Black Joe Lewis is the realest motherfucker there is. When Covid sidelined his touring this past year, he started laying concrete to help support his baby mama and his kid. That’s fuckin’ real. When Joe and his band, the Honeybears, popped onto the national stage over a decade ago, many critics embraced him but still, there were some that maintained that they hadn’t paid their dues. Joe’s still here. Still going. Still cashing checks and snapping necks. The dues of hard work; the delirious heights of the industry as well as the disappointments and low hanging fruit. Through this all, Joe’s only honed his mastery over gut bucket blues guitar and his true voice. It’s a vital and distinctly American voice that never anticipated the attention he wound up receiving, never went looking for it either. It just started happening. The garage, the blues, the propulsive and synergistic live performances that inhabit the spaces of James Brown, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and the MC5...those things happened naturally from the very beginning and could only be accurately communicated in the live experience, not a press release or a slick brand campaign. Sharon Jones, Charles Bradley, Cedric Burnside and Lightnin Malcolm, The Dirtbombs, Detroit Cobras, the Strange Boys; these are some of the artists that Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears shared countless bills with; almost a roll call of the most influential soul and garage bands of the last twenty five years. Has the soul blues garage explosion from that era been commodified or worked into the overall template of pop rock? Sure. But the ground floor was a vital space for people that like guitars and grease and at this point Black Joe Lewis is one of the last standing that was there. Last of a dying breed. Or maybe a missing link. Does this make him a throwback? A throwback to a throwback? It’d be tempting and easy for Joe to go along with that but nah, we don’t think so. We know that Joe Lewis is genuinely doing his thing and that he’d do it regardless of what’s coming down the pipe. A stone cold original and a veteran at that. If you like whistling in your music and some floppy hat, quaky kneed dudes cloyingly singing at you, then you might not “get it” but whatever...there are enough intrepid, degenerate weirdos that do. Those are the folks Joe cares about. Not the glad handing set. Not the fair-weather friend set getting down with the flavor of the month. Like the title of his last album says, “the difference between me and you” is Joe defining for himself that there’s the belabored wannabes and then there’s dudes that actually “HAVE the blues”...whatever the hell THAT is! Joe’s concrete pouring boss is gonna miss him.

JD Simo... The Chicago-born, now Nashville transplant is like a one-man crusade dedicated to keeping music real, raw, and honest. No matter the setting and no matter his role (whether it’s wingman or bandleader)  J.D.’s presence infuses the situation of the moment with the music that’s been fueling him pretty much his whole life, spiced with influences that straddle both decades and dimensions. As a songwriter, guitarist, and producer he has worked with the likes of Jack White, Tommy Emmanuel, Luther Dickinson, Dave Cobb, Blackberry Smoke, and even been a member of Grateful Dead founder Phil Lesh' "Phil & Friends".  Now he comes forth with his most unique, original and rawest effort yet… “Mind Control” which drops November 5th 2021. During lockdown in '20, he started cutting tracks in his makeshift studio on a weekly basis. Joined by longtime collaborator Adam Abrashoff on drums and the addition of longtime friend, bassist-producer-engineer Adam Bednarik (Justin Townes Earle), they mused a proverbial soup of shared influences. Hill country trance blues of Junior Kimbrough, RL Burnside and Asie Payton. Hypnotic Afro Beat of Fela Kuti and Tony Allen. Psychedelic warps of Captain Beefheart, Funkadelic, and Jimi Hendrix. The old school blues of John Lee Hooker, Earl Hooker and Lightnin’ Hopkins. As well as the raw fuzzy rock of The Stooges and Nirvana. “Mind Control” is the product of 3 like minded buddies huddled in a humble setting, making music to make them feel good. The songs stark revealing nature, is the product of them using the creative process for therapy and enjoyment. Because they simply had to, for no other reason than they couldn’t not! They love it too much. A positive theme of growth, self help and struggles with addiction and mental health lay along side a haunting, low down musical landscape. It's raw, funky and real. Such is life.