We're excited to announce that we are working with Brooklyn alt-country songwriter Emily Frembgen starting with a brand new
single titled “Fentanyl” across all digital platforms. The single arrives accompanied by a
music video, which can be seen HERE. The video was directed by Clare O’Kane of
Saturday Night Live, Shrill, The Best Show and SpongeBob SquarePants. It is O’Kane’s
music video directorial debut.
“Fentanyl” is the lead single from Frembgen’s forthcoming Don Giovanni debut album, to be
released in 2024. The single is streaming across all platforms now.
“Fentanyl” opens with the lyric “Two years of doing nothing makes everybody crazy,” and is
a song about the kind of alienation that can render a person motionless and self-medicated,
but it also has an infectious melody and catchy guitar licks. Written after a particularly
frustrating bout of writer's block, the song was recorded at Excello Studio in Greenpoint,
Brooklyn with Hugh Pool. Emily laments the loss of who she was before the world shift of
2020 when it felt easier to connect with people. The single is streaming across all platforms
now.
Emily found her footing in the New York music scene largely by way of the comedy scene,
producing comedy & music shows at the doughnut shop where she worked. This led to
co-writing and performing the theme song to Kate Willett’s popular podcast “Reply Guys,”
touring with Ben Kronberg (Last Comic Standing), and having Clare O’Kane (Saturday
Night Live, Shrill, the Best Show) direct the music video for “Fentanyl.”
Frembgen also has become a mainstay of the Antifolk community that originated at the
Sidewalk Cafe on the Lower East Side. There, she starred alongside Jason Trachtenburg
(Trachtenburg Family Slideshow) in his musical
Me & Lee. She often performs with Jeffrey
Lewis, and was featured on “Songs By Turner Cody: A Tribute Album” alongside Adam
Green, Diane Cluck, and Toby Goodshank. She also became a mainstay at Knitting
Factory where she has ran a weekly Americana series for several years, at which she has
performed with Wayne Hancock, John Craigie, Daniel Rodriguez, and Paisley Fields.
Don Giovanni Records will release Frembgen’s forthcoming album in 2024.
I Won't Cry Alone is available for pre-order now HERE.
I Won’t Cry Alone is the seventh full-length release from Roadside Graves. In 2011, the band released We Can Take Care of Ourselves, based on S.E. Hinton’s classic novel The Outsiders. During the heart of the pandemic, the band collaborated remotely and again returned to Hinton’s writing for inspiration, this time drawing from her more painful and surreal book Rumblefish. I Won’t Cry Alone mashes up narrative features of the book with morbid and almost-triumphant personal experiences. The song “Closure” introduces a third element, intertwining these threads with bits from the tragic lives of songwriters Jackson C. Frank and Sandy Denny (a third verse on Kirsty MacColl was written but ultimately left out). The album was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Derril Sellers (Lowlight, Last Legs) and Rob Lombardo (Mon Goose) at Cako Studios – a mighty and beautiful studio located in a repurposed church – and features contributions from Dana Sellers (piano, vocals) and Eric Haugen (pedal steel). Cover art drawn by Joe Galuppo. Roadside Graves are educators and an environmental scientist and a tech guru who hail from all over New Jersey with one stray up in Providence, RI. They’ve been a band for 25 years and have no intention of ever stopping because why not.
John Gleason explains:
"The majority of the record I Won’t Cry Alone was inspired by S.E. Hinton’s novel Rumblefish and the song We’re Not Here is an answer to themes (memory, attachment to others, abandonment) and characters contained within. The hope is the song works beyond the novel, and taps into a few universal truths.
How well can we accept what/who we truly are? Can we recognize strengths and attributes in others we don’t seem to have obtained ourselves and still move forward without giving up? I think so. The repetition of “I won’t cry alone” is pure defiance regardless."
I Won't Cry Alone Track List:
1. Closure 2. We're Not Here 3. Fight Clean 4. Steve's Song 5. Feel Everything 6. Here For The Lights 7. Patty's House 8. Long Death 9. If You Know Where To Look 10. Nothing Happened
Teenage Halloween has announced their brand new sophomore studio album Till You Return due out on October 20 via Don Giovanni. The band, fronted by non-binary guitarist / songwriter Luk Henderiks, unveil their one-two punch double A-side single “Supertrans / Takeaway” alongside an official video. Announcing their return with reckless abandon, Henderiks’ voice comes in with an immediate urgency about gender identity and perception, at first backed by a lone distorted guitar, but quickly followed with the intense melodic and driving fullness that anyone that has seen the band live has come to expect. The double-single is streaming everywhere now.
Stand by your friends that are hurting. That’s what Teenage Halloween do through soaring arrangements of melodic angst, wracked vocals that insist “I love you so much I would die for you,” and passion-packed two-minute dispatches tackling topics from gender euphoria, to state abuses, and an eternal quest for mental well-being. The results are potent punk vistas that document young queer life at the edge of America.
“Supertrans / Takeaway” is accompanied by a tripped-out night terror visual directed by band buddy Jordan Serrano of CALICUZNS. In reference to the singles’ lyrics, Luk battles some of their deepest anxieties brought to life in the demonic form of their bandmates.
At the heart of vocalist and guitarist Luk Henderiks’ lyrics is an urgent longing for community. Despite their often striking personal vulnerability, these songs reach out to the wider world, striving to hold themselves and those around them accountable for their actions and to make space for those that need to be heard. In 2020, the band released their self-titled debut album via storied Garden State label Don Giovanni and swiftly won over a host of tastemakers. BrooklynVegan placed it at #10 on their Best New Punk Albums Of 2020, while Stereogum hailed them on their 40 Best New Bands Of 2020 list. American Songwriter, Paste, and KEXP brought further kind words to the table.
Having been unable to tour the album on its release in pre-vaccine times, the band hit the road with abandon in late 2021 and beyond, notching nearly 150 shows on their belts; including their first national US tour, an invitation to showcase at SXSW, and dates with Algernon Cadwallader, Chris Farren, Good Riddance, Say Anything and many more. These shows invariably deliver a calling card of unrelenting energy, wry wit, and warmth.
In February 2023, the group headed into Headroom Studios in Philadelphia, PA, under the guiding hand of producer Joe Reinhart (Hop Along, Beach Bunny, Joyce Manor), and tracked the 13 dispatches on isolation, uncertainty, and hope for better days, that make up Till You Return. This second full-length outing finds the band, which operated as a ‘rotating cast’ in it’s early years, now firmly entrenched as an essential four-piece comprised of Henderiks alongside Eli Frank (guitar, vocals), Tricia Marshall (bass, vocals) and Peter Gargano (drums). The quartet maintains the vital energy of their previous incarnations but brings an even more focused punch to the arrangements that leaves greater room for Henderiks’ lyrics. Fans of the band will also have noticed the creative assent of Marshall who takes the vocal lead on multiple songs that have become defining features of the band’s recent live shows and which bring a fresh new viewpoint to the band’s ongoing sonic mission for a more equal and just world.
We're thrilled to announce a new album from KymRegister + Meltdown Rodeo titled Meltdown Rodeo out August 18.
KymRegister + Meltdown Rodeo (formerly Loamlands) is a transgressive and distorted country music outfit based in North Carolina that places queer storytelling at the forefront. Their music intimately grapples with identity, retribution, reconciliation and queer existence in both modern-day and historical (inclusive of mostly all) southern culture.
Meltdown Rodeo is available for pre-order now HERE.
The album features the song "Blue," a gutsy call-out that challenges the conditions that still allows Joni Mitchell amnesty, even after she traded her counterculture folk for jive turkey racism.
As Kym Register explains:
Blue is sort of a love song about misconception / desire / disappointment and loss driven by some seriously upsetting revelations during the time of falling - for a Joni Mitchell record. I hadn’t listened to Joni much in my life but had been gently pushed by friends to explore her record, Blue. As I did, I fell in love with the way she plays with vocal timing, her story telling and her meandering guitar - everything music and poignant and magical about her music. I started researching her life and music because I was so excited to delve into her process and her catalog - trying to learn from folks that immersed themselves in music who’ve made an impact on so many mentors of mine.
That’s when I learned about the Blackface character she often portrayed at parties and on stage and on the cover of a few albums she made. It was like uncovering dark secrets from a lovers past. The more I researched Joni, the more arrogant and unreflective I found her to be. I started feeling it in my body like I’d been deceived by friends and by everyone who recommended her. So - I started having conversations with folks so we could be In discussion about the impact of Whiteness and unaccountability - especially when it comes to our relationships people that are in such close proximity with fame or success.
I became so concerned about the way folks seem to be ok with letting elders stay unaccountable / get away with harm because of their age or because it feels so uncomfortable to discuss Whiteness. There’s always a chance for accountability - It is so extremely problematic that people keep supporting her as she continues to deny any wrongdoing for the appropriation and exploitation of Blackness in her work. While Joni is alive she should be honest with herself and everyone else about the blatant racism she embodies intertwined with her art and work.
This isn’t to shame her but to call her in - bc accountability is healing not just for us individually but for our collective communities. Older folks do not get a pass - famous folks do not get a pass - we do not get a pass.
Meltdown Rodeo will be released on August 18, 2023 and is available for pre-order now HERE.
We are excited to announce a new album from Dusk titled Glass Pastures, their first full-length since their 2018 self titled debut. The album will be released on October 20, 2023.
Out of a cornfield eden at the northern tip of Lake Winnebago comes Wisconsin’s Dusk, a unique country rock ’n’ roll group that blends their rural roots and love for 60s and 70s soul. Formed in 2014, the band has been a favorite of midwest and east coast stages, sharing bills and tours with the likes of Sheer Mag, Screaming Females, and Reigning Sound.
The outfit is six strong, each a song-er, sing-er, and multi-instrumentalist in their own right. Julia Blair’s tender howl floats atop the flurry of voices, fingers mincing the keys of her Wurlitzer piano. Ryley Crowe works the pedal steel guitar, gracefully gliding across the bandscape like a horse on ice. Tyler Ditter grips his electric guitar as a knight his sword, falling any vine or villain in his path. Bill Grasley is second-to-none guitar, an intelligent player who can kick back or blast off, his drape of hair prepared for either. Behind the kit is Amos Pitsch, whose hands draw melody from each drum like tufts pulled from carnival cotton candy. Ridley Tankersley is there too with a bass guitar, scrounging up the loose change from the green room couch.
Their newest LP Glass Pastures, the group’s first since 2018’s full-length debut Dusk, is not only a museum of earworms, but a crusade in the name of love and truth. Produced between 2020-2022 in the various rooms of the band’s recording studio, Crutch of Memory, a mid-century castle in the heart of Appleton, Wisconsin, the album showcases a range of writing and vocal talents. Therein is Dusk’s force– its spirit– the breadth of voice unified and concentrated like a beam of light on a ruby velvet curtain.'
Glass Pastures tracklist:
1. Pissing In A Wishing Well 2. Changes 3. At The Roadside 4. Organized Crime 5. Dusk 6. Incredible Edible Egg 7. Don't Let Them Tell You 8. Gold Blue & Grey 9. Be Nice To Me All Day Long
