Upcoming Concerts

This show is postponed to July 24, 2021 - all tickets honored

This show has been postponed to March 3, 2022. All tickets purchased for the original dates of April 21, 2020; August 8, 2020; and May 25, 2021 will be honored.

Wide Awake! is New York’s Parquet Courts’ fifth record since their formation eight years ago. It’s also their most groundbreaking. It’s an album about independence and individuality but also about collectivity and communitarianism. Love is at its center. There’s also a freshness here, a breaking of new territory that’s testament to the group’s restless spirit.

In part, this may be attributed to the fact that it’s produced by Brian Burton, better known as Danger Mouse, but it’s also simply a triumph of their songwriter’s art. The songs, written by Austin Brown and Andrew Savage are filled with their traditional punk rock passion, as well as a lyrical tenderness, but are elevated to even greater heights by the dynamic rhythmic propulsion of Max Savage (drums) and Sean Yeaton (bass).

The plan from the start was to introduce new musical ideas previously unexplored by the band. These were varied. For Brown, a few of the touchstones were Grace Jones, The Upsetters, Townes Van Zandt, Parliament and Augustus Pablo. For Savage though, the soundtrack to the sessions in Electric Lady Studios in New York and later at Sonic Ranch in Texas, was different.

“I found myself listening to a lot of ‘80s American punk,” he explains, “I’m talking about Big Boys, Minutemen, The Dicks, Flipper. Bands that were no doubt punk but don’t quite fit in. I’ve always loved the playfulness of Minutemen and Big Boys, and especially the way the latter mixed funk into their sound.”

Two early examples of what these influences meant in practise for the record arrive early. “Violence,” the album’s blistering second song, revisits the proto hip hop of “He’s Seein’ Paths” from 2013’s “Tally All The Things That You Broke” EP. Savage’s furious denunciation of the casual acceptance of violence as part of everyday life is given even greater urgency following the recent shootings in Florida and Sutherland Springs.

“Mardi Gras Beads,” on the other hand, offers a complete different, texturally ambitious standout moment. Brown has never been so vulnerable on a Parquet Courts record, and the band, for all their ferocity, has never played so movingly; it’s a prime example of Brown “writing songs I’ve been wanting to write but never had the courage.”

The band credit their producer Brian Burton with helping them carve out the essence of an idea and bringing his polish to the album.

“The ethos behind every Parquet Courts record is that there needs to be change for the better, and the best way to tackle that is to step out of one’s comfort zone,” Savage says of the unlikely pairing. “I personally liked the fact that I was writing a record that was aggressive and indebted to punk and funk, and he’s a pop producer who’s made some very polished records recently. I liked the idea that it didn’t make sense to work with him, which to me makes total sense as to why we should work with him.”

“I was expecting bringing in a producer would be a redefining element of the band, someone who would pilot us to a new place entirely,” expands Brown, “however where Brian excelled was rather to hold a mirror to the group, and help us bring out our best versions of ourselves.” Indeed it was Danger Mouse, an admirer of the Parquet Courts who originally reached out to work with them.

The record also reflects a burgeoning confidence in the band’s exploration of new ideas in a hi-fi context. For his part, Savage was determined not to make another ballad heavy record like the band’s 2016 Human Performance. “I needed an outlet for the side of me that feels emotions like joy, rage, silliness and anger,” he says. They looked to play on the duality between rage and glee like the bands Youth of Today, Gorilla Biscuits and Black Flag. “All those bands make me want to dance and that’s what I want people to do when they hear our record,” adds Savage.

For Brown, death and love were the biggest influences. One of the most courageous songs on the new record is “Death Will Bring Change,” a moving elegy, with a chorus not unlike the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” only this time, London’s Bach Choir were 15 twelve year olds from the upper east side being recorded at 9am on a Saturday. “Nothing scarier,” says Brown.

The songs on Parquet Courts new record also make you think of what Joe Strummer of The Clash once said, about why he wrote songs – i.e. “to expand people’s vocabularies.” So set against the likes of the elegiac “Mardi Gras Beads” is the opening track “Total Football.” Named after the eponymous theory of soccer pioneered by the Dutch that requires every player to be able to play every position on the field, it has shout-outs to iconic individualists like the painter Cy Twombly, the poet Mina and sculptor Eva Hesse.

It’s a song about “opposing the tired alpha-male-lone-wolf archetype that too many people rely on as an avatar,” Savage explains, and lauding “creative and inspiring individuals (the song also touches on KoBrA, The Beatles and The Black Panthers) that approached individuality in a way that wasn’t contrary to collectivism, and vice versa.” Much like the band themselves – four individual artists forging a brave new world of sound.

Ultimately then the message contained in Wide Awake! is complex. “In such a hateful era of culture, we stand in opposition to that — and to the nihilism used to cope with that — with ideas of passion and love,” Brown says. For Savage, it comes back to the deceptively complex goal of making people want to dance, powering the body for resistance through a combination of groove, joy, and indignation, “expressing anger constructively but without trying to accommodate anyone.”

That they’ve managed to weave such disparate themes into such a unified whole says everything about Parquet Courts’ achievement on Wide Awake!. This isn’t just another record by them, it might well be the record.

This show has been postponed to Sept 11, 2021 - all tickets honored.

This show has been rescheduled from July 22, 2020 and June 9, 2021. All tickets honored.

This show has been rescheduled from April 27 and December 6, 2020 - all tickets honored

The title of Griffin House’s upcoming release,”Rising Star,” references the first track on the album, which tells the story of a character who moves to Music City, like so many do, with a guitar and a dream. Although not intended to be auto-biographical, the listener gets the sense that this comical and fictitious tale could hardly have been woven by someone without a similar life experience to the protagonist in “Rising Star.”

Indeed, House’s story began in much the same way. He moved to Nashville in 2003, as a young man, with not much more than a guitar, and a handful of songs. He took a part-time job downtown on Broadway at Legend’s Gifts, biding his time before he caught his big break. That big break came, after just a few months, in the form of a phone call from Island Def Jam records that jumpstarted his career and led to him signing with CAA and Nettwerk Records.

After that, things happened quickly for House. His 2004 debut album “Lost and Found” was lauded by music critics such as Bill Flanagan (Executive VP MTV/VH1 Networks) who featured House on the CBS Sunday Morning show as one of the “best emerging songwriters.” House began touring, opening for acts like John Mellencamp and the Cranberries, and found himself meeting people like Bruce Springsteen and Willie Nelson. House seemed poised to be more of an “overnight success” rather than a ”rising star,” but that’s not exactly how things turned out. “I’ve been a “rising star” for the past 15 years” House jokes, “it’s a slow rise.”

Although House has enjoyed plenty of success as national headliner for over a decade and has earned a great deal of respect as a well-known performer and singer-songwriter, he seems to not take himself or his career in the music industry too seriously. Now married, sober, and a father, House has learned to balance his career by making his family and his sobriety his first priority.

He pays tribute to his wife and children (with) “When the Kids are Gone,” a song about watching his daughters grow up and imagining he and his wife as empty-nesters.

There’s a lightness in his new record that comes across especially in the first fews songs, such as “Mighty Good Friend,” where you can hear his kids on the recording, as well as the sense of humor in “15 Minutes of Fame.”

House acknowledges that his new album is a collaborative effort. “I teamed up with my old buddies Paul Moak and Ian Fitchuk who helped me make my very first record Lost and Found. It was so good to reunite with them and work together again. It’s amazing that these guys I started out with in the very beginning are now world class musicians and producers being nominated and winning Grammys. This album seemed to come together with a little more grace and ease than records I’ve made in the past, and I think so much of that is attributed to how good the people I got worth with on this record are, they all just happen to be really good friends too.”

Several songs on House’s album are also co-writes with friends and fellow Nashville musicians, including Brian Elmquist (The Lone Bellow) and Joy Williams (The Civil Wars).

“I usually lock myself in a room for 8 hours at a time until I have enough songs done,” House says, “But with touring part time and being a dad part time, that adds up to full time job, so I decided to call in a little help from my friends to write some of these songs. Some songs come easier than others,” says House. “I wrote Mighty Good Friend with Brian (Elmquist) and it’s a song about how I’d been fighting through writer’s block, and then there are songs like Change that I wrote with Joy (Williams). We sat on her couch one morning and I remember showing her the idea for the verse. We worked on the words for an hour or two, and then out of nowhere she sang this beautiful chorus. We broke for lunch and came back and finished it that afternoon. It was one of those songs that took years to live and only one short day to write.”

“I love making music with friends,” says House. “Hindsight was another one with my friend Brian (Elmquist). We share some similarities including our journey into sobriety together. There’s a line in the song “I’ve been thinking lately, of a boy young and on the run” that always makes me imagine Brian as a little boy with a dream, both running away from a hard past and on toward a brighter future. We’ve formed a bond and friendship through music and sobriety, and I think you can feel that in the songs we wrote together.”

Just when you think you have House’s album pegged, there seems to be a surprise around every corner. Each song is distinct in its own own way. The heavy guitar on “Hung Up On You,” a song that House says is a break up letter addressed to alcohol, gives way to the intro of “Cup of Fulfillment” which starts with a bag pipe solo and leads the listener on an epic journey that crescendos into one of the record's most moving moments.

We catch a glimpse of a much more rock n’ roll side of House than we’ve heard before from the Pink Floyd-esque “Crash and Burn” to the rowdy punk influenced “Natural Man.”

House’s new album “Rising Star” is set for release on June 28th 2019. Also set for release in 2019, is a full length film called “Rising Star,” in which House stars and co-produces with music video director and film-maker Shane Drake. The film features music from House’s new album as well as his previous catalogue and chronicles his life as a musician.

In each song she creates, Nicole Atkins reveals her incredible power to transport listeners to a much more charmed time and space. On Italian Ice, the New Jersey-bred singer/songwriter conjures the romance and danger and wild magic of a place especially close to her heart: the Jersey Shore in all its scrappy beauty. Inspired by the boardwalk’s many curiosities—the crumbling Victorian mansions, the legendary funhouse, the Asbury Park rock-and-roll scene she played a key part in reviving—Atkins transforms her neverending fascination into a wonderland of her own making.

For help in capturing the shore’s kinetic spirit, Atkins assembled a studio band whose lineup feels almost mythical. Recorded at the iconic Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama, Italian Ice finds the Nashville-based artist joined by Spooner Oldham and David Hood (both members of The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, who played on classic records from the likes of Aretha Franklin and Etta James), Binky Griptite of The Dap Kings, Jim Sclavunos and Dave Sherman of The Bad Seeds, and drummer McKenzie Smith (St. Vincent, Midlake). With special guests including Spoon frontman Britt Daniel, Seth Avett of The Avett Brothers, Erin Rae, and John Paul White, the album is a testament to Atkins’s uncommon talent for uniting musicians of radically different sensibilities. As Atkins explains, the abundance of collaborations on Italian Ice partly stems from a freak accident in which she stumbled into a sinkhole in a Knoxville parking lot—an incident that left her with a profound longing to fill her life with the people and experiences that bring her the most joy.

Co-produced by Atkins and Ben Tanner of Alabama Shakes, Italian Ice makes brilliant use of its A-list personnel, unfolding in a kaleidoscopic sound that Atkins likens to “an acid trip through my record collection.” At turns as opulent as symphonic pop and gritty as garage punk, the album wanders into shades of psych-rock and honky-tonk and girl-group melodrama, endlessly spotlighting the tightly honed musicianship and unbridled originality at heart of Atkins’s artistry.

Paul Thorn has created an innovative and impressive career, pleasing crowds with his muscular brand of roots music – bluesy, rocking and thoroughly Southern American, yet also speaking universal truths.

Among those who value originality, inspiration, eccentricity and character – as well as talent that hovers somewhere on the outskirts of genius, the story of Paul Thorn is already familiar. Raised in Tupelo, Mississippi, among the same spirits (and some of the actual people) who nurtured the young Elvis generations before, Paul Thorn has rambled down back roads and jumped out of airplanes, worked for years in a furniture factory, battled four-time world champion boxer Roberto Duran on national television, signed with and been dropped by a major label, performed [on stages with Bonnie Raitt, Mark Knopfler, Sting, and John Prine among many others, and made some of the most emotionally restless yet fully accessible music of our time.

He’s also appeared on major television shows such as Late Night with Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Kimmel Live, been the subject of numerous National Public Radio (NPR) features and charted multiple times on the Billboard Top 100 and Americana Radio Charts.

In 2018, Paul released an album titled Don’t Let the Devil Ride, which he describes as “the culmination of my whole life in music, coming back to my roots.” It marks his first time recording gospel music - featuring guests such as the Blind Boys of Alabama, the McCrary Sisters, and Preservation Hall Horns - and his creation of a body of strikingly original songs that address the foibles of human relationships without necessarily favoring the sacred over the profane.

Louis The Child is a Chicago-bred production duo comprised of Robby Hauldren and Freddy Kennett. After landing three singles on the Hot Dance/Electronic songs chart in 2017, they delivered a series of exciting releases in 2018, including collaborations with artists like Joey Purp and Quinn XCII, as well as “Better Not” ft. Wafia — a #1 hit on the US iTunes Electronic charts, featured on their EP Kids at Play. Also in 2018, Louis The Child scored the #58 spot on the first-ever Billboard Dance 100 artist rankings, then moved up to the #46 spot on the 2019 list.

The band will be performing two full sets each night, one career spanning setlist and “The Great Misdirect” in its entirety.
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What if dreams could be broadcast for the purpose of entertainment? Could you consume the innermost thoughts of another person on screen? If you could, what does that say about an attention-starved audience? More importantly, what would become of the dreamer?
Between The Buried and Me pose those questions and more on their two-part eighth full-length and introductory offering for Sumerian Records, Automata. The North Carolina quintet—Tommy Giles Rogers, Jr. [lead vocals, keyboards], Paul Waggoner [lead and rhythm guitar, backing and lead vocals], Dustie Waring [rhythm and lead guitar], Blake Richardson [drums], and Dan Briggs [bass, keyboards]—explore these themes by personally smashing boundaries once again. Automata marks the band’s first proper double LP-spanning concept. It sees them venture into new territory with visual accompaniment for the entire body of work. Moreover, they continue to expand their ever-evolving style, upholding a tradition of progression in the process.
“We never want to repeat ourselves,” affirms Paul. “We’re always trying to do something different, and this album fell right into that sort of pattern. We push ourselves into new places, while retaining our basic sound. Musically, we go somewhere that’s fun and challenging. We never know how it’s going to turn out. These are uncharted waters for us. We’ve never taken on a visual capacity of this magnitude. We’ve never written an entire piece and presented it in separate parts like this.”
Tommy agrees, “This many years into our career, we want to continue doing things differently.”
This approach cemented the group as progressive music’s most unpredictable outlier since its formation in 2000. Among many milestones, they released 2007’s watershed Colors followed by The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues EP in 2011 and The Parallax II: Future Sequence a year later. 2015 saw Coma Ecliptic elevate them to new heights yet again. Not only did it bow at #12 on the Billboard Top 200 (a career high for the band), but it also garnered widespread acclaim from Noisey, Revolver, Alternative Press, and The Guardian who welcomed the album with a rare perfect score. In between, they launched countless sold out headline tours and support runs with the likes of Mastodon.
Now, they break more ground with Automata.
“Lyrically, I wanted to write something that I treated as a puzzle until it comes together at the end,” continues Tommy. “For as deep and dark as it is, there’s a positive outcome, which we’ve never had. The story follow a protagonist whose dreams are used as entertainment broadcasted by a company called Voice of Trespass. Most of the record takes place within that dream. The character thinks it’s all real.”
“Even though it takes place in the future, there are a lot of parallels to modern society,” adds Paul. “Oftentimes, we turn athletes, movie stars, and musicians into commodities. We forget that they’re real people with problems and issues. They’re society’s escape from reality as we use them for entertainment. Hence, society plays a role in their downfall, be it drug dependence, isolation, or even suicide. Society perpetuates mental illness with those expectations.”
Automata – Part I unveils the first six songs comprising the entire body of work. Stretching near seven minutes, “Condemned to the Gallows” kicks off this journey. Acoustic guitar builds in epic fashion before sweeping distortion takes hold followed by unpredictable rhythms and a seismic vocal performance which, as Tommy puts it, “sets up the whole story.”
Elsewhere, the trudging eight-minute guitar symphony of “Yellow Eyes” spirals into the melodic bliss of “Millions.”
“There are a lot of moments where we totally venture away from the traditional formula of what a progressive metal band can do,” states Dan. “There are all these little moments where we’ve done something we never did before. ‘Millions’ is the perfect example. It’s four-minutes of straight melody—another first.”
With Automata Part I, Part II, and the myriad of visuals on the horizon, Between The Buried And Me realize their potential to its fullest—and go one step further.
“All of our music should build up to the newest record,” Tommy leaves off. “That’s what happens with Automata. You can take little snippets from our past throughout this album. It sounds like Between The Buried And Me, but it’s still new. We hope to keep the music industry on its toes. This is part of doing that.”

This show has been rescheduled from May 2 and Oct 3, 2020 and June 4, 2021 - all tickets honored

Steve Forbert's folk-rock career has spanned four decades and counting. In June 1976, the twenty-one year old boarded a train in Meridian, Mississippi bound for New York City, then the epicenter of folk music. His combination of musicianship and authenticity demanded notice. In less than two years, he went from being a street performer and living at the YMCA to filling historic Greenwich Village clubs and signing a major label record contract with Nemperor Records.

From 1978 to 1982, Forbert released four acclaimed albums. Rolling Stone contributing editor David Wild wrote that "now or then, you would be hard-pressed to find a debut effort that was simultaneously as fresh and accomplished as Alive on Arrival . . . it was like a great first novel by a young author who somehow managed to split the difference between Mark Twain and J.D. Salinger.'

Forbert's second studio release, Jackrabbit Slim went RIAA Gold Certified with its Billboard #11 hit "Romeo's Tune". Recording success vaulted Steve onto a broader musical stage, touring the U.S. and Europe many times over. Forbert even appeared opposite Cyndi Lauper in her music video for "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.' His early accomplishments would be a career for most artists, but he continues to write, record, and perform to this day. His artistic pursuit has resulted in twenty studio albums and numerous live releases, compilations, and accolades. His songs have been recorded by Keith Urban, Rosanne Cash and Marty Stuart.

Any Old Time, a retrospective of the music of Meridian's Jimmie Rodgers, received a 2003 Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Folk Album. As Rodgers' music has inspired Forbert, so has Forbert's music influenced a new generation of artists.

In 2017, twenty-one artists paid tribute to Steve by recording a compilation titled: An American Troubadour: The Songs of Steve Forbert, further validating his artistic legacy. Forbert's 2018 memoir Big City Cat: My Life in Folk-Rock serves as a primer for young musicians setting out on their own journeys.

...His perspective on what life was like for a 20-something recently arrived in NYC is sharp. Forbert offers a sparkling observation about the pull of music as excellent as any I have seen,' said Entertainment Today.

Forbert's latest studio album release The Magic Tree serves as sound track to his memoir. The album rings with the verve and vitality that Forbert's fans have always come to expect. The Magic Tree underscores what revered critic the late Paul Nelson wrote about Forbert in Rolling Stone almost 40 years ago 'Nothing, nothing in this world, is going to stop Steve Forbert, and on that I'll bet anything you'd care to wager.'

Anyone who reviews Steve's catalogue of music can see the writer in the musician. His songs are as literary as they are musically vibrant. Brutally honest lyrics delivered with sensitivity create an uncommon trust with his listeners. Excelling in every decade of his career, Forbert exemplifies the best of the troubadour tradition.

This show has been rescheduled from April 20, 2020 and August 3, 2020 - All tickets honored

Crystal Bowersox, a northwest Ohio native currently calling Nashville home, has built her life around music. Crystal’s love for music developed at an early age from a need to find peace in a chaotic world. Through art and creation, Crystal was able to direct her energy and emotion, finding a way to mend a mind in turmoil. For her, music was always the most effective form of catharsis, and she would play for anyone, anywhere. In her own words, “my guitar was an appendage. I couldn’t live without it.”

Dead set on a career in music, Crystal moved to Chicago as a teenager, where she spent her days busking on subway platforms in between working odd jobs. While in the big city, she broadened her musical horizons and shared her talents with a variety of venues, ultimately auditioning for the ninth season of American Idol. Crystal’s time on the show proved to be well spent, as she immediately left the the soundstage for the recording studio. Since her introduction to the world through television, Crystal has released 3 LP’s, two EPs, several singles, and is currently developing an autobiographical, theatrical rock concert titled, "Trauma Queen". Additionally, she has used her talents to benefit several causes close to her heart, and has become an advocate and inspiration for people living with Type 1 Diabetes.

Similar to her beginnings, Crystal intends to make music that has healing power, but at this point, she sees far beyond her own troubles. Her live show is a safe space for concertgoers. Attend a Crystal Bowersox show, and you just might see a grown man cry and a child dance simultaneously. You’ll also likely get the chance to meet her personally; Crystal is typically the first one to arrive and the last one to leave the venue. Meeting with the fans and hearing their personal stories is something Crystal considers a blessing in her life.

By reliving her own painful moments in song, Crystal hopes to transcend that pain, lifting herself and her audience to a higher place. In the opening lines of “A Broken Wing” she sings, “I know there’s beauty in the burden / And even on my darkest day that sun will shine.”

Rescheduled from March 29 - All tickets honored

James McMurtry has been working with legendary Los Angeles-based producer Ross Hogarth at Santa Monica's GrooveMasters for his forthcoming album. Liner notes enthusiasts know multiple-Grammy-winning producer/engineer/mixer Hogarth from his work with Gov’t Mule, Roger Waters, The Black Crowes, Shawn Colvin, John Mellencamp, R.E.M.and Jewel, among many others. Hogarth’s wide and varied experience and taste opened up all creative doors and usual and unusual possibilities for all their classics. And no need to explain the incredible GrooveMasters Studio.

Hogarth has never allowed himself to be pigeonholed or trapped in any one musical genre as his studio work runs the gamut from the heavy metal icons Mötley Crüe to the Grammy-winning Americana favorite Keb’ Mo’ to recent releases by Van Halen, Ziggy Marley and the Sick Puppies. Exclusive and particular in its clientele, the semi-private Santa Monica recording studio where McMurtry will be recording has recently opened its doors to Laurel Canyon legends such as David Crosby, Bob Dylan, Warren Zevon, David Bromberg and more. The spiritual vibe and feel of this studio, along with the cast of characters, will most definitely bring out the best in the upcoming McMurtry record.

Other notable players on the album (in addition to his stellar band) include David Grissom (John Mellencamp) and Harmoni Kelley (Kenny Chesney). McMurtry will unleash this latest collection of poignant and timely songs on New West Records this fall! “I first became aware of James McMurtry’s formidable songwriting prowess while working at Bug Music Publishing in the ’90s,” says New West President John Allen. “He’s a true talent. All of us at New West are excited at the prospect of championing the next phase of James’ already successful and respected career.” McMurtry joins New West's singular roster of top-tier roots music all-stars including Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, John Hiatt, Aaron Lee Tasjan, Buddy Miller, Nikki Lane and dozens more.

Rescheduled from March 29 - All tickets honored

James McMurtry has been working with legendary Los Angeles-based producer Ross Hogarth at Santa Monica's GrooveMasters for his forthcoming album. Liner notes enthusiasts know multiple-Grammy-winning producer/engineer/mixer Hogarth from his work with Gov’t Mule, Roger Waters, The Black Crowes, Shawn Colvin, John Mellencamp, R.E.M.and Jewel, among many others. Hogarth’s wide and varied experience and taste opened up all creative doors and usual and unusual possibilities for all their classics. And no need to explain the incredible GrooveMasters Studio.

Hogarth has never allowed himself to be pigeonholed or trapped in any one musical genre as his studio work runs the gamut from the heavy metal icons Mötley Crüe to the Grammy-winning Americana favorite Keb’ Mo’ to recent releases by Van Halen, Ziggy Marley and the Sick Puppies. Exclusive and particular in its clientele, the semi-private Santa Monica recording studio where McMurtry will be recording has recently opened its doors to Laurel Canyon legends such as David Crosby, Bob Dylan, Warren Zevon, David Bromberg and more. The spiritual vibe and feel of this studio, along with the cast of characters, will most definitely bring out the best in the upcoming McMurtry record.

Other notable players on the album (in addition to his stellar band) include David Grissom (John Mellencamp) and Harmoni Kelley (Kenny Chesney). McMurtry will unleash this latest collection of poignant and timely songs on New West Records this fall! “I first became aware of James McMurtry’s formidable songwriting prowess while working at Bug Music Publishing in the ’90s,” says New West President John Allen. “He’s a true talent. All of us at New West are excited at the prospect of championing the next phase of James’ already successful and respected career.” McMurtry joins New West's singular roster of top-tier roots music all-stars including Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, John Hiatt, Aaron Lee Tasjan, Buddy Miller, Nikki Lane and dozens more.

Dance Gavin Dance fully indulges the extremes of creativity. They mine the outer reaches of the rock music landscape with thrilling abandon. Their ambitious blend of heady progressive rock and post-hardcore became something uniquely their own.

Dance Gavin Dance fans have streamed “We Own the Night” nearly 12 million times on Spotify alone, with staple catalog anthems “Chucky vs. the Giant Tortoise,” “Young Robot,” “Inspire the Liars,” and “Deception” accounting for another 30 million streams on top of that. Their albums regularly chart in the Billboard 200, each of the last three progressively higher than the last, from Top 40 to the Top 15.

An international touring act for over a decade, Dance Gavin Dance has done Vans Warped Tour three times, toured with the likes of Underoath, A Day To Remember and Pierce The Veil, performed at major festivals, and headlined sold out club tours.

Where most bands erroneously claim wholly distinct identities, Dance Gavin Dance truly defies categorization. The Sacramento based outfit possess the kind of artistic compass shared with broadminded but heavy metal and hardcore-punk rooted iconoclasts like The Mars Volta and Coheed & Cambria, but use it to diverge wildly, charting a new course that incorporates the melodic screamo of Thursday or Taking Back Sunday, with a taste of the earnest pop melancholy of Death Cab For Cutie.

The current and most definitive incarnation of Dance Gavin Dance is responsible for half of the band’s albums, including their most recent effort, Artificial Selection. The new record is the strongest and most wondrously diverse showcase yet for the lauded post-hardcore experimentalists, equal parts intense, melodic, and unbound.

There’s the angelic and R&B infused highs of the sweet voiced Tilian Pearson; the unhinged guttural growls and chaotic screams of cofounder Jon Mess; the dizzyingly unpredictable arpeggio-led guitar crunch of cofounder Will Swan; the soulful poly-rhythmic backbone of longtime bassist Tim Feerick; and the mind-blowingly powerful nuanced foundation laid by drummer and cofounder Matt Mingus.

It’s all even bigger than ever on Artificial Selection, brought to life by close collaborator and producer Kris Crummett (Sleeping With Sirens, Crown The Empire, Issues). Dance Gavin Dance’s ambitious adventurousness and experimental spirit continues to differentiate them from the pack, from the funkier slow jam of “Count Bassy” to the heavy screamo of “The Rattler.” There’s a throwback to the Death Star era of the band’s sophomore album, “Shelf Life,” complete with former singer Kurt Travis. “Midnight Crusade” and “Bloodsucker” are guaranteed crowd pleasers. “Son of Robot” goes on an epic musical journey, from mournful to vengeful full stop.

As the Boston Globe astutely observed, “Dance Gavin Dance resists pigeonholing… heavy, ambitious, and sometimes witty rock that seizes on the past few decades of edge-dwelling music, places it all in a blender, and puts the speed on high.” (There’s even Motown, funk, pop, dance, and heaping helpings of indie rock in that blender.)

Now more than a dozen years on from their inception, Dance Gavin Dance celebrates an insurgent career, in the tradition of iconoclastic artists from Frank Zappa to Nirvana who did what they wanted, how they wanted, confident that an audience would catch-up. Eight studio albums deep, a thriving fanbase champions the band’s irreverent diversity and propulsive power.