Widowspeak with Moon Tide Gallery and Novelty DreamQuote from Widowspeak on “Everything is Simple” – At the beginning of something (a relationship, a project, a job, a new place) you have this very pure feeling toward it. Everything feels less complicated because you’re oriented wholly toward that potential. It’s undefined, and that makes it easier to understand, because you can’t see the problems yet. As time goes on, you learn more, you experience more, and you see where the limitations exist: not even necessarily ones imposed upon you, but where you draw your own lines. Maybe you can’t see what was holding you back until it’s in the past, and by then others’ perspectives contradict your own. Everyone is constructing their own versions of reality. The song was originally going to feed into the drama of the imaginary band, but it’s about our own band too. I was thinking about how I’m an inherently unreliable narrator about my own life, and at the same time maybe there are no “true” stories.

Written in the months before and after the release of their critically acclaimed 2020 album Plum, The Jacket feels like a full-circle moment for the duo. Thematically, it considers Plum’s broader questions about the values ascribed to one’s time and labor through the more refined lens of performance and music-making. This is due in part to the band’s recent return to New York City, the site of their own origin story, where they recorded The Jacket at the Diamond Mine with co-producer and noted Daptone Records affiliate Homer Steinweiss. In addition to Hamilton and Thomas on guitars, the album features founding drummer Michael Stasiak, as well as J.D. Sumner on bass, and piano and keyboard contributions from Michael Hess.

Sonically, The Jacket finds the band at their usual and best: the album breathes deeply, balancing moments of open lushness with a straightforward, Velvets-y approach. Dynamics shift seamlessly between gentle, drifting ballads and twangy jams, built up from layered guitars, dusty percussion and ambling bass lines. Elsewhere: whimsical flutes, choral textures, and basement organs. Thomas’s guitar playing is as lyrical and emotive as it’s ever been, and Hamilton’s voice: comfortable and effortless. This seamless dynamic is amplified perfectly in the mix by Chris Coady (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Beach House). The band still wears the same perennial influences on its sleeve: cornerstones like Yo La Tengo, Neil Young, Cowboy Junkies, Cat Power, and Richard and Linda Thompson. They expertly pepper in slow-core, dream-pop, pacific northwest indie, and outlaw country, resulting in a 60s-meets-90s aesthetic. But the duo also wield their own aesthetic feedback loop as a tool of its own, a way to better tell multi-layered stories in their own RIYL language. This sense of sonic nostalgia adds another layer to lyrics that reflect on old selves, invented and true.

The Jacket is a present and comfortable record, imbued with a sense of collective pause and the ease of a band at the top of their game. For all its familiar textures, it still feels entirely fresh within that canon: proudly a guitar record, a rock record, a songwriter’s record. A Widowspeak record.

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Some years ago, a young collective of extraterrestrials arrived on this planet and happened upon a small college town in Alabama. Home to both otherworldly jazz guru Sun Ra and rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, it is clear that Alabama is a direct linkage to outer space. In order to integrate into human society, these aliens would disguise themselves as a rock band, the perfect vehicle in which to traverse the globe and further their research. They would soon be known to the people of Earth as Man or Astro-Man?.Unearthing thrift store records by the likes of Link Wray, The Ventures, Dick Dale, Duane Eddy, The Marketts & The Safaris – Man or Astro-Man? began to formulate their own blend of the retro-futuristic inspired by their offbeat musical discoveries. Innovative stage sets and designs by Kraftwerk, The Spotniks, The Residents, Devo, Sun Ra, and The B-52s also had an impact on the emerging ensemble.Man or Astro-Man? began playing countless shows in the Southeast with bands like Southern Culture on the Skids, The Woggles, Hillbilly Frankenstein, The Subsonics, and The Flat Duo Jets. The group soon caught the attention of Estrus Records’ owner Dave Crider who released their full-length debut, Is it…Man or Astro-Man? (1993).The label’s design aesthetic revolved around the other-wordly concepts of designer Art Chantry whose works melded perfectly with the Astro-minds. Destroy All Astro- Men (1994), Project Infinity (1995), and several EP’s were also released by Estrus.Touch and Go Records released all later Astro-transmissions. Experiment Zero (1996) was recorded in three days with engineer Steve Albini at Zero Return Studios in Alabama. Now drawing influences from the future (as well as the past), the band began to extend their use of samples, computer programming, homemade instruments, electronic gadgetry, tape splicing, and other bits of Earth technology. Both the 1000X EP (1997) and Made From Technetium (1997) were darker steps into the futuristic soundtrack realm.Now, Man or Astro-man? have returned to Earth and unveiled their finest recorded work to date. Defcon 5…4…3…2…1 is here now with a striking validity that the band is unquestionably as both tuneful and energetic as they ever have been. The record combines ever-familiar Astro audio tones and the well-established playing ferocity that the band is known for, but yet now, there is an undeniably evolution to the band that is both intuitive, logical and well crafted. Man or Astro-man? has arrived in the present (and future, of course) with imminent purpose. And of course, they still bring an over-the-top, sensory overloaded show, which has always gained them a reputation for always being an undisputedly amazing band to see live.

COVID Policy:• All attendees are required to show either:Proof of at least One Dose COVID-19 vaccination along with a valid State ID (a photo of your vaccination card is acceptable as long as the dates of vaccine and your full name can be clearly seen)ORA negative PCR COVID test within 48 hours of the event along with a valid State ID. Rapids tests are no longer accepted. A photo of the PCR results or email verifying results w/ Photo ID is acceptable.• Masks are optional inside the venue as current Baltimore City & CDC regulations have eased. However, certain shows may require attendees to wear masks at the bands’ request.• As always, our priority is the safety of our patrons, staff, and the artists performing.• Please note- If you see a staff member, a patron or a band member wearing a mask in the venue; be cool, mind your business and most importantly, have FUN!

Dead End Lane

The Great Heights Band

Northbound Breakdown

The Dead Ringers

COVID Policy:• All attendees are required to show either:Proof of at least One Dose COVID-19 vaccination along with a valid State ID (a photo of your vaccination card is acceptable as long as the dates of vaccine and your full name can be clearly seen)ORA negative PCR COVID test within 48 hours of the event along with a valid State ID. Rapids tests are no longer accepted. A photo of the PCR results or email verifying results w/ Photo ID is acceptable.• Masks are optional inside the venue as current Baltimore City & CDC regulations have eased. However, certain shows may require attendees to wear masks at the bands’ request.• As always, our priority is the safety of our patrons, staff, and the artists performing.• Please note- If you see a staff member, a patron or a band member wearing a mask in the venue; be cool, mind your business and most importantly, have FUN!

Pianos Become the Teeth

special guests, Dosser, Carcara

A Shrewdness of Apes, Redacted, Shangrila, Soundwaves

COVID Policy:• All attendees are required to show either:Proof of at least One Dose COVID-19 vaccination along with a valid State ID (a photo of your vaccination card is acceptable as long as the dates of vaccine and your full name can be clearly seen)ORA negative PCR COVID test within 48 hours of the event along with a valid State ID. Rapids tests are no longer accepted. A photo of the PCR results or email verifying results w/ Photo ID is acceptable.• Masks are optional inside the venue as current Baltimore City & CDC regulations have eased. However, certain shows may require attendees to wear masks at the bands’ request.• As always, our priority is the safety of our patrons, staff, and the artists performing.• Please note- If you see a staff member, a patron or a band member wearing a mask in the venue; be cool, mind your business and most importantly, have FUN!

HAIL THE SUN- celebrating 10 years of Elephantitis and 5 years of Secret Wars

with guests

SATYR, COLETTA and more TBA

COVID Policy:• All attendees are required to show either:Proof of at least One Dose COVID-19 vaccination along with a valid State ID (a photo of your vaccination card is acceptable as long as the dates of vaccine and your full name can be clearly seen)ORA negative PCR COVID test within 48 hours of the event along with a valid State ID. Rapids tests are no longer accepted. A photo of the PCR results or email verifying results w/ Photo ID is acceptable.• Masks are optional inside the venue as current Baltimore City & CDC regulations have eased. However, certain shows may require attendees to wear masks at the bands’ request.• As always, our priority is the safety of our patrons, staff, and the artists performing.• Please note- If you see a staff member, a patron or a band member wearing a mask in the venue; be cool, mind your business and most importantly, have FUN!

Bully (Sub Pop)

with guests, Hello Mary and Leisure Sport

A very old saying goes that no one saves us but ourselves. Recognizing and breaking free from the patterns impeding our forward progress can be transformative — just ask Bully’s Alicia Bognanno. Indeed, the third Bully album, SUGAREGG, may not ever have come to fruition had Bognanno not navigated every kind of upheaval imaginable and completely overhauled her working process along the way.

“There was change that needed to happen and it happened on this record,” she says. “Derailing my ego and insecurities allowed me to give these songs the attention they deserved.”SUGAREGG roars from the speakers and jumpstarts both heart and mind. Like My Bloody Valentine after three double espressos, opener “Add It On” zooms heavenward within seconds, epitomizing Bognanno’s newfound clarity of purpose, while the bass-driven melodies and propulsive beats of “Where to Start” and “Let You” are the musical equivalents of the sun piercing through a perpetually cloudy sky.

On songs like the strident “Every Tradition” and “Not Ashamed,” Bognanno doesn’t shy away from addressing “how I feel as a human holds up against what society expects or assumes of me as a woman, and what it feels like to naturally challenge those expectations.” But amongst the more dense topics, there’s also a lightheartedness that was lacking on Bully’s last album, 2017’s Losing . Pointing to “Where to Start,” “You” and “Let You,” Bognanno says “there are more songs about erratic, dysfunctional love in an upbeat way, like, ‘I’m going down and that’s the only way I want to go because the momentary joy is worth it.’”

COVID Policy:• All attendees are required to show either:Proof of at least One Dose COVID-19 vaccination along with a valid State ID (a photo of your vaccination card is acceptable as long as the dates of vaccine and your full name can be clearly seen)ORA negative PCR COVID test within 48 hours of the event along with a valid State ID. Rapids tests are no longer accepted. A photo of the PCR results or email verifying results w/ Photo ID is acceptable.• Masks are optional inside the venue as current Baltimore City & CDC regulations have eased. However, certain shows may require attendees to wear masks at the bands’ request.• As always, our priority is the safety of our patrons, staff, and the artists performing.• Please note- If you see a staff member, a patron or a band member wearing a mask in the venue; be cool, mind your business and most importantly, have FUN!