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Arizona father/daughter garage-punk outfit The Exbats drop a needle straight into the vein of what made the world fall in love with rock & roll in the first place. Their new LP Kicks, Hits and Fits (out March 6 on Burger Records) is a witchy, punk-rock sock hop of a record that navigates teen angst, falling in love, breakups and figuring out where in the hell you fit into society, especially when you’re not yet old enough to get into the club where your band is playing. The Exbats’ always clever formula—fusing 20-year-old daughter Inez McLain’s ’60s surf drumming and punk doo-wop vocals with her dad Kenny McLain’s Beach Boys-meets-X guitar licks—has found them making fans out of (and sharing bills with) bands like the Dead Milkmen, Mike Watt, SadGirl, NO WIN, AJJ, Tacocat, El Vez, Death Valley Girls, Skating Polly, Starcrawler and more.

Each song on Kicks, Hits and Fits is a catchy rocker that begs you to sing along, as it straddles the worlds of old and new. They’re The Monkees meets The Coathangers, The Hollies meets Surfbort, The Ronettes meets Amyl and The Sniffers. They take the essence of what made The Ramones so urgent and catchy and add just the right amount of bubblegum sweetness to charm you instantly into falling in love with them.

The Exbats have been rocking together for a decade now—ever since Inez got her first drum kit at 10 years old. They played their first show when she was just 12. And for the next six years they wrote scores of songs and played out wherever they could. Eventually, they left their home in Portland and moved to a remote corner of the Navajo Nation in Pinon, Ariz. At a low point, thinking about calling it quits, they played an amazing show in Prague, rebounded and decided to push the band even harder.

Upon returning home from Europe fully recommitted to The Exbats, they caught back up with their old ally, Matt Rendon (Resonars), at Midtown Island Studios in Tucson. Rendon is an integral part of The Exbats’ sound. He has produced and engineered all of their albums: A Guide to the Health Issues Effecting Rescue Hens (2016), I Got the Hots for Charlie Watts (2018), E is For Exbats (2019) and the upcoming Kicks, Hits and Fits (2020).

These days, The Exbats live in Bisbee, Ariz., a small border town affectionately referred to by locals as “Mayberry on acid.” It’s an old pioneer copper settlement marred by a massive open pit mine that can still be seen from downtown—an anti-corporate haven that was overrun by New York hippies in the 1970s. During their frequent trips from Bisbee to Tucson for shows, they met Arizona punk lifer Bobby Carlson and brought him into The Exbats (now a trio) to play bass.

“Bobby would come to all our shows and sing along,” Kenny says. “He loves The Exbats more than anyone. He understood our no-frills, only hits and hooks approach to writing songs. He felt like part of the family almost right away.”

And The Exbats are of course all about family. Now with Rendon and Carlson in their brood, they made Kicks, Hits and Fits. This record tears through the ups and downs of brutally emotional relationships, but can also inspire living-room dance parties and car trip shout-alongs. “Funny Honey” and “Wet Cheeks” are as much a direct line to ‘60s girl-group pop as they’re about trying to help people (especially immediate family) who don’t want your help as much as you don’t want to watch them suffer.

“I can’t stand crybabies,” Inez says. “If you’re sitting around crying because you’re lonely then you’ll probably stay lonely.”

“We wrote both of those songs at the same time,” Kenny says. “You always need to fight for what you want. ‘Wet Cheeks’ started as a funny double entendre, but somehow turned out to be a meaningful song for us. It’s about people who stay indoors and can’t cope.”

Another theme of the album is handling relationship turmoil. Kenny’s mother, his step-father’s temper and the damage they both caused each other is front and center on the oddly optimistic “Put Down Your Fights,” which wouldn’t feel out of place on a Wes Anderson soundtrack. The witchy “Try Burning This One” is a thick-skinned follow-up to their song “I’m a Witch,” defiantly stating that you can’t be burned if you’re already made of stone. “Florida” is a song from Carlson’s old band The Ponies, and uses suffocation as a metaphor for a failing love. These songs lure you in with their raucous fun, while it might be many listens before you catch onto their darker subject matter.

The smile-inducing hits “You Don’t Get It (You Don’t Got It)” and “Good Enough For You” are about moving on after the romance has fizzled. Upbeat music with bittersweet lyrics is the name of the game. “Maven of the Crafts” is the only song on the record sung by Kenny. It’s an ode to his middle-aged romantic awakening with his occult sorcerous girlfriend, a sweet Lou Reed-esque, indie-folk love song.

Next come the straight up rock & roll bangers. “Doorman” is a take-no-prisoners punk anthem that confronts the aforementioned dilemma of playing clubs when you’re underage. “Hey Hey Hey” is a song of isolation in our social-media-laden world. It’s about TikTok and its culture of empty victories and ultimate meaninglessness. It has a post-Stooges Iggy Pop vibe where instead of heroin we get a glowing cell-phone screen.

The album ends with “I Got the Hots for Charlie Watts,” a sassy love letter to the Rolling Stones drummer. The Exbats live in constant homage to the rock gods who paved the Highway to Hell before them. “Billie Joe from Green Day got his hands on the song,” Kenny says, “and passed it off to Ronnie Wood who gave it to Charlie on his birthday. How cool is that! I also love that story from Keith about how Charlie punched Mick in Amsterdam when Mick called him on the phone saying, ‘Where’s my drummer?’ After he slugged Mick, Charlie said, I’m not your drummer—you’re my singer.”

It’s hard not to fall in love with The Exbats on Kicks, Hits and Fits. Its 12 songs are infinitely catchy, and at a quick 30 minutes you’ll find yourself listening over and over again. In this isolating world of TikTok, Twitch and Insta-celebrities finding fame without leaving their bedrooms, The Exbats are on a mission to meet you on your home turf, bringing you out to the dance floor just like their ‘60s British invasion heroes. And they have no plans of slowing down. They’re shooting more videos, booking more tours and gearing up for their official showcase at SXSW 2020.

“We love punk stuff like FIDLAR and Death Valley Girls.’ Inez says, “And I love a good pop song from different bands like Pulp, Flight of the Conchords, and 12-year-old Inez would tell you that nobody writes a better song than Harry Styles, but mostly we’re a Monkees family.”

“We try to bring it back to a time when people focused on writing hit songs.” Kenny says. “We want to unite the world around rock & roll!”

“The Exbats have managed to distill all that’s vibrant in the history of pop music into 2- to 3-minute anthems that recall everything poppy from The Archies to its ’70s punk heirs The Ramones.” – Under the Radar

“[They] play tunes with simple pop melodies, no-frills first-wave punk arrangements, and a cheerful sense of humor that finds room for observations on pop culture, troubles with relationships, and even family matters.” – AllMusic

“The band flips between ripping punk rock and neo-garage rock. “2027” could have been stolen from a Weirdoes or Avengers single with its charging, burning riff. Meanwhile, “Girls like these” is borne from ‘60s radio rock and could equally have been a 1910 Fruitgum Co single or an Animals tracks. For the most part, the tunes are sparse, catchy, and to the point. Both early punk and early garage rock thrived off hooks and the band unabashedly aims to make a thumb snapper of a record. And they succeed.” – Punknews

“They may be a family act but they don’t hold anything back… fast and fuzzed-out… feisty with a strong thrust of hardcore riffs and heavy drum beats.” – BTRtoday

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Picasso claimed that the purpose of art is to wash the “dust of daily life off our souls.” Homeboy Sandman asks on Dusty, “Why would I complain when I’m alive making art?” In the course of his Mello Music debut, the Queens virtuoso answers himself with 15 soul-assessing confessionals that sweep the entropy and daily static, the distortion and psychic silt of modern life onto wax. This is sacred dust, alchemical practice to convert anxiety into the highest form of creativity. It is rapping ass-rapping rapped better than your favorite rapper.

Let Sandman tell it: the sound is dusty. These bars are his id. He’s not trying to save the world on this record or even save himself. These are the unmasked impulses and desires locked away for a long time — some of them from before he ditched the legal world for decapitating mediocre MCs. On Dusty, he says “ I unlocked myself and let them out — dusted them off — for better or for worse.”

Of course, it’s infinitely for the better. This is a therapy session without coming off remotely indulgent. Sandman remains both the master carpenter and architect, writing verses with lapidary precision, inventing new flows and cadences at brilliant angles that no one knew could be found.

This is the latest chapter for one of the most storied underground rappers of his generation. A versatile talent who has checked every last box: Unsigned Hype in The Source, Chairman’s Choice in the XXL. Rolling Stone hailed his songs as dense and word-drunk, spilling past the margins, demanding repeat listens as he re-works rap forms and functions into something truly personal.” Pitchfork said that in the all-star game of the new subterranean, “he is the guy with flawless fundamentals, wearing his socks high and his cleats sharp and polished.” His solo catalogue is sterling and over the last two years he’s mastered the group dynamic in tandem with fellow legends Aesop Rock and later, a brilliant psychedelic slab done in union with Edan.

It’s all on display on Dusty. Pick almost any track and you’ll hear the synthesized fusion of four elements hip-hop and Jamaican toasting, Nuyorican flavor and an experimental dead bent to expand the parameters of language. When you listen to Sandman, you hear the echoing boom of the South Bronx park jams of Kool Herc, the avant-garde wild style of Rammellzee, the technical perfection of Rakim and Big Daddy Kane, the infectious jazz hymnals of A Tribe Called Quest.

Produced entirely by Mono En Stereo (formerly known as El RTNC — the moniker used when he produced Sandman’s Kool Herc: Fertile Crescent), the beats rumble and snap, the basslines are rubber-thick and funky, the drums rugged as a butcher knife haircut. Sandman boasts the kinetic gift to tailor his flow to each, his voice an instrument in his own right — able to switch between conversational and wrathful, debauched lothario and philosophically righteous. There’s “Far Out,” where he kicks off the album wondering if he’s better off living in Siberia, then references breakdancing on cardboard, the Never Ending Story, and how the smell of boiled eggs reminds him of the Queens Halloweens of his childhood. “Noteworthy” finds him suffering from insomnia trying to figure out which rules to break and risks to take. He proposes toasts for the spirits and ghosts and flips old MC Lyte lyrics into modern koans. “Yes Iyah” finds Boy Sand boasting about clutching mountains by the peak over a tribal polyrhythmic breakbeat, kicking a pyroclastic flow that would even make Black Thought offer a bow in tribute. There are raunchy sex raps and existential midnight of the soul wanderings alike.

It amounts to a clarion statement of purpose, the arena stepped into and all challengers vanquished. Rap containing multitudes and cosmic dust. Exact as a science, loose as an improvised spiritual.

“On any of Sandman’s songs, there are moments that can make you marvel at the wit of his wordplay or the detailed arrangement of his raps themselves, their sequence and structure. ” – Pitchfork

“An MC who could conceivably eat up most of the artists currently basking in the mainstream’s limelight.” – HipHopDX

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Following his 2018 debut Backpacker Blues, Bee Appleseed returns with his sophomore solo effort, Starflower’s Cosmic Soul. Though he has a decade’s worth of touring and lo-fi bootleg folk recordings under his belt, there are only rare hints of the latter on this heavy-hitting rock & roll odyssey that aims to transport listeners through a vortex of timeless space and catchy melodies. Those familiar with Bee’s previous work from more than a dozen other projects will recognize this album as the culmination of all his pursuits in different genres and art forms. It’s a coming-of-age in songcraft and lyricism that marks him as a definitive voice in modern youth counterculture.

After some tumultuous years experiencing the hardships of homelessness, Bee was lost until a fateful encounter with an elder Native American shaman he met—while searching for a place to crash on Couchsurfing.com. She invited him to her family farm in Central California outside San Luis Obispo. As a practicing energy healer, she altered Bee’s perspective, opening his eyes to the world in ways previously unknown to him. Not possessing much of a spiritual inclination at the time, Bee found himself suddenly awakened by this encounter. Starflower’s Cosmic Soul explores this awakening of spirit and the resulting changes within Bee in the form of an uplifting psych-folk opus.

In the Winter of 2017, Bee assembled a 15-piece band in Portland to play on Starflower’s Cosmic Soul. Candlelit recording sessions heavily smudged with incense set a sacred ambience for the album’s conception. Bee’s distinct, uninhibited voice is supported by an array of saxophones, piano, organ, guitar, bass and drums, while a choir echoes lines such as, “You got to love yourself before you give out your love,” “all is forgiven” and “life is only beginning.” The album relays a powerful and impassioned group effort, one that aims to encircle with authentic conviction on a quest to discover the cosmic soul within. “I wanted to relay the impetus of spiritual strength I found during my most vulnerable time of homelessness through music,” Bee says, “as I believe music has the power to both heal and inspire.”.

Starflower’s Cosmic Soul begins in orchestrated chaos, as multi-tracked takes of Bee’s voice swirl from one ear to the other before being shocked into sedation with the words, “The people who define you linger on to remind you / of who you’ve been and are meant to be / yet you can’t help but look around at all the hearts in the lost & found / but you’ll be stronger if you repeat after me / oh love don’t hurt me anymore.” From there, the album is a rollercoaster of soulful rock & roll with a message of optimism and a yearning for the future. It’s a true psychedelic voyage, perfect for seekers and dreamers.

Starflower’s Cosmic Soul is out Feb. 21, 2020 on Baby Robot Records.

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Los Angeles rock & roll power trio Hollow Fortyfives understand the value of a break from the day-to-day grind of modern living. With their new EP, Weekender, the trio have created a rollicking, hard-hitting ode to time off; a soundtrack not simply suited to, but crafted to incite house parties, late nights, impulsive trips and the specific type of debauchery that inevitably creates camaraderie. Weekender is a record that is meant to be played loud, and its sub-twenty minute runtime ensures it’ll be over before the cops show up. “We didn’t make Weekender for people to sit and listen to,” says drummer/vocalist Travis Corsaut. “We want something that makes them want to get up, party, dance, do something, anything.”

Hollow Fortyfives, comprised of Corsaut, bassist/vocalist Brett Incardone, and guitarist/vocalist Lucas Renberg, take their sonic cues from the rock & roll heroes of the sixties, blending those influences with a no-frills garage rock mentality and a fierce punk ethos. After releasing their debut album, Strange Times, in 2018, the band wasted no time in heading back to the studio to write and record Weekender, enlisting producer Diego Ruelas to help bring their songs to life after catching his attention at a show in LA. Most of Weekender was recorded at East West Studios, though vocals were recorded in guerrilla after-hours sessions at Capitol Studios in Hollywood.

Although Renberg is Hollow Fortyfives primary songwriter, Weekender features songs written by each of the band’s members, their disparate influences fusing into each other to create a cohesive record that still has the ability to surprise listeners. “We definitely reap the benefits of having three songwriters,” says Corsaut. “It rounds us out more as a group and keeps us from getting stuck in a rut or writing the same thing over and over. The three of us are all very different in our lives and influences, but when we bring them together, we’re able to mold those ideas into our sense of what Hollow Fortyfives is as a group.”

While Weekender’s sonic palette is crafted as a devil-may-care respite from daily life, Hollow Fortyfives aren’t ones to shy away from thematic depth. Throughout the record, the band explores concepts of choice paralysis, social inequality, and the fallout after experiencing trauma. The record’s leadoff track, “Nowhere,” is a punchy garage-pop track full of distorted guitars and pounding drums, while Renberg’s lyrics are a sendup of a stagnant society that always wants more but never takes the steps to achieve it. On the energetic dance-punk cut, “Get Out,” Renberg calls out a class structure aimed to maintain the status quo and how that feeds into a cycle that leads to many feeling stuck.

Elsewhere on the record, the band dives into more lighthearted concepts, such as on “Lemonade,” a hazy track whose lustful lyrics are mirrored by the song’s carnal structure that culminates in a sputtering, fuzzed-out guitar solo. “Fickle Heart” finds the band veering into jangly power-pop territory while Corsaut sings about harnessing life’s brief moments of peace and clarity.

Hollow Fortyfives formed in the Summer of 2013, when Renberg and Incardone invited Corsaut to jam with them before he was scheduled to move to China to become an au pair. By the end of one afternoon, the trio had fleshed out a handful of songs, and soon after began booking shows and garnering the enthusiastic support of their community. Corsaut canceled his move across the world and the trio began writing, touring and recording nonstop, releasing their debut self-titled cassette in 2015, followed by an EP, Summertime Psychosis, later that year, a series of singles in 2016, and their debut LP, Strange Times in early 2018. For years, Hollow Fortyfives have shown that they’re a band who refuse to stop. Weekender carries on in that tradition, though this time around they’ve learned that it’s okay to take a break from the grind, if just for a weekend.

Weekender is out March 6th on Baby Robot Records.