Jarrod Dickenson, Chris Kasper, and Electric Blue Yonder

Jarrod Dickenson

Storytelling is something of a Texas tradition. Tall hats and even taller tales are woven into the fabric of The Lone Star State, and singer-songwriter Jarrod Dickenson can spin a yarn with the best of them. Hailing from Waco, now based in Nashville via Brooklyn, Dickenson spends most of his time on the road bringing his own particular brand of soulful Americana to a wide variety of music loving audiences around the globe.

“His songs carry an independent spirit and grit… a hard-bitten, yet romantic eye that seems bred into Lone Star Songwriters” -Q Magazine

“Jarrod Dickenson’s rootsy, broad-ranged Americana draws deeply from tradition while forging all-new sounds.” – PopMatters

“His deep, emotional, often luxurious voice envelops songs of love and loss, enticing you into these stories.” – American Songwriter

Chris Kasper

Chris Kasper’s newest record, Holysmoke, is a treasure chest unto itself. It’s got groove, guts & grace, and is worth its weight in gold. The patchwork of genres that Kasper effortlessly weaves together reveals an even deeper dive into varied influences from rock n’ roll and dreamy pop, to junkyard blues and country-folk.

And it all began by the ocean.

In a rented seaside motel, Kasper recalls, “There were these three clocks in the room, all ticking out of time. Before it drove me mad and I had to take out all the batteries, there was a rhythm & a beat that became the base for a melody which I later wrote lyrics for.” Others were poems-turned-songs. Some tunes came by way of Nashville dive bars, and more arose in a camper van traveling across West Texas. He eventually made it back to a countryside home outside of Philadelphia and started on production.

Holysmoke has been a long time coming. Although complete, the whole world took a pause during the pandemic, and so it was kept at a low simmer for the sake of the song. It completes a trilogy, of sorts, with previous releases Bagabones (2012), and O, The Fool (2016). As the final star in a constellation that’s bound by lyrical prowess, deep-rooted rhythms, and artful arrangements of strings and melodies, this album shines bright.

If we’re living in the land of milk & honey, Chris Kasper’s music is an island of coffee & weed! And at a moment when fresh, timeless art is needed more than ever, his work fills the cup & soothes the soul.

Electric Blue Yonder

A traveling troupe of intrepid space folk explorers, Electric Blue Yonder (EBY) examines the mysteries of the universe and reports their findings through song. Described as “Real American Space Folk,” the band draws its inspiration from the psychedelic folk, surf, and cosmic country rock of the 60s and the Space Age prog/art rock explorations of David Bowie and Pink Floyd, all while shifting time to the early roots and parlour style guitar of the 20th century. The result is a genre-bending mix that captures a nostalgic familiarity while simultaneously transporting you into uncharted territory.

“…a meditative mashup of trippy folk-rock psychedelia, cut with a raw, Alabama flavor befitting their roots. Captivating harmony vocals and skilled, almost Nick Drake-like guitar fills complete the picture.” – Steve Morse, longtime Boston Globe staff music writer who now teaches Rock History at Berklee College of Music

The band includes founders Beth and Johnny Veres, who provide vocals and guitar, and Russell Thomas Bush on bass, with an expanding cast of talented musicians based on production scale. Beth met Johnny while back home for a summer between college and grad school and began playing in a reincarnated version of HellaKopta of Love (HOL), a progressive rock instrumental band from his days at Auburn University. They started writing songs inspired by roots music and harmony-driven vocals that outgrew the youthful experimentalism of HOL and retired from public performance for several years to incubate their newfound passion. In December 2015, Beth and Johnny were married. By the spring of 2016, they began performing as Blue Yonder, working on orchestral arrangements for their songs. In early 2017, Johnny asked Russell Thomas Bush, a friend and former band mate of Beth from her Tuscaloosa days playing in the band Squirrelhouse, to join them. Shortly after, they recorded their first EP, Born of the Sky, in their historic home with the help of Technical Earth Recorder’s Robert Shimp. After Colorado and East coast runs touring the EP, Blue Yonder added “Electric” to their name for the filming of an episode of the Zimmern List at Saw’s Juke Joint in 2018, augmenting their sound with vital vibrations.

“The emphasis is on the song,” adds Johnny. “It’s a collective thing to create this music. We record with talented musicians in our community. We take traditional forms and use those as a springboard to explore new musical territory, to examine the condition of our times from a critical distance and how our lives interconnect.”

EBY debuted Between Space and Time (B/TST) on February 29, 2020, just two weeks before the pandemic shutdowns. As an anthology, B/TST includes some of their earliest works interspersed with the ‘vital vibrations’ of what’s to come, thematically centered on the relationships between people as they bump and collide through the Large Hadron Collider of Life. Their songwriting shines through with earnest lyrics and a powerful delivery through their unique harmonies. Ranging from the weird country of “Brand New Day” and traces of gypsy jazz in “Actions” to the sonically dark musings on mortality in “Epitaph” and the grooving portrait of cosmic love on “Your Light”, the songs of Between Space and Time shine like the stars of a newly, emerging constellation. At the core of the album, the band hits their stride with laid-back rocker “Schtick Shift”, the spacious, Grateful Dead-esque “Bluster”, and the boot-stomping storm of “Thunder Train.”

“We wanted to make timeless music that future generations will seek out,” said Beth about the band, describing their style as Space Folk. “We try to be genuine in our approach to songwriting and lyrics.”

“EBY is a diamond-bright exploration of rock’s past, present and hopeful future. As saviors of the genre go, they make a powerful argument that theirs is one of the few revolutions left worth signing up for…” – Blue Sullivan of Slant Magazine.