Colin Cutler - An Army veteran who traded in his rifle for a banjo and guitar, Greensboro-based songwriter Colin Cutler's music spans the breadth of Americana, from Appalachian oldtime to blues to oldschool country to folk rock, with lyrics rooted in the earthy storytelling traditions of the South, his Pentecostal upbringing, and literature.
Rebecca Porter balances her distinctive storytelling with the dynamics of her commanding voice in a unique display of soulful classic country. A singer-songwriter born in Guam and raised in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Rebecca Porter continues to forge her way in country music with songs that are heartfelt and honest.
Saturday, March 30th, 2024
Doors 7:30PM | Starts 8:00PM
$12 Advance | $15 Day of Show
The Young Sinclairs - https://theyoungsinclairs.bandcamp.com/
Dover & The Elevators - https://doverandtheelevators.bandcamp.com/
Thursday, April 4th, 2024
Doors 7:00PM | Starts 7:30PM
$12 Advance | $15 Day of Show
David LaMotte is an award-winning songwriter, speaker and writer. He has performed over 3000 concerts and released thirteen full-length CDs of primarily original music, touring in all of the fiy states, as well as five of the seven continents. The Boston Globe writes that his music “pushes the envelope with challenging lyrics and unusual tunings, but he also pays homage to folk tradition,” while BBC Radio Belfast lauds his “charm, stories, humour, insightful songs, sweet voice and dazzling guitar ability.” His most recent album, Still, was at #4 on the Folk Charts as of August, 2022.
LaMotte has appeared as a featured performer at the Kerrville Folk Festival, the Doc and Merle Watson Festival, the National Folk Festival of Australia, and the Auckland Folk Festival in New Zealand, among many others.
His dense speaking and workshop calendar has included presenting at the PC(USA) Mission to the United Nations, keynoting peace conferences in India, Australia, Germany and at the Scottish Parliament, as well as offering the baccalaureate for 2016 graduates of Columbia Seminary. His TEDx talk on what music can teach us about peacemaking is featured on TED.org
LaMotte suspended his eighteen-year music career at its peak in 2008 to pursue his other primary vocation by accepting a Rotary World Peace Fellowship to study International Relations, Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. As part of that study, he also spent time in rural Andhra Pradesh, India working with a Gandhian development organization.
David has published three books, including two illustrated children’s books. The first based on his award-winning children’s song SS Bathtub and the second, White Flour, is based on the true story of a creative, effective, and whimsical response to a Ku Klux Klan march in Knoxville, Tennessee by a group called the Coup Clutz Clowns. His most recent book, Worldchanging 101: Challenging the Myth of Powerlessness, has been used as a textbook in universities across the United States and in Australia. That book will be reissued in 2023 in a new edition by Chalice Press, under the new title of You Are Changing the World Whether You Like It Or Not .
In 2004, David and his wife Deanna founded PEG Partners, a non-profit organization that supports mentoring, education, and artistic expression in Guatemala. He is also a consultant on Peace and Justice for the North Carolina Council of Churches, and served as Clerk the AFSC Nobel Peace Prize Nominating Task Group.
As a touring artist with an over thirty-year career, LaMotte has developed a large and loyal following. His music has been honored with numerous awards and artist grants, and has been featured on dozens of artist compilations. Notably, his song
Dark and Deep was included on Songs Inspired By Literature, Chapter One, a benefit CD to raise money for adult literacy. Other artists on that CD include Suzanne Vega, Grace Slick, Aimee Mann and Bruce Springsteen. Several independent films feature David’s music, and it has been heard on the Today Show and the Showtime television series This American Life.
As a result of his work with schools in Guatemala, he was named a “Madison World Changer” by his undergraduate alma mater, James Madison University, and in 2019, he was awarded an E-chievement Award by the syndicated radio show E-town. David makes his home in Black Mountain, North Carolina, with his wife Deanna and son Mason. He is currently touring again, post-pandemic, hosting a digital community on Patreon.com, writing songs, and writing his next book, tentatively titled, “Harmony: What Music Can Teach Us About Peacemaking In a Troubled Time.”
Phil Norman
Friday, April 5th, 2024
Doors 7:30PM | Starts 8:00PM
$20 General Admission
Jamie McLean Band is touring behind a fantastic new album “Paradise Found” on Harmonized Records. The album was produced by Ken Coomer of Wilco at Nashville’s Cartoon Moon studio and features the band’s strongest and most mainstream songwriting to date. Songs like “Give My Life To Rock and Roll” and “Waiting On You” are dripping with summer festival sweat while “Turn Around” and “Hotels and Cabarets” are ready made for film and television.
PRESS
“A honkin' collection of Southern-style blues rock, Americana, and soul....as bawdy as anything the Black Crowes tried to snag from The Faces or The Stones circa 'Sticky Fingers' and 'Exile on Main Street' and as groovy and gutsy as Bowie's 'Young Americans.'" -Charleston City Paper
"Good luck finding more finger snapping feel good Rock/Roots/Americana song than offered by Jamie McLean Band" -Relix Magazin
“Completely original and completely fabulous...Jamie's vocals are strong, sincere and from the heart...the live version of this band is a three-dimensional experience not to be missed.” -Hittin' The Note
"...McLean and company ooze drops of southern roots rock, blues, R&B, funk and soul out of every note..the rock & roll swagger of the Rolling Stones…” -Jambase.com
“Jamie McLean steps out with a solo record that is a downright, sometimes raunchy, pure rock and roll record. It signals an exciting new direction for the erstwhile funkster. A soulfully competent singer and a shredder of a guitarist..." -An Honest Tune
Local support:
There’s an easy feeling when Will Farmer starts to sing, and his smooth tenor voice blends with his effortless guitar playing. There is a comfort in his songs, a reminder that love, loss, and hope are emotions we all share. Like a campfire on a crisp fall evening, listening to Will Farmer play music is good for the soul.
Born and raised in Southwest Virginia, Will has been part of the Roanoke music scene for nearly 20 years. His solo performances have something in common with the bands he’s been in. You’ll hear his skillful songwriting from his most recent project, Appalachian Soul, his instrumental prowess from the bluegrass jams of Blue Moonshine, and his attention grabbing vocals from the party band Monkey Fuzz.
Saturday, April 6th, 2024
Doors 7:30PM | Starts 8:00PM
$15 Advance | $20 Day of Show
www.johnnydynamite.info
www.stimulatorjones.bandcamp.com
Sleepybeef is Stephen Smith & Jonathan Woods
www.sleepybeef.bandcamp.com
Doors 7:00PM | Starts 7:30PM
$12 Advance | $15 Day of Show
DC rockers, The Dual Gravitons, will joining for the evening to showcase their high energy original tunes.
The Spot on Kirk
Saturday, April 13th, 2024
$10 Advance | $15 Day of Show
Door 7:30 PM | Starts 8:00 PM
Jack Marion and The Pearl Snap Prophets bring a youthful-exuberance and high-country swagger to the doorsteps of modern country music. The North Carolina-based band has spent the past 4 years in honky-tonks, bars, and mountain roadhouses, collecting fodder for songs along the way. There are songs about living; written in the shadows of the Blue Ridge Mountains. They are straight-from-the-hip and straight-from-the heart. No bull-honky. All truth. But they are just as catchy as any songwriting-factory-formed mega hit that will ever curse your ear."
LoneHollow, comprised of vocalist Rylie Bourne and guitarist Damon Atkins, bring a Southern rock-infused version of Americana while still remaining true to the tradition of country storytelling.
Friday, April 19th, 2024
Doors 7:30PM | Starts 8:00PM
$12 Advance | $15 Day of Show
A Down By Downtown Event!
D.J. Williams is an acclaimed guitarist, singer-songwriter, and producer whose illustrious career has seen him traverse the globe, igniting stages ranging from intimate clubs to renowned festivals with his fiery performances. Described by Premier Guitar as “… a monster… an inventive, effective, and ear-catching soloist, armed with a warm tone and superior chops,” Williams is ready to unleash his next creative achievement: new album Soldier of Love on Perception Records.
The project sees Williams collaborate with some of music's most respected performers - including Adam Deitch, Roosevelt Collier, Isaac Teel, Alan Evans, Josh Fairman, Ian Gilley and Kanika Moore - under the guidance of ascending Denver producer Jay.Greens. The intrepid album is highlighted by the distortion-driven rock of “Black Man”, the gripping, ethereal balladry of “Soldier of Love” and the danceable funk track “Whipper Snapper.” These singles mark a bold evolution in Williams' sound, cementing his position as a dynamic bandleader.
Previous endeavors saw Williams tour with eclectic Richmond funk outfit DJ Williams Projekt; lead of the west coast rock & soul band Shots Fired; and handle guitar for San Diego's legendary tour-de-force, Karl Denson's Tiny Universe. Since launching onto the scene in 2001, Williams has also had the honor of performing with some of live music's greatest names including John Legend, Dave Matthews Band, Warren Haynes, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings and Robert Randolph.
Following the release of Soldier of Love, Williams is taking his soulful melodies on the road. Armed with both an inexhaustible skill set and an unfettered passion for music-making, Williams is set to blaze a trail for his listeners - one note at a time.
www.djwilliamsmusic.com
Saturday, April 20th, 2024
Doors 7:30PM | Starts 8:00PM
$17 ADV | $20 Day of Show
Doors 7:00PM | Starts 7:30PM
$35 Advance Ticket
$45 Preferred Seating
$45 Day of Show
*Tickets go on sale Friday, December 29th, 2023 at 10AM*
The blues is music for all time—past, present, and future—and few artists simultaneously exemplify those multiple temporal moments of the genre like North Mississippi’s Grammy Winner CEDRIC BURNSIDE. The Mississippi Hill Country blues guitarist and singer/songwriter contains within him the legacy and future of the region’s prescient sound stories. At once African and American and southern and Mississippian, these stories tell about love, hurt, connection, and redemption in the South. His newest contribution to this tradition is I Be Trying, a 13-track album treatise on life’s challenges, pleasures, and beauty. “Life can go any kind of way,” Burnside says. With almost 30 years of performing and living blues in him, he would know.
Burnside’s blues inheritance, the North Mississippi Hill Country blues, is distinct from its Delta or Texas counterparts in its commitment to polyrhythmic percussion and its refusal of familiar blues chord progressions. Often, and especially in Burnside’s care, it leads with extended riffs that become sentences or pleas or exclamations, rendering the guitar like its West African antecedent, the talking drum. Riffs disappear behind and become one with the singer’s voice, like the convergence of hill and horizon in the distance. Sometimes they become the only voice, saying what the singer cannot conjure the words for. Across some nine individual and collaborative album projects, Burnside’s voice eases seamlessly into, through, and behind the riffs spirit gifts him, carrying listeners to a deep Mississippi well. There is mirror there in the water of that well, in Burnside’s music, that shows us who and what we have been, who we are, and what we might be if we look and heed.
The 42-year-old Burnside was born in the blues as much as he was in funk, rock, soul, and hip-hop. These latter sensibilities are reflected across his work, as he drives Hill Country blues into grooves that lend themselves readily to an urgent, modern moment. But he is also keenly his grandfather’s grandson, who he studied so carefully over a decade playing with him that he came to know him better than his own self. The elder Burnside blues man, the hill country blues luminary RL Burnside, and his wife Alice Mae wrapped their Holly Springs land and family in warmth, joy, and music. RL Burnside, alongside collaborators and contemporaries from David “Junior” Kimbrough to Jessie Mae Hemphill and Otha Turner, cultivated the sound and feeling of Black North Mississippi life and offered it up to the world. Cedric observed and absorbed this art world intently and with wonder as a child, declaring to himself, this is the music I want to play and I want to do that for the rest of my life. Moreover, this was the offering he, too, wanted to make, and the life of service to the spirit through blues that he wanted to live. By age 13, he was on the road with his “Big Daddy” Burnside, playing drums, being raised up by the music and the road, and developing the next, electric generation of the Hill Country calling and sound.
Burnside’s two Grammy-nominated album projects— the 2015 Descendants of Hill Country and 2018’s Benton County Relic—were both capstone statements for a lifetime of musical labor channeling the blues spirit on drums, guitar, and vocals in the North Mississippi Hill Country tradition. I Be Trying, Burnside’s second release with Alabama’s Single Lock Records, is another unfolding of his influence and voice as an architect of the second generation of Hill Country blues. This album pushes just beyond his long-time roles as Hill Country blues collaborator, torchbearer, and innovator into the rooms of the artist’s inner life. Written in reflection on and off the road in 2018, the album responds to the confusion and anger he felt in the years after a series of deaths in the family and a host of other interpersonal hurts, some he dished out and some he took. The album opens with an acoustic lament, “The World Can Be So Cold,” that encapsulates the tenderness of this pain and then quickly rallies and pleads with the Lord for help on the rousing second track and the album’s first single, “Step In.” The title track, on which Burnside is accompanied on background vocals by his youngest daughter Portrika, is a plea for grace and forgiveness from a man “still learning and trying to be the best me.” Burnside’s signature approach and contribution to the Hill Country genre—electricity, intention, and timeless timbre—is seamlessly complemented here by star collaborators Alabama Shakes bassist Zac Cockrell, North Mississippi Allstars guitarist Luther Dickinson, and principal collaborator Reed Watson on drums.
With lessons to impart, Burnside strips down the sound with precision so there can be no misunderstanding, allowing for space and breath where otherwise chords and reverb might be present. This portion of the offering is a guidebook for life’s dark times, set to mostly minor riffs and pulsing bass and percussion rhythms that immediately set in the soul like the gospel. If you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, “Ask the Lord for revelation/so [you] can see clearer” and “keep on pushing as hard as [you] can,” he advises to a march on “Keep On Pushing”; “Be careful who you talk to/ain’t no telling what they might do” he warns on “Gotta Look Out” over a menacing bass eighth-note couplet on the one and three. Recorded over a few sessions at Royal Studios in Memphis with lifelong friend and fellow North Mississippi descendant Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell, I Be Trying is Burnside boiled down by a fiery blue anger from descendant to relic to human.
What is left, and this is everything, is a resonant kind of love. Buoyed by his readings of Lao Tzu and rumination on his own life choices and hurts, Burnside says he is “trying his best to implement love” in his life and in relationships with others. “There’s not enough love shown in the world. People have a lot of regret. The world needs more love.” In the places where love glistens on the album’s surface, like in the harmonies on the anthem groove “Love Is the Key” or in the smooth, purposeful falsetto sliding over the strings on the final track, “Love You Forever,” Burnside’s desire for us all to “really just try to come closer” is palpable.
But this is the blues, so love is necessarily double-edged. On two covers, one of RL Burnside’s “Bird Without a Feather” and another of Junior Kimbrough’s “Keep Your Hands Off Her,” which Burnside titles by its signature opening threat, “Hands Off That Girl,” there is hurt and fear, quiet menace and outright threat. “Dark,” he admits, “but what people go through.” Flashing this side of love’s sword, Burnside reminds us of the complex, raw, blues people legacy that undergirds his art. Still, he says on the soaring “Love Is Key,” which is his thesis as of late, “a life filled with love is the key/yes it is.”
Blues is an embodied practice that frequently crosses the boundaries of reality and fiction, and as such, Burnside appears as himself in Bill Bennett’s Tempted (2001), a New Orleans-set thriller; Arliss Howard’s Mississippi-based romantic comedy Big Bad Love; and Craig Brewer’s Tennessee-based drama Black Snake Moan (2006). He also can become something other than himself. In 2021, Burnside played the title character in Don Simonton and Travis Mills’ story of Texas Red, a Franklin County, Mississippi juke joint owner who, after defending himself from an attack, was hunted by a mob for a month and eventually caught and killed. Burnside brings a bluesman’s haunted gravitas to the role, balanced about life and death and freedom even in the most unspeakable moments. Like his music, this role is ancestral blues work that honors the dead and their legacies to teach and heal new generations.
Burnside recalls chopping wood and hauling water as a child, and these days he is in his garden growing food and contemplating getting some chickens. This penchant for cultivation and innovation that has always characterized his music spills over to the land, and especially in this moment of shift wrought by pandemic life. On a hunting trip to Montana, Burnside connected to nature, as well as his interior life, in a new way. This feeling, one of opening, was a revelation to him. It underscores his love strivings and, along with his studies of the Dao, even changes how he structures and writes songs. It is a process of “realizing what was already there,” he says, of remembering. Love is key, and love is work.
Burnside’s turn inward has him considering his place in the family legacy of professional blues musicians. He is a proud father of three daughters, ages 22, 18, and 15, all of whom can play drums and guitar, and is looking forward to more collaborations like the one with the youngest Burnside daughter on “I Be Trying.” Striving for transparency with his children about his own life, he lets them know not to be too hard on themselves. He says Big Daddy always took care of his family, including his 13 children and several grandchildren and great grandchildren. Despite his touring schedule, Burnside is deeply grateful for his capacity to support and be present for his own children. About this, he says, “I have been there, and I will be there.” That’s for certain about the past, present, and future of the North Mississippi Hill Country blues, too.
Cactus Lee is the musical project by Austin songwriter Kevin Dehan. You’ll see there the influence of his heroes, Townes, Blaze or Guy Clark plus something more contemporary.
Put on Lamplight, the self-titled debut from singer-songwriter Ian Hatcher-Williams, and you’ll notice a few things. A brushed and skittering 6/8 rhythm. Softly distorted guitar. The languid drawl of a pedal steel as it flirts with demure strings. It’s a room you recognize but can’t quite place. The furnishings are comfortable. 2024 brings the debut of newcomer, Appalachian country-mouse-gone-city-and-back-again, Ian Hatcher-Williams, AKA Lamplight. After a warp-speed five years in New York City trying on the vestments of cumbersome enterprise and often sacrificing personal life, health and identity along the way, Ian returned home to the rolling mountain peaks of southwestern Virginia to undress, stretch out, reconsider. The result is the cathartic return to self, a nine-song earth-caked internal excavation, releasing Spring 2024 on Western Vinyl.
Jacob Ritter from Wilson Springs Hotel is playing a solo set of originals for the evening!
Thursday, April 25th, 2024
Doors 7:00PM | Starts 7:30PM
Advance $12 | Day of Show $15
Hosted by L.A. Preston
The Spot on Kirk has a monthly open mic comedy show! There will be a chance to get up on stage and then the show will begin with featured comedians every month.
Doors @ 7:00 PM | Open Mic @ 7:30 PM | Starts @ 8:00 PM
No cover charge - Tips & donations appreciated
Please RSVP if you plan to attend. If you would like to inquire about the open mic, please contact the host at LA@lapreston.com for more information.
Times Tables - www.timestables.bandcamp.com
Convalescent (Asheville) - www.convalescent.bandcamp.com
Nervous Surface (Greensboro) - www.nervoussurface.bandcamp.com
Wednesday, May 1st, 2024
Doors 7:00PM | Starts 7:30PM
$10 ADV | $13 DOS
The Faux Paws have a problem. They’re a triangle band in a land of circles. Musically impossible to describe, they don’t even fit into todays often hyphenated-genre world. No fan, industry expert, nor member of the band can seem to sum up this band’s sound in any kind of marketable way. They continue to remain a singularly unique outfit in the acoustic music community, always on the fringes, always memorable and with an increasing number of die-hard fans who feel like they’ve uncovered a secret.
Is it bluegrass? Not usually. Old-time? Occasionally. Is it Celtic? Can’t quite say that. Is it Folk? Americana? Jazz? Singer-songwriter? None of the above, but members of the Paws have deep ties to all of these traditions and blend their elements effortlessly to serve whatever musical idea is being presented. So what can we say? This band takes risks. They’re dynamic, exciting, sincere, irreverent, infectious, and surprising. They move deftly between moods, influences and instruments but always maintaining a “groove” that pulses through the music like a heartbeat (you may not always be aware it’s there but it gives the thing life).
A Faux Paws live show is an explosive roller coaster ride that brings the audience along. Virtuosity on the fiddle, mandolin, guitar and saxophone, sure, but also vulnerability, personal lyrics, tight 3-part brother harmonies, playful interplay, intricately arranged details and soaring improvisations. With the considerable success and praise the band has seen since coming out of the pandemic the Paws decided to add long-time friend and collaborator Zoe Guigueno (Fish & Bird, Della Mae) to their touring outfit on upright bass whenever possible. Zoe only deepens the group’s already massive sound while freeing each member up for more creative expression on their various instruments.
www.thefauxpawsmusic.com
Thursday, February 2nd, 2024
Doors 7:00PM | Starts 7:300PM
$12 Advance | $15 Day of Show
Her Majesty - www.hermajestyband.com
Roughshod (RVA) - www.roughshod.bandcamp.com
The Moops - www.instagram.com/themoopsband
Saturday, May 4th, 2024
Doors 7:30PM | Starts 8:00PM
$10 ADV | $15 Day of Show
Indie Appalachian Folk Band Tina and Her Pony began in Asheville, North Carolina, USA in 2010. Shortly thereafter, the band spent two years holed up in the high desert mountain town of Taos, New Mexico becoming one of the iconic artist colony’s most beloved performing acts. Tina's fresh full length release Marigolds (2023), is an album about the cyclical nature of change, and of death and rebirth as initiation. It builds on a sturdy foundation, honed on their previous releases Champion (Echo Mountain Recording Studio 2017) and an eponymous debut (2012). Tina & Her Pony's signature sound has been refined over time with extensive touring spanning the United States, Canada, Europe, the UK and even Central America. In addition to familiar sweet vocal harmonies and smooth, thoughtfully crafted instrumentation on cello, tenor banjo, acoustic guitar and pedal steel, Marigolds dabbles in new directions, exploring hints of pop and soul, with the sounds of electric bass, jazz organ and synth. Though originally founded as a duo by Tina Collins and Quetzal Jordan, these days the band is centered solely around the songwriting of front woman Tina Collins, a classically trained musician who first toured with her band Over Under Yonder, a five piece that played songs from Collins’ debut album Journey Onward (2009). Collins composed the songs that appear on Journey Onward as she thru-hiked from Maine to Georgia on the Appalachian Trail. When Over Under Yonder finished touring in 2010, the band reformed as Tina and Her Pony. Collins’ songwriting incorporates complexities in harmony and arrangement that queer the American folk tradition. Their unique sound draws inspiration from artists such as Gillian Welch, Sarah Jarosz and Watchhouse.
Ash Devine is an accomplished songwriter, ukulele and guitar player, performance artist, educator, and community-based arts facilitator whose work is influenced by her upbringing in the Blue Ridge mountains, and by her international travels to perform in health care facilities with Patch Adams M.D. Born and raised in the Appalachian region of southwestern VA, Ash Devine lived in Asheville, NC for over 17 years where she developed her songwriting career and delved into her roots in the Appalachian folk music traditions. Ash tours nationally and internationally, performing over 100 shows per year in reputable music venues, festivals, house concerts, health care facilities, and educational settings.
Devine is known as a true ‘folk troubadour’ because she writes, collects, and performs cross genre music based on numerous folk traditions including original Americana & indie-folk-rock, traditional Appalachian old time, contemporary folk, country blues, historic bluegrass, folk revival, classic rock, and international folk music. Ash has self produced two albums of original music, and is working on two more, including a traditional Appalachian and folk legacy compilation.
In 2022, Ash was a featured songwriter at the Forbes Center for Performing Arts on NPR’s Acoustic Cafe songwriter series Songstress Sojourn which was recorded in front of a live audience. In 2015, Ash starred as Maybelle Carter of the legendary Carter Family band and musically directed the play Esley: The Life and Music of Leslie Riddle, where she closely replicated Maybelle’s iconic Carter scratch guitar style. Devine collaborates and performs along side numerous acclaimed musicians and folklorists such as Sheila Kay Adams, David Holt, Paula Bradley, Andy Cohen, Eleanor Ellis, Patch Adams, M.D., and many more.
Wednesday, May 8th, 2024
Doors 7:00PM | Starts 7:30PM
ADV $12 | Day of Show $15
Doors 7:30PM | Starts 8:00PM
Advance $12 | Day of Show $15
Over the last two decades, Kentuckian Ben Sollee has distinguished himself as multi-faceted creative, blurring the lines between music, tech, and activism. A graduate of the Univeristy of Louisville School of Music, he holds a BFA in cello performance. Since his debut record in 2008, Mr. Sollee has released 6 studio records and nearly 10 EPs garnering praise from the New York Times and NPR. His music has been featured in tv shows such as Weeds and Parenthood. In addition, Sollee has a growing career as a composer for film, tv, and interactive media earning a Emmy Award in 2018 for his score on the ABC special Base Ballet. Beyond music, Mr. Sollee is known for his social and environmental advocacy working with organizations like Oxfam America, The Nature Conservancy, and Canopy KY to protect people and the land. He currently lives in Louisville, KY with his wife and three children.
Sunday, May 12th, 2024
Doors 7:00PM | Starts 7:30PM
$22 ADV | $25 DOS
Hosted by L.A. Preston
The Spot on Kirk has a monthly open mic comedy show! There will be a chance to get up on stage and then the show will begin with featured comedians every month.
Doors @ 7:00 PM | Open Mic @ 7:30 PM | Starts @ 8:00 PM
No cover charge - Tips & donations appreciated
Please RSVP if you plan to attend. If you would like to inquire about the open mic, please contact the host at LA@lapreston.com for more information.
*Tickets go on sale Friday, March 8th @ 10AM*
Kelsey Waldon is one of Country music’s most singular voices. Across four acclaimed full-length albums full of both “heavy twang and spitfire pedal steel” and “coffeehouse confessionals” (Rolling Stone), she’s brought listeners into her world and shared her own experiences and perspectives. Her new project, There’s Always a Song (out May 10th via Oh Boy Records/Thirty Tigers), however, is about the singular voices that shaped her into the artist she is today.
“It’s like, I kind of was able to find my voice through these voices, you know?” Waldon says. “A part of me doing this album is expressing so much gratitude for the music that I love, for music that has meant a lot to me and helped me.”
These eight songs, from the earliest pages of the country and bluegrass music songbooks, helped the singer-songwriter from Monkey’s Eyebrow, Ky., find her place in the world before she became an artist whose own work generates buzz, lands on year-end best-of lists, and, in 2019, led Waldon to become the first artist in 15 years to sign a deal with John Prine’s Oh Boy Records. These days, they remind Waldon of why she wanted to make music in the first place.
“There’s a lot of bullshit out there, and sometimes our goals and dreams get clouded by competition or become jaded. [These songs are] like something tapping into me and being like, ‘That’s why you love this.’ It feels like home to me; it feels like the truth,” Waldon shares. “It just brought me so much joy to work with my peers, my friends, people I really admire.”
There’s Always a Song might not even exist, in fact, if not for S.G. Goodman, who in addition to also being a fellow western Kentuckian has been one of Waldon’s good friends since before they were making headlines with their music. During one of their frequent catch-up phone calls, Waldon told Goodman she would love to find a reason to collaborate and asked Goodman if she’d be up for recording a song together. Goodman suggested “Hello Stranger,” specifically citing the 1973 version by Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard.
Waldon didn’t stop with Goodman, though. Fellow John Prine devotee and “kindred spirit” Amanda Shires joins Waldon on fiddle for the Bill Monroe classic “Uncle Pen” — arranged in half time like Goose Creek Symphony’s version from 1971 — while Isaac Gibson, lead singer of 49 Winchester, helps Waldon honor his fellow Virginian, Ralph Stanley, on the devastating “I Only Exist.” Margo Price, one of Waldon’s first friends in Nashville, rounds out the list of guests, singing with Waldon on “Traveling the Highway Home,” which Waldon selected from fellow Kentuckian Molly O’Day’s catalog.
Waldon’s band, meanwhile, was a key inspiration for There’s Always a Song. The songs on this album are among those they frequently listen to in the van while on tour; Waldon and fiddler Libby Weitnauer, in particular, have bonded over their love of old-time and Appalachian music. They’d been out on the road for much of the year before they entered Nashville’s Creative Workshop studio (prominently featured in Heartworn Highways and a longtime Nashville staple) to make this record, which Waldon co-produced with GRAMMY Award-winning engineer/mixer/producer Justin Francis.
“These songs are deep. They were here long before me, and they will be here long after I’m gone, after any of us are here. They will survive the test of time,” Waldon says. “It’s like they live in some kind of universe that just survives forever. These songs know the secrets to life.”
Waldon is featured in the 2024 edition of the Country Music Hall of Fame's "American Currents" exhibit, and she'll perform a special "Songwriter Session" on March 2nd at the museum as part of the exhibition's opening. 2024 tour dates will be announced soon.
Tour Support: Nat Myers !
Thursday, May 30th, 2024
Doors 7:30PM | Starts 8:00PM
$15 Advance | $20 Day of Show
Four songwriters come together for an unforgettable evening of storytelling and songwriting at The Spot on Kirk!
William Seymour - www.linktr.ee/williamseymour
Caitlin Krisko & Aaron Austin- www.caitlinkriskoandthebroadcast.com
Jordan Harman - www.jordanharman.com
Saturday, June 1st, 2024
Doors 7:30PM | Starts 8:00PM
$20 ADV | $25 Day of Show
“Valazza captures a fluctuating melancholy perfectly on "Watching Planes Go By," a standout track from her enrapturing second album.” — NPR
"She is a gentle wanderer whose songs exude a sturdy self-assurance. Her delivery is as much British folk revival as anything, but her band’s desolate twang is unmistakably country, and Knows Nothing is one of the best country-ish records of 2023’s first half." – Bandcamp
“Valazza is a keen observer, particularly of the natural world and its power to reframe and shape a complicated tangle of emotions.” — No Depression
“The deafening buzz that seems to be gathering around her is fully justified” — Holler
“A well-crafted set of psych-tinged country and folk-pop, combining acoustic and electric guitars, piano, pedal steel and more with her gentle vocals and bittersweet melodies.” — KEXP
“Her songs are wise, eccentric examinations of emotional restlessness, culminating in a bittersweet cover of Michael Hurley's 'Wildageeses.'" — UNCUT
“‘An album of subtly brilliant songs. This is sure to be one of the best country albums of the year” — Americana UK
RVA opener: Sequoia
https://sequoiamusic.bandcamp.com/
Saturday, June 8th, 2024
Doors 7:30PM | Starts 8:00PM
$15 ADV | $20 Day of Show
Summer dance party at The Spot on Kirk!
All are welcome to have a good time here
VAMONOS!!!
The Spot on Kirk
22 Kirk Ave SW
Roanoke, VA, 24011
Group Lesson 8:00-8:30PM
Summer Dance Party 8:30-11:00PM
DJ Edgar - Salsa/Bachata/Kiz/Reaggeton/Merengue/Cumbia, etc.
Saturday, December 9th, 2023
Doors 7:30PM | Starts 8:00PM
$8 Advance | $12 at the Door
Recorded over the course of a 4,000-mile cross-country roadtrip, Taylor Ashton’s gorgeous new album, Stranger To The Feeling, is a sonic odyssey through the heart of America, one that works its way chronologically and geographically from coast to coast as it meditates on the meaning of closeness and connection. The performances are warm and inviting, anchored by Ashton’s deft guitar and banjo work and rich, easygoing melodicism, and the recordings—helmed by producer Jacob Blumberg and captured with a broad range of collaborators including Courtney Hartman, Big Thief’s Buck Meek, Lake Street Dive’s Rachael Price, Vulfpeck’s Theo Katzman, Late Show bandleader Louis Cato, and Mipso’s Jacob Sharp—are alternately sparse and lush, with arrangements often serving as aural reflections of their physical environments. From ablanket in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park to aspiritual vortex in Sedona, AZ, the settings are inextricable from the songs, and the result is a moving collection that manages to evoke both the gentle virtuosity of Nick Drake and the buoyant wit of Paul Simon.
Born and raised in Canada, Ashton got his start fronting the beloved Vancouver five-piece Fish & Bird. After moving to NYC, he teamed up with Courtney Hartman for 2018’s Been On Your Side, which Rolling Stone proclaimed “packs a punch,” and two years later released his solo debut, The Romantic, earning widespread praise alongside dates with the likes of Sarah Jarosz, Madison Cunningham, The Wood Brothers, and more.
Tuesday, June 18th, 2024
Doors 7:00PM | Starts 7:30PM
$15 ADV | $20 Day of Show
Australian-based folk diviner Leah Senior silences audiences with vivid lyricism and a voice that soars with a disarmingly honest Sandy Denny-like clarity. Leah effortlessly weaves together spring-time baroque pop playfulness with a fragile blend of bedroom folk. Her fourth album The Music That I Make (2023, Poison City Records) reveals Leah at her most intimate, her songs a cycle of vulnerable meditations on what it means to create. The Music That I Make transports the listener to her sandstone shack in Anglesea, where autumnal British folk meets rain streaked AM radio.
Leah’s previous three albums The Passing Scene, Pretty Faces and Summer’s On The Ground were released through Flightless Records. A chance late night encounter with King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard saw Leah Senior joining their independent label Flightless. In 2022 Leah and her band joined King Gizzard on a national tour of USA/Canada, performing at iconic venues including Red Rocks and Berkeley Theatre.
Leah Senior’s captivating live performances have seen her supporting international artists including Jessica Pratt, Jeff Tweedy and Bedouine and performing at festivals such as Levitation, Desert Daze, Port Fairy Folk Festival and Golden Plains.
"Leah Senior is an amazing folk singer, very, very talented, and nothing like King Gizz's music at all. Her songs are equally terrifying, joyous, sad and exciting. We get chills watching her perform." – King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard
"Enchanting..Recalling Joni Mitchell playfulness through cosy folk, minimalism" – Rolling Stone
Local support: The Stray Lions ( RECORD RELEASE! ) & Cherry Moon
Monday, June 24th, 2024
Doors 7:00 PM | Starts 7:30 PM
$12 Advance | $15 Day of Show
Hosted by L.A. Preston
The Spot on Kirk has a monthly open mic comedy show! There will be a chance to get up on stage and then the show will begin with featured comedians every month.
Doors @ 7:00 PM | Open Mic @ 7:30 PM | Starts @ 8:00 PM
No cover charge - Tips & donations appreciated
Please RSVP if you plan to attend. If you would like to inquire about the open mic, please contact the host at LA@lapreston.com for more information.
Inducted into the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame!
Long before there were Kings of Leon, Keys of Black or Whites of Jack in Music City there was a riddle spewing prophet of roots rock and roll. A bluesy blast of baritone bombast. Equally versed in two glorious worlds, Rock and Roll – with a strong side of Outlaw Country. He is a force on tour and a tour de force. He is the last of the Full Grown Men and Roots Rock Royalty.
A native of Hattiesburg, Wilder’s 1986 debut album, It Came from Nashville, was named one of the 50 Best Southern Rock Albums of All-Time by Paste Magazine. Webb was honored to participate in Shemekia Copeland’s recent Grammy nominated LP “Uncivil War” co-writing and performing on the track “She Don’t Wear Pink.” He’s been in a number of movies, but is best known for his cult classic short films: “Webb Wilder Private Eye,” “Horror Hayride” and ”Scattergun.” Webb’s engaging personality led him to become one of America’s first Satellite DJs on XM Radio. He’s now a DJ and the host of the Americana Countdown show on WMOT radio/Nashville as well as continuing his three decade career as an Electrifying Artist on stages worldwide.
“Webb flat out rocks! They serve up potent Southern comfort.” Rolling Stone Magazine
"With his obvious love of British rock and Southern roadhouse, Wilder could be a kind of Tom Petty for the trailer set." - San Francisco Chronicle
“These days the term ‘roots rocker’ is almost meaningless, but Wilder’s blend of a rocker’s heart with a hillbilly’s soul is probably the best aural definition of it yet.” Time Out Chicago
“Discover the mystery, the madness, and the magic of the man called Wilder. A giant standing proudly above lesser talents.” That Devil Music
Saturday, June 29th, 2024
Doors 7:30PM | Starts 8:00PM
$15 ADV | $20 Day of Show