"The first 20 years is just to see if you like it or not," Jerry Lopez, an iconic surfer, joked about the sport and lifestyle of surfing. Joe Kaplow has always admired and glorified that type of Jedi-like dedication. After 20 years, Kaplow is pretty sure he likes making music. Up until now it was easy for California based songwriter Joe Kaplow to be pushed along. At eight he was getting screamed at by Uncle Jim for playing out of time. A few years later found him passing almost every single after school evening getting stoned and jamming with his band in Bondar's basement. Years later again he was studying music at college and having to sink or swim in the sea of talent crowding Boston streets and finally, for the past 5 years, plugging his amp into the outlet of American music heritage, driving around and playing shows in bars, clubs, and coffee shops while figuring out along the way that CDs are lame and that booking pitches should be concise. It was almost like there wasn't time to stop and think. Recently, it seems like all he does is think. When all the momentum, all the plans, all the validation, all the adventure, and all the money just stop; when the pushing stops, one may find themselves asking, "Why am I doing this?" An underdog without an over-dog is just a dog. Kaplow describes music as his "currency for life. We all have something, or a few things that we do, we work at, we commit to and that's how we pay for our time here. It's like life is a Ferris wheel at the county fair. You can't just ride all night. Every 4 times around you have to stop at the bottom and pay for another half hour or whatever." When faced with the question, "Why am I doing this?" Kaplow answered, "because this is how I feel best paying for my time." The title of his second full length album, Sending Money and Stems, is not just a reference to life currency, but also a description of how the album came to be. "Normally I would have flown up to Portland and sat in the room with Mike (Coykendall) as he mixed, but because of covid I had to email him stems (raw audio files) and we would go back and forth a few times until we got it right. When one song was done, I'd text him and be like 'Ok man, next song coming up; sending money and stems!'" The new album fills in the holes of Time Spent In Between. It's more band oriented, more groove based, more uptempo, more hifi, and more happy go lucky than his previous work. "Yeah, Time Spent In Between was a heavy record..." There's always new challenges for a working musician. For Joe and almost everyone else, the new challenge is promoting an album release without touring. Thank God for the internet? But Joe Kaplow will figure it out, just like he figured out figure-8 mic placement or how to use index pages on Squarespace. He'll keep figuring things out because that's how you keep going. He's pretty sure he likes making music. He wants to ride the Ferris wheel all night.

Tommy Alexander has never quite known where he was going, just to keep moving. In 2015 something undeniable was pulling the 31-year old DIY musician, self-made entrepreneur, and college dropout to the Pacific Northwest, where he quickly become a core part of their close knit songwriting community. While continuing to refine his own songwriting and performing skills, Alexander would go on to found Pilot Light Booking, which initially focused on that very community, but soon expanded to nearly 50 artists nationwide. As he began to delve into the art of tour booking, Alexander cold called one of his favorite venues and was soon the talent buyer at Bunk Bar. With little to no experience booking a dense concert schedule, Alexander dove in. His plan was simple: offer Bunk Bar to the community as a home for local showcases and touring bands alike. Bunk’s concert schedule thrived, on average hosting more than 20 shows a month.  With the pandemic putting an end to his days as a talent buyer, Alexander moved to Nashville in April of 2021. As touring slowly was coming back, the self-taught booking agent would go on to book more than 800 shows between April 2021 and April 2022, while responsible for a national touring roster of 25 artists.  In April of 2022, Alexander was offered a job to book tours at Wasserman Nashville, one of the most respected music booking teams in the world. As hard as it was to let go of Pilot Light Booking and the idea of a dense touring schedule of his own, Alexander knew this was something he needed to pursue But his own music career was not to be put on a back burner. While in Nashville Alexander met Riley Downing at a small stakes poker game. Downing had just released a stunning album made with Nashville engineer and producer, Andrija Tokic. Downing offered to connect Alexander and Tokic and as they say, the rest is history. Tokic put together a band of Nashville session musicians including Chris Scruggs, Jo Schornikow, Megan Coleman, “Little” Jack Lawrence, Billy Contreras, and Dillon Watson. What started out as just a few songs soon grew into an album titled Feelings which will be released via Fluff and Gravy Records on October 28, 2022.  The record finds Alexander delving deeper than ever into his own emotional state through a poetic and approachable songwriting lens. The title track, “Feelings” is an emotional outburst of attempted self-reflection. Lost in the confusion between feelings and self-awareness, our protagonist strives to understand their own patterns in a merry-go-round of voluntary chaos. Set to a pulsing downbeat and celebratory organ swings, the precept here is to be true to oneself, yet simultaneously part of something bigger and objectively true.  “Silence” is the most haunting track on the LP, with its plodding blend of blues and doom. According to Alexander, “Silence stalks the night, elusive and untouchable. And through the eyes of the watcher we witness our own belonging. We see our connection to the mind and to the radiated world. Just as the cardinal and the busy boy are connected, in silence we cross the bridge between unafraid and complete loneliness.”  Other standout tracks include “Something Light”, which could have come straight from an early 1960’s Johnny Cash album, “Blues”, and “Backslide”, which would feel right at home on the new Built to Spill album. Feelings was recorded in Nashville at The Bomb Shelter with Engineer Producer Andrija Tokic. The record was primarily tracked live over five session, with a few choice overdubs. Alexander credits Tokic as a wizard of audio. Tommy Alexander has three previous independently released albums to his name, with his 2020 LP, Waves,  ending up on numerous end of the year lists, including nods from KEXP and Magnet Magazine. Over the years, Alexander has shared shows with Big Thief, Michael McDonald, Mac Demarco, Chaka Khan, and People Under the Stairs among many others. 

Jo Schornikow’s new album ALTAR (out May 20, 2022) is the perfect counterweight to 2019’s Secret Weapon. While that album was bare and scrappy bedroom folk, this new album is a joyful announcement of synthy indie-pop. From Melbourne, Australia, Jo’s first job at 17 was as a church organist, a job she’s picked up again now in Nashville, where she lives with her husband Matthew Houck of Phosphorescent and their two children. She’s played keyboard in that band for over 8 years now, touring heavily all over the world as a full band, and ducking into BBC to record a duo session on their grand piano. Rolling Stone called her last album “excellent,” Pitchfork calls her piano playing “sensitive” and “impressionistic,” and Gorilla vs. Bear describes her songwriting as “gorgeous and smouldering.” But the songs on ALTAR take all of that a step further. There are still those moments of quiet beauty, but they are exploded through with joy. There are windows-down, anthemic pop moments on “Visions” and “Lose Yr Love.” Jo Schornikow is a songwriter flexing her craft and sharing songs that have a special charm that allow them to somehow feel honest, open, intimate and funny all at the same time.