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Boston-based artist, Jonatha Brooke, grew up dancing. She also grew up loving music, taking choir in school, playing bass in her 8th grade rock band and she even joined an a cappella group. But it wasn’t until her junior year in college that she got the urge to write songs – a feeling that has since remained throughout her life, from early successes in the 90s to more substantial ones later on. Brooke, who has co-written with stars like Katy Perry and composed songs for Disney and TV show-runner, Joss Whedon, continues to challenge herself. The work can always be better, she says. Hers is a mentality that has propelled her to a prolific and fruitful career. And Brooke’s latest achievement is the release of her forthcoming LP, The Sweetwater Sessions, out tomorrow (July 10th).

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Bay Area singer-songwriter, Drea Jeann, functions best with a regimen. It’s been this way since she was young. Jeann, who first started singing at three-years-old – jumping on stage during a cruise ship talent show – craves structure. As a young person, she signed up for programs at school and in church. She performed musical theater. But it wasn’t until she joined an a cappella group in high school that her ambition really took hold. It was then she knew she wanted to dedicate herself to music.

Today, after some tumultuous personal ups and downs, Jeann is poised to set new, reinvigorated sights on her creative goals, the most recent of which includes the release of her autobiographical track, “Dying to Stay Alive.”

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In many ways, Nathan Willett, front man for the electric-elastic rock ‘n’ roll group, Cold War Kids, is restarting everything. Willett, whose group grew from grassroots in its original Southern California home, has since achieved great successes. From backyard jam sessions to playing in front of tens of thousands regularly, Cold War Kids has, for all intents and purposes, achieved its central goals. But rather than give up playing music now, Willett is starting the journey over again. It excites him, energizes his ambitions. The process began with the group’s 2019 release, New Age Norms 1, and will continue with New Age Norms 2, which is set to hit the streets August 21st (with a special song debut today for “You Already Know”).

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The ground-shaking, precedent-setting punk rock band, Bad Brains, hit the commercial scene and began wowing audiences in 1979. But while the band released their eponymous debut LP in 1982, the group first got together and started to practice in earnest around 1977. At that time, says band front man, Human Rights (aka H.R., born Paul Hudson), it was all about rehearsing, nailing the sound and speed that Bad Brains would quickly and thereafter become known for. In the end, though, the focus for the group was primarily two-fold: play as fast as possible for the audience and play its signature punk rock music with an underlying positive mentality.

“What I saw was missing in those early punk rock days,” says H.R., “was the message and how it wasn’t too positive. That’s where I would change the message and make it more positive. We had a philosophy: PMA. Positive Mental Attitude. I got the idea from this Napoleon Hill book called, Think & Grow Rich, which talked about how you should be positive and keep determined. We were always determined.”

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Life can change in an instant. If you had – at just the right time – read an ad on a Scottish music message board, then you too might be in the popular Glasgow-based rock ‘n’ roll band, The Fratellis. Because at that time, some 15 years ago, only two other people responded to a post that front man, Jon Fratelli, put out. Those musicians – Mince and Barry – comprise, along with Jon, the hit trio. Flash forward to today and the rock group is set to release its sixth studio LP, Half Drunk Under a Full Moon, in the fall on October 30th. The band will celebrate that reality today with the official unveiling of its newest music video for the song, “Six Days in June,” which we are happy to premiere here.

“Barry and Mince were the only people who replied to the advert,” says Fratelli. “Nobody else called. That’s clearly a sign that we were supposed to find each other. We didn’t have to make much effort.”

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Buzz Osborne has been making records for 37-years. And while for some, that might not be much to sneeze at, for Osborne, who was born in a town of about 900 people and later moved to a town of about 1,800, the fact that he’s recorded music, known the members of Nirvana (and just about every other famous grunge band) and been such an historic influence on Pacific Northwest songwriting (and beyond), is astonishing. Osborne, who is constantly writing and releasing music, will continue his epic career with the release of his latest acoustic LP, Gift of Sacrifice, slated for August 14th.

“I was about 12 when I first got into listening to music,” Osborne says. “I was in a strange position as a kid. I didn’t have any older siblings, didn’t have any cool friends – I didn’t have any friends at that point, hardly. I lived in a very rural community in rural Washington State with almost nobody there.”

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Just six months into playing the guitar and singing, Australian musician, Ziggy Alberts, played his first show. But for those that know him, this was no big surprise. The songwriter is adept at diving into big situations and swimming expertly back up to the top. With a warm smile and a bright batch of energy, Alberts offers ideas of unity and appreciation in his buoyant music. His is a positive attitude. But it’s not one presented without discernment or investigation. Indeed, Alberts is an eloquent talker and a curious artist and while his music is often bubbly and joyous, he’s a thorough thinker, as displayed on his latest single, “Don’t Get Caught Up,” which we’re happy to premiere here today. 

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Within the span of two months, Nashville singer-songwriter, Anna Graceman, experienced two traumatic events that changed her life. In one moment, Graceman, eating in a restaurant, witnessed people firing automatic weapons in the streets – towards her. Weeks later, Graceman was carjacked, pushed toward bushes as someone stole her car. While situations like these would leave anyone shaken, Graceman made it her duty to turn those moments into music, as difficult as it was. In so doing, the versatile singer sees life differently now. She sees more clearly the oversaturation of guns in the country and the fear and violence that too-often propel society. All of this and more are highlighted in Graceman’s new music video for the song, “Night Follows,” out today.

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Ever since he was a young person falling in love with music, Pacific Northwest songwriter, Noah Gundersen, has been at it. Since 2008, the 31-year-old artist has released 13 studio records and likely many other compositions along the way. It all began at 9-years-old when Gundersen first began taking piano lessons. While he loathed them, he still loved music. So, his father gave him a guitar and he began writing. Gundersen, who was homeschooled, had time aplenty on his hands and, since he felt he could only express himself properly through song, he did so over and over again.

“I didn’t have a lot of friends,” Gundersen jokes.

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Nashville-based musician, Maggie Rose, began to sing before she could even speak. In this way, she’s always been forward thinking, readying herself for the future and her place in it while practicing what most contents her sensibilities. Flash-forward a couple decades and, today, Rose is a full-fledged Americana singer-songwriter, blossoming and burgeoning in the genre that itself is doing so, too. Rose’s latest offering – the spritely “Help Myself” – is a nod to her creative core and her ambition to improve. The song, however, never loses track of the lighter side of life and the humor that it takes to press on in a world full of changes and challenges.

“There’s a levity to ‘Help Myself,’ a sarcasm and a self-deprecating angle,” Rose says. “It’s about this idea, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing and neither do you but we’ll figure it out together.’ It’s okay to not be okay, to not know all the answers right now.”

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When listening to Peter Donovan’s new debut solo single, “Good To Be Alive,” it’s impossible not to hear a little tragedy in the melody. Donovan, who also fronts the Seattle-based Americana band, All The Real Girls, wrote and recorded the song before the Coronavirus pandemic for the Emerald City’s Bushwick Book Club, which hosts regular shows featuring music based on popular books. Inspired by the children’s series, Frog and Toad, the chorus for the song is, “It’s good to be alive, with a friend by your side. It’s good to be alive these days.” And while music exists, in some way, on its own, outside of context, in another way, this particular song, when heard within the context of COVID-19 is eerie.

“It’s really weird,” Donovan says. “I did write and record it right before the lockdown happened. I kind of wrote it as this, ‘Hey, look on the bright side of life, life’s not that bad!’ But now it almost has this very literal overtone, too.”

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