Written by Shea Roney | Featured Photo by Braeden Long
Across the country, on a mission from the highest order, young pop song swooners and DIY consumers embarked on a journey down to Durham and Carrboro North Carolina to be a part of history. Returning for its second year in a row, The Big Pop Show, held March 20th-23rd, was a four-day fest put on by friends Nathan McMurray, Lilian Fan, Eli Schmitt, Annie Vedder and Charlotte Kane.
Beyond the live music, BPS also hosted a discussion panel that interrogated ethical ways of engaging with art and sustaining the local communities involved in its creation. The Panels were “Beyond Aesthetics: Art, ethics and individual responsibility in times of political unrest” and “Airwaves to Algorithms: Technology, artistic consumption, and the economy of attention”.
With the help of Averi Love Little, we collected photos from Braeden Long, Kian Kermani, Shannon McMahon, Chance Venable, Audra Barbieri, Finch McGowan, and Emily Burrows, as well as quotes from the artists and organizers involved, to capture the joy, friendship and the resounding community that prospered at The Big Pop Show 2026.
Kellen and Susie of Good Flying Birds by Chance Venable
Handstand by Braeden LongCharlotte, Lilian, Eli, Annie, Nathan by Kian Kermani
“the big pop show meant everything to me. i was there for all 30+ sets and film screenings and i still feel like i missed out. there was an incalculable amount of magic and energy in the air. i could see the connections and friendships forming before my eyes, and there is nothing that makes me happier than to see people in joy, in love, in hope and empowerment together in space. every single set was some of the best music i’ve seen from these artists, and never was there a moment of envy or competition, only pure inspiration.” – Eli Schmitt (Organizer/TV Buddha)
Eilee and Evren by Kian KermaniDonkey Basketball by Averi Love Little
“Disregarding the boatloads of brilliant sets, the late-late Saturday Night / Sunday Morning Cookout parking lot tailgate was a sight that will never escape my memory. Practically hundreds of freakazoid losers like ourselves lost en masse into the quesadilla-quesadilla-quesadilla tray madness alongside a particularly great hang.” – Isaac Lowenstein(Donkey Basket/Lifeguard)
Van Goth by Chance Venable
“It felt like summer camp! I guess playing in a wooden room cemented that feeling, but so did all the amazing people from all over the country meeting in one place” – Sydney Salk(Van Goth)
“We have a lot of electronics and had to play a stripped back set with the minimal sound system – but somehow this got a rowdy bunch of young people to watch silently. Within 30 minutes sweaty mosh pits had broken out in the same room. These people were here for the music.” – Simon Schadler (Van Goth)
Piper + Kathleen by Audra BarbieriPaige by Kian KermaniPaper Jam by Braeden Long
Arm Wrestling by Kian KermaniTouch Girl Apple Blossom by FinchMcGowanLizzie by Audra Barbieri
“The Big Pop Fest has always been almost like the central point to a much larger community. It feels almost like one of those detective boards, where we could take string and connect all these bands across the country to each other and the commonality would be Pop Fest. On the surface level I would say it’s been a joy to watch so many talented artists perform and has been truly transformative for me as a musician; but on a much deeper level, it has given me some of my best friends in the world. To feel understood completely by your peers is a truly special thing and I think if nothing else, that’s one thing I gained from my years there. There is absolutely nothing like it, and honestly I don’t know if there ever will be. I’m just glad I’ve been lucky enough to witness it for myself.” – Lizzie Cooper(PARKiNG)
The Sourdrops by Shannon McMahonHenry and Braedenby Emily Burrows
“It was a grand get-together of pop heads, new and old. Many fun times were had. The second nights after party had the floor of the Duke Coffeehouse bouncing to the beat of Donkey Basketball. It is really awesome that we all got to share that weekend with everyone that was there.” – The Sourdrops
Nathan and Dad by Braeden LongLillian of Little Chair by FinchMcGowan
“My favorite memory was probably watching PIPE play, they are great friends of ours but also local legends of the triangle that I look up to. It was wholesome to dance with everyone at like a truly all ages show. Also the panel on Sunday at coffeehouse was great! Highlights were discussions around what it meant for art to be political beyond just making overt political statements, and when John Davis from folk implosion was talking about the importance of engaging with artists in real life through the merch table etc. it was awesome.” – Lilian Fan(Organizer/Duped/Little Chair)
“The whole thing was like a controlled explosion – I think Nathan and Eli have this magnificent ability to grasp the whole network of spectacular projects working right now. Streamlining it all… And our set was absolutely visceral. We played on the ground and I’d look up sometimes, see people on their hands and knees in front of me. I felt like everyone in the room could read my thoughts and their movements were responses. It was really so special.” –AJ Bond (Instrument)
“For me, it was really the moment right after I got back from the Pop Fest, I was listening to the Red Xerox Tape Expo on YouTube and going through the comments. You should read the top one if you haven’t, it summed up my feelings pretty well. Some guy from Montreal.” – Lu Bond (Instrument)
“Grass lawns with fashionable people sprawled out, welcomed us to The Pop Show. Friends from different states reunited and many new friendships blossomed around each corner.
Cole opened our set with handstands as I beat his drum. It was sanctuary to smile, a place to dance, a place to connect – what a lovely time it was!” – Angie Willcut(Artificial Go)
“Pip Says Relax” by Kian Kermani
“There was something very serene and meditative about the entire event. I was expecting a lot of rambunctious and mania, but the heat combined with the length of the show, where all of the bands started to blend into another and conversate with each other’s performance, created this ease and content that cradled our performance really well. Everyone was sat down, and engaged, I could feel the impact and the fact that people were taking something from our show, there was a true exchange.” – Kali Flanagan (Superfan)
Braeden Screenprint GFB by EmilyBurrows“Let’s go swimming” by Shannon McMahon
“Big Pop was fun as hell! Massive respect to the organizers. House party after show was like a movie, someone was walking around with a ‘Big Pop’ cake while we we’re hanging by the fire – that was a memorable moment.” – Jake (K9)
Every Wednesday, the ugly hug shares a playlist personally curated by an artist/band that we have been enjoying. This week we have a collection of songs put together by Nicole Rodriguez of the New York-based project Pearla.
Last week, Pearla released Song Room, a stunning collection of folkloric vignettes that ground a presence where much often goes unnoticed in this fast-paced world. Waking in a blurred daze, Rodriguez tries to find focus through each track, working out what shapes and colors could be interpreted as when compared to what is actually right in front of her. Blending colorful explorations with whispering tinctures that bleed like citrus, these songs peel back with sweet melodies, while dynamic voicings stick in your teeth like the pith of the fruit you bite into. Song Room is a remarkable sense of self, tracking bits of growth that can often be hard to visualize when you are the one laying the groundwork. But it’s in the imaginative depictions, the acute pieces of collective thoughts and the mental dust that builds up over time where Pearla begins to pick and peel at those inner comforts we so often long for.
About the playlist, Rodriguez shared;
“I gathered some songs about singing and songs. I’ve recently been drawn to songs that mention the medium of song itself, and my newest album is called ‘Song Room.’ I am endlessly fascinated and comforted by the form of song, so here’s a variety of songs that either celebrate that or even just briefly touch upon it”
You can listen to Song Room out now. Grab a copy on CD and vinyl. Pearla will also be playing at the Color Club in Chicago on April 30th. Grab tickets now.
Instigating that old New York draw, once southern now NY-based Badger Hunt are a natural concoction of punk rock dirt and pop-soaked nourishments. Started as a solo project for Miles Lee Ellisor to collect songs on an old 4track, their debut LP Bullseyes & other Lucky Stuff was released back in 2025. Since then, Badger Hunt has gone through scenic routes of shifting genres, filling out a full country band to the latest two-piece power incantation with drummer Jamie McCarthy. Badger Hunt returned earlier this year with Full Moon in My Pocket, a performance of some old back pocket magic that bleeds with both sincerity and grit.
Full Moon was recorded last summer in Chicago with the help of friends Grace Bader Conrad & Kai Slater. After these songs were recorded, the album was set on the back burner as Lee Ellisor went off to Madrid to study for a semester. But what’s rooted with sharp pronunciations of formative noise and kinship obsessions, Badger Hunt leads with a gnarly bite. The sweet, lucid melodies that the duo invest their time in belly up to the choppy guitars and percussive movements of a punchy tambourine and potent refrains, allowing the excitement to linger long after its discovery. Full Moon in My Pocket never feels indebted to the bounds of its lo-fi tracking or the brevity of its pacing, but finds the duo pushing at the seams of their creative collaboration.
We got to ask Badger Hunt some questions about the project, putting the album on hold, music videos and the practice of archiving.
Badge Hunt consists of you two, Miles and Jamie, but this is only the latest configuration of the project’s journey. Starting as Miles’ solo project, then a four piece country band to the rock n roll duo we are talking to, tell me about the significance of the shifts this band has taken.
Miles: Okay, so the origins of Badger Hunt actually started around this time in late 2024 when I was feeling really stressed out with another band, and I wanted a little escape for myself to make songs and just have fun in doing so. It was just for me and I could write as short or silly or simple stuff as I wanted! At this time, I was also trying to get better at acoustic guitar and I began to learn about the wonders of stuff like the twelve-bar blues and John Fahey’s finger-plucking.
Jamie: It’s worth noting that at the time, early last year in 2025, both of our main bands actually broke up within a week of each other.
M: It was around then I learned about Bandcamp, and then I started hearing about this thing called a 4-track, and Jamie taught me how to use one. And then I was gifted one over winter break, thank you to my mother! The week before spring semester 2025, I recorded a bunch of songs, and it was really fun. I was releasing it solely for myself and I really felt very free in that. And then it was very natural that Jamie got involved, because he helped me with the 4-track, our old bands were always playing shows together, and Jamie was also always staying in my dorm because he was and is Shannon’s girlfriend! After releasing the record, I wanted to play a show with a full band so it kind of just turned into a country band. And Jamie, as the wonderful drummer he is, just ended up playing in it. What did you think about the country band part?
J: My band had broken up, and I had no other gigs. *Both laughing* It was natural. When you were like, “Oh, do you want to do this?” I was like, “Yes, yes, of course.” The country format was cool. I don’t think it fully got to mature in that form–we played like two shows, right?
M: Yeah, we played one in February 2025 for the release of the album and that was super fun, but it was scrappy for sure. And then we played one in April 2025 in Riverside Park for our Barnard friends of the Poetrees sphere, Ana Sofia and Penny. That was also super fun, but I definitely don’t think it did get to fully mature. We were still very much figuring it out. We ended up becoming the rock and roll thing we are now, because two of our members, who were freshmen, went home for the summer, and so it was just us two. I remember we were actually considering maybe becoming a punk band with our friend Rafer, we were talking a lot about Snõõper. But then I was like, “What if we just, you know, became two-piece with the songs we have now?” And then we did, and it’s been super fun. I think now the Badger Hunt duo is sort of matured, but I am sort of sometimes curious what it would have been like if we really have gotten our shit together with the country mode of it.
J: I mean, I don’t know, if we ever get sick of this, we could!
M: Bro, we can be like The Byrds, you know, when they released ‘Sweetheart of the Rodeo’, and all of the sudden got super country. And it was because that guy Gram Parsons joined for just that album and then left. Afterwards they mostly stopped being as country… But yeah anyway, now we’re fully rock, punk, roll, stuff.
You recently released your latest album titled Full Moon in My Pocket. How did you two want to approach this album as a newly solidified force? What sort of things did you each bring to the table? Did you challenge each other at all in the process?
J: You brought pretty much all the songs, save one, to the table. I remember when we got together and started turning them into rock n roll songs, it came pretty naturally.
M: Yeah, it was surprisingly easier than I thought to take the songs from acoustic folk to punk/rock n roll/loud and fast. I think there’s that same sort of ethos between the two ends that makes it easy to translate the bones of the songs from one to the other. It’s all about the spirit!
J: Yeah, folk is like three chords and soft, and rock and roll is those three chords but hard.
M: And then we started doing a lot of little jam stuff during practice, especially as we were trying to get more comfortable playing with each other one-on-one. A lot of those jams ended up going on to the album, because we finished our other songs a lot faster than we thought we would when we were in Chicago recording them. So we’re like, “Fuck it. Let’s just add more!” Also, it’s so important to say that if I tried to record this album on my own, it would have sounded completely different. Jamie, in his drumming style, brought something special or maybe just crazy to the table.
J: When it’s just two people, weirdly, you have to do more and less at the same time as a drummer. You have to write more hooks as a drum part, but they can’t be so crazy that you forget to hold the beat down. You have to find a way to keep the beat, but also write a catchy part.
M: I feel like we have to think about that balance a lot. We were just trying to play ‘These Boots Are Made for Walkin’’ and at the end, with that little lick they play, if I were just to play it clean, it would completely gut the sound of the whole thing, and it would sound very empty because we’re working with just one guitar and no bass. So it’s definitely a balance where neither of us can get too crazy. A lot of times, simplicity really is best.
J: I remember when we were recording ‘Bullet’, there was a middle section where I was trying to be all jazzy and tripletty. And then I remember, I looked at Kai–
M: He was like scrolling on reels on his phone!
J: Yeah he was just curled up on the couch on his phone, only half present, and I asked him, “What do you think about this part?” And he just locked in. He said, “One of you has to hold it down.” I think about that sometimes. That was a good way to put it.
M: He made a reference to, um, was it The Gories?
J: Yeah!
M: Oh wait, um, did we challenge each other? I think yes.
J: I believe so.
M: I believe we challenged each other.
You put out some very unique and fun videos to correspond with this album, including the music video for “Be Yr Man”, shot 50% in Madrid and 50% in NYC, as well as the full album video. First, about “Be Yr Man”, Miles, you were studying abroad at that time in Madrid. What was that like for you, keeping that connection to the band across the ocean? Jamie, what sort of things from home in NYC did you make sure to include in the video?
M: We decided to really put everything on pause when I went to Madrid, especially because I’m a very busy bee sort of person who always has too much on their plate. So when I went to Madrid, I really tried to just chill. We recorded the album in August 2025 and initially I wanted to put it out in the fall, but Jamie convinced me to wait till the spring so we could have a proper release, which I’m glad we did.
J: I think that was the right call, but it was also hard or just awkward to grind all summer and finally come out the other end with fifteen recorded songs and then wait six months to release them.
M: I wouldn’t say the connection itself was too hard, we were just going about doing our own things. The hardest thing was just figuring out the song mixes with the four of us being in different time zones.
J: Yeah Miles in Madrid, me in New York, and Grace and Kai in Chicago.
M: Crazy! And we’re all very busy people all the time. So we that was difficult, but it all worked out in the end.
J: Shoutout Grace and Kai.
M: Yeah, major shouts. But yeah, by the time I got back to New York in December, I was just really feral for an amp and drums. I was really excited to pick it all back up and start going again.
J: As for the New York video, our friend Darlene did the New York part. We just got some friends together and hung out and walked around and did silly things and we pulled up on Silas Five at his work to film him hopping around.
M: We tried to make a plan before–
J: The plan was just vaguely like–
M: Go get pizza, go find flowers–
J: Oh yeah we wanted to alternate between each city with the lyrics.
M: We made a storyboard, it was actually a couple pages long! And it was just like, “You get these shots, I get these shots, and then we both just get miscellaneous hanging out and dancing and partying.” Some of the transitions worked really well, and then some of them, well, made no sense. And it was just kind of funny, because it was like, “What the hell are we watching?” Also Jake Henkel and Zoe Avraamides filmed the Madrid part.
As for the full album video, I feel it’s the perfect visual for Full Moon in My Pocket. Did you put any plan into what you wanted to do, or was it just camera rolling? Was it hard to keep moving for that long?
M: I had an idea, and I told Shannon and Jamie something like, “Guys, instead of just putting the album on YouTube, we should totally just have a camera rolling and play the album, and dance for 30 minutes straight.” And they were just like, “Okay… Sure…”
J: It should be noted that that video was filmed after midnight, and it was my worst day ever, and it was the day before we needed to have everything ready for the release.
M: Yeah it was crazy. I remember I was so tired and brain dead, and then I ate Cane’s and I was like “OK. I’m ready to dance.” And at the same time, we had friends in the other room helping make our buttons for us, which was really kind. But anyway, Shannon brought her camera and we just set it up in my room. We actually didn’t have any plan for what we would do–
J: And I think you can tell. *laughing* But it was really fun.
M: It was hard to keep moving for that long, but it was also just hard to think of stuff to do. I ended up just looking around and finding objects to pick up and play with, like the Cane’s arnold palmer, umbrella, hats, acoustic guitar, books, Walkman, a whole lantern. We were just messing around. And it really was a one take thing. The only reason why there’s a stop in the middle is because Shannon wanted to stop the camera so we didn’t accidentally lose footage. So she just stopped it and started it again immediately.
J: It was just very like, “Alright, we’re gonna do this thing,” and then we did it. And then it was like, “Alright, we did the thing.” Lol.
M: We were just having a giggle fest the whole time. I don’t think there was much time I wasn’t laughing or talking in that video. I think it was because we were sleep deprived.
J: Yeah there was an element of hysteria in there…
Miles, in the past, you have put together two compilations called Free Noise, which were recordings from open mic events that you helped put together that featured performances by trans, queer & non-binary artists. Tell me about these events and what they mean to you as an artist, a documentor and a fan of music and community in general.
M: Well, I volunteer at the Interference Archive, which is a horizontally-organized, all-volunteer, open-stacks archive in Park Slope. It’s full of donated print material from all around the world going decades and decades back, and it’s all related to social movements and generally radical organizing. The volunteers also put on events, and what I put on is Free Noise. And we actually just had the third one, and that was a great time. But just with all the disheartening, horrible things going on in this country, especially all the incessant political attacks against trans people, it feels important to have somewhere where we can just have fun and enjoy each other’s presence and art and community for an evening. There’s something so beautiful about that. When there’s a bunch of people that are going through the same struggles all sitting in a room together and sharing things that bring them joy, it’s very uplifting. There’s always so much warmth in the room when we do these open mics, it feels like a respite, a relief, a little sanctuary for the time being. And actually Jamie played one.
J: I played the first one and it was the first time I played guitar in front of people. It was fun!
M: Yes! And doing the open mics is good practice for design, organizing, music tech, all sorts of things. Archiving is really important to me too, so I make sure to record all of them so that they go on Bandcamp afterward for free. It serves as a document that trans people will always exist forever and ever, as will their art. And here it is, and it’s so beautiful!!! Alright that’s all. Ready?
Hit play on Robber Robber’s sophomore album, and you’re instantly confronted with a gritty guitar that sounds like a fucked-up foghorn, acting like a warning of what’s to come. Two Wheels Move the Soul, the latest project from the Burlington, VT quartet, is constantly in motion, oscillating between moments of calmness and chaos over the course of its 30-minute run time.
Two Wheels Move the Soul was written in the wake of Robber Robber co-founders Nina Cates and Zack James’s unexpected displacement from their home. The anxiety and loss of control is palpable across the record, which is populated with vague, slightly menacing vignettes. In opener “The Sound It Made,” Cates cooly delivers lines like “I don’t wanna get stuck like this/Climb in if you want, climb fast cause it won’t stop” over quick moving drums, boosted bass and what sounds like a revving chainsaw. It’s the first song of many to allude to unnamed, shadowy figures, in this case a “vicious man…/Says a lot that we’re with him.” Perhaps they’re referencing the landlord who decided to demolish Cates and James’s home? The unsettling feeling is accompanied well by a music video filmed in a dilapidated office space that could be part of the trailer to the new A24 Backrooms movie.
Feelings of discontent about work, property, and capitalism permeate the album. In “New Year’s Eve,” Cates acknowledges feeling ground down but needing to make money, singing “There’s human feats of genius/Then there’s what I did today.” Later on, she again addresses a seemingly hungry, mysterious figure in “It’s Perfect Out Here in The Sun,” saying “Lining up my favorite stuff/Looks perfect but it’s not to touch/And I can see you, I can see you, I can see you wanting more.”
Throughout the record, Cates plays with her voice, sliding effortlessly between quick spoken bars (inspired by Gucci Mane and Lou Reed) and sweeter, breathy singing. She settles into that softer side on second track “Avalanche Sound Effect.” Over dissonant guitars and a blown-out drum machine, her airy vocals layer over themselves, creating a dynamic ending that sounds like a roughed up Cortex song.
It’s not just the vocals on the album that move between genres—the instrumental arrangements do too. The slow, militaristic drums on lo-fi interlude “Imprint” contrast with the fast moving pace of “Talkback,” an indie-rock banger that features bright guitars and staccato bass.
The album never loses its slightly frenetic energy but seems to grow lighter as it progresses. Over harmonizing guitar lines on “Again,” Cates sings “Can on a string hangs right above my bed/I told it everything/Hope you’re on the other end.” It’s a charming picture amidst lines about sickness, bleeding and corrosion.
While Two Wheels Move the Soul was created during a time of upheaval for the band, Robber Robber found support within their Burlington community, with Cates and James staying on the couches of scene leaders like Lily Seabird. The closest place to a home emerged at Little Jamaica Studios, where they could find solace in the music with their engineer Benny Yurco. Recording the record became a respite from the uncertainty of their day to day lives, but inevitably the album is steeped in movement. Two Wheels Move the Soul makes you sit with the idea of being constantly in motion: hiding, running, slipping, speeding, dancing, punching, falling. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s rooted in truth. Life barrels on like a car with the brakes cut, and all we can do is try to keep up.
Two Wheels Move the Soul is out now on Fire Talk records. You can also purchase it on CD and vinyl.
Written by Shea Roney | Photo Courtesy of Sleep Tight Tiger
“In a small town called Ypsilanti, where Iggy Pop would listen to Motown and catch flying frogs by the river, arose four friends with a magnificent dream: to make music that could rival a tiger.”
Last month, Ypsilanti, Michigan-based band, Sleep Tight Tiger, shared their debut album with the world, seven songs under the title Plum Something. Made up of collaborators and BFFs Evan Beane, Laura Topf, Ruby Howard, and Steve Poeschel, this project initial started as an inside joke back in 2023 to play one show, under the name The Goopies, and tragically break up on stage that night. But there is no such thing as a joke without a surprise. A year after that singularly influential show, the four were back together writing tunes and playing shows.
Plum Something provides proof of journey over destination; where snacks for the road and change in your pocket linger with the same anticipation of a simple jam session and a really solid pop song. Flowing like little doodles in a sketchbook, ideas parsing through colorful influences and shared impulses, the songs that Sleep Tight Tiger create are never deterred to lead with a bit of whimsy or a nasty bite. At their core, songs like “Skate” and “Jeannie” flow with excitement, where jangly guitars get tangled in sweet melodies like a string of twinkle lights, and songs like “Tiny Poem” curdles the blood with its lucid fever, vocal shrieks and punk-rock antiquity. Yet, as they will say themselves, this was never going to be an album. But these tracks are snug as a bug in a rug, regardless the direction they are pulled. It’s the pure joy that lives in these tunes, the same that is also embedded in their collaboration, that feels uniquely intuitive to what’s to come out of the St Tiger universe in the foreseeable future.
We recently got to chat with Sleep Tight Tiger about playing into the jokes, their style of collaboration and keeping the tiger in mind.
You guys met at the freeform radio station that you all were a part of, and just started jamming just for fun?
Laura: Essentially, yeah. Steve and I had been in a band beforehand. So, if I remember it correctly… actually, I don’t remember it, but we were kind of like, ‘we should play, that’s fun.’
Evan: I don’t think there was a defining moment, it just occurred to us one day that we all played music, and it just made sense that we should all play music together.
Laura: The only reason why we played a show at all was because Ruby was leaving to study abroad in Japan, and we thought it would be funny if we played one show as a band and then broke up. So, yeah, one night only, and we were gonna immediately break up after. And we were thinking of how we can fight on stage. We’re really into performance.
And it was a one-off under the name The Goopies?
Ruby: Yeah, that name was based off of one of Steve and Laura’s favorite bands called The Doopies.
Laura: Which is this fake band that this composer and pop musician from Japan started. One of the people from Buffalo Daughter was one of the vocalists, so he essentially just had two voice actors playing little girls who went on a space coming-of-age journey. Steve and I love it. We were like, how can we capture that? And we just needed a name for a poster, essentially.
Starting off in this very loose headspace around what this project is and could be, how did you eventually approach the idea of writing songs and putting out a debut EP?
Ruby: I was gone for a semester, and I got back for Laura’s graduation, and she was like, ‘I’m just gonna move to Ypsilanti.’ And we’re all still here, so we started practicing in the freeform radio station and writing songs that summer of 2025. We have a very good friend, Evan Courtney, who Evan is also in a band with. He was trying to set up a recording studio in his basement, and we had all these originals that we were playing over and over. He was like, ‘I really need to practice recording some people’. And we were like, ‘well, if you record us, it would be the lowest stakes project ever – we would like the lo-fi sound and we’re not too fussy.’ It would be fun to record these originals that we had, and so he recorded us for free, basically for practice.
Laura: To me, it wasn’t on my radar. I saw it as, I guess he needs practice, so we will record. I had never had the experience of recording music and I don’t really know anyone who has either. I never thought that was a thing that you could just do.
Steve: But I also remember that every time we would practice, we just thought it would be nice to have these recorded somewhere that isn’t on voice memos. I think we all collectively thought we got something here, we got something with this! [Screams]
Did that motivation change at all when you got into the studio? Or did it take actually finishing the recordings to feel like, oh, shit, we did that?
Laura: It felt like such a goof-around moment. We recorded all of the music in a day, and then we came back to do the vocals separately. I mean, I’ve known Evan for five years. So, it was kind of just like hanging out.
Evan: The way we set up the recording process, we didn’t really do any overdubs on the instruments. We pretty much played everything you hear on the album live. We just set it up as we would playing a concert, which I think is more of an untraditional way of recording in the modern day. So it definitely felt more comfortable, and I think allowed us to express a lot of that rawness you would see if we were playing a show or something.
Laura: A lot of my confidence as a musician comes from being with these three. If I had to record my tracks by myself, it would not be the wonderful experience that it actually was.
Steve: It sort of puts into perspective that being in a band is awesome and fun and sunshine and rainbows, but then it does sort of feel like at a certain point, you do have to treat it like a job. There was a point where we’re all kind of trying to lock in, and you’ve been there for six hours – I sort of compare it to trying to full combo a song in rock band, where everyone’s trying to get 100%, and then I’ll fuckin’ mess up on the drums, and then everyone turns around, they’re like, ‘bro, we gotta run this again. Let me full combo twist right now.’
With the thought of recording it all live, did you guys have any expectations of the way you wanted these songs to sound?
Ruby: We really like the lo-fi sound. There’s a lot of music coming out right now that is recorded to tape, and we really did like that sound and how thrown together it was. But Evan [Courtney] is a very talented mixing artist, and he really wanted to dial these things in. So we sent him a couple different albums for inspiration, like Tiger Trap, Tallulah Gosh, Dear Nora, those kinds of artists and sounds. But we got to basically go back into his studio and tweak the songs with him, which was very nice to be there. It could have been something that was super flash-in-the-pan, record to tape, but it wasn’t. We really dialed it in. We even got someone to master it for us, so the end product ended up being just a million times cleaner. I wouldn’t say better, but it was just so much more crispy than I was ever expecting.
Evan: Overall, I think it gave me more confidence in our music. When you’re focused on having a really lo-fi, trashy sound, but then listening to these very polished recordings and realizing, like, oh, our music sounds really good with this good recording process. It helped us realize that we could take this to the next level.
Laura: To the moon!
Laura: I played a show, and the former music director at WCBN was talking to me, and he’s like, ‘knowing you guys and your tastes, I don’t want to mean this in any bad way, but I thought you guys were just gonna record this in your basement or something’. And I was like, we did record it in a basement, just with Evan Courtney mixing it, and then Fred Thomas mastering it.
Ruby: And all the guys that work at the record store – we couldn’t have done any of this without the people in our community, in our spaces. We really owe it to them, and I want to continuously shout them out. We wrote these songs, but they didn’t sound like this when we were playing them in our basement.
I mean, these songs are so full of joy and excitement and love. How did your relationship to each other and your surrounding community impact what you were writing about?
Laura: I think “Skate” might be a good example of that. Ruby was away on a work assignment while we wrote that song. It was the summer I had graduated college, and it fucking sucked. I didn’t want to do anything. But Evan, Steve, and I got together in Steve’s basement, and we wrote it. The process of writing a song about something happy, and looking back on memories, and being with each other – even figuring out those awkward points of feeling insecure about what I’m writing and what I can bring to the table – those moments of getting really excited together brought back the hope and that enjoyment that I had missed in my hobbies and life. That was a turning point in that summer for me, where I was like, maybe things will just work, maybe I’ll just roll my way there.
Evan: It definitely helps in the way we write songs, because our songs are incredibly collaborative, even in the lyrics and composition of it all. Because a lot of times, we’ll sit in our living room for a couple hours and just write lyrics together.
Laura: And a lot of songs start off as jokes. The noise break in “Tiny Poem”, we had that song complete and finished, and then we showed it to Steve, and Steve was playing around with the station kit, and he was like, ‘these toms are tuned weird, bom bom bom bum’ [alternating in pitch].
Steve: They were tuned into D and E flat, and I was like, what if we go, like, boom, boom-bum-bum?
Laura: And that’s the defining moment of the songs that we’ve written, is that super soft song that’s about a retired San Rio character, and then this crazy explosion. And “Jeannie” is written about the TV show I Dream of Jeannie. Evan’s riff is an interpolation of the theme song. And the theme song of I Dream of Genie is actually sampled in Doopie Time, the album by The Doopies. Pull back! It all comes back together. But no one’s got that yet.
Evan: It’s just nice because this has been the most stress-free writing environment I’ve been a part of. Usually writing stuff solo, I always have a lot of hesitancy in showing it to other people, or expressing how I feel. But because of our very close friendship with each other, it’s been a good practice to try and be really vulnerable with each other and the type of music we write.
I love finding those little hidden jokes in songs. As a band who is thinking of how to fit them in there, are you hoping people find them, or are you content with them being just for you guys?
Laura: I mean, they’re for us at the end of the day, but I do sometimes think, is someone gonna be a big I Dream of Jeannie head? We have a lot of stuff for ourselves, and I think sometimes we’ll talk to each other, and it does seem like a different language, like how people who spend too much time together sound. But we also like to bring the audience in on jokes. We like to have costumes that we wear. I come from a dance background, and Ruby did a lot of theater growing up, so having that performance background, you learn you can’t ignore the audience. We’re here to have fun, they’re here to have fun, and we all dress up for shows because we want to show that we care.
Evan: Part of the way we express art is through performance and through aesthetic, and I think that coincides very heavily with our music. It’s almost equivalent to the way we present ourselves.
Laura: I think it can seem easygoing or it comes naturally, but I think something that is super important to us is showing that we care. I don’t think Sleep Tight Tiger would be what it is if we didn’t have our hearts on our sleeve. We want this to be awesome. We want this to be fun.
Ruby: And that’s the thing that when we started playing, quote-unquote, real shows. People would be there wanting to review us, and would always write something like, ‘they brought the fun.’ When we get to have so much fun on stage, it’s kind of like letting the audience in on that space, you’re creating the space for fun and jokes and giggles. We’re all very serious about the music in a real way, but it’s not just for the bit, you know? With the bit, at some point, you lose the barrier between you and the performance.
Laura: I would not describe us as an ironic band. I used to think that people thought that we were so bad, and the only compliment they could give us was, ‘you look like you were having so much fun!’ So it’s nice to hear, ‘that was so much fun, and you guys sounded great’. Actually having that album come out and doing the recording process felt legitimizing in that way. I was like, okay, we’re not just entertainment. We have a perspective that people think is worthy.
What other costumes have you guys done?
Ruby: Laura sewed us all these amazing white gilded shirts, and we all had a different card suit on them. That’s what we wore at our album release show.
Laura: It’s hard to make costumes on a budget. We have big dreams, but typically we’ll just be like, okay, everyone, we’re wearing plaid today.
Steve: There’s usually a small little visual piece, like ascotts. Or last night we all had ties and Laura put the letters of our initials on there. But someone came up to us, and they’re like, are your ties supposed to read ‘sire’? Because Laura did a lowercase L, and they thought it was an I. It’s our names! [screams]
Laura: When we were at The Big Pop Show, people were like, did you plan to all wear neckties? And the cool response is, no, we’re just all mind-meled. But the true response is, absolutely, of course. We do plan our outfits together. We did plan to all wear neckties. Ruby tied them all on for us, because she’s so good at tying those. We’re a team and you wear a uniform when you play. And we’re all up there to put on a show.
Ruby: Capital S. Show.
And you guys just only recently changed the name to Sleep Tight Tiger, right?
Laura: Yeah, we realized that if we were gonna put our music out, that was our one chance to change the name without it being a big ol’ hassle.
You guys wrote somewhere describing the band as making music that could rival a tiger.How do you approach the resting beauty and danger that is a sleeping tiger?
Steve: Usually when we record, there is a live tiger in the studio, and we have to play to where they’re not gonna wake up and kill us, but to where it can influence their dreams. I have no idea, I wasn’t involved in that sentence, so I’m not one to answer this.
Evan: I feel a lot of our ethos goes between wanting to write very fun, light-hearted pop songs, but underneath that is this basis of punk and noise influences. We have similar music tastes, but I feel like we all sort of bring different things to the table. Especially in how we gather influences. I’m equally as influenced by The Pastels as I am by Wolf Eyes or The Stooges. I think it’s that dichotomy that I feel resembles a sleeping tiger, because, you know, tigers can be really cute and adorable, but you don’t want to mess with a tiger. Don’t let our sweetness fool you, because we mean business.
Ruby: Especially because people come to us kind of shocked about the range. We didn’t write these songs for an album, so we didn’t write them to be cohesive. We all have different things that we find exciting at different times, and want to pursue that. Even our covers that we’ve done range really wildly in terms of the decades or genres that they’re from. We all just really love music, which is really nice because not many people in my life outside of the people I’ve met at the radio station are music generalists like these awesome people are. They know so much and there’s so much inspiration to derive from that it would feel crazy to pigeonhole ourselves into a style.
Laura: Like a tiger, we are hungry…for more genres. Give us more.
Ruby: But yeah, that was super comforting to me, because I’ve been in a couple other bands in my life where it was very much one genre, and not my music personally. So, being able to be like, I love this band, I love this sound, let’s write a silly song, or write a very ernest, heavy song.
I mean, “Tiny Poem” immediately comes to mind. People are often like, ‘that was so shocking’. And we do scream live when we play that, too. And so people are usually just blown away because we were just playing a jangly little tweet pop song, and now we’re on stage playing a heavy noise break, screaming at the top of our lungs.
Laura: And I think making everyone uncomfortable.
Ruby: A lot of people like it, some people don’t. But some people like it because they’re uncomfortable.
Laura: I mean, our music education in our 20s was largely dictated by having freeform radio shows. The beauty of music listening happens when you pull two different disparate genres, songs, artists, and you find the through line, and I do think that that’s kind of how we set out to write songs.
You can listen to Plum Something out now. You can also catch Sleep Tight Tiger in a Midwest city near you this summer.
Written by Shea Roney | Photo Courtesy of The Sourdrops
Every Wednesday, the ugly hug shares a playlist personally curated by an artist/band that we have been enjoying. This week, we have a collection of songs put together by the Florida-based band, The Sourdrops.
With reverberated guitars that echo in clean chaos, and the inherently sweet melodies that skip hand-in-hand with the natural percussive movements, The Sourdrops elicit the most contagious daydreams and aimable anthems in their short and mighty collectives. Made up of Kate (vocals, recorder), Shad (bass), Gian (drums) and Matt (guitar), the band elicits a sound that feels so timeless, yet these songs own the present. Putting value to the simple and often overlooked, where moments like sharing a quick meal under a red and yellow Vienna Beef umbrella or closing the door behind a departing friend become synonymous to much larger feelings that can be hard to put into words. Late last year, The Sourdrops shared their latest EP, Just Throw It In!, a collection which was embedded in the jangly jurisdiction of lo-fi dreamers, DIY consumers and true-hearted believers that know that a better day is always in arms reach.
About the playlist, the group shared;
“We each picked some songs that we like, and we like what ugly hug is doing. Listen to these songs and have a good time.”
An ode to you, DIY Darling. How can we write a hagiography that is effusive, affecting, and roughly two pages long? Easy – The Goobs & My Friend Cowboy already did it, on wax. The entire nine-song album clocks in at just over 17 minutes.
Fans of Nilsson Schmilsson will discover much to adore in Happy Loving Couples, the latest album from The Goobs & My Friend Cowboy, which dropped on Friday. Or, perhaps it’d be more fitting to liken the record to Nilsson’s 1974 collab with friend and accessory John Lennon, “Pussy Cats.” We don’t want to put too fine a point on it. Either way, if mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery, then mucho mungo – this is the sweetest little thing we ever seen.
The album is almost entirely written and performed by Carson Brom (aka The Goobs) and Logan Adam (My Friend Cowboy). Philly heads might recognize Adam as the bass player in Fib. New Yorkers might recognize Brom from his bitchin VHS tape collection or equally bitchin amateur baseball team. These are two musicians molded by intelligentsia, and while their earworm influences certainly show in Happy Loving Couples, so do their diversified interests away from music-making. Jaunty, avant-garde, almost absurdist tunes lilt with the occasional (and welcome) jagged edge. Add in vocals that ask “What would happen if Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker was Suicide’s Ghost Rider Motorcycle Hero?” and those 17 minutes fly by like a pleasure cruise leather bruise. This bite-sized smorgasbord is the summit of two far-out minds, and the result is psychedelic art rock with a mile-wide ripple of bubblegum pop (scrumptious).
Last August, after Brom released a surreal stop-motion music video for “Baby, I’m a Star” – the first single and the album’s opening track – Kellen Baker of Indiana-based Good Flying Birds reached out with an offer for Happy Loving Couples to be the inaugural release on his new label, Painty Pot. Curious parties: Let this video be your introduction to The Goobs’ sound portfolio, and buckle up to enter an abstract world with no hard lines or scruples. It’s all good company, high rollers, reasonable alternatives, and heat lightnin’. The record’s cover art (the masterwork of Adam) encapsulates that uniquely mind-bending whimsy in 2-D. (Also, shoutout Guided by Voices. I’m from Ohio and that’s a huge deal to us all.)
By your self-aggrandized reporter’s count, the stars of this collection are “Friend & Foe” and “Goodnight,” the third single off the record. “I’ve been sitting on ‘Goodnight’ for nearly five years, surviving many iterations since its conception in Portland, Oregon during the thick of COVID,” Brom tells Ugly Hug. “It was the first song I ever wrote and performed on a piano, a recording I’m so glad I held onto. It really wasn’t until I phoned a few friends last spring when the song started to come alive. Logan added drums and bass, my pal from Portland Zeke Ganschow provides the wonderful Nilsson-esque backing vocals, and then I recruited Wyatt Corder from my hometown Austin, Texas, a childhood bestie, to contribute trumpets throughout. This one was such a long time coming and a family affair, it warms my dang heart.”
Happy Loving Couples by The Goobs & My Friend Cowboy is currently available for streaming on Bandcamp or via cassette. As for Brom, he smokes American Spirit Celadons, and his favorite way to kill an afternoon right now is (like all rock n rollers) latch hooking. “I like to keep the hands and brain busy,” quoth The Goobs. “I do a lot of cooking, playing baseball, refinishing wood, upholstering, Mets games, and goin to da movies.” Outta sight. Your reporter once ate potato salad on a dive bar patio avec The Goobs on a summer Sunday afternoon, and we both agreed that it was a perfect day. Shoutout Jones Bar. Point is, our hero is hung up and strung out on thee real good stuff. Jonesing to take a cue? Course y’are! Brom’s daily-rider playlist consists of Emitt Rhodes, The Byrds, Wings, The Beach Boys’ “Love You,” and (of course) “always Nilsson.”
The world-weary modern music lover deserves to romp around in early-1970s leisure euphoria, without having to derail on a Lost Weekend of their own. Cultural imagination: Feast thine eyes. “After a year of tinkering with this record, which started as just goofing off on a four track in Philly and then evolved into a real labor of love, it’s just nice that it’s finally out in the world,” he says. “We hope you like it.” Peace and blessings and Easter Ham.
Listen to Happy Loving Couples by The Goobs & My Friend Cowboy and snag a cassette released via the newly christened, painty pot.
Today, Keta Ester, the solo project of Bruiser and Bicycle guitarist and vocalist, Keegan Graziane, shares the music video for “Singer of the Rock Song”. In February, Graziane shared his debut album under the project titled Love Apple, a collection emblematic of the beloved pop facets and responsive traditions of storytelling that the New York-based artist uses to piece together a sincere and unique profile within a single song.
“Singer of the Rock Song” begins with a sense of warm anticipation, standing on a doormat as a colorful synth and Graziane’s inviting cadence fall into the knocking rhythm that lets you in. “Am I a singer / I am the singer of the rock song”, becomes a back and forth as Graziane puts a mirror up to the creative process, exploring what it means to be a musician on his own terms. And as the instruments grow in their deliverance, and the textured patterns shed light on bits of constant reflection, Graziane holds onto each line of the final chorus, not out of any need to savor it, but a reminder of the patience, care and joy that goes into creating something genuine.
About the track, Graziane shares, “from the outside, the title of the song seems very tongue-in-cheek, but it’s written with sincerity and a deep appreciation for music and performing. There is intentionally some humor within the idea of the track, but it’s also inspired by watching musicians hone their craft over a long period of time and form their own singular expression—something that can only happen over from making music over the course of many years.”
Watch the music video for “Singer of the Rock Song” here.
You can listen to Love Apple out now as well as snag a copy on CD and cassette.
Written by Shea Roney | Photo Courtesy of Westelaken
Every Wednesday, the ugly hug shares a playlist personally curated by an artist/band that we have been enjoying. This week we have a collection of songs put together by Jordan Seccareccia of the Ontario-based project Westlaken.
Prose etched with keys into park benches and stall doors, the stories embedded within a Westelaken song animate the lines between the humdrum, the overlooked and the unrequited of our day-to-days. Like budding beds of flowers passing the collection bucket to fund the altar, each bandmate builds upon their purpose in the name of the gathered spirit. Releasing music for almost a decade, Alex Baigent (bass), Rob McLay (drums), Lucas Temor (piano), and Jordan (guitar/vocals) break away from any sort of structural dependence as they build out from the grandiose. While their melodies pull straws from folkloric wisdom and false prophets, Westelaken lean into the thoughtfully layered textures and striking dynamic displays that have continuously set them on their own path.
About the playlist Jordan shares;
My favourite radio show is called Barking Dog. It’s a college radio program on CKUW in Winnipeg. It’s researched and presented with such care and curiosity. I love listening to old episodes from their archive (explore it at julianacyoung.com). There’s all sorts of songs here but it can all be roughly categorized as traditional folk and roots music. I put a ton in this playlist. A ton of songs I heard first because I listened to Barking Dog, and some songs I don’t think they’ve played, but that I think fit right in.
Today, Bloomington-based band The Spatulas return with their new single “What Carries Me Through Frozen Blue”, the second track shared ahead of their new album A Blue Dot out May 15th via Post Present Medium. Through several lineup changes and shifting homebases, what has stayed consistent in the world of the Spats is songwriter Miranda Soileau-Pratt, who has always found unique ways to make the project an extension of her creativity. Bringing in guitarist Luke Einsiedler, bassist Elijah Bodish, and drummer Greg Witz, A Blue Dot is the marker of where these changes have all organically led to, finding The Spatulas in their strongest form yet.
“Watch my bubbling pot boil over when I forgot”, Soileau-Pratt sings ahead of wiry guitars that fall like the hair of a mut, as “What Carries Me Through Frozen Blue” piles up loose sonic strains through natural deliveries. The Spatulas have never been a project to dwell on the impact, but rather find common ground with the humdrum that thumbs the scale of our lives, no matter how little we may notice it. And it’s in that subtlety where the shifting melodic patterns become something of a fresh start; “a sparkle of something simple in my eye”, Soileau-Pratt sings out as tones shift to-and-fro. And as the band moves on, the guitars sing like sporadic thoughts of to-do’s and daydreams amongst the clambering drums, throwing caution to the wind as the band sears the track with both a newfound invincibility and their instinctual care.
“What Carries Me Through Frozen Blue” is released alongside an accompanying music video featuring novelty characters, found footage and a dedication to the memory of Buzz “Poochie” Wallace. Watch the video by James Wallace here.
A Blue Dot is set to be released May 15th via Post Present Medium. You can preorder the album now on vinyl.
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