Today is a great day to share the new single from Oakland garage rock band, The Helltones, called “Don’t Waste My Time.” Much like the title implies, The Helltones get right down to the business at hand with a spiraling, nearly five-minute song that takes listeners on a thrilling ride.
Gwen isn’t as coarse as Janis Joplin or pop-synthetic as Taylor Swift. Gwen’s country music is the dominating double-fisted kind & not afraid to make light of a serious subject. Her songs are well-written & melodic. Never so message-driven as to be preachy & radical. Gwen delivers with sophistication & not with a temper. But she does draw attention.
Like its sprawling hometown of Dallas, Texas, cinematic indie rock band Beekeeper Spaceman’s self-titled debut album evokes a never-ending collision between bucolic bygones and the urban present.
Born out of an online multimedia project called Fire Bones, the duo—primary songwriter/ singer/guitarist Greg Brownderville and producer/multi-instrumentalist Spencer Kenney—have shared bills with artists like Erykah Badu, Leon Bridges, Shakey Graves and Black Pumas. Brownderville is editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Southwest Review and author of three books of poetry, while Kenney fronts a solo electro-pop project under his own name and is involved with a variety of acts on the Dallas-based Dolfin Records label.
Americana Highways presents this premiere of Gwen Levey’s song “Not The Girl Next Door,” the title track from her forthcoming EP due to be released on November 3. The song was written by Gwen Levey, Will Rambeaux and Sherrie Austin. The album was produced by Will Rambeaux, mixed by Rory Rositas, and mastered by Dan Frizsell.
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Path through the Past gives us Vampire Weekend sized mega-hooks and uncanny demi-electronic drums. This hybrid electro indie rock banger entices us with a pentatonic melody and deliciously long chord progressions, echoing the song writing style of James Mercer of The Shins. Max’s defeatist lyrics about longing and confronting the choices we’ve made in our lives are bathed in cheerful melancholy. “Every path through the past reaches a dead end / My ex-girlfriend’s dog is probably dead / Every road through the snow leads to crooked bends / And no matter how fast you turn, you always crash in the end,” Max sings.
On July 21, 1966, the Ku Klux Klan held a rally in Overton Park. The chief speaker was Imperial Wizard Robert M. Shelton of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, who “told the crowd of about 400 Klansmen, supporters and curious onlookers to work for ‘conservative candidates’ in the coming elections,” according to the evening newspaper, the Memphis Press-Scimitar.
A little over a week later, on July 30, the vibe was entirely different as “all the freaks in town” gathered in Overton Park for the first Memphis Blues Festival, a celebration of Black musical expression that was organized by young white music lovers and that showcased such elder giants-in-our-midst as Furry Lewis, Rev. Robert Wilkins and “Mississippi” Fred McDowell.