. “I’m a tea man, and I can drink more than England,” he sings with an almost audible smile, as though he’s two sips into his first cup of the day. Country music boasts a long history of drinking songs, but “Tea Man” is something different: sober, playful, and stunning all the same. In other words, it’s the sort of left-field song that Fritz excels at delivering. “When I first came on the scene, everybody said, ‘This guy is the next outlaw!'” he says. “But I’m no outlaw. I’m a marathon runner who obsesses over Ken Burns’ The Civil War and drinking tea. I don’t even drink coffee and I hate weed. I’m more like somebody’s weird dad. That’s why I coined the genre ‘Dad country.’ I’m much more interested in the mundane than the extreme. I like the nuance — the in-between stuff. I live for that grey area and rely heavily on it for inspiration. I couldn’t care less about anything ‘outlaw’ and I’ll never write about ‘traveling down a whiskey-soaked highway.’ I never want to say anything anyone has ever said before.”

Entirely self-funded and independently conceived, Debbie Downers is a project fueled not by the music industry, but by a genuine love of music itself. Whether he’s skewering his MAGA relatives (“Debbie Downers”), singing about the challenges of working at Walgreens with your roommate (“The Boss”), or sketching the portrait of a divorced father “trying hard to ignore the looks from the earth-tone moms” at the neighborhood playground, Fritz turns the everyday

into the anthemic, creating a colorful soundtrack for blue-collar life. He’s rested and rebalanced, back in the saddle after a long, voluntary break from the road. This time around, though, he’ll be following his own path, not getting derailed by false hopes of pleasing the masses through convention, but rather aiming to please himself and his community of respected musicians.

TRACKLIST

1. Debbie Downers
2. Polished Turd
3. Hot Chicken Condos
4. Run
5. Tea Man
6. Bikers
7. Have You Seen Her
8. The Boss
9. Slow Down

UPCOMING TOUR DATES

February US Headlining Tour

2.12 – Oakland, CA – The Stork Club

2.13 – Santa Cruz, CA – The Crepe Place

2.26 – Milwaukee, WI – Cactus Club

2.27 – Chicago, IL – Hideout

2.28 – Evanston, IL – SPACE

CREDITS

Vocals – Jonny Fritz

Composer – Andrew Conrad

Christine Tavolacci – Piccolo, Flute, Alto Flute

Michael Mull – Clarinet, Alto Sax

Andrew Conrad – Clarinet, Tenor Sax

Brian Walsh – Bass Clarinet, Bari Sax

Recorded, mixed and mastered by Kevin Ratterman live in Alhambra, CA 

All songs written by Jonny Fritz except

“Hot Chicken Condos”, written by Jonny Fritz, Jordan Lehning and Skylar Wilson and

“Slow Down”, written by Jonny Fritz, Tim Deaux and Robert Ellis 

Artist Links

Instagram | Facebook | Youtube | Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple Music

There’s nothing flashy about the way Muriel Grossmann approaches “Plays the Music of McCoy Tyner and the Grateful Dead.” The record doesn’t announce itself as a bold idea or a clever pairing. It just starts moving, slowly and deliberately, and trusts the listener to follow. In an era where genre-blurring is often framed as innovation, Grossmann’s album feels almost anti-conceptual. It sounds like music made by musicians who already know where the overlaps live.

Grossmann treats the source material less like repertoire and more like terrain. The Tyner compositions and the Grateful Dead tracks aren’t dressed up or stripped down. They’re allowed to breathe, stretch, and repeat until their internal logic becomes clear. The focus stays on feel rather than form, on how long a groove can hold before it needs to change.

Her saxophone playing is central but unassuming. Lines are patient, often circling the same ideas instead of chasing resolution. There’s a physicality to the sound that suggests endurance rather than urgency, as if the goal is to stay inside the music for as long as possible. Virtuosity never becomes the point, which gives the record its sense of trust and ease.

The band moves as a unit. Guitar parts blur into rhythm, organ tones hover and thicken the air, and the drums keep everything grounded without pinning it down. The interplay feels conversational rather than reactive, built on shared time instead of constant response. Nothing feels rushed, and nothing feels ornamental.

“Walk Spirit, Talk Spirit” sets the tone early, riding a steady pulse that accumulates weight through repetition. “Contemplation” pulls inward, leaving space between notes and letting silence do some of the work. Both performances reflect a respect for the originals without sounding beholden to them.

The Grateful Dead selections slide into place without friction. “The Music Never Stopped” becomes a circular groove rather than a sing-along, while “The Other One” leans fully into its open-ended nature. These pieces feel less like covers than familiar shapes viewed from a different distance.

What makes “Plays the Music of McCoy Tyner and the Grateful Dead” compelling is its refusal to sell itself. Grossmann isn’t interested in explaining why this combination works. She lets repetition, collective focus, and long-form listening make the case. The album unfolds at its own pace, rewarding attention without demanding it, and leaves behind the feeling that these musical paths were always running alongside each other.

On the surface, McCoy Tyner and the Grateful Dead appear to come from different galaxies. But listen deeply, and it becomes clear: they were orbiting the same planet. 

Weir metabolized Tyner’s harmonic density, left-hand power, and asymmetrical swing into a singular rhythm guitar language. Listen to “Walk Spirit, Talk Spirit” from Tyner’s Enlightenment (1973), then compare it to a long jam on “The Other One”—say, 5/10/72 from the Europe ’72 box. That centerless gravity, that rolling churn? Different instruments, same engine. It would be easy to present this as a concept album. Tyner meets the Dead. Jazz meets jam. Two cultures, one filter. But that’s not what’s happening here. 

Muriel Grossmann’s project is a continuation: tracing Tyner’s influence as it threads through Weir and onward, then using it as an invitation to explore these compositions anew. Joined by Radomir Milojkovic on guitar, Abel Boquera on Hammond B3 organ, and Uros Stamenkovic on drums, she treats these four works not as artifacts to preserve, but as invitations to explore. 

“We played this music using a sort of filter,” she says, “so it sounds like when I compose, record, and perform our own music. It’s somebody else’s music, but it sounds like our music.” — Muriel Grossmann, 2025 

Plays the Music of McCoy Tyner and Grateful Dead is out TODAY Muriel’s label Dreamland Records, Dec 29, 2025.

Connect with Muriel Grossmann

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Celebrating ten years together, New Jersey’s Above the Moon continue to redefine their sound on There Is No Arrival Vol. 2, a five-track EP that arrives with purpose and focus. The band blends raw punk intensity with melodic indie sensibilities, creating a record that feels immediate, ambitious, and personal.

Fronted by Kate Griffin, whose vocals have always been both commanding and expressive, the EP demonstrates the band’s ability to marry urgency with nuance. From the opening track to the closing moments, the collection reveals a group comfortable with its identity yet unafraid to challenge itself creatively. Each song contributes to a broader narrative of presence, connection, and the passage of time, reinforcing why Above the Moon have remained relevant and compelling a decade into their career.

Formed in Madison, New Jersey, in 2015, the band has spent years honing a reputation for authenticity, live energy, and a refusal to rely on gimmicks. Over the past decade, Above the Moon have released multiple EPs, an acoustic project during the pandemic, and a full-length album in 2023 recorded entirely in their home studio. Their music draws from punk, shoegaze, singer-songwriter craft, and pop influences, resulting in a sound that is unmistakably their own.

With There Is No Arrival Vol. 2, the band not only celebrates its past but also looks forward, offering a snapshot of where they are creatively today. The EP is concise but layered, capturing the band’s signature energy while allowing space for reflection and subtlety. It sets the stage for our conversation with Kate Griffin, who opens up about the EP, the band’s decade-long journey, and what it means to continue evolving without losing sight of who they are.

How has your perspective on music and songwriting changed since you first started the band in 2015?

Kate: In 2015 we were coming together from vastly different experiences. In regards to songwriting, to get things off the ground, I was pulling from a pool of songs I’d written on my own or with previous bands.  Musically, we were each pulling from what we’d done before, and what we were listening to at the time. We’ve been at this for a decade. We’re different people now with different things to say. We have different musical influences, so things have changed a lot. 

In regards to our perspective on music and being in a band, when we started, we were experienced enough to get the ball rolling pretty quickly and we spent a ton of time playing out in local venues – sometimes 3x a month, or multiple shows per weekend. Since then we’ve realized that burning the candle at both ends isn’t worth it, and we’ve spent a lot of time finding a balance between writing, recording, releasing music and playing out that works better for us.  Now we’re working smarter, not harder.

There Is No Arrival Vol. 2 has a mix of urgency and reflection—how do you decide when a song should lean one way or the other?

Kate: We let the songs decide.  Since we started writing we’ve always put out the songs that feel the best to play, and oftentimes they’re released as they come.  Our songs are all coming from a place of catharsis, so if we’ve got a lot of high energy, angry sounding stuff, it’s because that’s how we were feeling when we wrote them.  We try to balance that out in the track listing, moving things around to create a more well-rounded listening experience, but we never try to fill in a space with a “happy” or  “somber” song, we just write them as they come.

Can you describe a moment during the making of this EP that felt particularly pivotal or transformative for the band?

Kate: Writing and recording the last track, When We’re Gone, felt different than the other songs we’ve released. I think a lot of that is because we can all relate to the lyrical content.  I typically write from personal experience, so while the guys are usually in on the vibe or the energy, they may not identify exactly with what I’m singing about. But When We’re Gone is about being in a band, about the frustrations and hardships that come with it.  I can remember when I finished singing the scratch vocal for the recording, John, who is admittedly not a “lyrics guy” asked, “Wait, is that song about us?” It is! It’s about this band and every other band we’ve ever been in.  I think we play that one a little differently because we all relate to it.  I also got the guys to sing on it, too, which makes it stand out as well.

How do you balance personal storytelling with creating songs that resonate broadly with listeners?

Kate: I’ve found that the artists I admire most are able to write in a way that is specific enough to sound unique, but broad enough to be relatable. I try to be just specific enough so that for me, the emotional release is satisfied – I feel like I’ve expressed the feelings I needed to, but I’m careful about the words I use, because that’s a big part of what makes the songs relatable to others. One of my favorite things is when someone tells me what they think one of our songs is about.  A lot of times, it’s not at all what I was thinking or feeling when I wrote it, but I’m a believer in that a song means whatever you think it means, regardless of the artist’s intent.

What’s the most unexpected influence that shaped the sound or mood of this release?

Kate: Something I didn’t realize until the songs were finished and released was that all 5 songs either use the word “survive” or explore the concept of some kind of death.  I wasn’t consciously writing about death, but I didn’t realize how much I was thinking about other kinds of loss or finality in the last year.  That really surprised me, and I think it has a huge influence on both the sound and the mood of this EP.

Above the Moon has maintained a strong DIY and authentic approach—how do you keep that spirit alive in the studio today?

Kate: Over time it’s actually become easier, because we’ve learned so much.  When we started, we’d have to save up money and schedule time to record at professional studios, but since our LP Mine Again (2023) we’ve done all of our recording in-house at Shawn’s home studio, Bottle Hill Recording.  He is a total gear-head and over the last 10 years has been paying close attention to our recording sessions, on forums, doing research, building his home studio and now we have everything we need.  

Shawn: Being able to record ourselves has its pros and cons. The benefit is we’re not on a strict timeline and can experiment more. The downside is leaving things open ended can often lead to second guessing yourself. 

This year we recorded and released the most music we ever have between these two EPs and a cover of David Bowie and Queen’s Under Pressure for a compilation. It’s been freeing to record when we want and how we want. It’s allowed us to experiment and add harmonies, synthesizers and percussion without having to worry if we’re on the clock. 

How does the dynamic between band members influence the creative direction of your music?

Kate: This is cool to think about. Most of the songs usually start with Shawn and myself, we’re very open and able to bat ideas back and forth to create the structure of a song. We’ve been doing it since day 1, so our line of communication is strong and wide open.  Additionally we go see live music together a fair amount, we like a lot of the same bands and are always introducing each other to new music.  I think that influences our collaboration and creative direction a lot.  As our rhythm section, Kyle and John are very connected. More often than not, during a practice they’ll collaborate on a section of a song without even discussing it. It’s like they’re reading each other’s minds. Kyle is my brother, and while he only joined us in 2021, I’ve been surprised with how in-step he and I are when it comes to the arrangement of things.  A lot of times if one of us makes a suggestion, the other was thinking of that or something along the same lines.  All of these mini dynamics contribute to the whole.

Has celebrating a decade together changed the way you approach risk-taking in your music?

Shawn: I think being together this long has allowed us to be more honest with each other and collaborate more. When we first started I think we all were a bit hesitant giving feedback or tossing out ideas. Now it feels like the complete opposite! When we get together everyone puts their stamp on the song and we often will try things from different angles until the song feels right. We’ve had more than a few songs over the years that we tried different ways but never felt they landed and that’s ok too. We’ve learned when to push things and when to let the process naturally happen. 

Are there any songs or ideas from this EP that pushed you outside your comfort zone?

Kate: For me it’s Sirens, specifically the vocals.  For years in previous bands I was always told I was too quiet, so when we started this band I made it a point to be loud.  I think for a while I thought that meant singing as powerfully and hitting as many high notes as I could, but with these last two EP’s and with Sirens in particular, I wanted to play with both my lower register and my head voice, trying to balance out the quiet and loud moments to generate more emotion.

Shawn: Top Five was a tough one for me. I wanted to create tension in my playing that matched the lyrics so that one definitely was one that pushed me a bit. 

John: Top Five pushed me. I tried to put parts together that matched the vibe of the song. I wanted to put drums on there with little subtleties baked in to each verse and chorus..so if you just listened to the drums only for a couple seconds, you could tell where you were in the song. I try to do that in most songs, but this one was extra!

Kyle: I would say When We’re Gone definitely pushed me outside of my comfort zone. It’s one of the few songs we have that features all of us on vocals, and I am not much of a singer. I’d much rather hang in the background and let my playing do the talking for me. When the idea was initially conceived, I was not too thrilled by it. However, regarding the feel, vibe, and overall meaning of the song, it works perfectly and adds so much to the EP as a whole!

What emotions or experiences do you hope listeners carry with them after spending time with There Is No Arrival Vol. 2?
Kate: The songs are all about different things, but I think they all fall under the theme of overcoming.  I hope that whatever hardship it is people are identifying with when they listen, they’re also feeling the defiance, the persistence and perseverance, whatever it is they need to push through.

New Jersey songwriter Mourning Coffee returns with “Winter Whispers” a soft and introspective single written for the winter solstice. Rooted in folk tradition and wrapped in a dreamlike haze, the song captures the stillness of the year’s longest night, when reflection feels unavoidable and time seems to slow.

Featuring Eric Contractor, “Winter Whispers”unfolds gently, guided by warm acoustic textures and subtle string arrangements that give the song an almost floating quality. Mourning Coffee’s vocals sit close to the listener, carrying a sense of nostalgia and quiet yearning that feels deeply personal rather than performative.

The track leans into restraint, allowing space and silence to play a meaningful role. Rather than building toward a dramatic climax, the song lingers, mirroring the emotional pause that comes with the turning of the season. It is music meant for solitary walks, dim rooms, and moments of inward focus.

Formerly the frontman of touring band The Foxfires, Mourning Coffee has steadily moved toward a more intimate sound in his solo work. Previous releases like Introvert/Extrovert and RETROGRADE laid the groundwork for this shift, but “Winter Whispers” feels especially distilled, focused more on mood than momentum.

Written with the winter solstice in mind, the song reflects both endings and quiet beginnings. It is a gentle reminder that even in the darkest stretch of the year, there is comfort in stillness and beauty in waiting.

Brooklyn, NY/Toronto, ON indie pop/new wave duo The Dream Eaters return with their new album Year End Report. A collection of their singles from 2024 and 2025, framed as a tongue-in-cheek yearbook, the LP is a self-portrait of a band who thrives on bending reality, blending humour with tightly crafted indie pop, and turning the bizarre into something undeniably catchy. 

Year End Report is helmed by the gleefully outrageous lead single, “3D Printer” (Vagina Version). Equal parts electro-pop, synthwave, and surrealist humour, the song takes the band’s signature absurdism to a new high (or low, depending who you ask), imagining a future where 3D-printed vaginas are just another everyday convenience and turning that concept into a shimmering, danceable bop.

“We wrote ‘3D Printer’ in 2024 and made a social media video for it that used the lyric ‘I’m gonna 3D print your vagina with my 3D Printer,’” says Jake Zavracky (vocals/guitar/programming). “When we released it in 2025, we subbed in the word body instead of vagina. Our fans demanded the full vagina version, so here we are.”

Part tongue-in-cheek futurism, part deadpan earnestness, the track stands out within the duo’s catalogue not only for its title but for its balancing act: glossy pop production paired with a lyric no one was expecting. “It’s not a lyric you’d normally hear sung with this sort of tune,” adds Zavracky. “It’s an electro-pop synthwave song about the future, when people will be able to 3D print vaginas.”

Stylistically, the band leaned fully into the contrast. “We wanted a super pop song that would make people dance and also laugh – preferably at the same time.”