Thanks to the sup­port of East of 8th, I’m able to pho­to­graph plen­ty of shows — which leads to hear­ing great new music! I’d heard Ray­land Bax­ter before, but Ruby the Rab­bit­foot was total­ly new to me. Both played a great set at 3rd and Lind­s­ley in August as part of the Nashville Sun­day Night Lightning100 series. A nice space with lots of view­ing options (includ­ing boun­ti­ful bal­cony seat­ing!) Be sure to check out both Ray­land and Ruby if you ever get a chance!

Last of the long-over­due High Watt posts. Head­lined by Frances and the Foun­da­tion, this July show rolled in five bands with five styles in one rocked out night.

Open­ing acts Lines in the Sky, Tow­er Defense and The Car­toons were fol­lowed by Frances, and then the night closed with Hotel War.

The main event of Frances and the Foun­da­tion was well worth the wait — say­ing that Saman­tha Frances and her band has “pres­ence” is akin to say­ing that rock­et engines are “loud”. There isn’t any way to describe the show beyond “go see this band” over and over again. So, go see this band!

Thanks as always to East of 8th and I look for­ward to many more collaborations!

Some­times all that an evening needs is a gui­tar, a drum kit, and two singers. Jay Nash and Josh Day, also known as The Con­tenders, gave a won­der­ful per­for­mance — mel­low, tight­ly played, and fun. Check out their site and go see them if you have the chance!

Thanks to East of 8th for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to collaborate!

Remem­ber the blue album? Yeah, you prob­a­bly do. You may even remem­ber that the bassist from that album — Matt Sharp — start­ed a new band, The Rentals, and released their first album in 1995. I remem­ber play­ing a few tracks from their sec­ond effort dur­ing my radio dj years. Twen­ty years after their for­ma­tion, I final­ly had the chance to see them live at The High Watt cour­tesy of East of 8th.

As a bonus, I not only got to be up close and per­son­al with Mr. Sharp, but the first two bands were stun­ning as well. Espe­cial­ly Radi­a­tion City! Their show was, to be hon­est, the high­light of the night for me. Dou­ble female vocal­ists and anoth­er male singer, mish­mash of instru­ments and yet all of it came through clear as can be. Here’s hop­ing they come back through Nashville again soon!

After meet­ing the folks from East of 8th blog at the Apache Relay show ear­li­er this year, I’ve col­lab­o­rat­ed with them by pro­vid­ing pho­tos from four High Watt shows. I also real­ized I haven’t post­ed any of the work on my site, so here are recaps from each of the shows!

Christo­pher Porter­field with Field Report is the new king of singer/songwriter Amer­i­cana in my mind (although he’d prob­a­bly decline the throne and insist he’d be the court jok­er instead). Joe Pug brought a high ener­gy show — with tight ban­ter, smart songs and a stun­ning set of back­ing musi­cians. Both acts are well worth see­ing — def­i­nite­ly check them out.