Upcoming Events

CANNONS

with VALIDA

Doors 7pm/ Show 8pm

CANNONS alternate between flashes of gauzy introspection, glitter-drenched dancefloor ecstasy, and gritty sensuality. The Los Angeles trio — Michelle Joy [vocals], Ryan Clapham [lead guitar], and Paul Davis [drums keys] — elevate alternative / electro-pop to a neon stratosphere with nocturnal production and a visual sensibility equally suited to Studio 54 or summer festival season. Thus far, the band has honed this signature style over the course of three albums, namely Night Drive [2017], Shadows [2019], and Fever Dream [2022]. Along the way, "Fire For You" reached RIAA gold status, generated nearly a quarter-of-a-billion streams, topped Alternative Radio, and landed massive syncs on the likes of NETFLIX's Never Have I Ever, American Horror Story, and more. CANNONS earned critical acclaim from The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, FLAUNT, and Consequence of Sound while YouTube touted them among 2021's "Artists on the Rise." Emerging as a live force, they've headlined countless packed shows in addition to lighting up festivals such as Coachella, Lollapalooza, Life Is Beautiful, Outside Lands, and Electric Forest, to name a few. Evolving yet again, CANNONS kickstart another era with the sunny, sassy, and sexy funkified strut of their 2023 single "Loving You" and much more to come.

DJ QUIK: QUIKMAS IN VENTURA

with WESTSIDE WEBB

David “DJ Quik” Marvin Blake is a rapper, songwriter, disk jockey, and music producer. Blake was born on January 18, 1970, to unnamed parents in Compton, California. He attended Centennial High School in Compton where fellow students were Andre Romelle “Dr. Dre” Young and Kendrick Lamar Duckworth. Centennial High School was also where the Bloods street gang was established in the early 1970s, formed in opposition to their rivals, the Crips. Blake himself joined the Bloods during his teenage years. During this time, he became friends with fellow rapper and Bloods gang member Crawford “Hi-C” Wikerson and Hip-Hop group 2nd II None which consisted of Deon “Gangsta D” Barnett and Kelton “KK” McDonald who were also members of the Bloods.

George Clinton is an American treasure. As one of the foremost innovators of Funk, Clinton is the mastermind behind the legendary Parliament/Funkadelic, creating a uniquely identifiable and timeless art that has lifted Funk from what was once considered a simple style to an internationally recognized and respected musical genre. His incredible ingenuity has earned George Clinton and Parliament/Funkadelic their rightful place in music history: an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and recipients of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Clinton started his career with the Parliaments, a barbershop doo-wop ensemble, which scored a major hit with "I Wanna Testify" in 1967. Clinton then developed an act/sound which merged the polish of Motown acts, the rawness of James Brown, the bohemian style of Sly Stone and the pop sensibility of the Beatles – and forever set himself apart from the Motown era. By the early ’70s, the group's tight songs evolved into sprawling jams around funky rhythms. They dropped the "s" from the band’s name and Parliament was born. Around the same time, Clinton spawned Funkadelic, a rock group which fused acid-rock guitar, bizarre sound effects, and cosmological rants with danceable beats and booming bass lines. Funkadelic recorded a number of influential concept albums, including Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow, Maggot Brain and America Eats Its Young. Rolling Stone and Spin recently identified Parliament/Funkadelic as one of the top bands of all time. 1975 was a seminal year for Clinton: with the country caught up in the Watergate fallout and the Space Race, the wildly imaginative Clinton was busy redefining the possibilities of funk music and advancing the rise of Afrofuturism. That year Parliament put out two albums, Chocolate City (envisioning a post-Watergate America with Muhammed Ali as president and Aretha Franklin as First Lady) and Mothership Connection, a sci-fi tale in which Black aliens land on Earth with a simple message to earthlings: “Ain’t nothin’ but a party y’all”. With music designed to “Put a dip in your hip and a glide in your stride,” the album included songs like “P-Funk (Wants to get Funked Up),” “Mothership Connection (Star Child)” and the group's first gold single, “Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker)”. These releases became instant dancefloor anthems and sparked funk's biggest crossover movement to date. The live performances of these recordings -which Clinton identified as a funk opera - climaxed with a giant spaceship landing at center stage and Clinton emerging as “Dr. Funkenstein,” which some have called the greatest single moment in the history of Funk. Clinton's dancefloor dominance continued throughout the ’70s and into the ’80s with releases like “Flashlight,” “One Nation Under a Groove,” “(Not Just) Knee Deep” and “Aqua Boogie,” reaching its peak with the 1983 George Clinton solo release of “Atomic Dog,” which took the term "dancefloor anthem" to a new level. With its infectious beat and unique melodic structure, “Atomic Dog” remains as popular with young audiences today as it was when it was first released. Today “Atomic Dog” can be heard not only in the clubs, on campus, and at the cookout, but also in commercials (E-Trade) and numerous movies (102 Dalmatians, Trolls World Tour). It was sampled countless times, most notably by Snoop Dogg on his smash “Snoop Dogg (What’s My Name Pt. 2).” Indeed, Clinton’s P-Funk, with its infectious groove and irresistible beats, became a go-to source for countless early rap recordings. As Clinton has said, "Funk is the DNA of hip-hop and rap." Being the most sampled artist, Clinton has become recognized as the godfather of modern urban music. Beats, loops, and samples of P-Funk have appeared on albums by 2Pac, OutKast, Dr. Dre, Busta Rhymes, Missy Elliot, De La Soul, Fishbone, Ice Cube, Public Enemy and Childish Gambino, to name but a few. Clinton’s collaborated with Kendrick Lamar on the influential rapper’s Grammy-winning album To Pimp a Butterfly. Through it all, Clinton and Parliament/Funkadelic have maintained a rigorous touring schedule that would test artists 50 years his junior. Considered by many to be one of the original jam bands, Parliament/Funkadelic’s 2-to-4 hour performances appeal to and attract many of the same fans that populate concerts by The Dead, Phish, and Dave Matthews. Celebrating his 80th year on planet Earth, Clinton is as busy as ever. In addition to touring, he is working on three recording projects that feature collaborations with a “who's who” of top artists from the last four decades. And he has started a new career as a graphic artist; his paintings were prominently displayed during Art Basel in Miami.

When people first meet Daniel Donato, they’re not fully braced for this walking tornado of creative energy. “They think there’s something that tips the scale in ways they don’t understand,” says Donato about his over-the-top, slightly manic vibe. “But what actually tips the scale is the amount of thought and analysis I put into my work and art, all of which is taken from the lessons of my life.”

Donato, a 25-year-old Nashville native, has distilled those life lessons into his debut album, A Young Man’s Country, his proper introduction to the general musical audience. Recorded at Nashville’s Sound Emporium in a mere two days and produced by guitar-ace Robben Ford, the record weaves outlaw country, Grateful Dead-style Americana, and first-rate songwriting into a singular form Donato calls “21^st-century cosmic country.” 

It might surprise some that the Telecaster-wielding wunderkind, who at 16 became the youngest musician to regularly play the iconic honky tonk Robert’s Western World while gigging with the Don Kelley Band, began his musical journey in a purely millennial fashion. Before he ever picked up a guitar, he discovered he had an aptitude for music via the video game Guitar Hero. At the time, he didn’t feel compelled to try his hand at the real thing until one day, about the age of 12, he heard the electric perfection of Guns ‘N’ Roses’ “Paradise City” blast from a set of speakers and his world was changed forever. 

“It was the first time I ever had a vision for my life,” says Donato, who was partly drawn to music because he sucked royally at skateboarding. “I then took one of my dad’s old guitars . . . and I literally fell in love with it.” From then on, Donato lived and breathed music, practicing his chops around the clock. He’d play before school, during his lunch break, and in the evenings at home, sometimes falling asleep with the six-string in his hands. 

It wasn’t long before he was busking on lower Broadway in Nashville, playing eight hours a day on weekends for tips. It was after one of those day’s sessions that he got a wild hair and snuck into Robert’s on a night when house act the Don Kelley Band was playing and his wig-dome was blown. “It was the first time I ever saw a band that was that good up close,” Donato said. “So I’m literally watching them play and I’m crying. I decided right then that I wanted to be the best guitar player in the world.”

Donato continued busking outside arenas before John Mayer and Phish concerts and on the streets of Nashville and it was then, while playing on Broadway, that he’d give Don Kelley his business card every Saturday night, hoping for a chance to audition. One day, while still a junior in high school, he got the call to come play. Donato was more than ready, and he delivered the goods in spades. He was so good, in fact, that he became a regular member of the band, performing four nights a week for more than 450 shows with the group.

Playing nightly with the Don Kelley Band was a formidable education for the young musician. Jamming regularly with Nashville’s most seasoned players, stalwart pickers who may have played in Buck Owens’ band, or Dolly Parton’s, or Alan Jackson’s, expanded his musical vocabulary while honing his stage presence. Along the way he was soaking up stories of adventures on the road and learning about the ups and downs of the music business. In short, he was gaining priceless life lessons and a musical education from wells that run deep into the musical history of Nashville.   

Around the time he turned 18, one of Donato’s high-school teachers, a serious music lover who had seen his student play at Robert’s, gave him a Grateful Dead box set. It was another eureka moment for the guitarist. His love for the Dead may have been ignited much earlier by virtue of the fact that his mother was a bona fide Deadhead who followed the group on tour when she was pregnant with the future guitarist, but it was that collection that changed the way he looked at music. “It gave me a tie to all of the classic country gold I’d been working down at the honky-tonks each weekend,” he said. “Grateful Dead and Merle Haggard had always lived in my heart, but now, the link was made, and I had a vision on how to keep it alive for this generation that I am coming from.” 

During the days of his Robert’s residency, Donato continued to busk at various locales, even playing the Grand Ole Opry, and it is the sum of all these gigs, experiences any teenage musician would kill for, that inform the sounds on A Young Man’s Country.

“Ain’t Living Long Like This,” one of three covers on the album, is a song by Waylon Jennings, who was recording at the Sound Emporium the day Donato was born. “Angel From Montgomery,” a song Donato learned on the fly while busking for tourists, pays tribute to the late John Prine. Donato recorded his unique take on the tune before Prine’s death. The Grateful Dead’s “Fire On The Mountain” is tacked on to “Meet Me In Dallas,” a tune Donato wrote while on the road with Paul Cauthen. The other seven songs, all originals, showcase the promise of a young songwriter coming into his own, one of the highlights being “Luck of the Draw.” 

The message of these songs contain the central tenet of Donato’s “Cosmic Country” ethos, which is about finding the courage to blaze your own path. As such, it is an ethos the artist extends beyond music into the channels of social media, where he’s built up a huge following of devoted “DD Heads,” as his fans call themselves. His podcast, “Daniel Donato’s Lost Highway,” brings together like-minded creatives to get at the heart of what makes artists tick, for which he’s interviewed Brothers Osborne, Brent Cobb, Orville Peck, and Garry Talent of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band.

Incubated to the sounds of the Dead, educated by some of Nashville’s finest players, and having more than 2,000 shows under his belt and a social media presence, Daniel Donato is indeed a millennial whirligig of creative fire. He’s been dabbling in professional music since the age of 14 and yet he’s just getting started. A Young Man’s Country is the portrait of a restless artist as a young man, one whose story is singular and is still in its exciting, early chapters -- and as this effort shows, the future is indeed cosmic. 

SOJA

with HIRIE and LIKKLE JORDEE

Jacob Hemphill (lead vocals, guitar) - Bobby Lee (bass, vocals) - Ryan Berty (drums) - Kenny Bongos (percussion) - Patrick O’Shea (keyboards) - Hellman Escorcia (saxophone) - Rafael Rodriguez (trumpet) - Trevor Young (lead guitar, vocals)

For more than two decades, SOJA have elated audiences across the globe with their fresh yet timeless take on roots reggae, a sound born from their shared passion for making music that transports and inspires. On Beauty in the Silence—their first new album in four years—The Grammy Award-Winning band deepens that communal spirit by collaborating with artists from all corners of the reggae world, including the likes of UB40, Slightly Stoopid, Stick Figure, and Rebelution. Fueled by the sheer force of their connection and chemistry, Beauty in the Silence ultimately makes for a much-needed antidote to fractured times, infusing so much warmth and wisdom and unstoppable joy into each and every track.

Like 2014’s acclaimed Amid the Noise and Haste (a Grammy nominee for Best Reggae Album), the title to Beauty in the Silence references the opening lines of Max Ehrmann’s beloved poem “Desiderata”: “Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.” “My dad had that poem memorized, and before I’d go out on tour he’d sort of whisper it in my ear,” says SOJA frontman Jacob Hemphill. “To me it’s a reminder of what we lose when we get caught up in the distractions all around us. You get so used to life being loud and fast and goal-oriented, but then you go out in nature and hear the silence and realize, ‘Damn, I got tricked.’ Life doesn’t have to be all go, go, go. The real key to life is in being still.”

In keeping with the notion of slowing down, SOJA deliberately took their time in creating Beauty in the Silence. As they explored new sonic terrain—recording in such iconic spots as Miami’s Circle House Studios and Dave Matthews Band’s Haunted Hollow, and teaming up with producers like Niko Marzouca, Mariano Aponte, and Johnny Cosmic—the band eventually phased into working remotely as stay-at-home orders set in across the country. In that process, lead guitarist Trevor Young (formerly SOJA’s guitar tech) took on a much greater role in the band’s creative direction, co-producing alongside Jacob and carefully shaping the album’s hypnotic sound. “I really love that this record is a mix of all of us together in a room and all of us far apart,” Jacob says. “It’s something that I’d love to keep doing in the future: let’s get together, let’s get the vibe and the groove, and then let’s go off into our own worlds and discover what’s there.”

Instantly setting the album’s mood of soulful celebration, Beauty in the Silence opens on “Press Rewind” (ft. Collie Buddz and J Boog), a track that first took form late one night on Buddz’s tour bus. “We were on tour together, and after the show Collie was going through beats on his phone,” Jacob says of the Bermudian reggae artist. “He played me that one and I came up with the opening lyrics right away, and it turned into a song where everybody tells their story of how they fell in love with music—in my part I’m talking about me and Bobby and Byrd watching DVDs of Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, and realizing that’s what we wanted to do with our lives.” Capped off by a fiery verse from Hawaii-based reggae singer J Boog, the result is a gloriously radiant tribute to how music enlightens and sustains us. “The details are different for each of us, but the story remains the same: we fell in love with music, and we couldn’t ever break up,” Jacob says.

In its delicate exploration of love in all its forms, Beauty in the Silence also offers up intensely personal tracks like “The Day You Came” (ft. Rebelution and UB40), a bittersweet breakup song that perfectly captures the confusion of heartache. “All my love songs are a conglomerate of experiences I’ve had; it’s never about just one person,” Jacob points out. “But one thing I always make sure to do is write from the perspective of the woman I was in the relationship with, because to me that’s the way to tell a story that’s bigger than what happened between these two people.” In a particularly meaningful turn for Jacob, “The Day You Came” finds UB40’s Ali Campbell lending his soothing vocals to the final verse. “Me and my dad used to sing ‘Impossible Love’ by UB40 all the time—we’d sing together at his piano, we’d sing it when we were driving somewhere,” says Jacob. “Before I even knew Bob Marley, UB40 were my entry point into loving reggae.”

As Beauty in the Silence unfolds, SOJA reveals the intangible magic that comes from letting their creative instincts run free. On “Break It Down,” for instance, the band shares a stark yet sublimely detailed track that Trevor and Jacob scratched out in a New Caledonia hotel room. “We’d just gotten to this beautiful island and all the other guys were going down to the beach, but Jake and I said, ‘Nah, we’re just gonna sit in this room and make some songs,’” Trevor recalls. Driven by a soul-stirring performance from SOJA saxophonist Hellman Escorcia and trumpet player Rafael Rodriguez, “Something To Believe In” (ft. Stick Figure) emerged from an instrumental that Stick Figure frontman Scott Woodruff recorded in the studio he’d set up in his Sprinter van. “It’s a song about those times in life when you feel like you’re walking through darkness and it’s so hard to find the light to lead you out,” says Jacob. “We actually wrote it months before the pandemic started, but it feels like it could’ve come from that moment.” And on “Jump” (ft. Slightly Stoopid), SOJA reimagine a sweetly empowering song penned by their tour manager, Eric Swanson. “When I was a kid someone asked me, ‘Would you accept everlasting life on the condition that you could never speak to another human again?’ And my answer was no,” says Jacob. “‘Jump’ is a song about how the real basis of the human experience is connection, and I love that it’s SOJA and Eric and Stoopid all coming together as people who’ve known each other a very long time.”

One of the final tracks on Beauty in the Silence, “Reason To Live” (ft. Nanpa Básico and Dirty Heads) bears a certain spellbinding quality that Jacob partly credits to Dirty Heads’ mind-bending creativity. “Those guys are like mad scientists; they’ve got music that sounds like hip-hop and reggae and pop all at once, and at the root of it are these lyrics that hit you so hard,” he says. With its shimmering groove and shapeshifting textures, “Reason To Live” features a Spanish-sung verse from Colombian hip-hop artist Nanpa Básico, adding even more urgency to the song’s message of open-hearted perseverance. “You might be going through life with all these plans and thoughts of how it’s all going to work out, and then something happens and you realize that what you were so focused on was actually hurting you,” says Jacob. “The truth is that the future isn’t in your hands, and your reason to live might come from a place that you weren’t expecting at all.”

Elsewhere on Beauty in the Silence, SOJA join forces with everyone from up-and-comers like Filipino-American reggae singer Eli Mac (“A true original, and one of the most creative people I know,” according to Jacob) to longtime friends and tourmates like the Hawaiian band Common Kings (“They’re a huge inspiration when you’re on the road—every single night, they hit the stage like a fireball”). And while each artist brings their own distinct sensibilities to the mix, all of the guest musicians are deeply aligned with SOJA’s mission of uplifting the masses. “My hero’s always been Bob Marley, and that’s mainly because he had this way of letting people find their purpose in the music,” says Jacob. “It didn’t matter if you were white or black or a girl or a boy or rich or poor, you felt like he was talking directly to you. So that’s what we were trying to do with this record: make it as real as possible and tell the whole story of our experience, not just the shiny parts. That’s how you create something that really connects, and that hopefully leaves this place at least a little better after you’re gone.”

HIRIE

One woman can truly do it all and make the world a better place as she goes. Hawaiian-raised reggae pop star HIRIE (born Patricia Jetton), boldly paves the way for women across all industries: she performs musical stages around the world, all the while preaching positivity, enlisting an open ear to those in need and remaining a loving wife and mother, to boot. HIRIE is the humble superstar who, even after a landslide of accreditation, still takes the time to thank and honor her loyal supporters, whether that be a special photo opportunity at a show, an online chat or a spur-of-the-moment meet-and-greet at her merchandise table.

On top of mental health freedom-fighting, HIRIE further exudes a feministic attitude. From enlisting women stylists to women in the press to having talented women performing beside her onstage, a female-first agenda is prevalent in the world of HIRIE and heavily-executed. An epitome of this is found within the single “Woman Comes First”, featuring similar-minded Australian reggae rebel Nattali Rize. The track — off HIRIE’s 2016 Wandering Soul, an album rocketing to #1 on the Billboard Reggae Charts —hails back to the biblical days; even then, in days of “Adam and Eve”, women came first. Other empowered offerings off the pop star’s sophomore release include the songs “Queen” and “Melody Of A Broken Heart”, in between satiable fan favorites, like “Boom Fire”, “You Won’t Be Alone” and “Don’t Take My Ganja”.Yet, before HIRIE turned into a Wandering Soul, she first had to take roots. Living in San Diego and bouncing between open mic nights, HIRIE witnessed the start of her determined hard work paying off in the serendipitous meeting of multi-instrumentalist and producer E.N Young (then of Tribal Seeds), who agreed to produce her first album. The self-titled debut has since garnered over 6.7 million streams on Spotify after escalating to #4 on the Reggae iTunes Charts. Not too shabby for a first-timer! Doubling down on her success three years later with Wandering Soul (which rendered her an esteemed San Diego Music Award for ‘Best World Album’ in 2017), HIRIE now celebrates her third full-length album Dreamer, with over 4.2 million Spotify streams since its 2019 release. Her most daringly authentic to date, Dreamer exposes the good, the bad and the large grey void of adulthood. “This album is about raw honesty,” she discloses. “I feel like I was braver with exploring my emotional state and how that swings back and forth — allowing myself to be brutally honest.” Introspective, forthright and unapologetic, songs like “I’m Messed Up” and “Message in a Bottle” resonate with all those who hear it. Unlike other pop stars posing on an unattainable and unrealistic pedestal, HIRIE is more tangible and relatable than ever — that’s the HIRIE difference. Not HIRIE, who uses her bubble gum melodies to evoke empathy, push for change and set self limitations. She embodies a new era of pop celebrity that, we can only hope, continues through her example. Of course, album number three is more than just anthems of self-awareness, offering upbeat party songs, like the ultra-catchy “Put It Down” with Chali 2na and “I Like The Way You Roll”, featuring Slightly Stoopid. You would think the overall result is an emotional rollercoaster of an album, but really, its differing tempo and timbre just adds to HIRIE’s exceptional musical prowess. “A lot of times it was like, ‘Let’s write something fast.’ ‘Let’s write something you can dance to.’ ‘This theme, let’s go for this.’ Everything you hear is a slice of me and my multiple personalities,” laughs HIRIE. Shortly after Dreamer’s release, HIRIE (like the rest of the world) was ushered into quarantine. Instead of wallowing in her unexpected circumstances, HIRIE used the forced downtime as a blessing, exploring her talents for tattooing, recording new singles and even relocating her family back to her home island of Oahu. By the summer of 2020, HIRIE had followed up on her 2019 post-album single “She Go” with a sizzling new track “Bonfire”, allowing listeners cooped up indoors a long overdue breath of fresh air. In 2021, HIRIE continued to pump out new music, including throwing props back to where you came from in "Respect", a collaborative single with rising reggae artist DENM, “Feel The Sunshine” with Hawaiian heavyweight Kolohe Kai and a fresh take on Shwayze’s 2007 hit with Cisco Adler, “Corona and Lime”. HIRIE also hit the road Summer and Fall of 2021 in support of reggae rock royalty Sublime With Rome and Dirty Heads. With her trusty band of players behind her and her doggy best friend Goji at her side, HIRIE is now barrelling into 2022 with a return back to the recording studio for her fourth full-length project. What's first on the release list? A cosmic collaboration entitled "Youniverse" with Arise Roots frontman Karim Israel, emphasizing the notion of infinite energy as humanity's master design. Next, in a series leading up to HIRIE’s highly-anticipated album reveal, is a team with Jamaica’s Spragga Benz for the sultry single “I Miss You” (out now), as well as a pairing on Matisyahu’s buzzworthy “Blacklist” — along-awaited track out July 22nd, 2022.

LIKKLE JORDEE

Likkle Jordee, born Jordan Ramirez from Mililani, Hawai’i, is a multi-genre musical artist with roots in reggae. 

After losing his mother to lupus at a young age, Likkle Jordee struggled to find a purpose and began to rebel in school. He would skip class to play ʻukulele in the hallways and even lock himself in his room to wail out to the songs of Bob Marley, Ooklah the Moc, Dennis Brown, and Rootikal Riddim. His passion for music ignited at 13 years old after his step-mother gifted him a microphone, which he still owns today. He discovered his voice and through music he began to find purpose and navigate through the pain of losing his mother. 

After studying reggae and its history, he grew an appreciation and deep love for the music and began to craft his own unique style. In 2014, he met Tuli Ranks, an underground Reggae Artist from Compton, CA on the music platform Soundcloud, where they formed the group, Digikal Youth. A few years later, Jordee got his first break with Eli-Mac as a feature on her 2017 single titled "Nighttime Session''. Two years and three singles later, he released his first EP ‘Brand New’ produced by award-winning producer, Lapana Ieriko aka Pana. 

Likkle Jordee has had the honor of sharing the stage with some of Hawai'i and California’s biggest household names such as: SOJA, Rebelution, Jboog, Collie Budz, Josh Tatofi, Yaadcore, The Green, Eli-Mac, Through the Roots, and more. In 2020 he won ‘Breakout Artist of the Year’ at the Island Music Awards and was nominated in three different categories the following year. His mission is to inspire others to unlock their full potential through the power of music.

Often referred to as “The Hendrix of the Sahara”, Vieux Farka Touré was born in Niafunké, Mali in 1981. He is the son of legendary Malian guitar player Ali Farka Touré, who died in 2006. Ali Farka Touré came from a historical tribe of soldiers, and defied his parents in becoming a musician. When Vieux was in his teens, he declared that he also wanted to be a musician. His father disapproved due to the pressures he had experienced being a musician. Rather, he wanted Vieux to become a soldier. But with help from family friend the kora maestro Toumani Diabaté, Vieux eventually convinced his father to give him his blessing to become a musician shortly before Ali passed.

Vieux was initially a drummer / calabash player at Mali’s Institut National des Arts, but secretly began playing guitar in 2001. Ali Farka Touré was weakened with cancer when Vieux announced that he was going to record an album. Ali recorded a couple of tracks with him, and these recordings, which can be heard on Vieux’s debut CD, were amongst his final ones. It has been said that the senior Touré played rough mixes of these songs when people visited him in his final days, at peace with, and proud of, his son’s talent as a musician.

In 2005, Eric Herman (still Vieux’s manager today) of Modiba Productions expressed an interest in producing an album for Vieux; this led to Vieux’s self-titled debut album, released by World Village in 2007. Ali Farka Touré’s work to tackle the problem of malaria is continued as 10% of proceeds are donated to Modiba’s “Fight Malaria” campaign in Niafunké through which over 3000 mosquito nets have been delivered to children and pregnant women in the Timbuktu region of Mali. On this first album, Vieux pays homage to his father and follows Ali’s musical tradition, giving new versions of the West African music that is echoed in the American blues. The album features Toumani Diabaté, as well as his late father.

On his second record, Fondo on Six Degrees (2009), Vieux branched out and presented his own sound: while remaining true to the roots of his father’s music he uses elements of rock, Latin music, and other African influences. The album received a great deal of critical acclaim from across the globe, and Vieux was clearly moving out of his father’s shadow.

By June 2010, Vieux was performing at the opening concert for the FIFA World Cup in South Africa. That month Vieux also released his first live album, LIVE. His live performances are highly energized and Vieux is known for dazzling crowds with his speed and dexterity on the guitar, as well as his palpable charisma and luminous smile, both of which captivate audiences from all audiences in spite of any language barriers (though Vieux does speak 8 languages).

In 2011 Vieux released his 3rd studio album, The Secret, so named because the listener will hear the secret of the blues with a blend of generations from father to son. It was produced by guitarist Eric Krasno (of the Soulive trio) and features South African-born vocalist Dave Matthews, Derek Trucks on electric slide guitar and jazz guitarist John Scofield. The title track is the last collaboration between Vieux and his late father. With the heralded release of The Secret, Vieux Farka Touré has clearly established himself as one of the world’s rare musical talents and guitar virtuosos with a distinct style that always pays homage to the past while looking towards the future.

Vieux released The Tel Aviv Session (Cumbancha) in April 2012, a collaborative project with Israeli superstar Idan Raichel dubbed ‘The Touré-Raichel Collective’ that has been hailed by fans and critics alike as a masterpiece and one of the best collaborative albums in the history of international music, drawing comparisons to Ali Farka Touré and Ry Cooder’s legendary Talking Timbuktu album.

In 2013, Vieux Farka Touré’s beautiful and critically acclaimed album Mon Pays was released as an homage to his homeland. Being that his native Mali had recently been splintered by territorial fighting between Tuareg and Islamic rebels since January 2012, Mon Pays was devoted to reminding the world about the beauty and culture of his native Mali. Translated as ‘My Country,’ this predominantly acoustic undertaking transformed into an artifact of cultural preservation. Two songs on the project - ‘Future’ and ‘Peace’ feature Sidiki Diabate’s kora leading an emotional charge complemented by Touré’s spectacular guitar work. Both tracks represent an important generational “passing of the torch” as Sidiki’s father, Toumani is considered one of the greatest living kora masters and was a close friend of Vieux’s father Ali. Mon Pays has been widely hailed as the most mature and lovely record yet from one of this generation’s most exciting artists to come out of Mali and one of world music’s true rising stars.

Vieux reunited with Idan Raichel in Paris to record, release and subsequently tour their 2nd collaborative album as The Touré-Raichel Collective in 2014. The result was yet another musical and critical triumph, titled 'The Paris Session' (Cumbancha) revered by many as not just a musical gem for the ages, but a powerful testimonial to the power of art and fraternity to transcend vast cultural and political divides. In 2015, Vieux released another unexpected, genre-bending collaborative album, this time with New York-based singer Julia Easterlin, aptly titled 'Touristes'. The album shot to the top of the iTunes World chart and earned critical acclaim, including that of John Schaefer (NPR) who called it "brilliant." On April 7, 2017, Vieux released his next album 'Samba', recorded live in front of a small audience at Applehead Studio in Woodstock, NY.

When the COVID pandemic hit in 2020 and all touring ground to a halt, Vieux stayed focussed on his craft at home. He worked tirelessly in the studio he built at his family's compound (which he named 'Studio Ali Farka Toure' in honor of his late father) to record his debut album for World Circuit Records/BMG, the prestigious UK-based record label with whom his father recorded and released most of his own work. The resulting album, 'Les Racines' (released June 2022), sees Vieux masterfully return to the deep roots of the Desert Blues music that his father introduced to the world and Vieux spent most of his career to date exploring, experimenting with, and expanding. 2022 also saw the release of a long-awaited collaborative album between Vieux and Houston-based psych-rock superstars Khruangbin called ‘Ali’ - an album on which the artists join forces to pay homage to Ali Farka Toure by reimagining eight of his songs together.  The album was an instant hit around the globe, immediately getting millions of streams, enormous critical acclaim and even earning the praise of Sir Elton John who called it "one of the albums of the year - absolutely wonderful music." With each new project Vieux broadens his horizons, embraces new challenges and further entrenches his reputation as one of the world’s most talented and innovative musicians.

As a passionate champion for the people of Mali and The Sahel, Vieux founded the charity Amahrec Sahel in 2012. As part of Amahrec Sahel’s mission to support humanitarian reconstruction and culture, the charity has provided school supplies for children, supported an orphanage in Bamako and provided musical instruments for young musicians in Mali. Vieux is also the director of The Ali Farka Touré Foundation, an international organization dedicated to the preservation of Ali’s legacy and the cultural growth of Mali.

THE WHITE BUFFALO

“Everyone knows that you can sing…”

For The White Buffalo – aka singer / songwriter / guitarist Jake Smith, Oregon-born, Southern California-raised – it was time to take the less travelled path; to assemble notions for studio album Number 8, the follow-up to ‘On The Widow’s Walk’ (Snakefarm, 2020), and embark on a voyage of discovery.

 Out with the old, the organic, the expected, the tried; in with the new – new producer, new studio, new location, no distractions, no looking back…

 Enter ‘Year Of The Dark Horse’…

 “You think we’re a country band? A folk band? Americana? Rock? What the fuck are you gonna say now?!” laughs Jake. “With this album, I wanted something outside of what I’ve ever done. I wanted to open up. Do something dangerous. I’m hard to put into a singular genre as it is, but now I really wanted to take away any kind of preconception or pigeon-holing.

 “And don’t ask me, cos I don’t know what it is! It’s a genre-bending thing – there’s elements and influences from ELO, Daniel Lanois, Tom Waits, The Boss, circus, pirate music, yacht rock, and I’m driving and pushing some of these numbers in a way I’ve never done before.

 “At the top of the pandemic, I put the acoustic guitar on its stand, got a synthesizer and began writing on it, not really knowing how to play keys, just exploring the different sounds and landscapes. In the not knowing, it allowed me to expand my vocal melodies and compositions in ways the guitar had possibly limited.” 

 When Jake, flanked by regular touring / recording compadres, bassist / keyboard player / guitarist Christopher Hoffee and drummer Matt Lynott, crossed the threshold of East Nashville’s Neon Cross Studio, a converted Southern Baptist Church, he wasn’t chapter an’ verse prepared, as usual.

 The time before recording had been a crazy one, so there were a bunch of loose ends to be tied (“I’m a perpetual procrastinator” – Jake), plus only three of the 12 songs had been completely written. Jake had maps in his head, but most were mere bones of compositions with only a few key lyrics penned. This allowed producer / studio owner Jay Joyce – plus trusted assistant, Jason Hall – the wiggle room to really get involved, to guide and explore new frontiers …

 “It was a whirlwind of creativity,” recalls Jake. “We tracked 12 songs in 11 days; no over-thinking, no looking for perfection, no egos, no playing it safe, just feel, and I’ve never had a producer act so much like a producer… twisting, elevating and contorting our talents!”

With an impressive clientele numbering Eric Church, Brothers Osborne, Fidlar, Ashley McBryde, Halestorm, Little Big Town, Cage The Elephant, to name just a few, multi-instrumentalist Joyce has a reputation for working at an intense level.

He’s a Grammy Award-winning Producer of the Year (2018), has 4 CMA and 5 ACM Awards, and when it comes to making music, the Ohio native is never one to take the obvious route – perfect for an album featuring a dozen musical vignettes, individual yet constant in flow; an album loosely based around the shifting of the seasons and the shifting of a relationship; an album showing off the complete scope of Jake’s song-writing craft, from the stripped back to the fully loaded…

“Jake is fierce, he basically wrote a whole movie,” says Jay. “We holed up in an old church, in the midst of the pandemic. It was just the four of us, making the soundtrack to his movie, and I have to say, it was inspirational.”

To keep the storyline as clear as possible, the 12 songs were recorded in sequence, with every square inch of Neon Cross brought into play; a new sonic palette was required, a unique set of sounds, and if it meant pushing the musicians into new, sometimes uncomfortable, areas, well, that was the price to pay…

“Oh, he would break at least one of us on the daily!” exclaims Jake. “At some point, we all questioned if we could even sing or play! We’d start at 11, have lunch at one or two, be done by seven, and we felt like we’d gone to war!! Exhausted, our heads spinning. Like, what did we even do today?!

“A lot of stuff was tracked on the fly, and Jay would help guide arrangements, bridges, links, all sorts of things, then he ended up adding other elements in the mix to bind it all together. He’s an insane musician and he would change things on a dime. We’d spend an hour getting a drum tone, then he’d say, ‘Sounds amazing, but any fool can make a drum kit sound good’. So he’d abandon all of that, and end up using a 50 dollar child’s kit mic’d with a singular microphone and pump it through a tiny Marshall amp. His mind works in a manner I’ve never witnessed in anyone else!” 

But what about the vocal recording? Surely Jake’s signature baritone, a much-revered calling card, required nothing more elaborate than a candle-lit corner, some honey, cigarettes and coffee… 

“Not reallyl!” laughs Jake, “he kept putting me in strange and awkward positions – on two or three of the songs, he sat me down on a low-profile couch, with the mic a foot off the ground, so I’m hunched over singing with my knees higher than my head. He was taking away my body, my power. He’d say, ‘Everyone knows that you can sing, bro, what else is there…?’ He was looking for a vibe, a cool factor, not vocal acrobatics. 

“And he’s meticulous about trimming the fat, and about syncopation, where the words are landing. He would also sense if something wasn’t quite working, or if it was getting repetitive; on ‘Love Will Never Come’ he forced me to abandon the vocal melody and lyrics I had prepared, nearing a hundred words, saying it sounded like, ‘Hickory Dickory Dock… I’m bored after hearing that melody twice’. He made me take an entirely different approach, on the spot, like, ‘Make up something cool. Now! GO! GO!’ I’ve never been challenged like that before! The first thing that spilled out of me was the map for that performance. 

“He’s a fucking genius with a splash of bullying ex-wife. You know he’s right, you trust him, and he will push you beyond what you think you’re capable of.” 

For ‘Year Of The Dark Horse’ to achieve its full potential, Jake knew the experience had to be immersive, which is why the Nashville location proved crucial. Not only were the three musicians away from the lures of home, but the house they all stayed in was just a block from the studio, and filled with a variety of instruments. Wherever they were, they could hone in on the project, and some of the songs came together while the clock was ticking…  

“I wrote ‘Love Song #3’ eight days into recording,” remembers Jake. “I knew the story and the scope of the album needed a true love song, so I wrote one from a melody I had swimming around in my head. 

“I work strangely well under desperate conditions,” he continues, making sure to give credit to his fellow musicians, his ‘band of brothers’; they hadn’t heard the songs at all prior to entering the studio, “coming in blind”, but they collectively stepped up to the plate, and beyond, sometimes getting a tune out of instruments they’d never even heard of! 

As for Jake, he was happy to embrace a project where new boxes were being ticked on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. This time around, it was all about building on glories past, adding fresh, exciting, more left-field moments to a style and a sound that has seen his music growing in stature worldwide, supported by key placements in the worlds of TV and film (‘Sons Of Anarchy’, ‘Californication’, ‘The Punisher’, ‘The Terminal List’, etc.).

Over the years, Jake has built a second-to-none reputation for the emotional weight of his music, and here this core element dramatically underpins a body of work that allows the imagination of the listener to play an important part throughout, building on a tale of debauchery (of the drunken variety) and blame, of love and loss, a life lived against the odds, the whole thing set in one lunar year, following our anti-hero through the highs and lows of the seasons. 

And who is this mysterious Donna? And what was she doing in the bar? And in the bathroom?!  (‘She Don’t Know That I Lie’). She’s right there at the heart of the action, and the song that bears her name is probably the most propulsive on the album – an open display of Jake’s deep regard for the great Jeff Lynne…

“During the pandemic, I would ride around on my bike with a speaker on the back, tripping balls, and listening to ELO,” he recollects. “I love Jeff Lynne!”

Hard on the stiletto’d heels of ‘Donna’ comes album closer ‘Life Goes On’, which bring things to a conclusion in gentle, reflective tones. Jake felt his way through the song in the studio, then when he stepped up to do it for real, was told by Joyce that his first take was ‘the one’…

“He wouldn’t let me have another crack! ‘You can’t beat that!’ One single imperfect take when I wasn’t even aware we were recording. Pure, honest, true...”

 Which effectively sums up ‘YOTDH’ as a whole, The White Buffalo’s most unpredictable and inventive work to date, the most well-rounded, too – surprising, spontaneous and spectacularly genre resistant.

THE MOSS

Doors 7pm/ Show 8pm

In a musical landscape with fewer boundaries than ever before,THE MOSS’s exuberant brandof alternative rock spans genres, eras, and even oceans.

The Utah-via-Hawaii group was born on the shores of Oahu in 2015, as teenage buddies TykeJames (vocals/guitar) and Addison Sharp (guitar) picked up a gig serenading diners at localtaco trucks in between surf sessions. Naturally, their songs took shape inthe spirit of the island, imbued with the joyfulness and breeziness of reggae culture yet cut with the introspection and communal spirit of mainland indie acts like Pinegrove and Cage the Elephant.

By 2018, the duo had grown, enlisting Willie Fowler on drums and Addison’s brother Brierton onbass, and traded in beaches for the Great Salt Lake. They hit the stage at spots like localcornerstone Kilby Court, live-testing their modern-indie-meets-’60s-blues with a wide-eyed exuberance that translated effortlessly into their 2019 self-released debut, Bryology.

Colored by the sound of Stratocasters jamming through reverb-cranked Fender amps, allbacked by bouncy rhythms,Bryologymarked a big step for the still-young quartet–but, true to The Moss’s nature,was still hard-coded with a DIY ethos. “We basically had no budget,” James remembers fondly. “We bought some nice mics and an interface and I ended up learning how to mix while we were recording.”

The follow-up, 2021’s Kentucky Derby, brought a more aspirational, blue-sky tilt to thefoundation they’d laid on Bryology, expanding the group’s sonic arsenal while keeping therelatable lyrical style and sun-soaked sentiment at the forefront. “I’m really proud of how we’veevolved as a band over time,” Addison Sharp says. “It feels like we’ve taken every different influence and mashed them all together to create something that feels really special.”

“Bryologyseemed like a collection of separate songs we put together to make an album,whereasKentucky Derbyisa similar thought and story coming together to collectively make amore cohesive album,” adds Brierton Sharp says, noting the album’s tracks are sneakily arranged in pairs of two that seamlessly flow into one another. “Each song could be listened toon itsown, or you could listen to them all and get a broader sense of our intention.

”No matter how listeners choose to interact with The Moss’s music, the band just hopes they feelsomething. It’s that kinetic relationship between band and audience that makestheir live performances–including a pitch-perfect recent set for Audiotree–so compelling. “No matter what we do, we want to make sure the songs are fun to play live,” says Fowler. “We pride our selves on being a band people want to see live.”

“There’s something special that happens when you get an immediate reaction to a song,” says James. “Whether it’s during a live show or even just a songwriting session, if there’s a reaction from people in the room, you know you’re on the right track.”XX

Enjambre has established itself as one of the most important rock bands on the Latin American scene, accumulating thousands of faithful Enjambre listeners, who have made songs like “Dulce Soledad”, “Visita”, “Manía Cardiaca”, “Somos Ajenos”, “Vida en el Espejo”, “Sábado Perpetuo”, among others, hymns that have marked more than one generation.

They are already headliners at the most important venues in Mexico, selling out tickets at the National Auditorium and the Palacio de los Deportes. He is already a star artist at the most important festivals such as P’al Norte in Monterrey, Vive Latino in CDMX, Coordenada in Guadalajara and at Pulso GNP in Querétaro. In July 2022, the Senate of the Republic awarded them recognition for their outstanding musical career. The band has also toured extensively throughout the United States, Spain, Colombia, Peru, Argentina and Central America.

The band from Fresnillo, Zacatecas, presents "Noches de salón" where they reinvent their greatest hits adding seven musician Ensemble. In this special concept, Enjambre will remake their songs, inspired by those Latin American rhythms of yesteryear (such as

danzón, bolero, Cuban son, among many others), which enlivened Ballroom Dances in the 40s and 50s.

They kicked off 2023 in February with a 19-date tour of the United States, with sold-out shows in New York, Denver, Phoenix, Santa Ana and El Paso. In March they successfully returned for the seventh time to Vive Latino as a headliner on the main stage, between Red Hot Chili Peppers and Paul Oakenfold. During April, they returned for the second time to the San Marcos Fair in

Aguascalientes, filling the Foro de las Estrellas with an audience that, like the Vive Latino audience, sang along to all their songs.

In April they performed for the first time in Lima, Peru, as part of the Reactívate Festival. During May they successfully visited Metepec, Ecatepec, Orizaba, Oaxaca, arriving in Querétaro (at Festival City) on May 27. The Salón Noches Tour begins in September, which includes two National Auditoriums and the main venues in the country, and then continues through the United

States and Spain in 2024.

VEEZE

with SPECIAL GUEST TALIBANDO

A shrouded yet essen-al figure in the Michigan rap scene, Veeze is somewhat of a musical enigma, building one of the genre's most die-hard fan bases despite rarely releasing material of his own. Though he solidified his inimitable, lethargic style on debut mixtape Navy Wavy (2019) and a sparse collec-on of 2020s anthems, he remained as prominent outside of music as within it, a constant presence in the social spheres and music videos of the region's most prolific ar-sts. The release of his 2023 effort Ganger brought him major cri-cal aOen-on and Billboard chart placings. Appearing on the scene in 2019, rapper Veeze was immediately identfiable through his understated vocals and breathy ad libs, debu-ng singles "Big Draco" and "Itself" before landing a local hit with the inimitable "Rusty." In what would become his most prolific run, the rapper quickly capitalized with a string of 14 singles and collaborations, including several tracks with close associate and fellow Michigan mainstay Babyface Ray ("Half & Half," "Red Key," "Exo-cs"). His slick, effortless take on the region's sound con-nued on the rapper's first mixtape, Navy Wavy (2019), an 11-track set with appearances from local figureheads Beno, Babyface Ray, and Peezy. In the early 2020s, Veeze appeared in music videos and social media while dropping sporadic features and singles of his own. He began 2020 with some one-off experimenta-on -- the drowsy "Them One Guys," the Kanye West flip "Flamie Foxx," and the Big Pun-sampling "Fat Albert" -- before his regional sound con-nued to develop on solo singles "Veeze Glo," "Yoa Twin," and "Friend of Mine." This loose schedule con-nued into 2021 and 2022, with the rapper drip-feeding singles like "A&W," "Kurt Angle," "Choppas in Hawaii," and "Let It Fly." With a slower release schedule came a more dedicated fan base -- several online channels dedicated to the rapper soon aOracted a following of their own, piecing together unreleased songs previewed on his social media. In 2023, he released one of his biggest singles, "GOMD," as well as a remix featuring Lil Uzi Vert. Both versions appeared on the second Veeze full-length, Ganger, which also included appearances by Lucki and Lil Yachty. The rapper received increased press coverage, and the release charted in the Billboard 200.

TORNILLO

with DHARIUS

Doors 7pm/ Show 7:30pm

CHRIS RENZEMA - MANNA TOUR

Doors 7pm/ Show 8pm

For Chris Renzema, becoming an artist was something that happened slowly but inevitably. Chris was always drawn to writing and playing songs, but his hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan didn’t have much of a music scene. After moving to Nashville in 2015 to pursue a career in music, he's seen slow but steady success. Since then, the musician, songwriter, and producer has released three albums: 2018's Be the Branches, 2020's Let the Ground Rest in 2020 and 2021's Get Out of the Way of Your Own Heart. Chris’ latest album, Manna, recorded in January at Nashville’s Sound Emporium, represents a culmination of everything he’s done so far. The album reflects on big questions while remaining both personal and accessible. That relationship between audience and artist is something Chris has honed for years on the road as well. He began regularly touring in 2019 and has been building a steady fan base since, playing iconic venues including Red Rocks and Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. While Chris has garnered numerous accolades, including being named on Pandora’s “Artist to Watch” list and earning a GMA Dove Award nomination for New Artist of the Year, it’s his dynamic live shows that have truly cemented him as a musician on the rise.

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possible exposure.

PETEY 

with PHONEY

Doors 7pm/ Show 8pm