Nashville, Tennessee’s Los Colognes will release their second full-length, Dos, on September 4th. The album follows their critically acclaimed 2013 debut, Working Together, and was recorded in the summer of 2014 at Bombshelter Studios in Nashville (Alabama Shakes, Hurray For The Riff Raff, Benjamin Booker).  Dos features Billy Bennett (MGMT, The Whigs, Drive-By Truckers) as engineer/mixer, was mastered by John Baldwin, and was self-produced by the band. About three seconds into opening track “Baby, You Can’t Have Both,” with its playful, dancing piano and guitar lines, Los Colognes announce the intention of Dos. Influences ranging from JJ Cale, the live Dead, and Dire Straits are all worn proudly, with its six members, and particularly the core songwriting duo of drummer Aaron “Mort” Mortenson and guitarist/vocalist Jay Rutherford, making jam music for fans of songwriters, classic rock for a younger generation. Los Colognes dates back some 15 years, to Chicago, where Mortenson, Rutherford, and bassist Gordon Persha began playing both together (and apart) in a series of “church bands, punk bands, high school bands, and any other kind of band,” learning the language of playing music with other people from a young age.  Mortenson and Rutherford eventually departed from Chicago to Nashville, in search of an atmosphere that supported spontaneous music creation, where oppressive weather and overpopulation wouldn’t make it difficult to get musicians in the same room on a regular basis. “Jay and I decided to make the move to Nashville in 2010 in search of like-minded musicians,” Mortenson says. “The fact that we are big JJ Cale fans played into it. We were intrigued by his history here, and Emmylou Harris’, and John Prine’s. We figured there had to be ghosts still floating around here, their stories, and maybe players from those sessions.” In Nashville, the rest of the band took shape, with keys player Micah Hulscher recruited in a piano boogie bar and Persha moving down from Chicago to join the group. The band’s history of playing in rotating bands proved useful as a number of Nashville singer-songwriters needed temporary backing bands for local gigs and tours, making Los Colognes “working musicians,” having graced the stage with the likes of Caitlin Rose, Nikki Lane, Kevin Gordon, Johnny Fritz and RayLand Baxter. With Rose, the band spent half of 2014 touring with her as both backing band and support, allowing them to showcase their original material to Rose’s dedicated audience.  2013’s debut LP, Working Together, saw success on a measured scale. “It was all this random shit that just kept happening,” Rutherford jokes. “Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20 tweeted out that "Working Together" was his song of the day, which was hilarious, and six of the songs were featured in nationwide Starbucks shops multiple times a day for a year."  The band also played ACL and Hangout Fest, opened for The Head and the Heart in Los Angeles and garnered radio attention from Whisperin' Bob Harris at BBC Radio London and Greg Vandy at KEXP Radio in Seattle. With Dos, the band doesn’t shift gears away from the Cale and Prine songwriting they have idolized, but, rather, try to refine their skills, develop their sound, and further incorporate influences that include the live incarnation of the Grateful Dead. “We aren’t trying to reinvent the wheel,” Mortenson says, “we are just trying to get really good at our version of it.” Still, the album does sound refreshing, and part of that is the retro sound and unabashed display of music that scoffs at ideas of trends or hipness. Instead, Los Colognes make music for the barrooms, for dusty music halls, and for the road. It isn’t a coincidence that song titles pull from these concepts, with “Backseat Driver,” “Drive Me Mad,” and “One Direction” reflective of their greater sound. Rounded out by second keyboardist Chuck Foster, whom the group describes as an encyclopedia of Southern rock, and Wojtek Krupka on guitar, Dos finds Los Colognes coming full-circle, “skirting the line of what a jam band has been and can be.” Whether sentimental on “Hard to Remember” and “One Direction” or mischievous on “Golden Dragon Hut” and “All That You Know,” moods on Dos are not fleeting, and strike universal reference points that satisfy on both casual and close listens. “So many jam bands I encountered in high school were just stoner rock,” Rutherford says, “but there weren’t any songs there, and the lyrics were garbage. Give me Dylan any day. But now, taking these sort of Cale-like arrangements and opening up the songs live, not playing the same eight songs the same way every night... it is just having fun and not necessarily jamming for the sake of jamming.” By putting songwriting at the forefront of their band, Los Colognes have put this philosophy into practice on Dos, making their upbeat anthem “Take It” almost self-referential when they sing “it takes a time or two… you better take it, before it takes you.” 

The music is a patchwork amalgam of influences, including: twangy Southern rock (they've opened for the Drive-By Truckers), reverb-soaked psychedelia reminiscent of early My Morning Jacket or fellow Athens residents Phosphorescent, soaring guitar solos à la Neil Young and Crazy Horse, rhythmic jangle from that other Athens band, REM, multi-part vocal harmonies (which every band ought to have, dammit), and, weaving through it all, lyrical slide guitar. - Vox.com

Originally from Birmingham, AL, Banditos is a group - more like a gang, actually - of six 20-somethings, nowadays operating out of Nashville, close to, and simultaneously very far away from, the gleaming towers and industry hustle of Lower Broad and Music Row. With the rugged power of a flashy Super Chief locomotive, the Banditos’ self-titled debut album bodaciously appropriates elements of ‘60s blues-fused acid rock, ZZ Top’s jangly boogie, garage punk scuzz a la Burger Records, the Drive-By Truckers’ yawp, the populist choogle of CCR, Slim Harpo’s hip shake baby groove, gut bucket Fat Possum hill country mojo and the Georgia Motherf**king Satellites. From backwoods bluegrass, to slinky nods to Muscle Shoals soul and unexpected bits of doo-wop sweetness, the Banditos recall many, but sound like no one but themselves. The members of the band first met playing in various punk and rock ‘n’ roll projects around Birmingham at D.I.Y., all-ages venues. In 2010, singer/guitarist Corey Parsons and singer/banjo player Stephen Pierce began busking around town and were soon asked to perform at their favorite local bar. Without a full band they invited friends Randy Wade (drums), Jeffrey Salter (guitar), and Mary Beth Richardson (vocals) to join them.  Salter and Wade studied together at music school learning classical/jazz techniques, while Richardson’s background was mostly singing in church choirs. After some apprehensions from Richardson about taking the stage with an unrehearsed band, a last-minute trip to New Orleans with the group (which resulted in a stolen hotel Bible inscribed with the band’s lyrics) seemed to cure a case of the cold feet. The ensuing performance was raw and electric, and an ecstatic crowd response further cemented the members’ convictions to become a full band. The addition of bassist Danny Vines made the group complete. The members soon moved into a house together in Birmingham, and after repeated tours through Nashville, decided to move the band there instead, where the music scene was bigger and more diverse. The sextet has since developed their unique and airtight sound, culminated through several years of enduring friendships and a roaddog touring schedule that has, at their count, numbered over 600 shows in the last three years.  Their self-titled debut full-length album is layered with as much grime as it is with pinpoint songwriting and feverish technical savvy. Each song wafts new dynamics into a streamlined stylistic roots, punk, and rock ‘n’ roll jet stream, the variations heard evidently through the vocal baton passing and wrenching harmonies of Parsons, Richardson, and Pierce. Each vocalist, as with each performer in the band, is given the spotlight during the course of the album’s 12 songs. And at its core, Banditos is a unified coalescence of six bright beams of light, a spiritual collaboration between friends with a singular musical vision. The album was recorded and mixed at The Bomb Shelter in Nashville with Andrija Tokic (Alabama Shakes, Hurray For the Riff Raff, Benjamin Booker).

The Captain Midnight Band plays "Waterbed Rock & Roll", a unique hybrid of Classic Rock, Jam, R&B, and blue poetry. The Captain Midnight Band creates "Water Bed Rock & Roll" for the mind, booty, and soul. Crunchy Rock Guitar, Soaring Vocal Harmonies, and thick R&B grooves create a sonic landscape for the band's suggestive, Sci-Fi imagery and improvisational interplay. Formed in New Orleans in 2002, The Captain Midnight Band stays true to the Crescent City's celebratory heritage, turning every show into a sweating, throbbing event, interspersed with humor, eroticism, and inspired jams. Flattering comparisons to genre-defying acts such as P-Funk, Frank Zappa, and Ween are evident in the relationship between band and audience. Striking visuals and an ever-changing set list keep fans coming back for more. Midnight's style has infiltrated a variety of musical realms. Bob Weir, moe., Merl Saunders, Dumpstaphunk, Galactic, Cornmeal, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Cypress Hill, Jimmy Herring Band, Dark Star Orchestra, Emmitt-Nershi Band, New Mastersounds, and The 2 Live Crew are just a few musical entities Midnight has either shared the stage or bills with. Major influences include The Grateful Dead, Steely Dan, Funkadelic, George Lucas, KISS, Boz Scaggs, Little Feat, Joe Walsh, Frank Zappa, Joni Mitchell, Todd Rundgren, and Richard Pryor.