May 26, 2021 · 3:56 am

B.B. Palmer wants to bring the sitar on the road.

Bernard Palmer is the namesake of B.B. Palmer, a band that has called Opelika and Lee County home for most of its’ life. Palmer himself grew up on the west side of Mobile Bay before moving to the area after high school. Now, he’s heading across the state to Demopolis, where his longtime musical partner Josh McKenzie resides with wife, Birmingham native and musician Taylor Hunnicutt. They all typically tour together, as their bands are interwoven and it makes things easy.

Bernard played around Auburn and Opelika for years–first in cover bands, then in bluegrass bands, the in psychedelic bands. All of those–and his foray into religions that were new to him shaped the band’s new ongoing project, Krishna Country, an EP that finds a way to combine Eastern sounds with the twang that was always familiar to an Alabama native like Palmer.

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May 21, 2021 · 1:10 pm

Adam Hood: Sequestered No More.

At the beginning of the pandemic last March, Adam Hood and a group of Red Dirt artists began a weekly tradition that became known as Sequestered Songwriters. What began as a one-time thing became a livestream every week that spawned a non-profit that helped provide relief to artists that were struggling through 2020. Jason Eady and Courtney Patton kind of took the reins and the shows kept going for an entire year.

Hood, an Opelika native now based in Northport, is now finding his way back out on the road. He’s on a run of shows throughout the southeast with Eady and they are treating the shows much like they treated the weekly gathering; and making sure to pay homage to the thing that helped bring a lot of people together during a difficult time.

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May 11, 2021 · 3:22 am

Jaime Wyatt returns from Mile 0 Fest to a sold-out show at The Basement East.

Jaime Wyatt signed her first record deal at 17. It was on the cusp of file sharing sites changing the shape of the music industry forever. While the business changed around her, she continued writing and recording; she’d been doing it since she was a child. Both of her parents were musicians, and it was kind of all that she had ever known. Somewhere along the way, she even “made a bunch of records that never came out.”

Neon Cross was released in 2020 on New West, certainly a strange year to release an album, but Wyatt took it in stride. She always has. A Tacoma, Washington native, she moved to Nashville from Los Angeles a couple of years ago, and she’s been able to find herself and she’s been able to escape addictions that kept her from reaching her fullest potential; Neon Cross was one of the year’s best. It was produced by Shooter Jennings and features the guitar of the late Neal Casal.

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May 7, 2021 · 3:19 am

Revenge Wife releases third track in “Background Songs for Your Boring Life” series.

Revenge Wife is the latest project from Liz Nistico of HOLYCHILD. It’s an ongoing visual project that has been rolled out over the course of the past couple of months, first with “Earthquake” in February, then with “Manifest” in April. It’s horror hidden behind Nistico’s familiar brat pop sounds.

Today, the third Revenge Wife track makes its’ premiere, “Home.” The video—the third installment in the ongoing saga—will be released on May 13.

Nistico talked to me about how the project will unfold and her long term plans for both it and a separate feature length film.

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May 6, 2021 · 2:16 am

Claire Rousay Gets Busy Living or Gets Busy Dying (Does Her Part to Save the Scene and Stops Going to Shows).

Claire Rousay is an ambient artist that combines field recordings into her work. She creates something that I can’t quite describe; it’s the most beautiful and tranquil soundtrack to the last two years of our lives. It’s serenity soundtracking chaos. She’s also prolific. Since we spoke by phone, she’s released four more records by my count. She’s also since been featured in the New York Times.

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April 27, 2021 · 1:34 am

American Aquarium is bringing a lot of new music to Key West.

Tough times don’t last; tough folks do.

There isn’t much of the past year for anyone to be positive about. It sucked. Touring came to a screeching halt, and for a band like American Aquarium, that was killer. They put out their eighth studio album, Lamentations, anyway. Against all odds and better judgement. And it was one of their best. Continue reading →

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April 21, 2021 · 11:12 pm

Bri Bagwell is bringing the band to Key West.

Bri Bagwell is an old pro at Mile 0 Fest; she hasn’t missed one yet. Last year, she came solo and played acoustic. This year, she’s especially excited to be bringing her full band.

Bri moved to Austin for school at 18-years-old, and she liked it so much, she never left. She quickly paved her path within the Red Dirt scene. A native of Las Cruces, New Mexico, she had long admired the artists that she now calls friends, as her older brothers would drive over for shows and let her tag along.

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April 17, 2021 · 4:25 pm

Sylvia Novak lays her fiddle down.

Sylvia Novak has her fifth record finished, and it doesn’t sound like anything that she has done before. She’s given in to her rock sensibilities; her first love. Novak cautions that she may never play violin again.

She’s been very prolific. When this record is formally released, it will be her fifth full length, and she’s still just 31. Most of the new project was recorded in Birmingham at Boutwell Studios.

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April 13, 2021 · 1:39 am

Morgan Wade set to make her first appearance at Mile 0 Fest

Later this month, Morgan Wade will join a lineup at Mile 0 Fest in Key West, Florida that is traditionally heavy on the Red Dirt sounds of Oklahoma and Texas. Wade is from Floyd, Virginia.

But she’s heard nothing but the best about Mile 0 Fest from BJ Barham of American Aquarium, a mainstay at the festival returning for the third straight year. The two were scheduled to tour together before the pandemic abruptly canceled everyone’s plans in 2020.

In March, the 26-year-old Wade released Reckless, a perfect collection of ten songs about love and loss; addiction and mental health. The record has been years in the making. She first met Sadler Vaden when the two shared a festival bill in her hometown of Floyd, a town renowned for its’ country and bluegrass. But Vaden and his co-producer Paul Ebersold saw something else within her.

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April 11, 2021 · 8:26 pm

The soul of Alvin Garrett

Alvin Garrett is a Birmingham fixture. You may be most familiar with his work with Just a Few Cats, a group that he co-founded with Ruben Studdard. Now, Garrett isn’t just “a part” of Just a Few Cats; he is Just a Few Cats. The 43-year-old Tuscaloosa native has been the group’s only continuous member since its’ inception. A 1996 graduate of Central High School of Tuscaloosa, he continued his education at Samford University, and he has remained in Birmingham since making the move.

He grew up in the church; his father was a minister, and he fell in love with gospel music at an early age. But when he first dove in, it wasn’t singing that attracted him; it was bass guitar. His father gifted his first bass when he was just 11-years-old, an age when Garrett jokes that his hands were too small to play.

Since, he’s written songs for Noel Gourdin, Joe and Kelly Rowland.

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