What better way to send summer off than with a song about a legendary BBQ joint that hosts great live music, good eats, and plenty of Friday night controlled chaos? Sometimes the catchiest, most memorable, and overall fun songs come from a fairly simple concept. With today’s premiere, delivered by none other than The Helltones, we are blessed with all the above and then some! Grab yourself a plate, pull up a chair, and dig right in to “Black Star Pirate BBQ” immediately!
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Greensboro, NC “y’allternative“ outfit Old Heavy Hands’ new album Small Fires lives at the inspired intersection of southern rock, Muscle Shoals Americana, alt-rock, and youths wasted on punk rock ambitions. Now grown men, collectively they’ve built families, survived cancer and beat addictions. It’s this raw tenacity and musical prowess that’s allowed them to share stages with acts like Jason Isbell, John Moreland, Lucero, Joshua Ray Walker, Tyler Childers and many more.
Small Fires was produced by Danny Fonorow, engineered by Ted Comerford & legendary producer Mitch Easter (R.E.M. Pavement, Wilco, Drive–By Truckers) at The Fidelitorium. Additional recording was done at Earthtones Recording Studio with Benjy Johnson (Eric Gales, King’s X, Mike Watt) and mixed by Henry Lunetta (Machine Gun Kelly, Bring Me The Horizon, 5 Seconds Of Summer). Then mastered by Greg Calbi & Steve Fallone (Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, Taylor Swift, Bon Iver).
The name Old Heavy Hands comes from an trash-talk term of endearment inside of the Legacy Irons Tattoo shop where Nathan James Hall (vocals, guitar), Larry Wayne Slaton (vocals, guitar, keys) and David Self (lead guitar, vocals) make their living. Josh Coe (bass, mandolin) owned the bar next to the tattoo shop, and John Chester (drums) worked at the bar across the street. The band formed naturally from hanging out in Greensboro’s tight-knit music community. Songs were born during acoustic sessions inside the shop, and finished in their practice space built in Hall’s barn—filled with snakes, spiders and chickens and overlooking fields of tobacco that they occasionally whack golf balls into. They brought in their friends and family to contribute to the record, including local venue owner and troubadour in his own right Josh King of House of Fools.
Small Fires kicks off with “Runaround,” whose themes work as a thesis for the album with its big guitars and self-revelatory lyrics about having an awakening when it comes to your own behavior. It’s a song about letting go of your own agendas and thinking about people beyond your own selfish wants. Hall sings, “I was just a boy / You’re an innocent flower / Did everything I can do in my power / to keep you safe / But that ain’t what you want.”
“I kept going back to the same shit,” says Hall. “I started to think to myself, ‘maybe you’re the problem in the story.’ I don’t want to be a dickhead and not treat people the right way. Things changed when I got cancer. I got hit with my own mortality. After that, I wanted to walk a little slower. Take my time. Be more self-aware. I didn’t want to be stressed about shit that didn’t matter, or make something out of nothing and make it hard on everybody else. It’s time to be an old man I guess. [laughs]”
The ironically titled “All the Time in the World” starts with Slaton’s wailing guitar riff and settles into his earnest and gentle vocals, “It’s hard to love a man so cold / harder yet to understand.” In the song’s bridge, we’re greeted by angelic backing vocals welcoming us to the other side, leading us to the bombastic ending punctuated by Self’s virtuoso guitar melodies.
“I’ll normally play a part over and over until it doesn’t suck,” says Self. “Sometimes I’ll just hear this melody in my head, like it came from a dream. It’ll just come to me, and I’m like, oh shit, that just happened!”
The cosmic country number, “Coming Down,” builds into massive grunge guitars and call-and-response vocals reminiscent of Vedder and Cornell’s Temple of the Dog. It’s a morning-after-the-party lament that has Hall’s conscience weighing on his shoulders. Broken noses and regret are lyrically echoed in the refrain, “I’m Coming Down / Time’s running out.”
The “Be My Baby” drums and guitar harmonies of the heartbreaking power ballad “Shelter Me” captures the heartache and feeling of futility in an uncaring and unforgiving world. It was written in response to the injustices that caused the deaths of folks like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. The request for shelter, safety and justice is brought to bear through lines like, “Can’t shake the situation/ Pointing cameras at the proof / We can’t breathe or sleep at night / With those devils on the loose.”
Hall’s voice is laid bare in “The Flood,” amongst a cacophony of organ and horns. There’s a gospel feel to this song about cleansing waters. The biblical flood may have wiped humanity from the face of the planet, but it left room for a new civilization to grow. Things happen in life, but there’s an ebb and flow to it. “Storms come and they go / The wind will always blow / Just tried to hold on tight / We’ll make it on through this night,” Hall sings. It’s a song of resilience.
“I wrote ‘The Flood’ at my brother’s house at the beginning of the pandemic,” says Hall. “It was one of those long nights of talking politics. Then we started talking about this story that my grandfather used to tell us. These people he knew in coastal North Carolina, in the Outer Banks. They had this street justice, where they’d tie someone up in a fishing net and toss them in the water. They would find people in the marshes covered in fishing nets. The smell of the marsh is that sweet sulfur smell. That’s where that line in the song comes from. Back in the ‘50s there wasn’t really any infrastructure out there in the Outer Banks. They’re pirates. They still talk like pirates. It’s called Ocracoke Brogue and it’s this weird mix of Queen’s English and southern redneck. They’re all basically descendants of Blackbeard and pirates like that. Blackbeard lived in North Carolina on the Outer Banks. So these people never left the islands.”
“Between You and Me” is an ode to Slaton’s grandfather, his father figure who taught him how to play guitar. He passed away from cancer at the same time as Hall was in the thick of it. It’s a song about dealing with grief and honoring the lives of those who’ve touched our lives in meaningful ways.
The misery-loves-company propulsive rocker “Old Demons” is a song about hard drugs and leaving that life behind for the ones you love.
“Scoreboard Lights” is about coming to terms with your own limitations, but more importantly, finding camaraderie in the things you love—from little league when you’re a kid, to joining a band, to watching your own kids join their own little league teams. It has a rowdy sax solo that’s perfect for SportsCenter replays.
Hall, Slaton and Self’ each took a verse on the emotional and ethereal “Hands of Time,” a love song to their mothers. It includes references to the music they loved like James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young. Self’s mother had passed away a year before they wrote the song. The band was sitting on the porch listening to voicemails that Self had saved of her voice, and his lyrics came from those messages.
“That was the closest I ever got to participating in a seance,” says Slaton. “We sat out on the porch at The Fidelitorium. We listened to those voicemails. We played her favorite song, ‘Born to Run,’ over and over again. It was like she wrote his verse for him. And it was insane. I got chills as it came together. It was one of the coolest writing experiences I’ve ever been involved in.”
Album closer “When the Lights Go Out” deals with out-of-body experiences with psychedelic drugs, and leaving those days behind. The title of the album comes from this song’s cheeky lyrics, “I think I used to have a little more patience / But I lost it all in a couple small fires,” an inside joke reference to losing time when smoking weed. The song’s southern rock ethos taps into the spirit of pop punk catchiness before ending in an anthemic gospel chorus. It’s a majestic and cathartic end to an album about growth and leaving childish things behind.
Hall and Slaton met in early 2000s in their touring punk outfits, Hall’s Priority One (Greensboro) and Slaton’s tomsawyer (Chicago). Hall lived in a punk house at the time and bands touring through Greensboro would stay with him. Slaton’s show got canceled, and he ended up staying with Hall for a week. They became fast friends and Hall eventually moved up to Chicago to play bass in tomsawyer. “We were wearing the same band shirts,” Slaton laughs. Hall eventually left Chicago to go back to Greensboro where he opened the tattoo shop. Slaton followed suit and came down to Greensboro for a “permanent vacation,” and started tattooing.
Slaton and Self began playing guitar together at the shop. Hall joined in, and the three haven’t stopped playing music together since. Josh King and Jordan Powers of Greensboro band House of Fools wanted to record their songs, so they were forced to grow out of just being three guys singing and playing acoustic guitar. Their 2016 self-titled LP found Hall, Slaton and Self being backed by members of House of Fools, including King and drummer Jack Foster (Sarah Shook & the Disarmers).
Their 2018 alt-country album Mercy was recorded in Wilmington, again by Powers, but now they had put their own band together.They connected with Ink Master judge Oliver Peck, and he decided to put out the record on his fledgling label. Just before the album’s release, Hall was diagnosed with cancer. Their post release plans had to be put on hold as Hall fought and beat cancer over the next couple years. Through chemotherapy and the love and support of his friends and family, Hall had a new way of looking at the world.
They recorded the pro-marijauna anthem “Red Red Eyes” just as Hall was feeling better. They released it as the world shut down for the Covid pandemic. Old Heavy Hands buckled down to write and record Small Fires, itself an inside joke about smoking weed. Now, many years and three albums later, Hall, Slaton and Self are still inseparable.
“I got three times better at guitar between Mercy to Small Fires,” says Slaton, “There was a lot of sitting around with D [Self] playing guitar, watching this motherfucker, play over stuff. Then I started noodling over stuff. Over COVID I started playing keys, took singing lessons, and learned to produce. Everyday, I work to learn something new about my craft.”
“I used to be a pretty severe alcoholic,” says Self. “We just wanted to party and we didn’t really care. And now I feel like we care. We’re more driven to accomplish the goal, versus aimlessly playing drunken shows.”
“I got a lot off of my chest.” says Hall. “Just to let go of some of that shit and move past it. This record helped me let go of those things. So the next one will not be all about drugs. [laughs]”
“After the record comes out,” says Slaton, “we want to play as many places as we can. My two favorite singers in the world are Nate [Hall] and my wife. They’re both amazing natural singers, you know, so I always feel like I need to work my ass off to try to keep up with both of them. Me and Nate have more than enough songs for another record. So we’ll keep working on the next one. Bigger and better!”
“Truly stellar country music songs, the way country ought to be. Great thought provoking lyrics, great instrumentation and vocals, and plenty o’ twang.” – Twangri-La
“[Old Heavy Hands] paint a picture of struggling and making good on promises… tugs at your heartstrings.” – Americana Highways
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Breaking out of Silicon Valley’s tech bro hellscape comes Oakland’s queer-fronted, twee, indie rockers Super Cassette. Their new album Continue? poses the question, “is life worth living?,” through the lens of electro indie-rock at its most danceable and celebratory. Primary songwriter Max Gerlock (they/them) employs the tried-and-true tactic of juxtaposing joyous pop arrangements against dark lyrics, tackling difficult subjects.
They’ve shared bills with No Party for Cao Dong and Scott Klopfenstein (Reel Big Fish), and have been added to Spotify editorial playlists like Indie Brandeu. Their 2020 single “Be Gay, Do Drugs, Hail Satan” went viral racking up over three million streams on Spotify alone, hundreds of TikTok videos, and over 2,400 upvotes on the prestigious r/listentothis subreddit.
Max and their brother and co-writer Nick Gerlock (he/him) embrace the theme of obsolete media and tech, including their namesake, the failed 1984 Japanese video game console The Super Cassette Vision.
While Continue? started as a collection of songs that Max produced themselves in their vine-infested garage, the album came to life through collaboration with producer and engineer Cole Williams (The Hails, Bobbing, Tobias Dray), who helped replace the album’s solitary overdubs with live performances from the rest of the band. They reworked the album for nearly a year, bouncing between Max’s Oakland home and Cole’s 8th Street Recording studio.
“Making this record was a real time journey through a depressive episode,” says Max. “I’m out of that now, but it was a frustrating and hopeless time. I was genuinely questioning everything. Should I continue to make art? Should I continue living at all? This story ends with a really positive message. Yes, I should continue living. Yes, I should continue doing music. I need to find that compassion in myself. There’s beauty in the world. This album confronts the idea, ‘to be or not to be.’ It’s Hamlet-core.”
Continue? opens with its title track, a guitar driven anthem with arcade-game synthesizers, asking whether modern life as an artist is even worth living. Max sings, “Insert a quarter / To sing your blues to the Windows voice recorder / A tree in a forest, falling on purpose / With no one there to hear.” It’s gentle lo-fi indie rock builds into a stadium-size pop-punk kaiju of rock. Its grandiose pop chorus contrasts with lyrics about triumphing over anxiety disorders and suicidal ideations. It’s ultimately a song about not just surviving, but making the conscious decision to thrive.
“Path Through the Past” gives us Vampire Weekend sized mega-hooks and uncanny, not-quite-electronic drums. This hybrid electro indie rock banger entices us with a pentatonic melody and satisfyingly long chord progressions, similar to the songwriting 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.
“When I was teaching computer science,” says Max, “I’d think about algorithms for finding paths. I’d think about my life and its branching paths. It all leads to this, or that, or death. I wrote this song while on a bike ride up to Grizzly Peak. I took an edible, was pedaling up the hill, then found myself missing my ex-girlfriend’s dog. I thought about how that dog probably isn’t around, and isn’t that how things go? The line, ‘When I see your face / All I can see is how you will age.’ There was a time in my life that whenever I looked at someone’s face, I’d imagine them old. Life is fleeting.”
Sonically, “Bones’ ” Mac Demarco, ear-bending tremolo guitar feels like it’s giving you a hug, even as Max sings, “I don’t wanna be alive / But I don’t wanna die / And there’s nothing I can do.” The driving dropped-D guitar and bass line of “Ember” leads us to explore the things that brought us joy in our childhood. The anti-capitalist “9 to 5” is about rejecting a lifestyle where you spend the majority of your time doing something you hate, and making time for the things you love. “Ulcer” comes across like an indie-rock anime theme song about stress, anxiety and sobriety. Leading into the 22-second “Interlude” that’ll end side-A of the vinyl with an endless loop.
The eat-the-rich anthem “Bastille Day” is a shining gem on the record that was written in a 24-hour songwriting contest. It rebels against the idea that money is power with a propulsive call for systemic change against the greed that makes this an ugly world. The silver-lining optimism of “Someday” is emphasized with Strokes-like jangle pop as Max sings about being kind and forgiving to yourself, especially when you make mistakes.
Max wrote “Ghost” after being visited in a dream by a friend who had recently passed away from an overdose. The dream pop first half has the delicate and floaty essence of Beach House, periodically exploding with the frustration and guilt that Max felt with the terrible situation. Max’s singing voice can be as bombastic and catchy as Billie Joe Armstong, or they can turn around and sound as delicate and gossamer as Thom Yorke. The tender verses and exploding choruses of the power ballad “Sliver” explore how to continue to find joy and self-compassion as one gets older.
The album ends with the one-two punch of “Island” into “Continent,” answering the “to be or not to be” question with unequivocal: “yes, but we don’t survive alone.” No person is an island. We’re communal animals who thrive when we support one another.
“Where I’m coming from / And where I’m going to are one / Both the island and / The continent will spend their time beneath the sun,” Max sings, and “A man’s not a point in a time but a line through his life,” was ironically written before they came out as non-binary.
The incredibly danceable “Island” comes at us with borderline EDM percussion, peaceful guitar licks and Max’s mellow and calming vocal delivery. It’s about continuity through one’s own life—your past self, present self, and future self all being the same person equally deserving of compassion.
“Continent,” on the other hand, is about continuity through others. It concludes the album with a positive message of defeating the misery and hopelessness of modern life with camaraderie and community. It’s a reaction to the idea that we’re lonelier than ever. We’re completely obsessed with ourselves, while at the same time hating ourselves more than ever. All this is exacerbated by the unrealistic expectations presented in social media feeds, particularly to younger generations. “Island” is a call for compassion, for yourself as much as for others.
It was recorded live with everyone in a room, mirroring the song’s thesis of the importance of fellowship. You can hear the room sound, the slightly out-of-tune piano, the folk-rock joy of playing music with your friends and family. Max’s question of should their life “continue” was once answered by a few wise sages who sang, “I get by with a little help from my friends.”
“The death of any human is a tragedy because we’re one big mass, a continent,” says Max. “ ‘Island’ is about the continuity of your past, present and future self. ‘Continent’ is about the continuity of you among others. Camaraderie, even among strangers, is important.”
Max and Nick began playing music together as children in semi-rural San Diego. Max on alto saxophone and Nick on piano. Max continued playing sax in their high school jazz band, but focused on learning guitar and drums to better follow in the footsteps of their indie-rock inspirations, and because they “didn’t want to be a nerd.” It worked. Max felt the prestige and attention that every teenage rocker wants. Folks actually listened to them sing and play guitar.
A burgeoning hacker-in-training, Max used pirated plugins and learned to write through recording with programs like Audacity and Reaper. They spent a few years at community college, but by this point all of their friends, bandmates and collaborators had moved away. Max was accepted to the University of California, Berkeley, where they (despite their love for poetry and writing) earned a degree in electrical engineering and computer science. They quickly found a computer job where the glowing screen slowly sucked the life out of them.
Burning out from the coding grind, Max returned to their first love and started a solo music project called Maximilian. But because they didn’t want to be pigeonholed as a solo project (and because a cease-and-desist letter forced them to change their name), Maximillian promptly changed their name to Super Cassette.
Shortly after their first show, they released the singles “Colorblind” b/w “Sober” (2016). “Sober” took off on Latin American YouTube, and particularly in Mexico City. It was featured on a Japanese podcast, and even high schoolers were covering it for battle of the bands.
“‘Sober’ was the early era,” says Max, “back when it was just me in my room. I had Nick and Devin play on it. Just simple four-piece rock arrangements. I constantly have a complex where I feel the need to complicate arrangements by adding textural elements or breaking chords apart. I could just strum Green Day songs. But with recording, I want to elevate it above a live experience. Set a scene in a world. We’ve struck a good balance with that on this new record.”
Cathode Ray Tube (2017) continued their love of obsolete tech and ephemera, and moved into a more collaborative band experience, rather than Max writing alone. “We toured the most during the Cathode Ray Tube era. After that, I’ve cynically released singles to feed the hungry beast that is Spotify.”
Max was shocked by the degree that “Be Gay, Do Drugs, Hail Satan” (2020) resonated with people during the isolated mayhem of the Covid pandemic. Its blatant honesty reminds us to be true to ourselves and that it’s okay to be different. Its ridiculously over-the-top lyrics and positive message of freedom gave Super Cassette an unexpected community of similarly-minded fans.
“I have to be grateful,” says Max “I’m happy how that song connected to people. More people are coming out to shows. It’s easier to connect with people who care, and we’re able to build relationships and a community. I feel a lot of hope moving forward. Our Twitch and Discord are very active which allows me to have sincere interactions with fans.”
Making Continue? was a life-affirming journey for Max. They got through it with the help of their brother and bandmates. Super Cassette is already planning tours for late 2023 and into 2024. More music is certainly on the horizon as they continue to write and record with Williams.
“More than anything, I want to connect with our online audience in real life,” says Max. “Shows. Meeting people. I hope that I continue to connect with our current audience, younger and queer folks. Queer people do struggle with mental health more often. We’re sensitive people. Sensitive people make things. I used to be ashamed to write hooky music, but now I want to write things that people can sing along to, while still having interesting harmonies, cool textures—things that give the music replay value. I want my music to connect with people in a meaningful way.”
“Oakland, California’s Super Cassette mix throwback splashes of early 90s indie rock with those of the early 2000s garage rock revival.” – Music Existence
Indie-pop songwriter Shane Rennison’s Nice To Meet You EP (out October 13) is an earnest five-track collection of songs that feel like a peek into Rennison’s wide-open heart and his beloved home in the Catskill Mountains of New York. That’s where he made many of the memories that fuel his music, which recalls the craftsmanship of The 1975, the sugary synth highs of Passion Pit and the effortless pop prowess of Harry Styles.
Here is the absorbingly atmospheric animated video for ‘Icicles’ from indie-folk duo Beekeeper Spaceman. Musically, the song swirls in melodic and dreamy layers over truly warm, deep bass. The intriguing words, such as, “Walk away. I’m lonely by design,” fit well with the lush, spacious, ethereal sounds that rise up and grow through the song. The main songwriter, singer and guitarist Greg Browderville says: “‘Icicles’ is a demented Christmas song that ambles like a bummed-out, beat-driven Beach Boys tune as the song’s main character explores the tug-of-war between the freedom of youth and the domesticity of adult relationships.”