KINGSLEY FLOOD ANNOUNCES LARGEST HEADLINING SHOWS TO DATE, NOVEMBER 20 EP ‘THE GOOD FIGHT’

Following a packed and sweaty set at Americana Fest, Kingsley Flood is capping off its ambitious and productive year with its largest capacity NYC and DC shows to date and a third EP release with ‘The Good Fight’ out November 20. The three EPs total thirteen songs released in 2015 and the band is also preparing for a 2016 full-length release.

Bandleader Naseem Khuri continues to explore themes of individual and societal change in our cities, and his own tendencies to talk a big game and take little action; ‘The Good Fight’ deepens that exploration, narrowing the focus on the band’s hometowns of Boston and Washington, DC and pushing the band to some of its most epic music to date.” Driven by tremolo’d guitar, the title track examines Khuri’s reluctant acceptance of an evolving city and its gentrification. “We ought to get mad, we ought to save our souls, but the new guy’s got what I need.”  He doesn’t let up on “On My Mind,” crying outrage at injustice while shouting “I can write a check from this couch and yet I can’t reach my pen.” The spaghetti western guitar line of “Change You” introduces sharply observed stories from a Boston bar Khuri visited all too often, where the regulars talk about their big plans and leave it at that. The store owner at the center of the anthemic, alt.country “Good Old Wind” rejects the “new wind blowing” into the town where Khuri grew up near Boston.

Kingsley Flood has earned widespread praise:

“Foot-stomping folk rock and their signature high energy.” – Rolling Stone

“Kingsley Flood is the kind of hard-rocking folk-punk band that makes you want to dance with the person standing next to you and then punch them in the face. In a totally good way.” - Esquire

"Great live show." – NPR

Kingsley Flood Fall Tour Dates

November 20 – Cambridge, MA - The Sinclair
November 21 – Brooklyn, NY – Rough Trade
December 3 – New Haven, CT - Café Nine
December 4 – Washington, D.C. – U Street Music Hall
December 5 – Philadelphia, PA – Boot & Saddle
December 17 – Atlanta, GA – The Earl (with Bombadil)
December 18 – Charlotte, NC – Evening Muse (with Bombadil)
December 19 – Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle (with Bombadil)

‘The Good Fight’ EP Track List

1. Good Old Wind
2. Change You
3. On My Mind
4. The Good Fight

Lead Belly bio

"No Lead Belly, no Beatles." - George Harrison

Huddie Ledbetter, better known to the music world as “Lead Belly” was born January 20, 1889, in Mooringsport, Louisiana (near Shreveport). Lead Belly was the only child of Wesley and Sally Ledbetter. Lead Belly first tried his hand at playing music when he was only two yearsold. As a young man he was introduced to the guitar by his uncle Terrell Ledbetter and from that moment on he was transfixed by the guitar. He mastered that instrument and just about any instrument helaid his hands on, later learning to read music and to play the accordion, mandolin and piano. It has been said that one day Lead Belly witnessed a Mexican guitarist playing the twelve string guitar which struck hisinterest in mastering the unusual instrument.

After the 8th grade, he quit school and, by the time he was 14 yearsold, he was a popular musician and singer in the weekend “sukey jumps” and “juke joints.” He later became known as the king of the twelve-string guitar and his Stella brand guitar became his ticket to life and to his freedom. 

This love of music led him to leave his father’s farm at an early age to pursue his music. Huddie traveled the southwest playing his guitar and working as a laborer when he had to. He was and incredible strong man and was renowned for for picking 1,000lbs of cotton a day.

Lead Belly once said, "When I play, the women would come around to listen and their men would get angry." In 1918, he fought and killed a man in Dallas and was sentenced to thirty years in the state prison in Huntsville, Texas. In 1925, he wrote a song asking Governor Pat Neff for a pardon. Neff, who had promised at his election never to pardon a prisoner. Incredibly, Neff broke his promise and set Lead Belly free. Back on the road with many new songs he had learned or written at Huntsville, Huddie again found enthusiastic audiences throughout the south. But, as the center of admiring crowds, he was again the target of envy and jealousy. In 1930, after a fight at a party, which was normal in the Jim Crow south he was sentenced to another prison term, this time in the infamous Angola Farm prison plantation in Louisiana. In a way, this was a stroke of luck, because he was discovered there by folklorists John and his son Alan Lomax, who were recording prison songs for the Library of Congress. 

John Lomax and his son Alan later brought Lead Belly to New York where he played on college campuses like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and NYU. Shortly thereafter Lead Belly relocated to New York, where he forged a reputation on the folk circuit, making personal appearances, recording for a variety of labels and doing radio work. He was received with great acclaim. The New York Herald Tribune greeted his arrival with an article under the headline “Lomax Arrives with Lead Belly, Negro Minstrel.” In 1935, he married Martha Promise, with whom he would live until his death.

In the early ‘40s he performed with Josh White, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee and Woody Guthrie, often hosting sessions in his apartment on E. 10th Street; often, he would play for the children in Tompkins Square Park. He would also babysit and perform for his nephew. He performed as such distinguished venues as Carnegie Hall, Town Hall, and the Village Vanguard as well as hosting the WNYC radio show Folk Songs of America, all while wearing his trademark suit, handkerchief, and bow tie.

In 1948, Lead Belly cut what would later become known as his Last Sessions. His songs could not be put into one category. He wrote children’s songs, field songs, ballads, square dance songs, prison songs, folk songs, and blues.

Lead Belly enjoyed national recognition as a blues and folk musician and singer. Lead Belly felt his music and talent were gifts from God. 

During a European of 1949 Lead Belly fell ill and tests revealed that he was suffering from ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. This disease destroyed all the muscles in his bodygiving him little opportunity to play the guitar without pain.

Prior to his death at Bellevue Hospital on December 6,1949, Lead Belly played at a show at Carnegie Hall which was organized by Pete Seeger. On the bill were Woodie Guthrie and Tom Paley. Lead Belly sang “Goodnight, Irene”. This was his last ever live performance.

Lead Belly never got to fully enjoy the fruits ofhis music. Lead Belly's song catalog consisted of well over 500 songs: most famous were Midnight Special, Goodnight Irene, Rock Island Line, Pick a Bale of Cotton and Take This Hammer.

After Lead Belly’s death, the Weavers, featuring Pete Seeger, recorded their version of “GoodNight, Irene” which went to number 1 on the charts. That song sold a million copies. 

Lead Belly’s music has had an unparalleled influence on some of the greatest musicians of all time. Artists like The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Little Richard, John Fogerty, Roger Daltrey and Van Morrison have all expressed their reverence of Lead Belly’s music. 

As Van Morrison said: “Lead Belly wasn’t an influence, he was the influence.”

Lead Belly is remembered not only as a musical giant but a legend in his own right throughout the world. Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1988, they describe him as:

“Huddie Ledbetter, better known to the world as “Lead Belly,” survived a life that included brutalizing poverty and long stretches in prison to become an emblematic folk singer and musician.”

GUITAR PLAYER SPOTLIGHTS TED DROZDOWSKI’S SCISSORMEN IN FEATURE AS MUSIC CITY ROOTS AIRS PERFORMANCE ON PSYCH-ROOTS BAND

HEADS UP TO PHILLY & DC: BAND TOURING NORTHEAST IN NOVEMBER

Nashville psychedelic-roots band Ted Drozdowski’s Scissormen is the subject of a Guitar Player feature and will perform on syndicated radio show Music City Roots on October 28. The band will also launch a northeast tour in November, including stops in Philly and D.C.

“Psychedelic juke joint… great songs, a sense of mystery, and the concept of a record as a work of art in and of itself… The guitarist and his Scissormen put on take-no-prisoners shows.”
- Michael Ross, Guitar Player, December, 2015

“So damn enthralling… Rooted in the deepest of blues yet explores the outer edges of the cosmos.”
- Sean L. Maloney, Nashville Scene, August 13, 2015

“Blues-drenched, sometimes psychedelic.”
- Ed Symkus, Boston Globe, July 30, 2015

“The gnarliest album recorded in a tent that you'll hear all day.”
- Chris Steffen, All Music, July 23, 2015

“Staggering guitar skills.”
- Chuck Armstrong, Diffuser.FM, April 20, 2015

“Raw garage rock.”
- Adrien Begrand, Pop Matters, June 29, 2015

“Furious blues… Slide guitar wizard… There’s his hobby of using just about anything  and everything available to him for playing slide guitar, including forks, knives, bottles and pistols…”
- Pollstar, August 6, 2015

“singular music vision… It's his strongest, most satisfying work to date... Forward-looking, yet anchored firmly in its roots, 'Love & Life' reinforces the status of Ted Drozdowski's Scissormen as one of the most outstanding bands on the scene."
- Melanie Young, Living Blues, August, 2015

“Drozdowski’s Scissormen cut through the bullshit… Contemporary cosmic blues drenched in reverb and the dark bayou demons that inhabit each day… Love & Life isn’t your typical virtuoso release. It’s the fulcrum wherein Drozdowski pairs his devotion to a music whose roots run deeper than democracy.”
- 80/100, Mike Jurkovic, Elmore Magazine, August 4, 2015

“A very deep groove.”
- Lee Zimmerman, Pop Matters, July 28, 2015

Ted Drozdowski’s Scissormen Tour Dates

October 28 – Franklin, TN – Music City Roots
November 5 – Falls Church, VA – JV’s Restaurant
November 6 – Linden, NJ – Robin’s Nest Rhythm and Blues
November 7 – Philadelphia, PA – The Twisted Tail
December 4 – Nashville, TN – The Family Wash
January 29 – Franklin, TN – Gray’s On Main
January 30 – Marietta, GA – Darwin’s

Kingsley Flood bios

KINGSLEY FLOOD SHORTER BIO

Kingsley Flood is a Boston and Washington, DC - based sextet with a "Billy Bragg-like folk-punk sound" (Washington Post).  They have played the main stage at the Newport Folk Festival, have been featured on the History Channel, opened for Josh Ritter, Grace Potter, Lucius, Langhorne Slim and have been been covered by NPR, New York Times, Esquire Magazine, Wall Street Journal, American Songwriter, among others.  This year they have released two EPs and are releasing a third this fall. 

KINGSLEY FLOOD LONGER BIO

With “signature high energy” (Rolling Stone) and a live show that “could thrill Folsom Prison in ‘58 or CBGB in ‘76” (Boston Herald), Boston and Washington D.C.-based Kingsley Flood began 2015 with lofty goals: release three EPs.  The ambitious volume of output recognizes that the music business has changed and moved on from the era of the traditional album cycle. It also represents a shift in leader Naseem Khuri’s songwriting, channeling his personal journey as a Palestinian-American trying hard to do good and repeatedly coming up short.

Since their breakout set opening the Newport Folk Festival in 2013, Kingsley Flood has opened tour dates for Lucius and Josh Ritter; earned raves from AV Club, Paste, Rolling Stone, Billboard, NY Times; played a session for Esquire; and premiered a video with NPR Music.

To The Wolves continues songwriter Naseem Khuri’s obsession with stagnation in our lives, and exploring why things don’t change.  While January’s To The Fire EP chronicles his own experience as a wide-eyed son of immigrants wanting to change the world, To The Wolves suggests greater change is harder when we can’t even change ourselves.  

The title track looks at the big dreams and small circumstances of an outsider on the inside. "Blind" finds him back home plotting an escape, but this too is a dream that never manages to leave his bedroom. "All Night Dynamite" asks just how much choice we have in our choices, a theme carried over to "Salt of the Sea," where a child sees in his own path a mirror of his father's.

To The Wolves continues Kingsley Flood's ongoing collaboration with producer Paul Kolderie (Pixies, Radiohead, Morphine) and 1867 Recording Studio, the onetime Masonic temple in Chelsea, MA where To the Fire was created. The results showcase the band's signature and wide-ranging dynamics, from the scorched-earth guitar riff anchoring the title track to the contrasting plaintive violin and hard rock release of the deceptively upbeat “Blind,” the frenetic punk drive of “All Night Dynamite” and the pensive intimacy of “Salt of the Sea.”

To The Wolves follows January’s To The Fire, which earned praise from NPR’s World Café, the Wall Street Journal, Relix, PopMatters, the Boston Globe, and more. After a run of sold-out shows in early 2015, the History Channel featured their track “Waiting On The River to Rise” in an ad for a new series “Mississippi Men,” triggering close to 200,000 plays on Spotify and YouTube.

BRIAN CARPENTER & THE CONFESSIONS MAKE NYC DEBUT IN SUPPORT OF FIRST ALBUM, SOUTHWESTERN NOIR-FLAVORED 'THE FAR END OF THE WORLD'

October 30th show at Rockwood Music Hall promises left-of-center gothic roots music, "dignified darkness" (Stereogum)


Brian Carpenter & the Confessions will make their New York City debut on Friday, October 30th, with a 9 p.m. show at Rockwood Music Hall. The performance arrives just after the release of the band's debut album, The Far End of the World, a nocturnal, nuanced record that "plumbs the darker depths of Americana" (Pop Matters).

Recorded in the band's native Massachusetts and mixed in Tucson by Craig Schumacher (Calexico, Iron & Wine, Neko Case), The Far End of the World finds Carpenter creating his own, left-of-center brand of folk-noir. It's alternately haunting and beautiful, filling with the swoon of orchestral strings, the dusty pluck of acoustic guitars, the honk of an occasional harmonica, and songs rooted in both mood and melody. Tying everything together is frontman Carpenter, a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who leads his "unpredictable, fascinating band" (Utne Reader) with a baritone voice reminiscent of the band Low. Already known for his work in the jazz, indie rock and avant-garde worlds, Carpenter takes a stark turn on 'The Far End of the World.'

Exuding "a dignified darkness" (Stereogum) similar to the acclaimed soundtracks from David Lynch films, Brian Carpenter & the Confessions' live show is every bit as unique as the band's debut record, combining the jazz, Americana and indie-rock genres with the avant-garde approach of a frontman who's always marched to the beat of his own drum.

Carpenter has previously collaborated with Carla Kihlstedt (Tin Hat, Rabbit Rabbit), Marc Ribot, Colin Stetson (Arcade Fire, Bon Iver), Harvey Pekar, Brian Dewan (Neutral Milk Hotel), Martin Bisi (Sonic Youth, Swans, Foetus), and Carson Ellis (The Decemberists).

WHO: Brian Carpenter & the Confessions
WHAT: Debut NYC performance
WHERE: Rockwood Music Hall, Stage 1. 196 Allen St., New York, NY, 10002.
WHEN: Friday, October 30th. 9 p.m.
TICKETS: Free show, with pass-the-hat donations accepted

Piney Gir - Mr Hyde’s Wild Ride

"Sweet 60's pop from Kansas Chameleon"
- UNCUT ****

"Undeniably charming"
- THE SUN ***

"Varying emotions and mutations are part of her unexpected strength"
- MOJO ***

"Exuberant, bursts with joy, divine and sometimes mournful"
Q Magazine Top Pick

Piney Gir - Mr Hyde’s Wild Ride

We present “Mr Hyde’s Wild Ride” – twelve top pop stories about a young woman coming to terms
with the hope and regret that accompanies love and loss. Piney's easy way with melody belies an
album of new and different shades to albums past. Change is in the air, and the characters that
populate these songs seem ready to tell it like it is, like Dorothy Parker’s snappy comebacks, as
surprising to them as to us.

Being Piney Gir, she can't resist the perkiness of a finely-honed, heavenly tune on opener Gold
Rules, even as the song celebrates unreachable riches and glibly states the fact, “you can’t take it
with you anyway.” First single, Keep It Together deftly channels 60s beat pop and Stereolab all at
the same time, a lover's lament laced with urgency and optimism, piped-in directly from her spaceage,
bachelorette pad.

Other stand-out earworms include Tilt A Whirl, a piece of fairground philosophy that dates back to
childhood years when Piney would accompany her grandmother on something akin to the Waltzer.
As the song spins, with Farfisas swirling round life's ups and downs "like a shooting star or a hope
combustible..." become metaphors among the lights and sounds. Mouse Of A Ghost fuzzes up like
Pineys-in-Toyland channelling her inner riot grrl, with boxy guitar blasts that remind us all that you
can rock just as hard, if not harder, in a gingham dress.

As ever Piney's pulled together a stellar band, with members of Gaz Coombes and Emiliana Torrini's
touring band jumping in on guitar, bass and drums alongside The Smith Brothers & regular
collaborator Garo Nahoulakian takes a seat in the producer’s chair. Andy Ramsay of Stereolab
makes an appearance on drums; the bulk of the album was recorded in his South London studio.
The rest was whipped-up in Piney’s little Hackney Studio, small and perfectly formed like a musical
toy box, chock-full of space echo, marimba, omnichord and pocket piano, which combine to create
a euphoric indie-starshine. Think Yoshimi-era Flaming Lips alongside sparkling tableaux of Mercury
Rev., the tunefulness of Grandaddy and riff-led counter-melodies like The Pixies.

After a decade spent in the UK it feels like Piney's finally made England hers by rediscovering
America, re-imagined from London's rainy streets, channelling her inner Jekyll and Mister Hyde,
“because there’s two sides to everything, right?” These tunes beautifully stitch together English
folk, American pop, mariachi moments, trail songs and baroque beats. Sometimes it's like an alternative
musical history of a storybook amusement park ride. And need we mention, it's a wild ride
you're gonna love...

Piney Gir 2015 music videos