Show 8pm // Ages 21+

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

WILLY TEA TAYLOR & THE SAM CHASE

with TOM VANDENAVOND

Show 8:30pm // 21+

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

SOOHAN

with MAH ZE TAR and JUJU

Show 8pm // $30 Advance $35 Day of Show

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

FALCO & BOOK PLAY JERRY GARCIA

Andy Falco and Travis Book are both members of the Grammy award winning bluegrass band The Infamous Stringdusters. Inspired by their love of the music of Jerry Garcia, the duo branches off on their own for occasional tours to celebrate Garcia’s timeless songs. “The project actually originated back stage at ‘Dusters shows where Travis and I would typically warm up with some fun Jerry songs ”Falco explains. “At some point we just thought it would be fun to do it in public”. They draw from Garcia’s solo material, his Grateful Dead catalogue as well as the Traditional songs Jerry loved to play. “Performing this music as a duo allows us to explore the songs and jam in a way that’s unique to playing as a Duo” Says Book. “We typically hear these songs in larger ensembles, but the songs done with just bass and guitar somehow make the music very interactive with the audience. It’s really a testament to the quality of the song writing, and we like to put a spotlight on that aspect of Jerry.”

Ages 21+ // $22 General Admission

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

Show 8pm // $25 Advance // $30 Day of Show

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

1. LA LOM

2. with LOS TRANQUILOS
3.  

4. The Los Angeles League of Musicians, LA LOM, are an instrumental trio formed in Los Angeles in 2021. They blend the sounds of Cumbia Sonidera, 60’s soul ballads and classic romantic boleros that emanate from radios, backyard parties and dance clubs of Los Angeles with the twang of Peruvian Chicha and Bakersfield Country.

Show 8pm // Ages 21+

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

BRETT DENNEN

with COYOTE ISLAND

Across his career, Brett Dennen has established himself as the kind of singer-songwriter who finds inspiration by digging into the nooks and crannies of the human condition—exploring pain, joy, sadness, and all points in between. If It Takes Forever (Mick Music), the California native’s eighth solo album and first full-length since 2021’s See the World, is no exception. The warm, immersive collection boasts deeply felt sentiments, underpinned by rich acoustic guitars and Dennen’s earnest vocals, in the vein of dusky Americana (“Golden State of Mind”), harmonica-driven blues (the Tom Petty-esque “Careful What You Wish For”), rootsy indie (“Don’t Go Talking”), and meditative folk-rock (highlight “Time To Wake Up”).

If It Takes Forever emerged out of a tough 2023 for Dennen, as he was dealing with the death of his dad. “He was such a strong figure in my life that I depended on so much as both a dad and a best friend,” he said. “And I knew immediately in order for me to deal with his death, the best thing I could do was to make an album about it.”

Understandably, Dennen took his time coming up with song ideas for If It Takes Forever, and spent the bulk of a year simply thinking about “what kind of album I was going to make and what kinds of songs were going to be on the album,” he says. “I jotted down ideas on paper, made little voice memos with ideas of songs, melodies and choruses, or sometimes even just talked into a voice recorder.”

With these ideas as a foundation, Dennen was well-prepared by the time he hunkered down in late 2023 to formalize his rough ideas into songs. “Making them a reality all happened very fast,” he says. “These songs were in my head and came out when I had the guitar in my hand. I would record one, put it away and then come back a few days or a few weeks later and listen to it: ‘Okay, I think that's done. That's good enough. Move on, move on, move on.’”

Dennen naturally wrote some songs directly about his dad. But he also wanted If It Takes Forever to tackle his new reality going forward. “It was evaluating life—like, what did this person mean to me?” he says. “What did they inspire in me? What do I think life is about now? Who's the person I really want to be?” But he also found himself turning to broader philosophical questions. “I was also thinking about the state of life: What is life? What does it mean? What's it all about?”

This lent itself to lyrics full of vibrant imagery with multiple layers of meaning. Among his favorite songs is the gentle, folksy “In the Garden,” which was indirectly inspired by his parents and the impressive vegetable garden they tended. “I don't necessarily think it's a song about my dad—or a song about him speaking to my mom, per se—but I think it's a song about love and putting your intention into something,” Dennen explains. “Metaphorically, it’s about taking care of something and creating something beautiful, but it’s also a literal place for beautiful things to grow, and a calm place to find solace in.”

Another favorite is “Wood Canoe,” a narrative-driven story of humble man who has a knack for building a canoe out of wood, with lyrics speaking to the idea of metaphorically taking somebody away to a better place, he explains. “It feels like a Cat Stevens song and has a little bit of Latin rhythm to it.” Dennen also loves “Another Day in Babylon” because of its rumbling groove—and the fact it’s very literal, as he based the lyrics on things that happened in his own life.

The easygoing opening track, “Chipping Away,” meanwhile, touches on resilience and the importance of persevering even when things might not be falling into place the way you’d like. “There's so many things I want to do and so many things I haven't done—and I'm the one holding myself back from doing those things,” he explains. “But that's just life, I guess—and here's an opportunity to celebrate that.”

Dennen recorded If It Takes Forever quickly, “in a whirlwind five days” in Los Angeles with the musicians in his live band and another long-time collaborator serving as producer, Jon Solo. This full-band configuration gave the album a distinct feeling of immediacy but also lends itself to depth-filled arrangements. Organ courses through the standout “Dharma Baby” while plaintive piano adds sharp melancholy to the meditative “Star Surfer.”

“We haven't recorded an album together before now,” he notes. “But it was easy to trust everyone and get excited about what we were creating together. We felt like a team; I've never had that feeling before. That’s why I think it was easy to get so much done in a short amount of time.”

In general, Dennen prefers recording live with a band anyway. But the bond he had formed with his bandmates across years of traveling around together on the road made the If It Takes Forever experience especially seamless—namely because everyone contributed parts and ideas in the studio during the process. “I was really impressed with everybody's ability to help me get to a place where I was feeling good about the direction it was going,’ he says. “It wasn't me or the producer saying, ‘I want you to do this. I was hoping you would do this.’ It wasn't like ‘This is Brett’s album’—it was like, let's just make this music the best that the four of us can make it.”

Since debuting in 2004 with a self-titled album, Dennen has amassed a loyal fanbase thanks to a steady touring schedule, including alongside artists like John Mayer, Jason Mraz and G Love and Special Sauce, as well as multiple song placements in the TV show Parenthood. Another tune, "Comeback Kid (That's My Dog)," became the theme song for the TV adaptation About A Boy. Along the way, Dennen has also had multiple top 10 hits on the AAA radio charts, with the keening title track of See the World, an encouraging song about growing up and forging your own path in life, landing at No. 4 in 2021.

With If It Takes Forever, Dennen plans to hit the road once again, but he possesses additional perspective on—and gratitude for—the solace provided by art and music. “To really boil it down, this is life,” he says. “Life is full of things that get complicated and make you busy, and are really hard to deal with. But if you write songs about it, and put it into art, then it makes it a lot more relevant and meaningful and worthy of celebration.”

Show 8pm // Ages 21+ // $27 Advance & $30 Day of Show

***This is a fully seated general admissions show. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

BEN OTTEWELL & IAN BALL (of Gomez)

Ian Ball and Ben Ottewell of the British band Gomez are celebrating the 25th anniversary of their sophomore album, "Liquid Skin," with a US tour this fall. The tour kicks off on October 1, 2024, at The City Winery in Boston and includes several other dates across North America.

Gomez, known for their eclectic blend of rock, blues, and experimental sounds, achieved significant acclaim with "Liquid Skin," following their Mercury Prize-winning debut, "Bring It On." The anniversary tour will feature performances of tracks from "Liquid Skin," along with other fan favorites and possibly some new material. 

The tour promises an intimate experience as Ball and Ottewell perform as a duo, supported by the special guest artist, Buddy. This setup aims to highlight the unique vocal interplay and songwriting prowess that have defined Gomez's music over the years.

Show 8pm // $15 General Admission

***This is a fully seated general admission show. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Show 8pm 

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

Show 8pm //  21+

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

DIMOND SAINTS

with BEAT KITTY and SCHMUX

Show 8pm // Ages 21+ 

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

KATIE PRUITT

with DRUMMING BIRD

Katie Pruitt is living proof of music’s power to transform the way we experience the world. Soon after the arrival of her acclaimed debut Expectations—a 2020 LP on which she documented her journey in growing up queer in the Christian South—the Georgia-bred singer/songwriter/guitarist heard from countless listeners that her songs had impacted their lives on an elemental level. With her sophomore album Mantras, the Nashville-based musician now looks inward to explore such matters as gender identity, self-compassion or the lack thereof, and the struggle for peace in times of chaos and uncertainty—ultimately arriving at a body of work that speaks to the strength in undoing harmful self-beliefs and fully living your truth.

Mainly produced by Collin Pastore and Jake Finch (known for their work with boygenius and Lucy Dacus), Mantras delves deeper into the empathetic storytelling and incisive self-examination that defined Expectations—an album that earned Pruitt a nomination for Emerging Artist of the Year from the Americana Music Association and drew praise from major outlets like Rolling Stone (who hailed Pruitt as a “dynamic new presence”) and Pitchfork (who noted that “[h]er songs are patient but determined, navigating serious subjects with quiet familiarity”). This time around, Pruitt sets her lived-in lyricism to a folk-leaning sound informed by her love for the more experimental edges of indie-rock, stacking her songs with plenty of propulsive grooves and overdriven guitars as well as working with musicians like string arranger Laura Epling (Orville Peck, Spencer Cullum).

Although several songs took shape with the help of co-writers like singer/songwriter Ruston Kelly (Bethany Cosentino, Amanda Shires), Pruitt wrote most of Mantras on her own and imbued her lyrics with an expansive element of autobiography. In penning the album-opening “All My Friends (Are Finding New Beliefs),” she mined inspiration from a Christian Wiman poem of the same name, dreaming up a fuzzed-out and summery track etched with both self-aware reflection and sharp-witted observation on the search for clarity and purpose. Next, on “White Lies, White Jesus and You,” Pruitt shares a hazy yet frenetic meditation on hypocrisy in religion, tapping into her intense frustration with conservative Christian ideology. A profoundly introspective album, Mantras turns the lens on her own inner life with songs like “Self Sabotage”—a gloriously cathartic track that opens up about her struggle with negative thought loops. Meanwhile, on “Blood Related,” Pruitt presents a raw but poetic rumination on how family can sometimes feel like strangers, enlisting her mother as a background vocalist and embedding the track with audio recordings of her father and brother from old home videos. And while Mantras often pushes into emotionally heavy terrain, its songs frequently echo the radiant sense of joy and discovery that defined the album-making process. On “Naive Again,” for instance, Pruitt infuses the bright and dreamy tones of glockenspiel and xylophone into her melancholy contemplation on loss of innocence.

Looking over the tracklist to Mantras, Pruitt notes that a certain narrative thread emerged without her intention. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but the throughline for this record ended up being my own personal journey of letting go and learning how to love myself again—it begins with tension, frustration, and fear and resolves to a place of acceptance, surrender, and stillness,” she says. “I hope when people hear the record they feel what I felt after writing it, which was a sense of trusting myself and trusting that—no matter how bad things look—there’s always hope where there’s fear. I know that so much of the time we feel alone in our pain, so hopefully these songs help everyone to see that they can work through those big life changes and end up loving themselves a lot more.”

Show 8pm // Ages 21+ // $24 Advance & $30 Day of Show

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

HOT 8 BRASS BAND

The New Orleans-based Hot 8 Brass Band draw on the traditional jazz heritage of their hometown, alongside more modern styles, including elements of funk, hip hop, rap, and its local variation, “bounce.” The collective earned a win in the 64th Annual Grammy Awards 2022 for their feature on John Batiste’s ‘Album of The Year', following the nomination of ‘The Life & Times Of…’ for ‘Best Regional Roots Album’ in 2013.

Transcending genres and trends, Hot 8 have performed and collaborated with the likes of Jon Batiste, Blind Boys of Alabama, Basement Jaxx and Alice Russell, and provided live support for Mos Def, Lauryn Hill and Mary J Blige. Since forming they have established a decade-long affiliation with actor/BBC 6Music DJ Craig Charles, among other tastemakers, DJs and journalists worldwide. After a festive appearance Live at Maida Vale for Lauren Laverne (BBC 6 Music), the Hot 8 Brass Band performed for Jools Holland's annual Hootenanny on BBC Two to welcome in 2019. Later that year, after taking to the stage at the BRIT awards in February, Hot 8 Brass Band were invited on the European leg of George Ezra’s tour.

With multiple sell-out shows at London’s Roundhouse and Brighton’s Dome, Hot 8 continues to share their acclaimed releases. Albums such as 'Vicennial...', 'On The Spot' and 'Take Cover', are brought to the stage, honoring their city’s musical traditions, while forging their own powerful legacy. Mixing an old-school street brass approach with funkier currents and hip hop vocals, Hot 8’s magnificent originals are juxtaposed with fresh versions of Snoop Dogg, Stevie Wonder, The Specials and of course their anthemic take on Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing”.

The recent passing of Bennie Pete, the beloved co-founder and sousaphone player for the outfit, will be honoured in true New Orleans fashion with ‘The Bossman Tour 2023’, paying tribute to his “galvanizing force” as a “leader, teacher and mentor”. Fellow bandmates add that  “Bennie was an inspiration to [the] band and to many other musicians, and the entire musical and cultural community.”. The dates will celebrate the late Bennie’s “greatest wish.. that New Orleans culture lives on for future generations”. This parade follows the success of the Mardi Gras 2020 and 'Take Cover' 2019 tours.

Show 8pm // Ages 21+ // $27 Advance $30 Day of Show

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

STEELY DEAD

Show 8pm // $26 General Admission & $22 General Admission 4 Packs

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

FOREVERLAND - THE ELECTRIFYING TRIBUTE TO MICHAEL JACKSON

Since 2009, Foreverland has been mesmerizing audiences around the country with their larger-than-life tribute to the one and only Michael Jackson.
Featuring three dynamic vocalists, a powerhouse rhythm section, and the hardest working horn section in the biz, Foreverland recreates hits from the Jackson 5 era through the end of Michael’s incredible career in a way that honors the King of Pop’s musical genius and legendary showmanship like no other tribute band has ever done.

Show 8pm // $30 Advance & $35 Day of Show

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

AARON WATSON

For over 20 years now, Aaron Watson has traveled the land as country’s ultimate underdog troubadour – a truly independent artist with the spirit of the American frontier in his veins, and a self-made empire to match. 

Working without corporate backers, he has nonetheless reached the Top 10 of Billboard’s Country Album chart five separate times – an impressive feat by any standard – and that includes his triumphant 2015 set, The Underdog, which landed at Number One. Matching sold-out shows across the country with homegrown hits, he’s followed suit at country radio, making history in 2017 with “Outta Style” and “Run Wild Horses.” But despite the success, the Texas native remains a fighter punching far above his weight, constantly defending his right to be in the ring. And with his new album, Unwanted Man, he reminds all who care to listen that it’s just fine by him.

“It's not like, ‘Is there any gas left in the tank?’” Watson says, explaining the tireless drive behind his 18th studio set. “This is just who I am. I still without a doubt believe I haven't written my best song yet, and I kind of feel like I'm just getting started.”

Still pushing into the wind, Unwanted Man finds a creative renegade continuing to do what he does best, now working at the most “dangerous” level of his career. Counted out time and time again, the singer-songwriter reaffirms his steadfast commitment to his craft, and takes his go-it-alone spirit to new levels.

Eleven songs were written at home in the early months of the pandemic – with Watson’s “90-percent solo” writing style serving him well. He then co-produced the set with his drummer and studio mate, Nate Coon, and even shot the album cover himself, using his iPhone after his photographer contracted COVID-19. And then, just as the album was set for release, Watson suffered the first vocal injury of his career, with mandatory voice rest adding yet another wrinkle of adversity. But it was all taken in stride. This artist is used to weathering storms.

“You just have to roll with the punches,” Watson says, knowing full well what that means.

Seventeen years into his journey, Watson reached a hard-to-comprehend milestone in 2017, becoming one of the only independent artists to crack country radio’s Top 10 in the last half century. “Defying gravity” with his free wheeling country rocker, “Outta Style,” he had a bonafide hit and almost two decades of sold-out momentum on his hands, reaching a pinnacle that should have sent him to the next level – yet still, Watson found the mainstream gates difficult to unlock.

Luckily, his fans didn’t care. They never stopped coming out, whether it was a massive stadium show like RodeoHouston or a nameless dancehall on some dusty interstate off ramp, and in the time since, that truth not only sustained Watson, it became the bedrock of Unwanted Man.

“Because of these fans, I don't feel like an unwanted man,” he explains. “I built my career at the honky tonks, and I'm not mad at anyone – I don't have time. But it does motivate me to get back in there shake things up again. There are a lot of people out there who like what I do, so for them – and for myself – I’m going to keep pushing forward. That’s what this is all about.”

With its raw vocals and minimal production, the album’s title track sets Watson’s quest in motion, kicking off Unwanted Man with a thank you to his supporters. As it swells into a two-stepping romantic romper, his knack for hiding big themes in personal lyrics shines through … and not for the last time.

Cut in January 2021 in Tyler, Texas, it’s the first album Watson has recorded in his home state in a decade, and reflective themes of an outsider’s life in spotlight pepper the set – always presented as he sees fit. 

With its grungy garage-rock vibe, “Cheap Seats” follows the thematic lead of “Unwanted Man,” pledging allegiance to the common concertgoers who remain his inspiration – rather than some faceless focus group. Elsewhere, “Old Man Said” recounts the tender wisdom that helped guide Watson to manhood, and with a soft touch of heartland rock, “Crash Landing” finds a weary traveler looking to rest his heart.

Meanwhile, “Dancing Around the Truth” breathes fresh energy into the familiar one-last-time love song, “What’s Left of Me” tallies up the impact of time and tribulation, and the album ends on a Paul McCartney-inspired singalong, complete with sweeping strings epic emotions (“Once In a Life”).

Each one features the inventive songwriting and one-of-a-kind melodies of a true, untamed artist, striving to bring a singular vision to life, no matter the cost. And with the working-musician’s anthem, “Heck of a Song,” Watson promises to never stop.

Looking back, that’s the true theme of Unwanted Man. That at this point in his long career, Watson knows who he is, and he’s not about change. It might not be an easy road – or even one you can find on a map most of the time. But he’s free, and he knows it.

“I'm right where I wanna be,” Watson says. “No one can put any labels on me. And I tell a lot of younger artists, ‘Listen, there's enough room at the table for all of us. This is not a sprint. This is a long distance race.’”

Show 8pm // Ages 21+ // $27 Advance $30 Day of Show

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

WILLIE WATSON

with MARGO CILKER

Soon before Willie Watson turned 18, he met God in an apple orchard. Or at the very least, he met there a man named Ruby Love, the older friend of a high-school buddy who had an enormous Martin guitar and a seemingly bigger understanding of the American folk songbook. Watson was existentially thirsty: A high-school dropout from upstate New York’s Finger Lakes, he was fast on his way to his first heartbreak and in a first band that didn’t take itself seriously enough. But that night in an apple orchard that had always seemed magical, at a graduation party for one of his bandmates and best friends, Watson and Love sang a few of those old songs together—“Worried Man Blues” and “Tennessee Waltz.” It was the first time Watson had cried while singing, the first time he had made the connection between making music and making sense of his life. He never saw Ruby Love again, but within months of that foundational 1997 rendezvous, he met the musicians with whom he’d soon start Old Crow Medicine Show. Call it revelation, fate, resurrection, whatever you will; for Watson, more than a quarter-century later, it was a duet with the divine. 

As told in the talking-gospel masterpiece “Reap ’em in the Valley,” that scene is the transfixing finale of Watson’s self-titled debut as a songwriter and as a human at last making music to make sense of his life. Yes, Watson has released two albums since he left Old Crow Medicine Show a dozen years ago and since his long-term collaborations with David Rawlings and Gillian Welch. 

But those records, both titled Folk Singer, were sets of tunes he knew, interpretations of the songbook he has diligently mined since even before that night in the apple orchard. At 44, however, he feels that Willie Watson is his first-ever true album, having finally lived and lost and simply witnessed enough to know he has something to sing with his exquisite rural tenor. Watson has not abandoned those old songs entirely. He dazzles during a robust take on the forever-curious “Mole in the Ground” and treats “Harris and the Mare,” the standard of tragic Canadian singer Stan Rogers, with total tenderness. But by and large, these are his stories of heartbreak and hurt, backlit by the corona of hope that only growth can provide. 

Every memory, Watson likes to say, is surrounded by a shroud of sadness, whether it’s good or bad. And there are lots of memories in a life, all mixed: Though the band he started soon after that night with Ruby Love long gave him a purpose and career, it conscripted him into a role as an old-fashioned folkie, forever stuck playing a part that got tiring. Marriage and fatherhood became boons in their own time, but they kept him bound to Los Angeles, its sprawl and selfishness causing a country boy like Watson to lose himself again. And there was the stereotypical excess of it all, too, the habits of hard living nearly breaking Watson in his 30s. 

But after he lost those relationships, he slowly got sober and faced himself head on, working to be honest about the traumas of his childhood that had helped create the troubles of adulthood. Sobriety, though, was never enough for Watson. He wanted that shift to prompt change and growth, to force him into situations that were beneficial because they were uncomfortable and challenging. That, in many ways, is the motivation of these nine songs and the only album he’s ever felt deserved to bear his name. 

In 2020, Watson began convening with Morgan Nagler, an actress and songwriter he’d met years earlier through Rawlings. They’d discuss an idea and then often sit in silence, scratching away at it separately as Watson wriggled around on a couch, as if wrestling with his past in the real time of the present. Sometimes playful and sometimes persecuted, the songs that emerged looked

backward to move ahead, dealing with disappointments in phrases of crisp rhyme and sly wordplay. 

A post-pandemic solo tour had left Watson feeling drained by the idea of being some standalone entertainer, onstage alone taming crowds who had forgotten how to listen amid extended isolation. He knew he wanted a band for these songs, but he understood they only needed to be the framing beneath them, supporting rather than distracting from these reckonings with self. Alongside producers Kenneth Pattengale and Gabe Witcher, respectively of Milk Carton Kids and Punch Brothers, Watson assembled a modest ensemble of aces who were largely new to him but would respond to the songs intuitively and without intrusion—bassist Paul Kowert, guitarist Dylan Day, drummer Jason Boesel, fiddler Sami Braman. (Careful listeners may note cameos from Benmont Tench and Sebastian Steinberg, too.) Start to finish, these songs sound like moments of mutual discovery, the entire group arriving together to look at Watson’s life and realize something about and for themselves. 

“Real Love” harkens back to those days in rural New York, with Watson opening himself to the wreckage that comes with falling for someone for the first time. He is fragile but resolute here, pressing on in spite of vestigial pain. “Sad Song” thrums like some muted and modern Jimmie Rodgers number, as Watson tries to play-act happiness one more time for a society that’s just wanted him to grin and sing. Echoing the rippling and beautiful despair of Gordon Lightfoot, the gorgeous “Play It One More Time” examines the fleeting salve of music itself, or how the help it gives us can fade when we’re not truly hearing. 

And then there’s the hotrod acoustic opener, “Slim and the Devil,” a wits-sharp adaptation of the Sterling A. Brown poem “Slim Greer in Hell.” After being disgusted by the imagery of white nationalists taking over the streets of Charlottesville, Watson pulled a book called "The Black Poets" off his shelf, and the first page he opened was Brown's poem. The story of a Faustian bargain made with St. Peter at the pearly gates in exchange for one more earthly adventure, it’s a sly contemplation of the meaningless deals we make to endure when we all know what’s inevitable. For Willie, the story is second to the honor aimed at the poet himself "because history has told me that all the people in his position have been robbed by white folk artists and completely cast aside." And then there is “Already Gone,” a devastating if elegant survey of the damage we leave behind as we make bad choices, as we force people to leave our lives. “There’s no hearts to break here,” Watson offers before the knockout. “They’re already gone.” 

These days, Watson looks askance at his old reputation and knows other people do, too. “‘I thought you were just some nice little singer who sang in the little fucking cowboy hat,’” he deadpans, characterizing the perception he knows he has in many ways courted. And he recognizes that people probably don’t think he can write his own songs of meaning and depth, since he spent so long reworking those of others. For a long time, he bought that, too. But the hat is off, as is the desire to be a mere entertainer or interpreter. The nine songs on Willie Watson find a bona fide songwriter dealing with the difficulties of his past to suggest a renewed future; what’s more, he uses his keen and expansive understanding of an old lexicon to add his own new entries to it. As with the best folk songs, you will recognize your own burdens here. As with the best folk singers, you will feel compelled to sound them out, too. Who knows, maybe you’ll even meet God in an apple orchard.

Show 8pm // Ages 21+ 

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

RIPE

with HEMBREE

Ripe’s new album Bright Blues has an anthemic feel. It is a collection of 12 songs full of sleek grooves and bold melodies that the Alternative-Pop quartet put together to help ride out tough times.

The members of Ripe have never felt more assured about the band or their music. Collectively and personally, Ripe has weathered a mountain of adversity over the past few years, and from those struggles has arisen their best art yet. Bright Blues, Ripe’s sophomore album, is enjoying big excitement at radio, with the new single “Settling” hitting top 15 at AAA and top 25 at ALT with over 16K+ radio spins garnering 15+million impressions and being featured as Alt Nation’s critical cut artist.

“The wildest thing for me is that the record simultaneously sounds like it has the scars of everything we’ve been through and also that it doesn’t — it’s joyful music, which is very exciting given that it was made in the middle of getting hit in the stomach,” says singer Robbie Wulfsohn, who came together with guitarist Jon Becker, drummer Sampson Hellerman, and trombonist Calvin Barthel while they were all studying at Berklee College of Music.

Ripe is taking Bright Blues on the road, with a nationwide headline tour that begins shortly after the album’s March 10th, 2023 release date. The tour will hit prestigious venues such as MGM Music Hall at Fenway in Boston, Terminal 5 in New York City and The Fillmore in San Francisco.

Even before the pandemic, Ripe was on the cusp of something new. The band began drawing acclaim from the likes of the Boston Globe, Huffington Post and WXPN with a dance-ready vibe on EPs Produce The Juice and Hey Hello. Ripe built on that sound and folded in a touch of R&B on their first full-length, Joy in the Wild Unknown. Their streams on Spotify surged past 65 million, they conquered stages at festivals including Bonnaroo, Firefly, SweetWater and Bottlerock, and they sold thousands of tickets across the US, including sell outs at iconic venues like House of Blues Boston and Brooklyn Steel. Ripe was still ready to try a different approach for Bright Blues. The album would already be different in that it would be their first release after signing to indie powerhouse Glassnote Records. They started the creative process by calling in outside producer Paul Butler (St. Paul & the Broken Bones, Michael Kiwanuka) and for the first time, bringing in co-writers, recording four songs that Ripe released as singles throughout 2020.

“We thought, how can we do something new?” Hellerman says. “Something that still has our sound and vibe at its core, how can we expand our boundaries and reach more audiences while still staying true to what makes Ripe Ripe?” The answer was teaming up with Noah Conrad (BTS, Niall Horan) and Ryan Linvill (Olivia Rodrigo, Dermot Kennedy), classmates from Berklee who are up-and-comers in the world of pop songwriting and production. Together, the band and its collaborators dialed in a buoyant sound on the hooky album opener “Get Over,” where synths help flesh out a throwback pop sound. Ripe works a hot soul vein on “All or Nothing,” where horns punctuate a snappy rhythm that powers smooth, fully self-assured vocals. Woozy synths on “Paper Cups” help create a dream-like vibe accentuated with a subtle, hypnotic melody.

Bringing new people into the fold, even though they’re old friends, was an exercise in trust that proved well worth it. “We used to just all get in a room and kind of hash it out,” Becker says. With Bright Blues, “It was only one or two of us at a time with Noah and Ryan, so our individual voices got to shine more.”

The new approach also helped Ripe think of the band’s high-energy, freewheeling stage show separately from the recording studio, which they used more as an instrument in the making of Bright Blues. Wulfsohn chimes in, “There are moments of improvisation on the record that feel like somebody was just going for it and hitting something really exciting. I’m biased, but I think you hear every distinct voice across the record, and I think the circumstances of the record absolutely leaked into the musical choices.”

The result is an album that shows the full scope of the band’s abilities as writers and performers. The live show has always been at the core of who Ripe is, and now the recorded music can stand alongside it as an all-encompassing representation of whothe band is and where they are going.

Bright Blues also showed the members of Ripe that they can still surprise each other. “Each of us had moments while making this album that really resonated with us, if not broke us open emotionally,” Barthel says. “Having that experience coming from people who you know better than anybody else and trust so much is pretty mind blowing. It definitely left us all with a new level of inspiration and drive and belief in what we could all do.”

Show 8pm // $29.50 Advance / $32 Day of Show

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

LA SANTA CECILIA

Santa Cecilia (named after the patron saint of musicians) was formed in 2007 as a  sextet. Its founding members were guitarist Gloria Estrada, accordionist and  requintista Pepe Carlos, bassist Alex Bendaña, percussionist Miguel "Oso" Ramírez,  drummer Hugo Vargas and lead vocalist Marisol "La Marisoul" Hernández. The band  members were born or came to the United States when they were very young. While  they all grew up with traditional forms of Latin music at home, they were also  exposed to the sounds of American pop culture: rock, soul, blues, jazz, jazz, funk,  punk, ska, reggae and other sounds of the world that were playing on the airwaves  and in the neighborhoods. They performed at block parties, bars, coffee shops and,  from time to time, as opening acts for out-of-town artists and at festivals.  

Los Angeles-based Santa Cecilia is a Latin rock band that draws inspiration from  music around the world, using Pan-American rhythms from Colombian and Mexican  cumbia, bossa nova, rumba, bolero and tango, and combining them with rock, soul,  R&B, ska, jazz and even klezmer. Children of Immigrants, their acclaimed 2013  debut album, Treinta Días, offered an upbeat yet intensely personal take on Latin  life, and released the hit single "Ice el Hielo," which became an anthem for the 14  million undocumented inhabitants of the United States and paved the way for the  band to win a Grammy for Best Latin Rock Album. In 2017, La Santa Cecilia released  Amar y Vivir, an audiovisual album composed of cover versions. The set was  recorded live in the streets, plazas, cantinas and theaters of Mexico City. The  eponymous 2019 mini album was recorded as a tribute to the parents of three of the  band members, who had passed away in the previous 18 months. Its closing track  is a cover of the Bessie Smith blues standard "Nobody Knows You When You're  Down and Out." Two years later, La Santa Cecilia released "Quiero Verte Feliz". The title track was recorded in collaboration with singer-songwriter Lila Downs. 

The group recorded their first eponymous EP in 2009. Aside from their superb  songwriting and performances, the CD revealed something else that was different  about this band: They wanted to be part of their community. They sponsored "paint  parties" where they played and designed and hand-painted their CD covers with  friends and fans, using materials ranging from recycled newsprint to wrapping paper,  cardboard and more. No two covers were alike, making them objects d'art. The  band's music spread throughout the city and local listeners invited them to play more gigs and festivals. Their incendiary live performances garnered them a fanatical fan  base, and music from the EP ended up appearing on the cable TV series Weeds, in  the documentary Re-Encounters (about Oaxacan artist Alejandro Santiago) and  elsewhere.  

La Santa Cecilia's second EP, Noche y Citas, was released in 2010 and garnered  more critical acclaim, and the group began touring Mexico and eventually North  America. Their third EP included four covers and one original song. The covers  ranged from Gloria Jones' "Tainted Love" and U2's "One" to "Love Came Here" by  the late Lhasa de Sela and "Viento" by Caifanes, showing not only their variety, but  their commitment to a wide variety of music.  

With growing popularity at home and abroad, La Santa Cecilia signed with Universal  and reduced the core group to La Marisoul, Bendaña, Carlos and Ramirez. Their  debut album, Treinta días, was released in May 2013 and became the most played  debut of the week on Billboard's Latin Pop Albums chart and won the Grammy Award  for Best Latin Rock, Urban or Alternative Album in February 2014. The band hit the  road, playing Bonnaroo, SXSW and many other festivals. They shared the stage  with Elvis Costello, Stevie Wonder and Los Lobos. In March, less than a month after  winning their Grammy, the band released Someday New. Their single "Cumbia  Morada" hit the charts in its first week. In addition, a cover of the Beatles' "Strawberry  Fields Forever" was a hit. Another version of "Ice El Hielo" appeared on the album;  the song was used in the FX series “The Bridge”. 

La Santa Cecilia worked on the road, taught songwriting workshops and were  selected as one of two opening acts for Café Tacuba's 25th anniversary tour. They  also became an international headliner in their own right before returning to the  studio. In August 2015, they released a pre-release single in English, "I Won't Cry  for You," and followed it up with "Nunca Mas (Never Again)" in December. The full  Buenaventura album was released in February 2016. The album featured  appearances by Enrique Bunbury, Fito Páez, members of Los Lobos and  Milwaukee's Latino Arts Strings Program.  

The band deepened its collaboration with producer Sebastian Krys and signed to his  Rebeleon Entertainment label. The result was the most ambitious recording of their  career to date. They decided to record an "audiovisual album" in Mexico City. La  Santa Cecilia started out as a street band in Los Angeles, singing rancheras and  boleros, as well as pop, soul and rock songs in Spanish and English. To reflect this  across the border, they recorded each song - 11 versions, one original - in the plazas,  parks, bars and theaters of the great metropolis. Each song was recorded live and  accompanied by a video. The material reflected their roots. There were versions of  rancheras, boleros and mariachi classics by some of Mexico's best composers, such  as Violeta Parra, Consuelo Velázquez (composer of the song "Bésame Mucho") and  Tomás Méndez, as well as modern songs by Café Tacvba, Juan Gabriel and Smokey  Robinson. La Santa Cecilia has also had the collaboration of Mon Laferte (Chilean  singer-songwriter), Noel Schajris (Argentine-Mexican singer), Eugenia León and  Rebel Cats (rockabilly). The band previewed Amar y Vivir with three videos, all  released on the same day in April 2017, including a cover of the title track, "Amar y  Vivir" (written by Velázquez), featuring Mexican rock band Comisario Pantera. The full album was released in mid-May. It reached number 28 on the Top Latin Albums  chart and received a Grammy nomination for Best Latin Pop Album. 

La Santa Cecilia returned in 2019, with a self-titled full-length. Produced once again  by Sebastian Krys, the album was written in the midst of loss and grief: three of the  parents of the band's four members had passed away in the previous 18 months. Its  first single and video, "Winning," was released in July. Mixed by Grammy-winning  Dave Pensado, the track was an '80s-inspired surf-rock that addressed the idea that,  in the early 21st century, people were more likely to live online rather than experience  it, dulling and replacing our reactions to tragedy, disaster and the struggle for justice  with clickbait that would be easily replaced during the next "trending" news cycle.  The recording also included a groundbreaking version of the Bessie Smith classic  "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" to close the set. Saint Cecilia was  released in mid-October.  

Although the band toured for the first few months of the new year, they were forced  off the road and into quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 and 2021.  They reappeared in October 2021 with the single "Quiero Verte Feliz," recorded in a  rare collaboration with singer Lila Downs. The cut served as the final track (and title  track) on the band's eight-track album that appeared in November; and was  nominated for a Grammy and Latin Grammy for Best Tropical Vallenato / Cumbia  Album in 2022 and 2023. 

During 2021 and 2022 La Santa Cecilia toured several cities throughout the United  States and Mexico with her tour "Quiero Verte Feliz". This tour consolidated their  musical career, performing in venues such as The Goldfield, Sacramento; UC  Theater, Berkeley; Lunario del Auditorio Nacional; CDMX, among others. In addition  to getting 2 sold outs at The Regent California and his first Sold Out in Mexico City  at the emblematic Teatro de la Ciudad Esperanza Iris. Likewise, 2022 served as a  year of new music for the Mexican-American band, who produced their ninth album  titled "4 Copas: Bohemia en la Finca Altozano", released on April 14, 2023; from  which titles such as "Dos Botellas de Mezcal", "Copa Rota", "El Andariego",  "Almohada" and "Cuatro Copas" can be heard; 

La Santa Cecilia continues with its harvest of successes, new music and  presentations. They have managed to expand their music to more and more corners,  performing at large scale festivals in Latin America such as Vive Latino on March  18th and 19th in Mexico City and the Tecate Pa'l Norte festival on March 31st in  Monterrey, Mexico. In addition to achieving an important step in their career by  arriving for the first time in Europe, specifically in Spain, where they will participate  in the Rio Babel Festival in Madrid and the Pirineos Sur Festival in Lanuza on July  1 and 8 respectively. In addition to two individual dates such as O grove at the  Nautico on July 2 and Sala Sidecar in Barcelona on July 7.

Show 8pm // Ages 21+

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

Show 8pm // Ages 21+ // $27 Advance & $32 Day of Show / $112 Ledges 10 Year Anniversary VIP EXPERIENCE

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

NOAH GUNDERSEN W/ ABBY GUNDERSEN: LEDGES 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY 

Marking the 10th anniversary of his acclaimed album, Ledges, Noah Gundersen will play an intimate, stripped-back show with his sister Abby Gundersen playing fiddle.

It’s a strange thing to have a living artifact of your younger self. To observe the manifestations of a younger you’s inner life. To be honest, it’s often cringy and anxiety inducing. With the benefit of hindsight, our shortsightedness and misplaced fears and hopes seem so obvious. 

As I look back, ten years later, to the person I was when I made Ledges, I see a young man full of ambition and naivety, desperate for validation and a sense of belonging. I see a boy with a singular vision and a hell of a lot to learn. 

They say you have your whole life to make your first record and 18 months to make your second. Although Ledges isn’t technically my first album, for all intents and purposes, it feels like it. It was the one I spent years writing. Some songs were written on a mattress on the floor of a rented room I shared with a friend, in a run down old house I moved into when I left my folks place at 17. Some I wrote in my first apartment in Seattle. One was written in the early hours of the morning, waking up on a friends couch to a simple, beautiful piano arrangement Abby wrote. One, after the unexpected heroin overdose that resulted in the death of a friend. Another, after briefly reigniting an old flame, only to watch it quickly burn out. 

Everything was new back then. The colors were brighter, the highs higher, the lows lower. Falling in love felt like the first time. Heartbreak felt like the end of the world. Ideas felt important and the future was a big, empty canvas.

There’s a lot of self importance in all of this and ultimately this is just some record that some kid made. But to that kid this record felt like his whole world. And like all records, it’s a little snapshot in time. And how lucky we are to have snapshots, photographs of moments and memories that ground us in the reality we’ve lived.

I don’t want to live in the past. But I’m grateful this marker of how it once was. A little simpler, a little cleaner, a whole lot of potential. And maybe that’s a reminder that I’m living in that potential, right now. This is the future I imagined and hoped for. This is the person I am now. And it’s nice to be able to look back and see how far I’ve come. And if you found this record 10 years ago, I hope you can listen back with the same gentle hindsight.

Doors 7pm // Show 8pm // Ages 21+ // $32 General Admission

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

YOU SHOULD BE DANCIN' - A TRIBUTE TO THE BEE GEES

Show 8pm 

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

1. SHALLOU

2. Shallou is an electronic music producer, singer and songwriter. Born Joe Boston in Washington D.C., the Shallou project began in a tiny college dorm room in New Orleans and has since grown into an international touring act. Shallou initially gained notoriety for his peaceful, blissed out production with subtle dance elements and his captivating live shows. Shallou has ambitiously presented his music over the years, experimenting with new iterations and maintaining a focus on performing electronic music live. He's toured as a three-piece band, featured live saxophone and violin at his shows, and recontextualized his softest tracks into energetic live edits. Shallou has played major music festivals like Coachella and Lollapalooza and has sold out some of the US' most iconic venues. He's collaborated with many artists across the pop and electronic spectrum, including Daya, Elderbrook, Bob Moses, Ashe and many more. With several Billboard Dance charting songs and frequent rotation on Sirius XM, he became one of the leading voices in the "chill" electronic genre. The current sound of Shallou includes his own heart-wrenching vocals atop a distinctive blend of house, ambient and pop elements.

Show 8pm

***This is a fully seated general admission show. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Show 8:00pm // Ages 21+ // $24 Advance & $30 Day of Show

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

Show 8pm // Ages 21+ // $32 Advance & $37 Day of Show

***This is a fully seated general admissions show. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

LARRY CAMPBELL & TERESA WILLIAMS

Love always. Love forever. Love until the end of time. The Great Cosmic Playlist is testimony to the endurance of an emotion that is easy to conjure but hard to maintain. But for Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams, who have been coupled consciously since 1986, love is more than a pop song; they are the bards of the long term committed relationship.

``As soon as I saw her, I knew she was the one,’’ says Larry. That epiphany occurred in a Manhattan rehearsal studio. Teresa, an actress and vocalist not long removed from Peckerwood Point, TN,  had been pulled into a singing contest.  Larry, the New York City native with a burgeoning reputation for his virtuosity on any instrument with strings, was brought in to play pedal steel guitar. ``For me, it was love at first note,’’ she says. Together they went on to capture a greater prize.

From the beginning, they shared a musical sensibility; Larry courted her with a Louvin Brothers mix tape. The more they played together, the deeper it grew. Whether it was Larry joining in on the music with Teresa’s family and neighbors under the tree where they were married (``Larry melded perfectly,’’ says Teresa), or Teresa belting bluegrass songs on the bus with Larry and the rest of Bob Dylan’s band as they traveled between gigs (``It was very fulfilling,’’ recalls Larry) , the couple’s rapport grew richer. ``I found a connection I had never experienced before,’’ says Larry. When Dylan’s manager, Jeff Kramer, suggested that they make hay with this natural duo, he expressed a thought that had been already brewing in Larry’s head. But Larry wasn’t ready. ``I had to start seeing myself as a singer and songwriter before I could take that step.’’ The couple took another decade, much spent playing with Levon Helm and his band at his legendary Midnight Rambles in Woodstock,  before Larry and Teresa elevated their rapport to the next level. 

All This Time is the couple’s fourth album since taking that leap, following Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams (2015), Contraband Love (2017), and Live at Levon’s (2023). All This Time , says Larry, ``feels more intuitive to me than the earlier records, less experimental, evidence that we’ve grown more aware of who we are and what we have to offer.’’ What they offer, evidently, is an intensely romantic album. Songs like Desert Island Dreams, Ride With Me, The Way You Make Me Feel, and I Love You fairly burst with the joy of love, while others recognize love’s humbling power. ``All I want, all I need, is right in front of me,’’ testifies one song. ``I still tremble at your name,’’ says another. 

It's not hard to recognize All This Time as a post-Covid album. Larry and Teresa had a hard pandemic. Before Teresa left for remote Tennessee to nurse her father through his last illness,  Larry came down with a double-barreled blast of Covid, and Teresa was quarantined. Isolated in Woodstock before treatments had been developed, Larry struggled.  ``Teresa pulled me through,’’ he says. ``I  held his hand over the phone,” she offers.  Teresa says Larry’s lyrics often help her decipher what’s on his mind, but it doesn’t always take a codebreaker to recognize the songs on this album as love letters sprouted in a harsh spring. ``When you told me that you need me/ After all we've been through/ I still think about the love we have to give/ I think about you.’’

Show 8pm // Ages 21+ // $56 Advance & $60 Day of Show

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

TREVOR HALL

Trevor Hall and The Great In-Between marks the start of a new era for musician Trevor Hall. Releasing September 15th, 2023 on Hall’s own 3 Rivers Label, the highly-anticipated record delivers a future-folk masterpiece anchored in Hall’s beloved style, while simultaneously bringing a refreshing new sound to the forefront. Created solely within the confines of a barn-turned-studio in his own backyard, this record marks the first of Hall’s career where he helmed every aspect of the production process. Penned without external influence and from a purely creative and explorative space, Trevor Hall and the Great In-Between unveils raw and unfiltered facets of Hall that remain undiscovered. 

Hailing from a small island in South Carolina, Hall was raised in a musical family and began formally studying classical guitar in high school at Idyllwild Arts Academy. Quickly thrust into the world of major labels, Hall signed a record deal at the young age of sixteen. After realizing the restrictive nature of such deals, he decided to pave his own way and reclaim his artistic freedom. Starting in 2017, he began releasing music independently. Since then, Hall has sold hundreds of thousands of albums and amassed billions of streams, leaving an indelible mark on the lives of countless listeners. His memorable live performances have graced venues around the world, including multiple sold-out headline shows at the historic Red Rocks Amphitheater. Hall currently resides in Colorado with his wife, author & photographer Emory Hall, as well as his son.

Show 8pm // Ages 21+ // $20 Advance & $24 Day of Show

***This is a fully seated general admissions show. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

JEFFREY MARTIN

On a small corner lot in southeast Portland, Oregon, Jeffrey Martin holed up through the winter recording his quietly potent new album Thank God We Left The Garden. Long nights bled into mornings in the tiny shack he built in the backyard, eight feet by ten feet. What began as demos meant for a later visit to a proper studio became the album itself, spare and intimate and true. Recorded live and alone around two microphones, Jeffrey often held his breath to wait for the low diesel hum of a truck to pass one block over on the busy thoroughfare. During the coldest nights, he timed recording between the clicks of the oil coil heater cycling on and off.

Martin's fourth full length album, Thank God We Left The Garden comes out on Portland's beloved Fluff and Gravy Records Nov __. He produced and engineered it himself, recalling, "There was a magic quality to the sounds I was getting in the shack with these two cheap microphones, some lucky recipe of time and place that allowed my voice and the way I play guitar and the shape of these new songs to come together with the kind of honesty I was craving."

So much has happened in the world since the release of his previous album One Go Around (heralded by No Depression as 'the poetry of America'), and Jeffrey has filled the time doggedly, but happily, touring the US and Europe, watching it all unfold in a stream of small town conversations and city sprawl. In a moment where depth is so often traded for the instantaneous, where tech billionaires are building rockets to escape the planet, where the dead-eyed stare of artificial intelligence is promising to existentially upend our world, and where divisiveness in our culture is breeding delusional levels of certainty, Jeffrey Martin's new record feels like a hopeful and fully human antidote.

There are holes in all the side walls where the wind it brings the rain in
And the gold crowns have been found out to be brass that has been painted
There are holes in all our bibles where we make secret compartments
To hide the broken treasures we smuggled out of the garden -Quiet Man

The sounds feel warm, close, and refreshingly real, all held up by the richness and rare candor of Jeffrey's voice. Production is restrained mostly to his guitar and vocals, with flashes of classical guitar for a tumbling wash of melody and low end color. Martin's voice sits high above everything, reaching into new melodic territory that goes beyond his earlier work. "I feel like I've only just learned how to sing," Martin said. "Like I've been chasing this record since my very first recordings. I wanted to really see what I could do, just my guitar and my voice and little else. I don't think it was conscious. I think maybe it was a reaction to the pace of life these days. The churning news and entertainment and politics and violence of it all. I needed to know that even in this day and age, just a few simple ingredients still hold up."

Beloved Portland-based guitarist Jon Neufeld added electric guitar to three tracks. Sticking to the same less-ismore approach, his playing skillfully and subtly elevates the lyrical intention. Neufeld's touch is best displayed on Red Station Wagon, a searing story about one man's transformation from a narrow-minded bigot into a person who feels deep remorse for the ugliness of his youth. In his transformation he discovers the clarity of empathy and compassion. The devastating and redemptive four minute song contains the emotional arch of an entire film, and each turn is beautifully punctuated by Neufeld's guitar. In addition to his guitar work, Neufeld mixed and mastered the album, and was such a crucial part of the final feel of the record that Martin also credited him as a producer.

"Jon and I really produced this album together," he said. "Me in the shack, and then him in his studio working with what I brought him as he mixed and mastered. It was such a treat to work with him. I brought this pile of rough songs and he was able to dial it in and make up for my complete lack of recording know-how. I love the performances I got, but Jon's magic is what helped them breathe and truly come to life."

No less lyrically weighty than his previous work, Thank God We Left The Garden holds a new kindness and easy solace that feels timeless and full of generosity. The title is a paradoxical nod to Martin's own spiritual conclusions, a theme that is subtly woven throughout the album. The son of a pastor, he touches on his religious upbringing then carries us well beyond his past where the weight of his deepest questions are free to unfold.

"It's always bothered me how uptight religion gets around the messiness of our human natures, always trying to tell people they're broken and flawed from the get go. The only God I can imagine is one who is overjoyed with the mess. Who revels in the edgeless mystery. I imagine hanging around with angels all day gets boring pretty fast. So maybe we got the story wrong. Maybe we were supposed to leave the Garden all along. Maybe that was the first good thing we ever did. After all, I can't think of anything that has an ounce of meaning or dimension that doesn't come from failure."

This is an album that craves your full attention, best experienced as a whole. Each song further illuminates the scene until you find yourself resting in the strangely comforting tangle of aliveness and meaning (and full spectrum of being alive./what it means to be alive.). At its core Thank God We Left The Garden is an album made of questions, humble and nuanced, a reverent celebration of the asking.

In my mind there's a garden, full of beauty and darkness
Full of sorrow and sweet things where my heart can be honest
In that garden there's a fruit tree and I eat from it daily
The same that Adam and Eve ate / what does that make me? -Garden

Whether singing about his own internal landscape, telling a story of someone else's, or reflecting on the elusive relationship between scarcity and contentment, Martin's writing never pushes the listener away, never points a finger. He sings of things we can all pin a memory on, holding the rough shorn gem of human experience up to the light.

There's a treasure that we all know but we can't have it / It's a place beyond the measure of our minds
It is where we go when we forget we're living / It is where we go when we forget we die . . .
And all the tools we use to feel important / they are useless as a sailboat in the sky
Where old bones and heart aches are forgotten / It's a place we don't have words to describe
The sun will rise like it always does on the day that I die
The world will spin, the sun will go on burning
Never even knowing I was alive
-There Is A Treasure

Thank God We Left the Garden will be released on Fluff and Gravy Records in the fall of 2023. Subsequent touring will carry Jeffrey Martin through all of the US, Canada, and Europe.

Show 8pm // 21+

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

FRENCH CASSETTES

The album title for French Cassettes’ new album Benzene—is neither an allusion to the dangerous fossil fuel byproduct, nor is it a nod to the anti-anxiety drug Benzos, but rather a twist on Huerta’s family nickname, ‘Benz’. “I wish I had a better explanation,” Huerta admits. “I guess I should have Googled it first.” 

The self-deprecation is classic Benz, as is this crossing of the wires between the flippant and the deeply meaningful. It’s one reason the San Francisco band’s third album holds up so well to repeated listens. Even when influences like The Magnetic Fields and The Beach Boys peek through, Huerta’s lyrical aesthetic is his own, and Benzene is packed to the gills with funny, memorable one-liners that take a twist for the heartbreaking. “My mother’s mother talks in comic sans,” he sings. “I will never not love her. I wish there were more emails to read.” 

Their last album, Rolodex, was a painstaking six years in the making, with perfectionist tendencies, anxiety and grief all playing roles in the delay. On Benzene — recorded and produced with the band’s cofounder Mackenzie Bunch and drummer Rob Mills — they have let their proverbial hair down. And while the album bears evidence of a band more comfortable both taking risks and taking it easy, they still never miss an opportunity to do something interesting. Melodically, production-wise, lyrically: There is always room to add another hook, a new harmony, a strange sound, or a little secret handshake of a lyric.

Show 8pm // 21+

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

THE COFFIS BROTHERS - Album Release Show

with MANZANITA 

With two songwriters, six albums, and more than a thousand shows under their belt, The Coffis Brothers have earned their reputation as modern-day torchbearers of all-American rock & roll. It's a sound caught halfway between amplified Americana, acoustic folk, roadhouse R&B, and electrifying roots music, crafted by a pair of California-born siblings who've been sharing the stage since childhood, and the five piece band filled out by their childhood friend, Kyle Poppen on lead guitar, and the rhythm section of Aidan Collins (bass), and Cory Graves (drums).

That sound reaches a new peak with Kaw-fis Bruth-urs. The band's third collaboration with Bay Area legend (and longtime Mother Hips frontman) Tim Bluhm, who serves as the album's producer, Kaw-fis Bruth-urs finds Jamie and Kellen Coffis letting their guard down, enjoying the creative ride as much as the destination itself. For every signature-sounding song like "Cut Right Through" — a heartland rock anthem built for highway drives and long horizons, as sunny as the band's Golden State homeland and as hook-driven as a Tom Petty classic — there's another track that stretches the band's sound into new territory. The result is The Coffis Brothers' widest-ranging album yet, running the gamut from bluesy, blue-eyed soul ("Face the Music") to jangling, harmony-heavy power pop (“Do You Want To").  

"This is what we do, and we're giving ourselves license to evolve and get better at it, too" says Jamie, who was raised in the Santa Cruz Mountains of northern California alongside his mother — a children's musician — and his younger brother. Decades after Jamie and Kellen made their stage debut alongside their mom, singing three-part blood harmonies at a young age, their musical bond has only grown stronger, sharpened by hundreds of live shows as much as their shared DNA. "It's the natural evolution of us performing together and spending so much of our lives together," Kellen adds. "We didn't set out to make anything in one particular direction — we just wanted to make a batch of really great songs."

Show 8pm // Ages 21+ 

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

THE AVENGERS & ZEROS 77

The Avengers - 

In 1977, The Avengers established themselves as one of the US's preeminent punk  bands. Fusing incisive guitar hooks, explosive rhythms, and adolescent venom, the group  forged some of the most in-your-face songs of the era. Classics like "We Are the One"  and “The American in Me” earned them a spot opening for the Sex Pistols at their final  performance at Winterland, as well as a dedicated following that has only swelled during  the subsequent years. The number of musicians that count themselves indebted to the  sneering indictments of vocalist Penelope Houston and the eviscerating chords of  guitarist Greg Ingraham cannot be overstated. The current line up includes rock-solid  bassist Joel Reader (MTX) and the exhilarating drumming of Luis Illades (Pansy Division). 

While much has been written about The Avengers in the past four decades, rock critic  Greil Marcus puts it succinctly, "The word I always come back to is mystical, and that  remains almost theirs alone."

Show 8pm // Ages 21+ 

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

ODIE LEIGH

with CLOVER COUNTY

Odie Leigh would never have called herself a musician before the depths of the 2020 pandemic, when her rapper roomies made a bet: Whoever records a song that goes viral first, wins. Slightly ticked off that they hadn’t included her in the wager, she decided to hit them with her best shot, and Odie was crowned the victor when a track she wrote blew up on TikTok. “I was like, ‘I'm gonna show y'all. I'm gonna win,’” she recalls, laughing. “Then I woke up to a bunch of comments on TikTok being like, ‘Oh my God, release this. This is amazing!’ Now, I’m a musician.” 

Four years after posting what she calls “that silly joke song” on TikTok, Odie Leigh has continued to transform and evolve as an artist — from what she calls “acoustic, ethereal folk sad girl music” to a harder-edge tunes that flirt with early Aughts pop-punktivism. That trajectory culminates in her first LP, Carrier Pigeon. “All the music I've released up until this point can kind of be thrown into the indie folk acoustic genre,” Odie says. “But I never set out to make Americana music. I never set out to make folk music. I'm just a girl with an acoustic guitar.” 

The fact that Odie Leigh never set out to make music is key here. Unlike a lot of musicians who grew up picking out tunes on toddler guitars or belting it out in garages, Odie never pictured herself on stage. Born and raised in Louisiana, she sang in the church choir, sure — her grandfather built the building, after all, and her family attended three times per week. But after moving to New Orleans to study English, she fully intended on making her bones in the film industry. That 2020 wager changed things, though, when she realized that she could win hearts in addition to bets. Although she’d taught herself to play guitar as a child, Odie didn’t know that much about music from the get-go, but she was inspired by the likes of ‘50’s singer-songwriter Connie Converse and her out-of-the-box style. “I didn't realize that music could be like this. It was all so unique and not pretentious,” she says. “I was like, ‘I can do this.’” Her first real single, “Ronnie’s Song,” followed in 2021, a sweetly silly track she wrote to cheer up a friend. Coming from the film world, she found songwriting freeing, unbound from the rigidity of screenplay and discovered that simplicity can be a strength. 

She released her first EP, How Did It Seem to You?, in 2022, about a situationship gone wrong. Recorded everywhere from Louisiana to Miami, “That first EP was born out of desperation to feel heard and be connected,” she says. “Releasing that EP is probably like one of the scariest things I've ever done because it was just so real and embarrassing. All of my music is stuff I would never say out loud.” In 2023, Odie Leigh dropped her second, EP, The Only Thing Worse Than a Woman Who Lies Is a Girl Who’ll Tell Truths, which was recorded in the woods of Tennessee. “That second project was definitely like the edgier, angrier step up from: I'm a girl that makes folk music,” she says. 

After those releases began gaining steam on social media, Odie Leigh started hitting stages hard — an impressive show of hustle for someone who never really dreamed of life on the road. Nevertheless, she toured Europe, North America, and played Newport Folk in 2023; she also has festival gigs like Shaky Knees and Kilby Block Party, among others, later this year. Odie

eventually achieved many an indie musician’s dream when she signed with Mom + Pop in 2023, mostly due to their diverse catalog: Yes, she’s made Americana music in the past, but she’s no one-trick pony. She craved the room to stretch and change and scream. And for Carrier Pigeon, she did just that, teaming up with a producer/musician Derek Ted — and infusing the 10-track suite with a more hard-edged sound, and plenty of fun. “I wanted to call it Carrier Pigeon because as I was writing these songs I just kept on thinking how silly it is that I'm writing all these thoughts and feeling down about someone and for someone who is only going to hear it months if not years after I write it,” she says. “I was like 'I might as well be putting letters in bottles and throwing them into the ocean or just strapping it to a pigeon and hoping it lands at the right house.' This album is the carrier pigeon and the songs are the messages.” 

Album opener “A Good Thing” showcases Odie Leigh’s new sensibilities as she goes from tentatively considering talking to a crush to almost wailing: “It’s hard for more me to not romanticize every man I meet.” “I feel like it’s the perfect opener, because it slowly brings you into my new sonic world,” she says. “The entire record is me falling in love.” The ebullient “Already (on My Mind)” follows — a simple song, Odie says, about infatuation: the early stages, the terror and excitement of new love. She wrote “Party Trick” in that same vein after an incident in the Airstream trailer where she lives. She was getting ready to meet friends at the Day of the Dead parade when she found herself almost paralyzed — door wide open, one shoe on — agonizing over texting a boy she’d met on Halloween. Instead of picking up the phone, she picked up the guitar — finishing the track after an exhilarating experience ziplining with fans in L.A. “All of these things were happening, but yet I was still sitting here thinking about this boy,” she sighs. 

We get past the first-text paranoia on “Conversation Starter” — a glorious sugar rush — in which Odie Leigh debates how to flirt with her new guy without revealing all her quirky weirdness right off the bat. “The song is me showing all of my insecurities,” she says. “But it's also not not about sexting,” she adds with a laugh. Things get considerably more “cutesy, and hopesy” on straight-ahead-rocker “No Doubt,” which is about, well, having zero of the titular doubts. “I can be stuck in my head and worry all I want, but at the end of the day, I know how I feel. You got me if you want. I'm here,” she says. 

“Finer Things” honeys in next, a “moment of chill on a sometimes not-chill album,” followed by the achingly lovely “Either Way,” velveteen vocals on full display. “It's one of the songs that, when I wrote it, I was like, ‘Is this amazing? Or is this the worst thing I've ever written?’” Odie Leigh says, laughing again. “But I feel like songs like that always end up being ones that are actually good.” After the song’s dizzying denouement, Odie gets a little wicked, darkly ruminating on being in the bottom of a ditch of “Common Denominator” and entering her villain error on “Idiom.” 

The record wraps with “My Name on a T-Shirt,” Odie Leigh’s “angry-girl song” about ditching a dude after he shows up to a gig with…you guessed it, her name on his shirt. Here, Odie’s ethereal sad girl takes the backseat as she nearly growls about being a “loser” and a “full-time sinner.” Nevertheless, it’s kind of a triumphant image for a woman who bet against her more

experienced roommates that she could break the Internet: getting so big a love interest fanboys out. In the end, Odie did show us all. And she’s having an absolute blast.

Show 7:30pm // Ages 21+ // $22

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

MIKE RENWICK'S HOLIDAY DELUXE

Show 8pm // Ages 21+ 

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

FLEETWOOD MACRAMÉ

Show 8pm // Ages 21+ 

***This is a fully seated general admissions show. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

PUDDLES PITY PARTY

Puddles Pity Party, the 7-foot sad clown whose golden voice is comparable to rock legends like Tom Jones and Freddie Mercury, has amassed nearly 900K YouTube subscribers and performed sold out shows all over the globe including The Kennedy Center in D.C., San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts, London’s Soho Theatre, and a residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

Neil Gaiman recently featured Puddles as guest performer in his specially curated gala for The Art of Elysium in Los Angeles.  In 2022, Puddles performed a duet with the iconic Eric Idle in Homeward Bound: A Grammy Salute to the Songs of Paul Simon filmed for CBS and was a surprise guest on the Season 4 finale of ABC’s The Conners. He also landed the coveted John Lewis Holiday advert in the UK with a cover of “All the Small Things” that he recorded with Postmodern Jukebox. Puddles was a quarter finalist on Season 12 of America’s Got Talent and appeared on the 2020 season of AGT The Champions.

Deftly combining melancholy with the absurd, Puddles has received endorsements and accolades from musical comedy legends like Jack Black, Michael McKean, Weird Al Yankovic, Drew Carey, Nick Offerman and Paul Reubens. His one-of-a-kind “textured voice laced with melancholy” (NY Times) has been hailed as “operatic” (Boston Globe) and his show both “life-affirming” (Herald Scotland) and “hysterically funny” (LA Weekly).

Show 8pm // $31 General Admission

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

RASH: A TRIBUTE TO RUSH

Since 2010, Rash: A Tribute to Rush has recreated the energy, the sound – the whole spectacle – of Rush live and in their prime. Seasoned performers all, this group of Rush fans came together with single-minded intent to perform their favorite Rush music and to sound as much like Rush as possible. Performing greatest hits and deep cuts with tremendous attention to detail, Rash will please the hardcore fan and casual listener alike.

Show 8pm // Ages 21+ 

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

RAINBOW GIRLS

with AVIVA LE FEY

"In a world where the line between the living and the dead blurs...

This fall, prepare yourself for a Rainbow Girls show like no other. As the lights dim, and the fog rolls in, you'll step into a realm where shadows dance, and whispers echo through the night. Welcome to the “Haunting” album release tour—a spine-tingling journey into the unknown. Feel the chill as each note reverberates through the darkness, see the spectral visions come to life on stage, and as the music swells, you'll find yourself drawn deeper into the abyss. But beware—once you enter, you may never leave. This isn't just a show… it’s a journey into the unknown, where every song beckons you deeper into the shadows.

Coming to a city near you.."

Show 8pm // Ages 21+ 

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

ELIJAH FOX

Elijah Fox is a multi-instrumentalist, singer, and producer based in Los Angeles, CA. He grew up in Durham, NC and began playing piano at age 11 and was mentored early on by Yusuf Salim, a pianist who had played with Charlie Parker and began performing in local jazz clubs. Fox studied piano at Oberlin Conservatory with Sullivan Fortner, Billy Hart, Dan Wall, and Gary Bartz and graduated in 2017 before moving to New York City. His piano composition “East Village” was sampled by Drake and 21 Savage on “Major Distribution” reaching number 3 on the Billboard Charts. Fox has also recorded/produced for SZA, Masego, YG, ScHoolboy Q, Denzel Curry, Tate McCrae, Musiq Soulchild, Childish Gambino, Kali Uchis, J Cole, and many others as well as releasing his own original compositions and sample packs. His impressionistic original piano composition “Wyoming” went viral on TikTok and has received over 20 million streams on Spotify. He is signed to UMPG for publishing as a writer/composer. He is also the touring keyboardist for UK drummer Yussef Dayes and has performed throughout the world. Fox has also performed his original music at sold out shows across the US and Europe. His sound blends elements of jazz, Impressionism, and psychedelic soul. Fox also releases instrumental music under the alias @Soren Sostrom

Show 8pm // 21+ 

***This is a standing room general admissions show. There will be a limited number of chairs located in the back of the concert hall. Seating will be first come first served. The restaurant will be open for dinner starting at 4pm.

Felton Music Hall Presents:

CURSIVE

with PILE

Very few bands manage to last decades, and for the ones that do, it’s often easy to settle down and get a little too comfortable. But there’s nothing comfortable about Devourer, the explosive new album from Cursive. The iconic Omaha group is known for their intensity, ambition, and execution, and has spent 30 years creating a bold discography that’s defined as much by its cathartic sound as its weighty, challenging lyrical themes. And Devourer is as daring as ever. Full of intense and incisive songs, the album proves exactly why Cursive have been so influential and enduring–and why they remain so vital today.

In the years since their 1995 formation, Cursive developed into one of the most important groups to emerge from the late-’90s/early ‘00s moment when the lines between indie rock and post-hardcore began blurring into something altogether new. Albums like Domestica (2000) and The Ugly Organ (2003) became essential touchstones whose echoes can still be heard in new bands today. The pull of nostalgia can be strong over time, but Cursive’s work has often felt like a rejection of those comfort zones; the band has continually pushed themselves, with frontman Tim Kasher’s artistic restlessness steering them ahead. In fact, for Kasher, whose pointed observations always begin with looking inward first, it was an interrogation of this voracious creativity that planted the seeds of Devourer.

“I am obsessive about consuming the arts,” he explains. “Music, film, literature. I’ve come to recognize that I devour all of these art forms then, in turn, create my own versions of these things and spew them out onto the world. It’s positive; you’re part of an ecosystem. But I quickly recognized that the term, ‘Devourer,’ may also embody something gnarly, sinister.” Devourer delves into that darker space. The characters populating the album have bottomless capacities for consumption, whether its resources, material goods, art, or even each other. Then they are consumed by larger forces, whether it’s humanity, Earth, dreams, time, or life itself. “Maybe a better word for it is imperialism,” Kasher says. “But it’s in many different forms. It’s not just the political. It’s personal imperialism and the imperialism of relationships, the way we imperialize one another, even ourselves.”

Fans have come to expect such heady topics from Cursive, but Devourer sets a new standard. The glibness of the First World toward the problems of others. The eternal struggle to stay on the straight and narrow. The eager acolytes exploited by their leaders. How anxiety can compound with age. How self-expression can warp into self-indulgence. Beginning with “Botch Job,” a propulsive banger shaking with anxiety and regret, the album seldom relents. Songs like “The Avalanche of Our Demise,” “What The Fuck,” “Bloodbather,” “Consumers,” and “The Age of Impotence” hit hard, hooking listeners with the unique blend of deep melody and discordant sounds Cursive does so well. Even as songs like “Up and Away,” “Imposturing,” and “Dead End Days” lean more into a poppier sound–or “Dark Star” and “The Loss” tone down the intensity–the album’s underlying disquiet remains. But as always, Cursive is here to wail, not wallow. As Kasher sings in “Bloodbather,” “Life’s an abscess or apple pie / So shut those demons up / And devour your slice.”

Devourer being filled to the brim thematically and musically is unsurprising considering Kasher wrote an astounding 69 compositions after songwriting began in the fall of 2020. About 20 made it to the practice space, with a curated 13 ending up on the final album. Wrangling it all at Omaha’s ARC Studios was Marc Jacob Hudson, who co-produced the album with the band after running live sound on Cursive’s recent tours. Hudson’s lengthy discography includes working with Against Me!, Thursday, and Fireworks, among others, but the musical touchstones he shares with Cursive sealed the deal. “We just got along well and had this kind of shared music history that I found so comforting,” Kasher says. “We were introduced to music in similar ways and, being the same age, share a musical knowledge. It was just so fun and refreshing.”

Now seven members strong (“We seem to be collecting band members over the years,” Kasher jokes), Cursive had a large musical toolbox to use on Devourer. Beyond the core trio of singer/guitarist Kasher, bassist Matt Maginn, and guitarist/vocalist Ted Stevens, there’s keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist Patrick Newbery, cellist Megan Siebe, recording/touring drummer Pat Oakes, and founding drummer Clint Schnase (the two trade drumming duties across Devourer, but join forces for a two-pronged percussive force in “Rookie”).

Cursive had self-released their two previous albums on their label, 15 Passenger, and initially planned to release Devourer the same way–but ultimately decided to put out some feelers as well. “We got interest and it made it all feel like, ‘Yeah, we should do this,’” Kasher recalls. The group arrived on Run for Cover Records, who were excited to work with a band who has such a deep discography and storied history; it’s a fitting home for Cursive, with new labelmates like Fiddlehead, Citizen, Teen Suicide, and Self Defense Family that share a same DNA of emotionally and sonically biting music. “It really is the first time that we’ve gone off to another label since we started in 1995, when we signed to Crank! Records,” Kasher says. “So there’s a certain excitement to that. It’s no longer the excitement of, ‘We just got signed! I wonder what’s going to happen with this record?!’ It’s more like we’re doing something different–nothing feels rote.” Maginn adds, “More than most bands, our labels have been part of our history. We did it ourselves for years with 15 Passenger, so it’s a big deal to us to take on and trust new partners.”

While Cursive’s music hasn’t gotten any more comfortable, perhaps its being released into a world that’s at least a little more shaped in their image. Devourer sounds urgent and fresh, the work of a band still experimenting, still hungering to find new creative heights. On album highlight “Consumers,” the protagonist bemoans, “I saw our future and I want to go back.” But Cursive are only moving forward.