Can’t stand the sight of seagulls They freak you out and they’re kinda annoying as hell So says Jax musician Taylor Paul Neal on the latest Teal Peel single, “Sandy.” Fans of Pavement and Mercury Rev are bound to appreciate the cheeky lyricism of the local indie rock outfit’s new songs. I mean, who among us here in Northeast Florida …
“I once knew someone who said that he didn’t believe in the pursuit of happiness,” Jenny Lewis recently said in an interview about Joy’all, her new solo album. “And I thought, wow, how unfortunate.” The comment sums up a kind of wry wisdom that seems to characterize Lewis’ music: the belief that happiness isn’t a given but must be pursued …
Two ascendant Jacksonville-based hip-hop artists known individually for their chill deliveries, Mecca thA Marvelous and L.O.V.E. Culture’s EASYin2D, keep their Duval manners in order while speaking about their dealings with a “Georgia peach” on a new track. From a new, two-song collaborative release called JITS, the song “Peaches” is a mid-tempo head nod, likely to find acknowledgement from anyone who has …
Our weekly Go concert recommendations are updated every Monday morning and are always available on jaxmusic.org. For the comprehensive list of this week’s concerts, go to our live music calendar page. Jazz Taylor Roberts – Monday, June 12 Blue Jay Listening Room | Jacksonville Beach Jacksonville jazz guitarist Taylor Roberts begins his monthly residency at Blue Jay Listening Room in Jax Beach on Monday, playing …
How does one honor any creative tradition without losing one’s identity and wind up stifled in the conventions and style of that very same heritage? Jazz is simultaneously based on an expectation from the audience that one knows the tune and an expectation from the players assembled on the bandstand that one knows how to forget the tune altogether, let …
When Amaarae began work on her latest project, Fountain Baby, she knew she wanted it to defy labels. On one hand, it’s defiantly pop, but it’s persistently kaleidoscopic, built on a consistently surprising world of sound that draws from alternative Afrobeats to punk rock, R&B, bubblegum pop and more. As NPR Music editor Sheldon Pearce says on this week’s show, …
If there is a volatile lottery of success, providence, fortune, etc. in contemporary music, metal is the surely the remotest ball rolling in the hopper. The term “metal” has remained malleable for decades, and the polarities of the genre are so extreme that they easily—if not invitingly—encompass everything from the early-‘80s UK denim-and-leather of Saxon to the current gore-bath of …
Within the jazz idiom, there are only a few harpists that have caught my attention — two of them are incredible Black women. Alice Coltrane, the wife to the iconic John Coltrane, is probably the instrument’s best known acolyte. Detroit born harpist Dorothy Ashby is the another. Ashby, a playwright and public-school educator, was a pioneering harpist, and wrote many …
Taken from the recent Catching Ghosts album, recorded live at the November 2022 Jazzfest Berlin, the trio of German reedman Peter Brötzmann, Moroccan guembri player Majid Bekkas and Chicago-based drummer Hamid Drake tear lesser world music a new one with “Chalaba.” The merger of the Gnawa music that Bekkas brings to the forefront with his vocal and guembri (a type of bass …
I relish any opportunity to hear revised in-studio tracks, and I don’t think there’s a better venue for that than Electric Lady’s live in-studio session series. Last month, Durham electropop duo Sylvan Esso released five Live At Electric Lady renditions of tracks from their 2022 record No Rules Sandy (in addition to a cover of Low’s “Will the Night”). The …
Foo Fighters formed in the aftermath of tragedy, as Kurt Cobain‘s 1994 suicide left Dave Grohl reeling and in search of a voice. The band’s self-titled 1995 debut found the drummer and newly minted frontman reinvigorated by grief, while 1997’s The Colour and the Shape doubled as a rousingly hooky therapy session in the aftermath of his divorce. Taken together, …
Jared Mattson — guitarist and bassist for the formidable San Diego surf-jazz duo Mattson 2 — has announced his first, solo North American tour, with a stop in Jacksonville. Following the release of his critically adored debut, Peanut (out now on Chaz Bundick, AKA Toro Y Moi‘s Company Records), Mattson is hitting the road. The 20-date Peanut Release Tour will …
Our weekly Go concert recommendations are updated every Monday morning and are always available on jaxmusic.org. For the comprehensive list of this week’s concerts, go to our live music calendar page. Southern Rock Them Dirty Roses – Tuesday, June 6 Jack Rabbits | San Marco Alabama-bred Southern-rock torchbearers Them Dirty Roses performs at Jack Rabbits with support from Jax’s own keepers of the Southern-rock …
With the momentum of roughly two years of touring behind them — including a completely-sold-out 19-date run in February — Jax-based indie rock band Flipturn has announced a homecoming show. Two shows, in fact, at the Bier Hall inside Intuition Ale Works in Downtown Jacksonville on June 16 and 17. Mixing mature pop melodies with earnest lyrics and raw energy, …
It’s a big release day for veteran artists who’ve been putting out great music for decades, from Bob Dylan and Foo Fighters to Tanya Tucker, Cowboy Junkies and more. We can’t get to all of them on this week’s show, but we do spend some time with What Matters Most, the first new solo album from Ben Folds in 15 …
Unknown Mortal Orchestra‘s Tiny Desk concert was more of a family affair than lead singer, Ruban Nielson, revealed during his band introductions. His father, jazz musician Chris Nielson, has been on tour with them to support the band’s latest album, V. During the band’s live show back in April at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., he casually drifted on …
A little over 60 years ago, the editor-in-chief of DownBeat magazine asked John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy a deceptively simple question: What are you trying to do? He rephrased slightly: What are you doing? The two saxophonists sat for a long 30 seconds before Dolphy broke the silence. “That’s a good question,” he said. The DownBeat editor, Don DeMicheal, printed …
Featuring a few dozen new tunes from local, regional, national and international artists, our Fresh Squeeze playlist includes the best new music emanating from Northeast Florida and beyond. Handpicked by our team of contributors, there are no rules or genre restrictions; just songs we thought were worth a share. Our latest Fresh Squeeze includes the lead single from Ghanaian-Australian artist Genesis …
From the ever-savvy Death Is Not The End label comes this tasty reissue of a 1982 12” single from UK reggae artist Rupie Dan, originally released on his own Flag Records label. “My Black Race” serves up deep tendrils of bass and drums with filigrees of keyboard, melodica and analog synth stabs, as Rupie Dan takes his time in delivering …
Los Angeles-via-Phoenix singer-songwriter Blue Broderick, who records and performs as Diners, has announced her seventh full-length and shared its first single ahead of a fall U.S. tour that includes multiple Sunshine State shows. Produced by Mo Troper (a guitar-pop wizard in his own right) and due out Aug. 18 on Bar/None Records, the new LP’s first preview arrived Tuesday in …
From the Miami noise trio Harry Pussy to solo and quartet music, Bill Orcutt has spent decades fire-bombing conventional acceptance of what we consider to be guitar-based music. But adherents hoping for any of Orcutt’s steel-string immolations might need to swing at a curveball with The Anxiety of Symmetry. The Anxiety of Symmetry by Bill Orcutt Like previous “counting albums,” …
NPR Music’s Tiny Desk is celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. These artists represent just a sliver of the cultural diversity that exists within the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. NIKI, a.k.a. Nicole Zefanya, took a circuitous route to the Tiny Desk. Born in Jakarta, she scored a major opportunity by winning a competition at 15 to …
The precarity is palpable on “Leaving the Light,” the lead single from Ghanaian-Australian artist Genesis Owusu’s sophomore album STRUGGLER (August 18 on Ourness/AWAL). Though he’s currently enjoying a charmed-kind-of buzz in indie and alternative circles, paranoia and persecution abound on “Leaving the Light,” which is paired with an equally maniacal (and darkly gorgeous) video by Aotearoa New Zealand artist Lisa …
The new single from Duval goth-rockers Glass Chapel is ‘80s dourness to the max. Band member Jake Phillips acknowledges that “Foreign Rain” is “inspired by Gary Numan and Cold Cave.” And from the icy keyboard tones, disaffected vocals drenched in reverb, not to mention a definite Peter Hook-infused bass-guitar outro, the tune surely paints within the parameters of dark wave …
The Jacksonville Symphony has long specialized in offering their music in contexts designed to appeal to people who aren’t necessarily hardcore classical fans, and that has proven key to their success in an era that has been challenging, at best, for the symphony business overall. They’ve dabbled extensively in jazz in the past, but June’s Jazz at the Jacksonville Symphony …
When 2023’s Tiny Desk Contest winner Little Moon arrived at NPR, outward expressions of joy overshadowed the inner bundle of nerves this Springville, Utah band felt. The group’s winning song, “wonder eye,” unanimously wowed our contest judges Sharon Van Etten, Baby Rose, Sudan Archives and Albina Cabrera. Tiny Desk senior producer Bobby Carter and I, also judges, were in awe …
Our weekly Go concert recommendations are updated every Monday morning and are always available on jaxmusic.org. For the comprehensive list of this week’s concerts, go to our live music calendar page. Singer-Songwriter Sierra Ferrell – Friday, June 2 PV Concert Hall | Ponte Vedra West Virginia-native, the eclectic singer-songwriter Sierra Ferrell plays the PV Concert Hall on Friday. Watch | Tickets | Map Pop-Country …
The Chicago rapper Lil Durk returns this week with Almost Healed, a sometimes searing, sometimes tender examination of his life after years of loss and survival. On this week’s episode of New Music Friday, we dig into the music, talk about the pain that informs it and how Lil Durk has entered a new period of growth as an artist. …
In May, I got to cover the Shaky Knees Music Festival in Atlanta, Georgia, one of the biggest indie-inclined fests in the Southeast. The festival was celebrating its tenth anniversary, bringing in headliners like The Killers, Muse, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Flaming Lips; Shaky Knees’ first-ever headliner, The Lumineers, also returned. And, for the first time in the festival’s …
Tina Turner, a soul and rock powerhouse known for her octave-defying voice and mesmerizing stage moves, has died at the age of 83. Her death was announced in a statement on her official Facebook page, but offered no details about the cause. In her 2018 memoir, Tina Turner: My Love Story, Turner detailed a litany of health issues she had …
The calamitous hindrances of musicians owning their own recording studios remain unheeded, even though the barbarous words are carved on the massive headstones that populate the graveyard of CD-ROM boxed sets and DAT tapes. On the flip, the freewheeling merits of that same boon/curse gave us the Halfway Hounds. The product of not one, but two, accomplished musicians who are …
Kurt Cobain’s black Fender Stratocaster is covered in scratches and chipped wood. The names of Cobain and his former band, Nirvana, are misspelled. And the guitar itself, which was once smashed and put back together, is no longer playable. But on Saturday, the broken guitar was sold at Julien’s Auctions for a whopping $596,000 — nearly 10 times more than …
The Jacksonville Jazz Festival will return to the city’s Downtown on Memorial Day weekend, kicking off with the storied Jacksonville Jazz Piano Competition at the Florida Theatre on Thursday, May 25 and continuing with three days and nights of performances on two stages in the heart of the Urban Core. The buzz on this year’s fest is that it might …
Over the course of a career that’s now well into its fourth decade, the work of Britt Traynham has always been defined by a dogged diversity, and a relentless work ethic that has now taken him around the world, several times over. He currently lives in Hawaii with his wife and longtime collaborator, Lady Daisey, a veteran singer-songwriter and graphic …
PVRIS — the Massachusetts-originated metal band-turned-pop-rock solo project of singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Lyndsey Gunnulfsen — has a big summer in store. Ahead of a July performance in Jacksonville, she has released the latest single from her forthcoming album EVERGREEN, the darkly seductive anthem “LOVE IS A…“ “Inspired by the French phrase ‘la petite mort,’ aka the ‘little death,’” as …
Our weekly Go concert recommendations are updated every Monday morning and are always available on jaxmusic.org. For the comprehensive list of this week’s concerts, go to our live music calendar page. Country Zach Bryan – Tuesday, May 23 VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena | Downtown Jacksonville Billboard country chart-topper Zach Bryan plays VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena on Tuesday night. Watch | Tickets | Map Jazz …
