In 2021, sales of vinyl records easily outpaced those of CDs. And purchases weren’t confined to ultra-hip indie music shops. Big-box retailers like Target and Walmart made bank this year selling re-pressings of classic albums, as well as new drops from some of the world’s most successful pop-stars––Olivia Rodgrio, Taylor Swift, Cardi B, et al. If you need more proof …
Local Spotlight | “Crying For Free” by Jahny Steel
A haunting and contemplative new tune from one of Duval’s most anomalous creatives
Since dropping his 14-song opus, Mister 9, Duval hip-hop artist Jahny Steel has done little to dispel the notion that he is one of the most prolific and anomalous creatives in the 904. That is to say: He’s been doing the most. Riding the buzz of Mister 9, Steel’s followed up a slew of new songs (“Plate,” “Ice,” “Tea”) and …
Go | These are the Jacksonville concerts you don’t want to miss this week
Classical, prog punk or salsa: Take your pick
Each and every week the Jacksonville Music Experience team identifies the best concerts in Northeast Florida. This week’s calendar is chocked full of top-notch shows. Here’s what the JME team wants to see and hear. Americana The Wood Brothers – Wednesday, December 1 Ponte Vedra Concert Hall | Ponte Vedra With a new record grounded in improvisation, Grammy Award-nominated Americana trio …
Fresh Rotation | Three juicy tunes handpicked by the JME team
New music from La Luz, Joy Orbison and Amyl & the Sniffers to add to your playlists
Each and every week the JME team handpicks the juiciest new tunes from local, regional, national and international artists to concoct the tasty, tall-glass-of-a-listening-experience that is our Fresh Squeeze playlist. Each song is chosen with intention. And so we often feel like they are worthy of a broader discussion (or at least a bit of context). Here are three new songs …
Dave Grohl retraces his life-affirming path from Nirvana to Foo Fighters
Dave Grohl still remembers the first punk show he ever saw: Naked Raygun, in Chicago around 1982, at a little corner bar across from Wrigley Field called The Cubby Bear. “They knew four chords and the singer was, like, on top of my head, and I was against the stage, and it was life-affirming, because I thought … ‘Oh my …
Adele asked Spotify to remove the default shuffle button for albums, and they obliged
Spotify has removed a play button that automatically shuffled songs regardless of an album’s track list, and it’s all thanks to Adele. The singer-songwriter tweeted on Saturday that she had requested the change for the release of her fourth studio album, 30, which arrived on streaming services on Friday. “This was the only request I had in our ever changing …
Go | Underbelly stirs up reggae night with Central FL’s King Tappa and genre stalwarts Link&Chain
Newly reopened Underbelly hosts its inaugural reggae night
Kurt Prince, aka King Tappa, has been making his name in the country’s reggae scene for over a decade now. Influenced by artists like Sizzla, Steel Pulse, Beres Hammond and Gregory Isaac, his work encompasses a wide range of roots music, from dancehall to dub. He began behind the boards, as a producer and DJ, before transitioning into writing and …
Go | These are the best shows in Jacksonville this week
We’re thankful for a jazz jam, one of the city’s best hip-hop acts and some alt-country
Each and every week the Jacksonville Music Experience team identifies the best concerts in Northeast Florida. This week we found much to be thankful for. Here’s what’s on the JME team’s concert calendar for the week of Thanksgiving. Jazz Blue Jay Jazz Jam – Tuesday, November 23 Blue Jay Listening Room | Jax Beach If looking to show out-of-town family a …
Giveaway | Want a copy of the Grateful Dead Live in St. Louis, 1971?
Throughout several iterations of the band and over several decades of touring, the Grateful Dead’s many performances in St. Louis are revered among Deadheads. And a new 3-CD set of a performance at the city’s Fox Theatre, recorded in 1971, does much legitimize that reverence. Fox Theatre, St. Louis 12.10.71 captures one of the most influential bands of the 20th …
Local Spotlight | The best new music by Jax artists out right now
Jesabel's Infectious pop, top-notch hip-hop from IntricateTheAlmighty, Howdy says "aloha" to L.A., Lazuli Vane steeps a funk-laced brew and a Lynchian new video from Cory Driscoll
Though the Jacksonville Music Experience team covers new music from around the globe, we’re always keeping our collective ear to the ground, locally. And right now, our Jax-made-music cup overfloweth. Here’s a rundown of the five best new tracks by Jacksonville artists, all of which appear on JME’s November Fresh Squeeze playlist on Spotify. “Squeeze” by IntricateTheAlmighty Duval-based rapper IntricateTheAlmighty …
Go | Tiger Records celebrates two years in biz with new merch and much vinyl
Vinyl shortage be damned: When Tiger Records celebrates an anniversary, the wax is sure to be in plentiful supply. In just 24 months in business, the upstart brick-and-mortar music shop in the heart of Riverside has made a case not just for the viability vinyl records, but for the enterprise of independent music stores, omnino. This weekend, Tiger celebrates two …
Just Announced | Savannah Stopover brings indie heavy hitters to Georgia
The Savannah Stopover music festival looks lit
No excuse is ever needed for a weekend in Savannah, but here’s a great one, anyway: The 11th annual Savannah Stopover Festival takes place on March 11 & 12, 2022. Savannah Stopover 2022 Venue announcement from Savannah Stopover on Vimeo. Tickets are tiered, $89 and $99, with VIP packages going for $189 and $214. At least 32 acts are already …
Just Announced | Iron & Wine @ Ponte Vedra Concert Hall
The professorially dressed singer-songwriter brings his artful lyrics (and guitar) to Northeast Florida
The South Carolina-bred, former film professor Sam Beam played an integral role in the neo-folk revival of the early aughts, dispensing a handful of whispery, lo-fi and critically lauded albums under the moniker Iron & Wine, including The Creek Drank the Cradle (2002) and Our Endless Numbered Days (2004). A studied visual artist, the often professorially dressed Beam’s cinematic lyrics …
Go | This week’s best live music bets
Harvard educated viral video maker, Beethoven’s best and a Southern Hip-hop standout
Each and every week the Jacksonville Music Experience team identifies the best concerts in Northeast Florida. Here’s what’s on the JME team’s concert calendar this week. Singer-Songwriter Austin Weber – Monday, November 15 Eraser Records | Murray Hill Austin Weber is probably the type of guy you want at your birthday party. He’s famed for creating viral videos. He studied …
Local Spotlight | “Every Excuse” by Jesabel
Ambitious pop from talented Jacksonville-based singer-songwriter
Since the release of her 2020 debut single, “Forgiveness,” Jacksonville singer-songwriter Jesabel has continued to crank out the kind of ambitious indie pop that’s more easily suited for FM radio than open-mic nights at coffee houses. Her latest, the lush and cathartically sung “Every Excuse,” is packaged for comparable grandeur. “Every lie, every break, every second that you take is …
Local Spotlight | ‘The Elements’ by Madre Vaca
Members of Jacksonville’s jazz vanguard drop their 13th release as Madre Vaca.
The latest release from Madre Vaca, The Elements, features the top tier of Jacksonville’s modern jazz scene reestablishing their motivic connections. On the quartet’s 13th album, each member of the ensemble (Jarret Carter, guitar; Thomas Milovac, bass; Jonah Pierre, piano; Benjamin Shorstein, drums) introduce an extended piece based on one of four earth elements, upon which the accompanying players improvise …
The Tables Have Turned on Vinyl
Jacksonville musicians, labels and manufacturers embrace vinyl’s renewed popularity; if only they could get their records on press
The music of LPT is tailor made for vinyl. The Jacksonville-based ten piece performs original son cubano, salsa dura and salsa romántica, mambo, cha-cha-cha and other styles of Afro-Cuban Salsa, a fusion of sounds which, when introduced by Cuban and Puerto Rican musicians in New York in the 1970s, was distributed widely on vinyl records––the preferred format of the day. …
Local Spotlight | “All Great Love” by Cory Driscoll
A colorful new song and Lynchian new video from the Jax-based singer-songwriter
Jax-based singer-songwriter Cory Driscoll is set to release Eureka Springs, the follow-up to 2018’s Tropical Depression, an album of earnest folk tunes chronicling an anxious period between the landfalls of hurricanes Matthew and Irma. If anything, Tropical Depression proved Driscoll not only a crafty songwriter, but an ambitious and calculating artist capable of tying together loose threads across a sprawling …
Go | What to see and hear in Jax this week
Jam band Circles Around the Sun, bluesman Robert Cray and hip-hop beat-maker Blockhead top a week that has a little something for everyone.
Each and every week the Jacksonville Music Experience team identifies the best concerts in Northeast Florida. Here’s what’s on the JME team’s concert calendar this week. Funk Monday Night Funk Jam – Monday, November 8 Headroom Coffee Bar | Downtown Jax Headroom Coffee Bar plays host to some of the area’s top talent, each and every Monday. Adam Kenneway, Shaun …
Local Spotlight | “Chamomile (Smoke Rings)” by Lazuli Vane
Beaches-based multi-instrumentalist steeps a funk-laced psychedelic brew
Neptune Beach has treated Patrick Taylor well. Since arriving in the small ocean-adjacent enclave a year ago, the songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who performs under Lazuli Vane has been productive, releasing the texturally rich and experimentally inclined full-length, 2020’s ambient The Orphic Rite of the Cult of Sedna. More importantly, perhaps, for the young creative, he’s embedded himself within an emotionally …
Surfer Blood drop back into Jacksonville with something old, something new
The West Palm Beach indie faves play the Bier Hall at Intuition Ale Works
While Surfer Blood’s latest album plays like a possible rumination on the past, the band is hardly caught in the undertow of a wave of nostalgia. Released in May of 2020, Carefree Theatre is a solid offering from the West Palm Beach-born band that has enjoyed a decade-plus of critical acclaim and rabid fan adoration. The 11-song collection contains the certain …
Go | The best concerts in Jacksonville this week
Porchfest, Surfer Blood and a hip-hop showcase
Each and every week the Jacksonville Music Experience team identifies the best concerts in Northeast Florida. Here’s what the JME team wants to see and hear this week. Jam Band Galactic – Thursday, November 4 Ponte Vedra Concert Hall | Ponte Vedra A mainstay at music festivals for decades, funky and progressive instrumental ensemble Galactic plays the Ponte Vedra Concert …
Listen | November’s Fresh Squeeze playlist
A juicy playlist of tunes handpicked by the JME team
JME contributors pick the juiciest noise emanating from Northeast Florida and beyond for our monthly Fresh Squeeze playlist. Featuring a few dozen new tunes from local, regional, national and international artists, there are no rules or genre restrictions; just songs we thought were worth a share. Follow the Jacksonville Music Experience on Spotify and our Fresh Squeeze playlist to keep …
Hot Off the (Re)Press | Joni Mitchell at Carnegie and R.E.M. at their peak
Two great re-pressings from iconic artists
‘Hot Off the (Re)Press’ is a semi-regular column highlighting reissues of seminal, classic and groundbreaking works. The Jacksonville Music Experience team is made of vinyl enthusiasts. Read more about our love affair with the medium via JME’s Crate Diggin’ features. Live at Carnegie Hall-1969, Joni Mitchell Joni Mitchell, one of the most-celebrated songwriters of her generation, has arguably been one of the …
Jax Photographer Leighton Hoey’s Immersive View of the City’s Music Scene
Hoey's Jax Today photo essay offers a unique look at music in Northeast Florida
In a recent photo essay for Jacksonville Today (the second in an ongoing series for the recently launched newsletter and website), Beaches-based lens-person Leighton Hoey captures the verve and enthusiasm surrounding the city’s burgeoning live music scene. At 23, Hoey’s already a season veteran documentarian of music in Northeast Florida. And, in contrast to the more posed or highly stylized …
Local Spotlight | “Love Burn” by 9E
Heavy Jax rock quartet expands its mastery of the dark arts
On the strength of the riff-heavy and atmospheric noise found within 9E’s 2018 debut Desert Nights, the Jax Beach-based rock quartet was enjoying some forward momentum, its monochromatic ambience and mastery of soft-loud dynamism manifesting as a kind of dark art, casting spells on the rowdy crowds that gathered in small clubs around the beaches before the city’s pandemic slumber. For a …
Go | Jacksonville PorchFest in Historic Springfield
Every neighborhood has its charms; only one has PorchFest
Certainly every neighborhood scattered across the vast sprawl of Jacksonville––the largest city by land area in the continental U.S.––has its charms. But the Downtown Jax-adjacent neighborhood of Springfield––with its rich history, walkability and varied range of historic and architecturally interesting homes gleaming with classical columns, fireplaces, crown modeling, decorative banisters, et al––is in a league of its own. And Springfield …
Go | These are the best concerts in Jax this week
Indie rock, bedroom hip-hop, spooky stoner metal and legendary blues for your Halloween weekend
If you slept on Thundercat’s visit to Northeast Florida, you’ll surely be disappointed to find out that the incomparable bassist’s Ponte Vedra Concert Hall show this Tuesday is sold out. Don’t be disheartened, though. A sold-out show is a good sign that Northeast Florida’s live music scene is alive and well. And during a week in which we celebrate the …
Local Spotlight | “Stay in L.A.” by Howdy
Jacksonville indie-folk cowboy says "Aloha" to the West Coast
California retains a mythical quality in the hearts and minds of East Coasters. Los Angeles, too––despite its labyrinths of on- and off-ramps, fire hazards and (now) mosquito problems––can weigh heavy on the imagination of a right-coast romantic. A West Coast pilgrammage, then, is a must; if only to realize the grass is always greener. On “Stay in L.A.” Jax Beach-based …
Go | The best concerts in Jax this week
A good week for fans of college radio
There was a time when the term college radio was used to describe any rock music that was just outside the mainstream. Bands like R.E.M. and the B-52’s wore it like a badge of honor. The Replacements glorified such “Left of the Dial” music in song. Today, the term is used to describe a much broader array of artists working …
Local Spotlight | The best releases by Jax artists out right now
New singles from Faze Wave and Niki Dawson; albums by LPT and DeAndre Lettsome
The JME team was busy last week, as new music flooded in from across Northeast Florida. New tracks from indie rock quartet Faze Wave and singular vocalist Niki Dawson perked our ears. And meditative and complex new full-lengths from jazz-scene standout DeAndre Lettsome and ten-piece Afro-Cuban salsa orchestra LPT gave us much to chew on. Here are the best new …
Giveaway | Win tickets to see Sheer Mag at Intuition Ale Works
Free tickets to see potent Philly power-pop quartet
The team over at Intuition Ale Works had big plans for the Bier Hall, a mid-sized music venue inside their Downtown taproom and production facility. While the pandemic may have stalled those initial ambitions (a Ty Segall show was put on ice), the Bier Hall is ready to come alive, rolling out a fall lineup featuring some big-time indie acts …
Local Spotlight | ‘Impetus’ by DeAndre Lettsome
Jax-based alto saxophonist struts across standards and original compositions
Astute followers of Jacksonville’s red hot jazz scene are surely familiar with DeAndre Lettsome. A founding member of Jax-based purveyors of New-Orleans-style jazz, Let’s Ride Brass Band, the 26-year-old alto saxophonist is an in-demand player. And, as evidenced by the new nine-song collection Impetus (Lettsome’s first solo release on Bold City Music Productions), he’s also a formidable composer and topnotch …
Local Spotlight | “Feelings” by Niki Dawson
Jax singer flexes her singular vocal talent on new single
Certainly there are countless singers who can emote a broad spectrum of sentiments despite a limited vocal range. (Bob Dylan comes to mind, though, many––myself included––find his vocal prowess to be somewhat underrated.) But when it comes to Niki Dawson, there are seemingly few, if any, limitations on what the Jacksonville singer can express. On a new single appropriately titled …
Local Spotlight | “Waiting to Lose” by Faze Wave
Popular indie rock kids continue to grow, expand their infectious dissonance
Faze Wave is nothing if not durable. Since the release of their well-received debut, 2016’s earnest and reverb-drenched collection Melt, the Jax-based quartet has not only sustained that initial buzz. Over a half-dozen singles, EPs and another full-length (2018’s broad-yet-refined collection, Lethologica), the band has persisted––no small feat considering the group’s core members have spent the twilight of their youth, …
Go | Here’s who’s playing in Northeast Florida this week
Folk, pop, indie rock and more are on tap
September’s eclectically booked Sing Out Loud Festival rolled nicely into the Jacksonville Jazz Festival on the first weekend in October. And live music isn’t letting up just yet. There’s plenty more to see and hear this week in Northeast Florida. Here’s what the JME team is masking up for. NOTE: The CDC recommends wearing a mask indoors in public if you …