New Yorker Juliet Quick’s latest EP, Circles, shows remarkable precocity and mindfulness. With lyrical depth and unwavering strength, Glass Years addresses depression, anxiety, assault, and global warming. Her voice is crystal clear, and the takeaway message is one of overcoming and liberation. Out tomorrow on Substitute Scene! I’m invested in making things that are beautiful and feel good. juliet quick Glass Years by Juliet Quick Can you tell me a bit about how this EP came into being? From a writing standpoint, it is really just a series of songs from a period of about two years when I was…

Leslie Mendelson is one of my favorite singer-songwriters. She writes really powerful songs that can break your heart like a twig in a mere second; she exudes confidence onstage but her lyrics, on her latest album particularly, are oh so vulnerable. She put out a great record, sparse yet heavy, just at the precipice of the pandemic that was all too timely, entitled If You Can’t Say Anything Nice… The record discusses dealing with anxiety and depression, among other things, which many listeners are likely able to relate to. Leslie is doing a show at TOF Virtual Nightclub next week…

John Lee Shannon met Neal Casal at the recording sessions for Zephaniah OHora’s Listening to the Music. As fellow guitarists and music lovers, they became fast friends and Neal became a big fan of John’s playing, hand-picking him to make up the band that would go on to record what would become Kenny Roby’s album The Reservoir. Like Neal, Shannon is a skilled, reliable player who therefore spends a lot of his time recording and playing with friends. After a few years of making demos which subsequently were put on hold as other projects took precedence, Shannon revealed a few…

The thing about Zephaniah OHora that’s been discussed to death is some sense of astonishment that such a real deal country sound could come from New York City. Well, why not? As a newcomer to NYC, I’m personally grateful to Zeph for cultivating NYC’s country scene. He’s the guy in control of the live music schedule at Skinny Dennis, the best of the very few honky tonks in the five boroughs, and also the only place I’ve felt truly at home in New York, under a portrait of Willie’s watchful eye, Waylon on the jukebox, and Miller Lite in hand.…

In the late 90s, Kenny Roby ushered in the alt-country wave that spread across the world with his band 6 String Drag. Since then he’s released a steady stream of records both with the band and on his own. We talked about his latest release, a gorgeous 16-track, deeply personal record called The Reservoir out August 7th on Royal Potato Family. You recently relocated to Woodstock, is it an indefinite move?Oh, there’s no such thing as permanently! I have a place up here now. I have my stuff and myself and my guitars at a place in Woodstock that I…

I saw Canción at my favorite bar in the East Village a few years ago and was impressed and excited not just by his music, but his performance – it is really rare to see someone having as much fun on stage as he does. He’s really electrified when he’s playing, his whole body becomes animated. With a name like his (it’s real), it’s not surprising that nothing can stop him from playing music, be it a broken arm or a global pandemic. Thanks to Canción for being the first interview I ever conducted for a now-defunct pub. I can’t…