SiriusXM will offer listeners nationwide coverage of the events of Major League Baseball’s 2025 All-Star Week, with live broadcasts of the 95th All-Star Game Presented by Mastercard, the T-Mobile Home Run Derby, the MLB Draft Presented by Nike, and more special programming from Atlanta, GA.
On Sunday, July 13, starting at 5pm ET, SiriusXM’s MLB Network Radio channel will offer live coverage of the first round of the MLB Draft Presented by Nike, from the Coca-Cola Roxy in The Battery Atlanta. SiriusXM listeners will hear the live selections of every team in the first round. SiriusXM’s Dani Wexelman and Grant Paulsen will host alongside former MLB general managers Jim Bowden and Jim Duquette, two longtime pro personnel experts who will react to picks and share their analysis.
For Monday’s T-Mobile Home Run Derby, SiriusXM’s on-site programming from Truist Park will begin at 2 pm ET with a Media Day show hosted by Dani Wexelman, Jim Duquette and Grant Paulsen. At 5 pm ET Mike Ferrin, Jim Bowden and former big leaguer Cole Tucker will be on the field to host SiriusXM’s pre-game programming and interview many of the All-Stars in attendance. The MLB Network Radio channel will air ESPN Radio’s broadcast of the Home Run Derby starting at 8 pm ET.
On Tuesday, July 15, MLB Network Radio’s coverage of the MLB All-Star Game Presented by Mastercard begins at 5 pm ET with an MLB All-Star Pregame Show hosted by Mike Ferrin, Cole Tucker and Jim Duquette. Listeners will hear interviews with many of the coaches and players on the field at Truist Park The pre-game show will lead into ESPN Radio’s play-by-play broadcast of the All-Star Game starting at 8 pm ET.
Beyond the special coverage of these All-Star Weekend events, MLB Network Radio offers baseball fans a daily lineup of MLB talk 365 days a year, featuring shows hosted by former players, managers, front office executives and other baseball insiders. The exclusive 24/7 channel is available to listeners nationwide in their cars on channel 89 and on the SiriusXM app: https://sxm.app.link/MLBonSXM.
In honor of the Midsummer Classic being played in Atlanta, MLB Network Radio will also be re-airing three Atlanta Braves-themed episodes of “The Road to Cooperstown” podcast, which is a collaboration between SiriusXM and the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Listeners will hear in-depth conversations between SiriusXM host Jon Morosi and legendary Braves John Smoltz, Chipper Jones and Tom Glavine as they share memories from their extraordinary lives and careers on their journey to the Hall of Fame.
Following the release of the debut self-titled album, which came recently on The Leaf Label, The Sick Man of Europe shares new video for album standout track “Sanguine”. The Sick Man of Europe is also set to play a headline London show at The George Tavern on July 8th with other dates to follow later this year.
On the track, The Sick Man of Europe said “‘Sanguine’ touches on the idea of ‘self-realisation’. It occupies those moments where the fever dream shatters and every possible action seems wrong. Wracked with doubt – can the body shift towards an alternative?”
Emerging from London’s underground music scene, The Sick Man Of Europe is distinctly monochrome in its outlook. Each note counts in this climate, economical but played with absolute precision and conviction. Propelled forward by machines and seeking solace in repetition. The same fears. Looking for answers or something to believe in, but finding more questions in an age of absolute
The Sick Man Of Europe demo tape arrived in a brown manila envelope accompanied by a short typewritten letter. Information was limited but what was clear, from the name, the imagery and typography, right through to the music – the project arrived almost fully formed. Minimal, but with a strong eye for the right detail.
On the eponymous debut album, that eye is focussed firmly on the battle between the internal and the external; the tensions between human identity, technological advancement and the pursuit of meaning in the modern world. “Where does the machine end and humanity begin?” TSMOE asks. “Can we transform ourselves in an increasingly impersonal world? Every day we feel the pressure to adapt and fit in, but that’s often at odds with our need for solitude and self-reflection. That’s where this record comes from.”
The Sick Man Of Europe name connects the current post-Brexit landscape to the austerity of Thatcherite Britain and the social conditions that shaped the likes of Bauhaus and Joy Division. These are touchstones for TSMOE, but the influence and discipline of Neu!, Suicide and Swans are just as intrinsic to the sound.
Produced as a reaction to previous musical projects, TSMOE was looking for clarity and complete control in its creative endeavours. It’s consciously anti-rock in its recorded approach – no low-end bass guitar, minimal effects and no live drums. Dedication to the craft of focussed song writing rather than attempting to follow current production trends.
Lead single “Obsolete” was the first track produced under these self-imposed restrictions.
“There’s nothing more human than the fear of the inevitable and we’re reminded of it everywhere we look,” TSMOE explains.
“As the relentless pace of progress takes over, everything we’ve ever made is retired so quickly in the name of endless growth. At what point do we become obsolete?”
The term ‘the sick man Of Europe’ has been associated with many nations over the years, having first been coined by Tsar Nicholas I to describe the Ottoman Empire in 1833, and has been used more recently as a label for the UK, Greece and Germany. It means something different depending on when and where you grew up, and the music of TSMOE holds that same ambiguous power. The debut album is a timely release as cold war maps are re-drawn and geopolitical tensions ramp up. TSMOE is a global citizen of an increasingly fractured world.
The Sick Man Of Europe will be released on black vinyl and as a limited edition of 300 on ‘Sanguine Red’ vinyl for sale through indie shops and on Bandcamp. The album follows the release of the Moderate Air Quality EP on cassette in February, and the EP tracks are included on the CD version of the album.
The Sick Man Of Europe accompanied Snapped Ankles on their recent UK tour, and will be performing widely over the course of this year with more dates to be announced soon.
Tour dates
Tue 8 Jul – The George Tavern, London, UK
Fri 25 Jul – Deer Shed Festival, North Yorkshire, UK
Sat 2 Aug – Multitude Festival, Milton Keynes, UK
Sat 30 Aug – Manchester Psych Fest, Manchester, UK
Wed 1 Oct – The Attic, Leeds, UK
Thu 2 Oct – The Golden Lion, Todmorden, UK
Fri 3 Oct – The Flying Duck, Glasgow, UK
Sat 4 Oct – Zerox, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK
Sat 18 Oct – Sŵn Festival, Cardiff, UK
Thu 23 Oct – Left Of The Dial Festival, Rotterdam, NETHERLANDS
fter recently announcing their new album ‘Welcome to the Civilized World’ is out Sept 5th via Full Time Hobby, Ghostwoman, made up of Belgium/Canada-based duo Evan Uschenko and Ille van Dessel, are sharing their new single/video “Levon”. The band are also set to tour across Europe later this year.
Ghostwoman Announce New Album ‘Welcome to the Civilized World’ and Share New Single “Levon”
On the track, Ille of Ghostwoman said, “The first version of ‘Levon’ was fabricated a long time ago but we basically threw it away, or kind of left it aside. Eventually, Evan wanted to do something with the demo again, so we rearranged the song, adding lyrics and the new guitar and solo. It was written in Canada and is named after Evan’s dog Levon (who gets his name from The Band’s Levon Helm). We finalised it in Belgium, and that was that”.
Video director Ryan Faist said the following on the visuals, ““Levon’ has the perfect bpm and rhythm to it for some sort of driving force. I kept thinking of someone just pounding on something, non-stop. I remember playing knife game as a kid and was always terrified of it. I started playing with a pencil on my desk and realized it’s the perfect song for it. My friend went to a winery in the middle of nowhere in the winter and saw this beautiful trailer home behind it and sent me a photo. I met Will and Simon at a coffee shop and thought they were brothers. I loved their ease and energy so it felt more like we were just making a short documentary than a music video. The trailer had been vacant for a long time. There were 1000’s of flies and dead insects all over the place. We kinda just hung out on this plot of land and watched them be bored for a day. It kinda reminds me of summers as a teen.
There is no reason for Ghostwoman’s fourth album to exist. Welcome to the Civilized World is born to a broken world; a corrupt inheritance – Evan Uschenko and Ille van Dessel are under no illusions about its futility – and yet, this thing is alive. It’s an allergic reaction to the times we are living in: a welt that screams to be itched, the purging of a modern sickness they could no longer stomach.
Beyond rationality, this record came from a place of gut feeling and a lack of any other option. Hell may have cracked wide open – but Ghostwoman will not go quietly.
Ghostwoman itself only exists because Uschenko and van Dessel were the ones “stupid enough to commit to it”. Conceived by Uschenko after cutting his teeth as a touring multi-instrumentalist, the project was brought to life in an abandoned farmhouse in Diamond City, Alberta. There, for two months, he would make the self-released, self-titled debut album which was produced and dubbed directly to custom-made cassette tapes. The music has always been beautifully inhospitable, earned only by those curious enough to seek it out.
Expanded by friends on the Edmonton circuit, Uschenko took the project over the pond where he would meet drummer Ille van Dessel. Drawn to her talent and sheer excitement to make music which had been untouched by ego or cynicism, the two became inseparable. A new life had begun.
And then there were two. Ghostwoman became a head-on collision between the switchblade rust of his guitars and her caustic drum beats which march them on toward a shared oblivion. Welcome to the Civilized World is an album to be a pure distillation of their shared vision. From its earliest sketch to its final form, the only people to touch it were Ghostwoman themselves.
The meaning of the album is inseparable from its meaninglessness. As Uschenko puts it: “The album is inspired by the absurdity of human behaviour and the circus that is life: sometimes feels like being in a room with no floor – that’s where a lot of these songs come from.”
After losing friends to suicide over the past year, the suspension of disbelief required to wade through the everyday had dissipated. If there is any meaning at all to Welcome to the Civilized World, it is simply to keep going: there is no other choice.
Musically, Ghostwoman are a sharper beast than ever: hypnotic spells of psych-grunge, decaying Americana and instrumental locked-horns. Uschenko, who presides over the vocals, insists they are not important. Much of the lyrics are nonsense, not written as much as abstractly sketched to feel out the shape of the music itself – but even in Uschenko’s dream grammar, the force and feeling are no less potent.
The band’s process is intuitive rather than calculated; sounds are made in a chain reaction to one another. “5 Gold Pieces”, with its filthy guitars and snarling, livewire vocals was recorded as a test after they bought a tape machine. The first shot is often the best, and that test is what you hear today. Everything they used to record is gone.
“We buy old equipment or instruments which have a bunch of life and soul in it until we’ve used it all up, and then sell it again so we can buy something else,” explains Van Dessel.
True to the band’s origins, Welcome to the Civilized World is the story of Canada and Belgium across the span of two years. The tape machine seemed to pick up different shades wherever they recorded, whether that was in the home of a close friend of Uschenko’s, for example, surrounded by creature comforts including the dog he loves, [Levon, named after the late great Levon Helm] after whom the album track was christened. Or in a cottage in Ardennes, Belgium during an interminable winter surrounded by blankets of snow; an hour’s walk away from anything civilized.
“Alive”, the record’s lead single, was written on a particularly perfect day in rural Belgium. In an earlier iteration, the track was called “Pondi”, named after a hedgehog they had discovered at the pond in the garden, which they felt to be a good omen. The writing of it was frictionless and instinctive; another “line-check-turned-complete-song”. In van Dessel’s mind, “Alive” is like a moment captured as a photograph – something ephemeral that existed once, and will never be replicated again. And that, in its essence, is a Ghostwoman record.
Welcome to the Civilized World is not concerned with making music for an audience, not for the music industry and not for any particular point other than the thrill of it. Nothing matters, we are all doomed, the sun will swallow the earth and our efforts turn to dust anyway. The band will continue to play as the ship goes down.
Live Dates
27/06/2025 – FR – This Is Not A Love Song Paloma – Nîmes
28/06/2025 – FR – This Is Not A Love Song Paloma – Nîmes
10/08/2025 – CH – PALP Festival Rocklette – Bagnes
TOPS share new single “Falling On My Sword” from their forthcoming new album, Bury the Key, due for release on August 22nd via Ghostly International.
Today, TOPS share a third look at their forthcoming new album, Bury the Key, due for release on August 22nd via Ghostly International.
TOPS, musicians Jane Penny, David Carriere, Marta Cikojevic and Riley Fleck, write timeless music that reliably threads immediacy and depth. Bury the Key, their first full-length since 2020 and with new label home Ghostly International, is a captivating reintroduction for the Montréal band: ever refined, undoubtedly masters of their melodic craft yet unafraid of evolving and testing themselves against different, at times darker tones.
Showing another facet of their darker side, today they share new single “Falling On My Sword” which channels Carriere’s love of hardcore punk from an arrangement perspective,
“but played in our style” he says. “We were joking around quite a bit when we started writing this song, Jane was playing bass which is very out of the norm for us.
It’s written from the perspective of a teen girl who thinks that everyone sucks and the societal norm of monogamous commitment is pathetic. I guess it could be from the perspective of an adult as well.
We tried to lay the song out in the form of a hardcore punk/beatdown tune, with tritone power chords and a breakdown (for moshing). In the end it sounds more like a TOPS song than anything else but it was a fun diversion that led us to a cool new place.”
Bury The Key faces feelings once locked away, engaging the give-and-take between happiness, hedonism, and self-destruction. While often inhabited by fictional figures, their glowing, grooving, self-produced songs draw from personal observations: intimacy (both inside and outside the band), toxic behavior, drug use, and apocalyptic dread.
When recording started, they noticed a shift and leaned in, jokingly dubbed “evil TOPS, We’re always kind of seen as a soft band or like naive or friendly in a Canadian way, but we made it a challenge to really channel the world around us,” says Penny.
Through the lens of a looming epoch and the clarity that comes with age, TOPS dip into a more sinister disco realm with Bury the Key, giving their soft-focus sophisti-pop a sharpened edge.
Emerging from Montréal’s DIY scene in the early 2010s as progenitors of an indie pop sound still radiating its influence across the contemporary landscape, TOPS’ secret to longevity is simple: keep the songwriting honest and open-hearted and the recording unforced yet pristine, allowing for a band dynamic deeply attuned at every level. Their songs outline the silhouettes of life, and as time goes on — now five LPs, countless tours, and various side projects in — TOPS have only gotten better at what they do.
The voice of TOPS is Jane Penny, a songwriter, producer, flutist, and singer whose hushed delivery hosts a deceivingly vast range of expression and has surely informed a wave of today’s greats from Men I Trust to Clairo. Her lyrical subjects never go out of style: dynamics of power, desire, struggles to be seen, having love requited or otherwise.
Following her move back to Montréal and first solo release in 2024, Penny returns to the neighbourhoods of her former self a step wiser; the sleek cars and forever highways of her songs, penned with her rhythmic counterpart David Carriere, find assured depth in Bury the Key. Carriere, a songwriter, producer, and guitarist with a flair for high-sheen hooks and the relentless drive to match (other projects include DVC Refreshments and Born At Midnite), adds to his bag of tonal and textural tricks. Drummer Riley Fleck, the band’s heartbeat since day one and occasional gun for others (Jessica Pratt’s live band as of late), broadens his utility, venturing into higher and harder tempos. Keyboardist Marta Cikojevic, who joined TOPS in 2017 just before the landmark I Feel Alive and in 2022 released her breakout debut as Marci (produced by Carriere), expands her role here as well, joining the writing process and backing Penny for some of the record’s fullest, most satisfying vocal lines.
It is rare to see a band so aligned and complete, self-sufficient, specialised but agile and ambitious, reaching an elite level of pop precision as their legacy remains largely unwritten. They’ve toured the world over, from major festivals to the dingiest of dives, sleeping on floors and tour-managing themselves for years, manifesting their success the hard way.
Beyond work ethic, it also comes down to chemistry and taste; when pressed for which artists get airplay in their van, some expected names appear, Fleetwood Mac and Steely Dan, but dig deeper and the veneer of artists like China Crisis, Prefab Sprout, and Francois Hardy, Missing Persons, and Everything But the Girl start to fill out the playlist. An instinct for luster and thrills, songs both sweet and bleak, brings the band to Bury the Key, a prismatic album polished out of the rough. Grounded by pain and pleasure, the complicated joys of being alive, of being a band from one of our era’s finest.
TOPS tour dates
Sep 4 – Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theatre
Sep 5 – Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom
Sep 6 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile (EARLY SHOW)
Sep 8 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge
Sep 9 – Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater
Sep 11 – Dallas, TX @ Club Dada – Outdoor Stage
Sep 12 – Houston, TX @ Heights Theater
Sep 14 – El Paso, TX @ Lowbrow Palace
Sep 15 – Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress
Sep 17 – Phoenix, AZ @ The Crescent Ballroom
Sep 18 – San Diego, CA @ Belly Up
Sep 19 – San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
Sep 20 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Bellwether
Oct 1 – New York, NY @ Webster Hall
Oct 2 – Boston, MA @ The Sinclair
Oct 3 – Philadelphia, PA @ Underground Arts
Oct 4 – Washington, DC @ Union Stage
Oct 6 – Durham, NC @ Motorco Music Hall
Oct 7 – Asheville, NC @ The Grey Eagle Tavern & Music Hall
The Beths, the New Zealand-based quartet of vocalist Elizabeth Stokes, guitarist Jonathan Pearce, bassist Benjamin Sinclair, and drummer Tristan Deck, announce their new album, Straight Line Was A Lie, their first for their new label ANTI- out 29th August, and share the new single/video, “No Joy”.
The Beths know the futility of straight lines. Existential vertigo serves as the primary theme on the indie heroes’ fourth album. The Beths posit that the only way round is through; that even after going through difficult, transformative experiences, you can still feel as though you’ve ended up in the same place. It’s a bewildering thing, realising that life and personal growth are cyclical and continual. That a chapter doesn’t always end with peace and acceptance. That the approach is simply continuing to try, to show up.
“Linear progression is an illusion, What life really is is maintenance. But you can find meaning in the maintenance.” Stokes explains.
The path from The Beths’ critically celebrated and year-end-list-topping 2022 album Expert In A Dying Field to Straight Line Was A Lie was anything but straightforward. For the first time, Stokes was struggling to write new songs beyond fragments she’d recorded on her phone. She’d recently started taking an SSRI, which on one hand made her feel like she could “fix” everything broken in her life, from her mental and physical health to fraught family dynamics.
At the same time, writing wasn’t coming as easily as it had before.
“I was kind of dealing with a new brain, and I feel like I write very instinctually,” she says. “It was kind of like my instincts were just a little different, they weren’t as panicky.”
While Stokes felt a huge relief from taking an SSRI, she articulates the emotional trade-offs on today’s single, “No Joy”, which thunders in with Deck’s vigorous percussion and drops another classic Beths soundbite: “This year’s gonna kill me / Gonna kill me.” Ironically, though, the stress Stokes sings about can’t touch her, thanks to her pharmaceutical regimen. She wants the feeling back.
“It’s about anhedonia, which, paradoxically, was there both in the worst parts of depression, and then also when I was feeling pretty numb on my SSRI,” Stokes says.
“It wasn’t that I was sad, I was feeling pretty good. It was just that I didn’t like the things that I liked. I wasn’t getting joy from them. It’s very literal.”
In writing Straight Line Was A Lie, Stokes and Pearce broke down the typical Beths writing process. For inspiration, they read Stephen King’s On Writing, How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner, and Working by Robert A. Caro. Liz broke out a Remington typewriter (a birthday gift from Beths bassist Benjamin Sinclair) every morning for a month, writing 10 pages’ worth of material – mostly streams of consciousness.
The resulting stack of paper was the primary fodder for an extended writing retreat to Los Angeles between tours, where Stokes and Pearce also leaned heavily into LA’s singular creative atmosphere, went to shows, watched Criterion classics from Kurosawa, and listened to Drive-By Truckers, The Go-Go’s, and Olivia Rodrigo. Opening themselves up to a wave of creative input, plus Stokes’ free-flowing writing routine, proved therapeutic.
“Writing so much down forced me to look at stuff that I didn’t want to look at, In the past, in my memories. Things I normally don’t like to think about or I’m scared to revisit, I’m putting them down on paper and thinking about them, addressing them.” Stokes says.
Already a celebrated lyricist, Stokes has long impressed fans and critics with wryly knowing song titles like “Future Me Hates Me” and “Expert In A Dying Field” – catchy, instant-classic turns of phrase that capture the personal and ladder up to the universal. But Stokes’ intentional deconstruction and rebuilding of her relationship to writing, however, has resulted in a complete renewal. Her songwriting has achieved startling new depths of insight and vulnerability, making Straight Line Was A Lie the most sharply observant, truthful, and poetic Beths project to date.
KPop Demon Hunters (Soundtrack from the Netflix Film) soars into the Top 3 on the Billboard 200, marking the highest charting soundtrack of the year. The soundtrack also gathers the largest streaming week for a soundtrack in nearly two years. The soundtrack now claims the #1 Soundtrack Debut of 2025, #1 Billboard Soundtracks chart, #1 Spotify Weekly Global Albums chart, and continues to hold strong at #1 on the iTunes Album Chart. Last week, the soundtrack debuted on the Billboard 200 in the Top 10, marking the highest-debuting soundtrack of the year.
“Your Idol” captures #1 on U.S. Spotify chart marking the first #1 by a male K-Pop group in history, while “Golden” now claims the highest charting song by a K-Pop girl group in U.S. Spotify history. In its second week of release, Netflix’s critically acclaimed animated film, KPop Demon Hunters, claimed the #1 spot on the English Film list. The superstar K-pop groups HUNTR/X and the Saja Boys quickly became a global hit, as the film reached the Top 10 in all countries with an additional 24.2 million views in its second week.
The film and the soundtrack came out “Singing, Slinging and Slashing” making it a New York Times certified Critic’s Pick embracing what Collider calls “the magical power of music” in “animated harmony” with Variety praising the original songs that make the film “sing” including the chart climbing song “Golden.” Mashable proclaims “the soundtrack absolutely slaps,” while HITS Magazine echoes calling the release “a bona fide hit.”
The soundtrack features original songs written by, Danny Chung, IDO, Vince, KUSH, EJAE, Jenna Andrews, Stephen Kirk, Lindgren, Mark Sonnenblick, Daniel Rojas, and produced by Teddy Park, 24, IDO, DOMINSUK, Jenna Andrews, Stephen Kirk, Lindgren, Ian Eisendrath. Original songs are performed by EJAE, Audrey Nuna, REI AMI, Andrew Choi, Danny Chung, Kevin Woo, samUIL Lee, Neckwav, and Lea Salonga. The soundtrack also includes the original song “Takedown” featuring Jeongyeon, Jihyo, and Chaeyoung from K-pop powerhouse girl group, TWICE.
KPop Demon Hunters, a Netflix film from Sony Pictures Animation, follows Kpop superstars Rumi, Mira and Zoey – when they aren’t selling out stadiums, they use their secret identities as badass demon hunters to protect their fans from an ever-present supernatural threat. Together, they must face their biggest enemy yet – an irresistible rival boy band of demons in disguise. KPop Demon Hunters stars Arden Cho, Ahn Hyo-seop, May Hong and Ji-young Yoo, and is available now on Netflix. Stream the album here
The sound is indelible, rising from an era that’s shaped the last five decades of Country music. When Miranda Lambert and Chris Stapleton emerge from the low-key shuffle, smoky Wurlitzer clouds and silken guitars, it’s obvious that “A Song To Sing,” arriving this Friday, July 11 and impacting Country radio on Monday, July 14, is destined to join the list of most-beloved classic Country duets. Written together with Jesse Frasure and Jenee Fleenor, “A Song To Sing” marks Lambert and Stapleton’s first true duet collaboration and reflects the truth of giving one’s soul to the music and heart to the one at home. Pre-save the new duet here.
“Chris understands this emotion from the inside out, because he and Morgane have both lived it,” Lambert says of their co-write. “To have someone so soulful and willing to go into the heart of the feelings, to share the pull of the road and creative life – and what that means when you love someone with every bit of your being is next level. When we finished it, we both knew we wanted to release it, to share it with everyone.”
Longtime friends and collaborators, Lambert and Stapleton boast a combined 14 GRAMMY, 33 Country Music Association and 59 Academy of Country Music awards and have each influenced generations with their singular artistries and distinctive creative points of view. Produced by GRAMMY-winning Dave Cobb, “A Song To Sing” allows Lambert – who passed her ACM Entertainer of the Year title to Stapleton in 2023 – to witness the singular reality they share as they harken back to an era of music epitomized by Ronnie Milsap, Waylon Jennings and especially the classic Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers duets.
Of the respected visionaries, Pollstar writes, “at a time when Country is so many things, Lambert and Stapleton seem both a true north and a hinge for the future…Musically robust, they want to make actual Country music with their roots firmly planted, but with the ability to create on their own terms. It’s not fighting Music Row as much as fighting for greatness.”
Introducing David Glenn Band, a new voice in the music scene blending Country Music New and Classic Style with raw emotion and modern energy. The band makes a striking entrance with their debut single, “Talk About Love”, available now on all major streaming platforms.
“Talk About Love” delivers a sonic punch-fusing True Country musical style, haunting vocals, gritty guitar riffs, a nice fiddle fill and driving rhythms that echo influences from George Strait, Joe Diffee, Kenny Chesney, Pat Green & Cody Johnson while carving out a distinct identity all their own. Lyrically, the track explores what true love means, capturing the spirit of a generation seeking emotion, change, escape, and a heartfelt message.
“We wanted our first release to hit hard pure and feel honest,” says David Glenn Lead Vocalist/Writer. “Talk About Love” is about seeing a past love, catching up on old times with a beautiful love connection that never went away and just wants to talk about the past and True Love.”
David Glenn a Nashville and Texas Recording artist has a shared passion for pushing sonic boundaries and telling stories that resonate. Playing multiple live venues for years and opening for multiple artist Toby Keith, Gary Allan, Joe Diffee, John Pardi and many more. DGB has a lot of musical experience and talent! David Glenn with a background in songwriting singing and playing guitar, David Glenn Band is already turning heads among fans at live venues and tastemakers alike and have been for many years.
BIG SPECIAL surprise released their new album NATIONAL AVERAGE., this past Friday on SO Recordings, after days of the band teasing projections of the album’s artwork across London landmarks. The Black Country duo of Joe Hicklin and Callum Moloney wasted no time in following up last year’s acclaimed UK Top 40 debut album POSTINDUSTRIAL HOMETOWN BLUES, and have shared a video for the new album’s lead single “GOD SAVE THE PONY.” With it, BIG SPECIAL kicked off a run of in-store and summer festival performances, performances across the UK, which run through July 28.
When BIG SPECIAL first emerged, their contorted mix of existential bellowing, vehement poetic polemics and soulful, sky-scraping vocals and hard-hitting punk instantly set them apart. Huge tours and festival headline spots followed, and somewhere in amongst the chaos of the ensuing year, the pair found time to write new album NATIONAL AVERAGE. It’s a record on which the band lose none of that early fire or potency, and instead expand their sound to incorporate elements of funk, lavishing it with their characteristic darkness and black humour, honestly representing their lives in the only way they know how. It focusses on brotherhood, pressing on through the changes in their lives, big and small.
Commenting on the new single, lead singer Joe Hicklin says: “‘GOD SAVE THE PONY.’ is about the stones we carry. The different things that pull people down; the invisible weights that they have to drag through their everyday. On the personal level, it’s about reckoning with change. Reflecting on the moral obligations we have to ourselves and others and the mixture of the failures and successes in sticking to those. The weight of following a personal moral line is heavy on everyone’s shoulders. The song is a recognition of this strain in ourselves and others, and a well wish to keep going, whatever you have that drags behind.”
Continuing about the album, he says: “‘NATIONAL AVERAGE.’ Is an album about the multitudes of a normal life as it begins to change. It’s about the stages of reflection on an average life as it moves further away. It’s about personal and political problems remaining the same as a life changes around them and they all begin to weave together.”
Where POSTINDUSTRIAL HOMETOWN BLUES was about desperation and hope, NATIONAL AVERAGE. takes those feelings forward and confidently charges through the confusion with gritted teeth behind a snarky smile. It goes down an emotional descent of picking oneself and society apart, whilst recognising the links of struggle that hang in every person, regardless of time and experience.
BIG SPECIAL – UK instore performances
04 Jul – Rough Trade East, London (Instore) – 7pm
05 Jul – Rough Trade, Bristol (Instore) – 1pm
06 Jul – Banquet, Kingston upon Thames (Instore) – 6pm
Born out of a love for rock music and the virtuosity of bluegrass musicians, the Pickin’ On Series has been a beloved tradition at CMH Records for over 30 years, delivering innovative bluegrass interpretations of some of the biggest and brightest artists in popular music. The latest in a line of acclaimed releases, Pickin’ On Creedence Clearwater Revival: Bluegrass Revival, was released June 20 and is available now on digital and CD. This release marks the first time Alabama-based bluegrass quartet Iron Horse put their fresh and unique bluegrass spin on the timeless songs of Creedence Clearwater Revival, one of the most influential bands of the 1960s.
On Pickin’ On Creedence Clearwater Revival: Bluegrass Rising, Iron Horse take on swampy classics like “Proud Mary,” “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” and “Looking Out My Back Door,” among others, honoring the rootsy spirit that defines CCR’s unforgettable catalog. Out now, CMH Records and Iron Horse are announcing the release of a new music video for the lead track “Bad Moon Rising.”
“Bad Moon Rising” as performed by Iron Horse:
“Well, here you go, the CCR project that people have been asking about for many years now,” shares Iron Horse’s Tony Robertson. “While this music may have come from a different time period, it’s like it may have just been created yesterday. The songs make me feel like I’m part of the bigger cosmic family. It was such a great experience doing this project because all the songs are so familiar and almost personal in that you can feel the vibe of reality coming from each track. ‘Bad Moon Rising,’ ‘Have You Ever Seen the Rain,’ and ‘Long As I Can See The Light’ are classic and timeless tunes, perfect to translate into Bluegrass. It’s almost like they were written to be played by a bluegrass band.”
Since 2003, Iron Horse–Ricky Rogers (bass, vocals), Tony Robertson (mandolin, vocals), Vance Henry (guitar, vocals) and Anthony Richardson (banjo, vocals)–has been the main recording artist for Pickin’ On, lending their incredible musicianship, precise picking, rich harmonies and endlessly creative arrangements, delivering clever twists on these classics. Tackling artists like Metallica, Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, and Pearl Jam, Iron Horse’s uncanny ability to bridge musical worlds brings bluegrass to new audiences while honoring its roots with authenticity and flair.
The Pickin’ On Series previously gave CCR the bluegrass treatment with the instrumental album Pickin’ On Creedence Clearwater Revival: A Tribute (1999), and a bonus track reissue, Born on the Bayou: The Bluegrass Tribute to Creedence Clearwater Revival (2001); this new Iron Horse recording is the first to feature vocals and their own arrangements. This newest addition to their discography is sure to delight listeners of all kinds, and maybe lend a new appreciation for the music of Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Though Pickin’ On started modestly in 1993 with the release of Pickin’ On the Movies, tributes to The Beatles and Eagles soon followed, and by 1997 the Pickin’ On Series was on fire. It continues to thrive with one hand in traditional bluegrass and the other in popular music, ready for the next chance to create innovative bluegrass music. Now over 30 years in and 300 albums deep, the Pickin’ On Series is one of the most beloved traditions at CMH.
Recent Pickin’ On releases, Pickin’ On The Doors, Pickin’ On Pearl Jam and Pickin’ On Nirvana, were well-received and garnered press from Rolling Stone, Brooklyn Vegan, and Uproxx, among others. Pickin’ On Modest Mouse and Fade to Bluegrass: The Bluegrass Tribute to Metallica both charted on Billboard’s Top Bluegrass Albums chart. The series has also been given extensive retrospective write-ups by Los Angeles Times and No Depression and songs from Pickin’ On have been featured in the television series Revolution and HBO’s True Blood. Other artists that have been given the Pickin’ On treatment include Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, the Allman Brothers Band, Coldplay, The Black Keys, Jack White, The Killers and many more.
Track listing for Pickin’ On Creedence Clearwater Revival:
Bad Moon Rising Up Around the Bend Have You Ever Seen the Rain Looking Out My Back Door Hey Tonight Traveling Band Lodi Who Will Stop the Rain Down on the Corner Proud Mary Long As I Can See the Light Someday Never Comes
