The single blends gritty boom-bap hip-hop with prog-rock, painting a vintage sonic canvas perfect for soundtracking a ’70s grind house flick. Challenging establishment and convention, Voli Contra’s new track is a middle finger to fascism and an ode to free thought. READ MORE…
Despite having a name you might not know (yet), Patrick Damphieris no stranger to the indie music scene. After touring with Angel Olsen, Laura Burhenn (The Mynabirds) and more, this veteran musician is going solo. READ MORE…
You may not know Patrick Damphier’s name, but there’s a good chance you’ve heard his production and sideman work with Mynabirds, Ponychase, New Man or Jessica Lea Mayfield, among others. You might also possibly have heard him playing his own songs under the name Field Days. But at the end of last year, he announced that he would retire the moniker and release his first LP under his own name. READ MORE…
No two musical careers are exactly the same, but Charles Wesley Godwin’s career almost never happened at all.
The 26-year-old Morgantown native, who performs Saturday night at the Boulevard Tavern in Charleston, didn’t plan on being a musician in the first place.
It wasn’t on the list of careers he even wanted when he was in high school.
A high school athlete, seven years ago, Godwin walked on for football at WVU.
He didn’t make the cut.
“I wasn’t good enough,” he said.
So, at 19, the former outside linebacker picked up a guitar and taught himself to play as a way to occupy the hours.
“I suddenly found myself with all of this time that I’d never had before.”
Until he started playing music, Godwin said he’d spent all of his time at practice, training or playing one sport or another.
His music education and tastes consisted mostly of whatever his family listened to on the radio.
“I grew up listening to 60s and 70s oldies in the car with my dad,” he said.
Godwin said he liked the story songs.
The guitar was meant as a companion and a hobby, not a new direction for him. Godwin studied finance, not music.
His music career might never have happened at all, if he hadn’t spent a semester abroad in Estonia in 2013.
He took the guitar with him.
While living in Estonia, Godwin practiced in his apartment. The music attracted his roommates, who came to listen to him play.
“It just snowballed from there,” he said. “I started playing a few shows and realized I had a talent for it.”
He returned to Morgantown, graduated from WVU with a finance degree and then, three years ago, decided to pursue music full-time…..READ MORE
Take the deep sincerity of Colter Wall and the joyous celebration of John Denver and you have Charles Wesley Godwin’s West Virginia anthem about coal. As the decendant of a coal miner, I have to say this one resonates in my bones. It’s such a tragic part of American history, really, but there’s a vital history here worth exploring. It’s a thoughtful Americana and folk style track that harkens back to the old days of Johnny Horton….READ MORE
“It’s the end of the world as we know it,” trail-blazing rock band R.E.M. once sang on their Document record. Little would they know that the world would go up in flames 30 years later ? in near post-apocalyptic proportions. A president clings to his Twitter page with all he’s got, and California is on the brink of burning to the ground completely. Ash clouds grow thicker by the day. But we continue to soldier on, turning to art and music to make us feel as fine as we can possibly be. Americana singer-songwriter James Houlahan drifts in and out of smothering smoke storms and fiery flakes that lick his heels with his brand new record, The Wheel Still in Spin, a deftly-constructed collection which glides between states of being with surprising ease.
Around the release, and as an exclusive to B-Sides & Badlands, Houlahan drafts a playlist of songs ripe for the end of the world, the very last state of being for all of us, you could say. From Leonard Cohen and Father John Misty to Wilco and Lucinda Williams, he touches on the breadth of Americana music and the sturdy, but tragic, American way of living with a playlist to get us through the tough times of this so-called life. The playlist also features Jolie Holland, The Low Anthem and Sunny War, among others….READ MORE