Das Koolies Release "DK.01"

Dancefloors of all distinctions have moved to their sounds for four decades, whether festival fields or pounded dancefloors, and now the four members of Das Koolies present a heady blend of up-front warped pop and overlapping electronica with "Nuthin Sandwich" – the latest incessant psych-techno-disco cut from their upcoming album, DK.01.

Turning the void into volume, this new track brings forward the voices of Huw ‘Bunf’ Bunford and Daf Ieuan in a hands-high, future tent-filler, inspired by the vast open spaces, physically and culturally, found in the United States of America. Whether on film, on record or theirs and their bandmates’ – Cian Ciarán and Guto Pryce’s – own eyewitness experiences of touring and working in the US, the track hits the gas to drive to ‘a town called truth or consequence’.

The new single paints an audio picture to match the views of miles and miles of ‘nuthin’ seen through open windows as they travel the long road, trying to catch up with the song’s protagonists – a shroom-munching father and son in matching tracksuits reaching a final destination of near-religious enlightenment.

The band says of "Nuthin Sandwich": “Small town America. Long roads with no changes to the view. New Mexico? Arizona? Truth or Consequence. Big country, big guns, big trucks. A first world country with parts of it stuck in the third.”

The album will be released in multiple physical formats, including Dinked collectors’ edition recycled coloured vinyl with bonus 7", Bandcamp and Indies recycled coloured vinyl, black recycled double vinyl, CD and digital.

Peter Case Documentary Release

Los Angeles, CA – Freestyle Digital Media, the digital film distribution division of Byron Allen’s Allen Media Group, has acquired global VOD rights to the music documentary PETER CASE: A MILLION MILES AWAY. PETER CASE: A MILLION MILES AWAY is available to rent/own on DVD and North American digital HD internet, cable, and satellite platforms through Freestyle Digital Media.PETER CASE: A MILLION MILES AWAY features new performances from Peter Case, as well as a special performance by acclaimed vocalist Lady Blackbird with Chris Pierce.

PETER CASE: A MILLION MILES AWAY profiles one of America's last great troubadours – Peter Case – who has lived a life of constant change, soaring highs, and soul-crushing lows. From the frigid suburbs of Buffalo, New York, to his early years living and busking on the streets of San Francisco, to formative experiences with punk band The Nerves and L.A. power pop legends The Plimsouls, to his decades-long, Grammy-nominated solo career, this documentary allows viewers to walk a million miles in the shoes of one of America's finest musicians. PETER CASE: A MILLION MILES AWAY profiles a gifted musician who has never found the widespread acclaim he deserved, but who has still managed to find a place in the unforgiving landscape of the music business, Peter Case is a unique and compelling artist with a fascinating life story both heartbreaking and hopeful, who has spent the past four decades steadfastly answering his artistic calling. Case is a dynamic performer, a gifted raconteur with a master storyteller’s flair, a passion for social justice, and a ripping sense of humor. PETER CASE: A MILLION MILES AWAY is a riveting portrait of a musician and artist who has made a career out of charting his own course.

Directed by Fred Parnes, PETER CASE: A MILLION MILES AWAY was produced by Jordan Krause and Chris Seefried, and features many of Peter’s friends and colleagues, including singer/songwriters Ben Harper, Steve Earle, Victoria Williams, Jack Lee, & Chuck Prophet, as well as producers Van Dyke Parks, Mitchell Froom, & Steven Soles, and journalists Paul Zollo and Denise Sullivan. The doc was edited by Kate Amend and photographed by Radan Popovic. Music supervision was handled by Amine Ramer and Andrea von Foerster. Executive producer was Allen Myerson.

“When we first flew up to Berkeley to meet Peter and discuss the possibility of making a film, we had an inkling that his story might be the one we’d been seeking,” said filmmaker Fred Parnes. “Here was a dynamic performer who had a modest but adoring audience – a singular, captivating character with a storyteller’s flair and a keen sense of humor, who could enthrall us with tales from his life and career filled with both heartrending disappointment and rousing triumph. Our search was over.”

Freestyle Digital Media negotiated the deal to acquire PETER CASE: A MILLION MILES AWAY directly with Glen Reynolds of Circus Road Films.

Flowing from the collaboration of longtime creative partners Ryan Linder and Malachi Graham, the Portland-based indie pop outfit welds deeply affecting sonic production to smart lyrics about intuition and inhibition, losing control and ending up in unexpected places, being willing to fuck up, bodies hurt and bodies joyful. The effect is both intimate and epic, delicate and fierce. Listen to it to ache, dance to it to heal.

In the time since Small Million's last release, years of chronic pain have led lead vocalist and lyricist Malachi Graham to deep explorations of embodiment that have changed everything from her singing voice to her dance moves to her observation of human frailty. “There’s one side of chronic pain that leads you towards intuition, self-discovery, and listening closely to yourself. But it also means you end up sitting on the side of the room a lot, watching people and paying attention. Also you’re pissed,” notes Graham. Producer and instrumentalist Ryan Linder’s background as a filmmaker informs the textured richness and intelligent restraint of his song building. He approaches production with obsessive technical rigor that’s always in service of centering intense emotion. Graham’s clear, unadulterated vocals breathe at the heart of Linder’s rich sonic terrain, drawing comparisons to The Cranberries and Florence + the Machine.

Linder and Graham have been writing as a duo for a decade, but for their newest chapter they've expanded the band, enlisting Ben Tyler (Small Skies) on drums and Kale Chesney (Lo Pony) on bass and harmonies. Small Million's evolution into a four-piece has expanded the band’s sound from their synth pop origins to encompass more organic, raw indie rock energy.

Small Million has played with artists like Fakear, IDER, Hatchie, HÆLOS, Lo Moon, and Loch Lomond, and their tracks have been featured on compilations by Tender Loving Empire, PDX Pop Now!, and Vortex Music Magazine. They released their debut EP Before the Fall in June 2016, their follow-up, Young Fools, in Fall 2018, and singles “Saintly” and “Tarot” in 2019. Their newest music is dropping throughout 2023.

Bettysoo and James McMurtry Make a Stand

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – On Sunday, May 7 in Nashville at Third and Lindsley two singer-songwriters took to the stage to play their original music. James McMurtry – a tall, quiet, enigmatic, and well-respected songwriter, and son of novelist Larry McMurtry – and BettySoo, a five-foot powerhouse of a singer and guitar player, award-winning songwriter, and second-generation Korean-American Texan – had been on tour together throughout the spring.

“We were in the Northeast in April when news about the drag ban hit the wire, and we thought it was both ridiculous and extremely harmful for no good reason,” recounts BettySoo. “We were backstage at a show one night, and there were these coffee table books with portraits of rock and roll icons over the years – Bowie, Tina Turner, etc.– and James commented something like, ‘Well, they might as well try to ban rock ‘n roll, because elements of drag have always been a part of it.’”

McMurtry notes, “Liberace was on Network TV in the seventies and people of our grandparents’ generation didn’t seem threatened. One has to wonder, why now?”

BettySoo continues, “So he had the idea that when we got to Tennessee, we should surprise everybody by doing a full band encore with the two of us dressed in drag.” They knew not everyone would be happily surprised. “We had three shows in Tennessee, and since we weren't aware the federal injunction was still in place, we thought there was a small chance we could be arrested after the first show.”

Leading up to the shows, McMurtry decided they would play his song “Red Dress” as the encore, and BettySoo would help him find one to wear. Through the early days of the tour, she ducked into every thrift store she could find, looking for the perfect red dress for McMurtry. She finally found it, at a church charity shop in a small town in North Carolina.

If you see the video played on The Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC, you’ll hear McMurtry say with confidence, “When in Tennessee, we will do our little bit for humanity.” But the musicians were nervous when they walked out on the Knoxville stage in drag on Friday night for the first time. “We walk out there, and I’m like this tiny drag king, and he’s on my arm,” BettySoo says. “I’m aware James will attract more negative attention dressing up like a woman than I do dressing as a man. That’s a real trigger for some people. He also knows a contingent of his audience will be alienated by what we’re doing, but that kind of thing has never stopped him from speaking up and doing what he believes in.”

Maddow describes, "When they came out to do an encore together they surprised everybody with the fact that they had, backstage, changed clothes... with BettySoo now sporting a dark suit, a mustache, and a nice hat, and James McMurtry wearing a red mini-dress and pearls."

Mary Gauthier, another award-winning songwriter and LGBTQ rights advocate, was at the show Saturday night in Nashville. “BettySoo and James McMurtry took a stand against the barrage of anti-LGBTQ assaults and laws in Tennessee,” Gauthier asserts. “Their action was a powerful act of civil disobedience, it was not grandstanding. They took a risk, and they stood for something other than themselves. I am forever grateful for their courage and their support.”

“James and I weren’t doing this as a publicity stunt,” says BettySoo, “we wanted to show what a ridiculous and harmful law it is. Drag performances aren’t corrupting; they’re the opposite of that – they are freeing. They challenge oppressive societal structures of dominance and misogyny while inviting play and freedom. They grant permission to audience members to embrace and exhibit their most authentic selves by showing how celebratory and joyful that can be. There were definitely people who were upset and talked to the police,” she continues, “but by and large, the audiences were enthusiastic, and the response was overwhelmingly positive. So many people told us how meaningful it was to them, but really, we were just using our privilege to try to bring attention to a very serious issue.”

BettySoo knows there are heightened levels of risk full-time drag performers take on when it comes to protesting these laws. “Drag is as old and as integral to stage performance as theater itself. All performers’ livelihoods and identities are deeply connected to the personas they embody on stage,” she acknowledges, “and this ban is not only a violation of first amendment rights, it is dehumanizing for drag performers to have to take on the risk of legal consequences every time they follow their artistic calling. On top of this, legislation like this is very dangerous because it reinforces stigmas and harmful stereotypes that risk the bodily safety of every non-heteronormative, queer, or non-cis-person, both from violence from others and from self-harm.”

Maia Sharp to Release Reckless Thoughts

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- “I always want to write in a way where people will plug their own lives into the song,” says Nashville-based singer-songwriter Maia Sharp while reflecting on her forthcoming 9th solo album, Reckless Thoughts, due August 18. “And I want them to choose this album because it provokes whatever it is they need to feel.”

The culmination of a 25-year career that’s included writing songs for the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Trisha Yearwood, Cher, and Art Garfunkel, Reckless Thoughts both continues and refines a confessional mood that emerged with Sharp’s previous album, 2021’s Mercy Rising. While that record was an Americana eruption of emotions from the end of a long marriage and leaving her native California, Reckless Thoughts is a more nuanced, clear-headed review of that life-changing roll of the dice. “This album took some searching,” mulls Sharp. “It was more of a challenge, because I’m not in the middle of a dramatic emotional mess anymore.”

Born in California’s Central Valley, Sharp and her family moved to Los Angeles when she was five. Following in the footsteps of her Grammy-winning songwriter father, Randy Sharp (Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris etc.), she studied music theory at California State University Northridge, but was originally a saxophonist. Her focus as a songwriter and then performer – initially influenced by Raitt, Ricky Lee Jones, Paul Simon, and her dad – emerged only at the turn of her 20s.

“Once I started doing that, it just changed my chemistry,” Sharp recalled. “What drove me to get on a stage and sing is my love of songwriting more than anything else. And I knew it was a long shot that I would find a home for every song with another artist so I became one of those artists.”

Within two years of her debut show, Sharp almost simultaneously landed her first cut for a major artist (on Cher’s 1995 album It’s a Man’s World) and signed recording and publishing deals with industry legend Miles Copeland. Soon she was being jetted off to songwriting workshops in a French castle alongside the likes of Carole King, Jon Bon Jovi, The Bangles, and The Go-Gos.

It was a crash course in songcraft that’s helped Sharp carve out an enduring career as both a solo artist and songwriter, as well as a producer for Garfunkel, Edwin McCain and others. She’s toured extensively in the US and UK, including appearances on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” CBS Early Morning, and the TODAY Show, while also an NYU adjunct professor and a longtime participant in Songwriting with Soldiers’ writing retreats for veterans.

With an intriguingly androgynous voice and rare medley of influences, Sharp has happily confounded pigeonholing throughout her career. She’s been labelled country, alt-country, roots, and pop – sometimes on the same release. The 10-track Reckless Thoughts, its title a reference to scenarios that spun in Sharp’s head as she pondered a new life in Nashville, is a songs-before-style caress of what’s now broadly termed Americana. It’s a record with an honest heart and refreshingly appreciative aura, conveyed through Sharp’s sublime timbre and innate, cultured melodic instincts; an audio exhalation after surviving the transition into single life in the natural songwriter’s habitat of Nashville.

“I never thought I would leave California,” she said. “Once I did, I had a feeling it would be easier to build a community in Nashville, but I had no idea how much easier it would be. It’s really tapped into something I didn’t know I needed so badly.”

The self-produced Reckless Thoughts was largely tracked at Nashville’s Resistor Studio, with owner/engineer Joshua Grange (Sheryl Crow, k.d. lang etc.) also contributing electric guitars and lap steel. The perennial influence of musical collaborator, mentor, and longtime friend Bonnie Raitt is once again evident, amidst flecks of Phoebe Bridgers’ contemplative melodicism, the country-folk eloquence of the late John Prine, and Bon Iver’s adventurous spirit. The album is preceded by digital singles “Kind” and “Old Dreams.”

A jaunty co-write with longtime collaborators Mindy Smith and Dean Fields, “Kind” celebrates and craves non-judgmental compassion in the current era. The song’s “My kind of people are kind people,” hook is both an earworm and a reassuring breath of faith in humanity. The piano- and slide-kissed “Old Dreams,” spontaneously composed with Grammy-nominated Garrison Starr during a wine-fueled nighttime chat, explores the exorcising of old ambitions we sometimes forget to update to reflect all we’ve learned since they were first built.

“I love when a song also serves as a reminder to myself, in this case, to let a dream change and grow up with me. That one just hits me in the gut, ” offers Sharp. “I’ve played it for just four people, all from different walks, and they allcried. I think we’ve tapped into something universal.”

Head-bobbing, thought-provoking album opener “She’ll Let Herself Out” will be released to radio to coincide with the album’s August release. “It isn’t literally about she’s gonna let herself out of a situation or relationship,” Sharp explains. “It’s that she doesn’t need anybody’s approval – she already knows she’s valid, and she’s got this.”

Reckless Thoughts will be supported by solo touring, beginning with two dates with Bonnie Raitt in Louisville, KY June 30 and Indianapolis, IN July 1.