Soda Sun "Beachwood" Digital Single, OUT NOW!

CLICK HERE to PRE-ORDER Soda Sun's debut album, Stay Here, and receive a copy of their first single, "Beachwood".

Soda Sun 'Stay Here' Singles Release Schedule

We couldn't be more excited to release the debut album for Tucson, Arizona's Soda Sun, Stay Here.  Out July 2nd as a Digital LP, and then October 1st as a Vinyl LP, the record will feature four singles + music videos which will be released over the next two months, starting next week:

• May 7, 2021 - "Beachwood" [single] - Video Premiere by Blood Makes Noise on Monday, May 3
• May 21, 2021 - "Hildegard" [single] - Video Premiere by Independent Clauses on Friday, May 21
• June 4, 2021 - "Blood" [single] - Video Premiere by Music Defined on Wednesday, June 2
• June 18, 2021 - "Stay Here" [single] - Video Premiere by PopMatters on Monday, June 14

Be sure to follow Fort Lowell Records on Instagram or Twitter to keep up with Soda Sun Stay Here announcements.

Happy Releasiversary to Young Mothers!

Eleven years ago today we released our very first record as Fort Lowell Records. It was a 7inch single a favorite local band of ours from Tucson, Arizona -- Young Mothers -- for their song "Come On, The Cross", with "Good Sword" on the b-side.

Kicking Bird, live in concert at Palate - Sunday, April 18th - Wilmington NC

Happy Birthday, Naïm Amor!

ILM Music Outpost presents: Sean Thomas Gerard

ILM Music Outpost is the brainchild of a handful of local Wilmington, North Carolina (ILM) locals who came together to bring life to their local music scene. Inspired by NPR's Tiny Desk Series, ILM Music Outpost is a team that includes The Plant Outpost as the location, Boot Scrap with the video footage, Garion Worldslayer behind the photography, Tom Michels making sure it all sounds good as heck, and Modern Legend helping with booking and promoting. 

Watch Fort Lowell Records' own Sean Thomas Gerard perform three songs -- "Walking On Air", "Jovie", and "Miles We Didn't Drive" -- from his latest album -- Finally Found a Paradise  -- on ILM Music Outpost:

OUT NOW: Sean Thomas Gerard 'Finally Found a Paradise' [Digital LP]

Available now on all digital music download and streaming platforms, Sean Thomas Gerard's sophomore solo album Finally Found a Paradise is officially out today: Tuesday, March 30th!  Receive a *BONUS TRACK* when you download the album through Bandcamp, by printing out the Black & White artwork [PDF] included to make and share your own version of the album cover! 
Original artwork by Chris Frisina, of Sleepy Cat Records.

LISTEN NOW on Bandcamp

Naïm Amor - Au Large De Tes Bras (Live Acoustic Performance)

Watch Naïm Amor (acoustic guitar) and Ben Nisbet (violin) perform "Au Large De Tes Bras" from the album Hear the Walls [FLR014]: 

Fort Lowell Records welcomes Soda Sun

Please allow us to introduce you to Soda Sun from Tucson, Arizona: John Goraj, Derek Cerretani, Johny Vargas, and David Foley. Fort Lowell Records is very excited to share with you that we will be releasing Soda Sun's debut album Stay Here on July 1, 2021, plus a series of singles leading up to then. For now, follow Soda Sun on Instagram or Facebook and stay tuned to learn more about our favorite new band from our favorite city west of the Mississippi River!

Happy Birthday to Travis Taylor of Hey Mandible!

Wilmington musician Sean Thomas Gerard finds 'Paradise' on dreamy new rock album

[Repost from StarNews Online; by John Staton, March 23, 2021]

A dozen years ago, Sean Thomas Gerard burst on to the Wilmington music scene with folk-rock outfit Onward, Soldiers, winning fans with such sharply written rockers as "Cinder Blocks" and, later, dreamy ballads including "Gentle Man."

Now an elder statesman of the local scene at just 33, Gerard is preparing to release his second full-length solo album. "Finally Found a Paradise" -- a textured, nuanced expression of domestic bliss -- comes out March 30 on Wilmington-based label Fort Lowell Records.

"I used to struggle to write happy songs. I wanted to write happy songs," Gerard said during a phone interview. "I'm happier with myself now, with my life. Having a kid gave me purpose."

That kid would be Jovie, his daughter with wife Heather. Gerard's fans met his now-20-month-old daughter a year ago in a song he named for her. "Jovie" comes off like a lushly melodic ray of sunshine, and it serves as a touchstone of sorts on "Finally Found a Paradise."

The song "Loser" -- about a former friend who fell from Gerard's good graces -- is the only one of the album's eight tunes to carry anything like a discontented edge. The rest are warm and fuzzy in the best possible way, smile-inducingly potent expressions of love and happiness.

"This record has got to be my most personal," Gerard said. "It's just a reflection of where I am in my life. I used to write about a lot of darker subjects. I was in a darker place ... If I start to write dark songs again, maybe come check on me."

In the hands of someone less eloquent, domestic bliss could sound cliche or even cheesy. On "Finally Found a Paradise," however, Gerard renders moments in ways that are both poetic and profound, paired with a sound that lilts along dreamily, like thoughts that are walking on air.

Speaking of which -- the song "Walking on Air" has a lazily bouncy Beatles feel with lyrics about finding that missing puzzle piece. "Strange & Electrifying," while less twangy than some of Gerard's output with Onward, Soldiers, maintains an arena-worthy pop-rock vibe, with an anthemic chorus and lyrics that are less than straightforward but that conjure the picture of a rewarding relationship.

Gerard, who grew up in Pittsburgh, said his lyrics used to be "more vague. I thought that was cool or something."

Now, he's found a way to deliver meaning without being too obvious about it, an approach that works with the upbeat yet cool rock sound displayed throughout "Finally Found a Paradise."

"My stuff in the past has been a little more all over the place" sound-wise, Gerard said. "I wanted something that tied together," which led to the keyboard-heavy approach he uses on much of the new album.

It's a sound that can fit in with, and is made from, any number of genres, from folk and rock to pop and plenty of blue-eyed soul.

Making appearances on the album are Wilmington's "one-take wonder," Bob Russell, on pedal steel, and Gerard's childhood friend Kim Greenwood, who Gerard calls one of the best technical guitarists he's ever known.

No release show for the album is planned yet, but Gerard said he'd like to give the record a proper celebration in a live setting later this year if possible.

"I thinking maybe something outdoors," he said.

Win a 'GROW' Signed Test Pressing + Custom Made HeyTVM T-Shirt

Our friends at Gravity Records are hosting a special raffle this weekend -- Saturday-Sunday, March 20-21, 2021 -- to win one-of-nine extremely rare 'Signed' copies of the Test Pressing for our album GROW: A Compilation in Solidarity with Black Lives Matter; signed by every musician + visual artist involved with GROW.  In addition, artist HeyTVM has made a very limited edit GROW t-shirt that will also included in the raffle with the Test Pressing; they will custom printed to each winner's unique size.  The raffle only costs $5.00 per ticket to enter, and you enter as many times as you want.  Just like all sales from GROW, 100% of the money raised from Gravity Records' raffle this weekend will be donated entirely to the North Carolina New Hanover County NAACP to help ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination in our community.

A test pressing is what you might expect it to be from its name: a vinyl record made to test the quality of the finished product before pressing thousands of records. Test pressings are made to ensure that the grooves themselves are clean, deep enough, and formed correctly when the master presses into the vinyl blank; that the grooves, label and center hole are not off-center; that the vinyl does not warp; things like that. Test pressings are supposed to be destroyed, and most of them are.  

These are literally the FIRST nine copies of GROW that were ever produced, and now is your chance to own one of them... signed by every single member of all (12) bands that are a part of GROW, plus Cover Artist James L. Williams, B-Side Artist and professional skateboard Chet Childress, as well as HeyTVM -- who not only designed the t-shirt for this raffle, but also provided the artwork for the back of the GROW vinyl jacket AND (and) is responsible for coming up with the name "GROW" for the title of the project.

GO TO GRAVITY RECORDS' INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT NOW TO ENTER!  

Don't wait, the raffle closes Sunday PM, and winners will be announced on Monday!

Sean Thomas Gerard "Sail off in the Sunset" Digital Single, OUT NOW!

Sean Thomas Gerard's new single "Sail off in the Sunset" is out now on all digital music platforms!

Sean Thomas Gerard "Sail off in the Sunset" Video Premiere

[Repost from Blood Makes Noise; by KL Martin, March 15, 2021]

If you haven’t heard of or seen Sean Thomas Gerard, you are robbing yourself of perhaps one of the more talented musicians in the indie game right now.  

I had to get that out of the way. I am big on blunt and often superlative language when I am excited about an artist, music or film. It’s the verbal equivalent of getting chills …while also getting chills.  

“Sail off in the Sunset” is easily one of those moments. It should comfortably  become the song of the summer. As a filmmaker, I have a deep appreciation for the true artistry in regard to music and conveying that via visual medium. Music videos are, for all intent and purposes, a dying form of musical expression. It seems like forever ago, when MTV, The Box and other channels that existed in the time of Napster, that music videos were the main form of expression.  

Sean Thomas Gerard’s almost ethereal beach feel and look made me immediately excited but also reminded me of those days. The super 8 like feel and coloring along with the song makes it, in my eyes, the theme song of a post pandemic summer that will exemplify an appreciation for the season that, at least in part, was taken away from coastlines here to SoCal.  

The silky vocal stylings of STG set to the visual of people frolicking along the pristine coastline and in the vast ocean will leave listeners sprinting to the beach, begging for ill placed sand in their shoes that never ends and sunburns.  

Below is the actual video directed by STG himself. Enjoy.

Finding ‘Paradise’: Sean Thomas Gerard talks new music, fatherhood and upcoming release of his LP

[Repost from Port City Daily; by Shea Carver, February 23, 2021]

Sean Thomas Gerard has spent the last year creating eight new tracks for his latest LP, “Finally Found a Paradise,” coming out on Fort Lowell Records in March.

WILMINGTON – Though 2020 will be marked by loss and hardship for many, for local musician Sean Thomas Gerard, he managed to create paradise — at least in some form. Gerard will release his upcoming LP, “Finally Found a Paradise,” next month after spending a year prolifically recording and writing.

Despite losing the majority of his live gigs from the pandemic — not to mention going on hiatus from booking and running shows at downtown’s Bourgie Nights — Gerard gained something even more blissful in the last year: the title “stay-at-home dad” to his baby girl, Jovie.

“The good thing for me is that she’s fairly predictable with her naps,” Gerard said. “So, you know, about 12:30 every day, she goes down for two hours, and that’s my time to either go out for a bike ride or work on music.”

Most days over the last year he’s focused on the latter. Gerard has completed eight songs as part of “Paradise” and already has begun tracks for his next LP. First things first, “Paradise” will be a mix of new and old songs, some that Gerard even played with his band Onward, Soldiers throughout the years.

Usually, he begins his writing process on acoustic guitar or piano. When he gets into his home recording studio, he lays down the drum track first, then the guitar, then the vocals.

“It becomes a whole experimental process,” Gerard said. “I don’t write super complicated music — I’m more about layers.”

While most stuff turns out the way he envisions it, a few manage to appear in better form. Take “Wild Inside,” for example, which contains lyrics that bestowed the album’s title “Finally Found a Paradise.”

“Initially, I wrote that on piano, and I thought it was just going to be a ballad,” Gerard explained. “It ended up with a couple synthesizer sounds and instead became this whole ‘80s track. My wife says it sounds like a song that would be played at an ‘80s prom, like in a slow-dance shot in a movie.”

Color your own paradise

It’s been four years since Gerard’s last album, “Avalon.”

“I’ve given people plenty of time to forget me,” the musician quipped.

The journey of “Paradise” began in 2019, in all fairness. Gerard started picking away at his most personal tune yet, “Jovie,” written for his first child. He created it during his wife’s pregnancy, and played it for her for the first time the night before Jovie was born.

“I was in tears, she was in tears,” Gerard reflected, “and the next day she had Jovie. When we brought her home from the hospital, that was the first thing I played for her. Her eyes just lit up like she knew it.” 

Gerard released the pedal-steel folk song last April — a sleepy tune that could have been birthed from Wilco and George Harrison combined. Nine months later it has received more than 10,000 streams on Spotify.

Though “Jovie” took the longest to write, Gerard said some of his other songs for the album came rather quickly. “Sail Off in the Sunset” was written in 30 minutes. The song was inspired from living in the doldrums of a pandemic and needing escape.

“You’ve gone through hell and you’re coming out on the other side,” Gerard described. “That’s the hopeful vibe of it.”

Gerard even made a video from public domain footage of beach scenes, sailboats, surfers and other sunny-day good vibes. Gerard ran the imagery through a Super-8 app, did some time-lapse shots and filtered it to look grainy like an old movie.

“I showed it to my mom and sister, and they’re like, ‘Wow, that was really just three-and-a-half minutes of being totally relaxed watching something,’” Gerard said.

The video will premiere on March 15 on the Blood Makes Noise blog, while “Finally Found a Paradise” will come out on Fort Lowell Records on March 30 — though Gerard will drop his third single on March. 19. Gerard has worked with Lowell founders James Tritten and Tracy Shedd for years, including last year, contributing a track to their “GROW” compilation.

Gerard said he’s doing a rather unusual release for “Paradise,” shifting as necessary in the world of Covid-19, since hosting live release parties can’t be done. He’s not doing a livestream either, something many musicians have turned to in today’s unrelenting market.

“I don’t love streaming,” Gerard admitted. “I did a live stream when I put the ‘Jovie’ single out — and I was so much more nervous than I’ve ever been playing.”

To celebrate the release, Gerard teamed up with artist and musician-friend Chris Frisina (Sleepy Cat Records) to do the album cover. When folks buy the digital download, they’ll get a poster of the album and a vinyl sticker. They can choose the poster in color or black and white. 

“My whole idea is that you color your own paradise on the black-and-white one,” Gerard said. “So I’m encouraging people to either give it to their kids or be creative with it — to draw, color, paint their own version of the album cover.”

He’s also encouraging fans to post their creations and tag him by using #finallyfoundaparadise. When they do, they will get a special gift from Gerard, like an unreleased song or an acoustic version of one of his tracks from “Paradise.”

“I have a kid now, so I understand they need things to do, and I’m hoping that somebody gives the poster to the kid and puts it on on their Instagram, and we can have a good laugh about how funny it looks, or how amazing their kid is,” Gerard said. “Hopefully, it becomes a little thing for people to have some fun with.”

The first two singles, “Jovie” and “Strange & Electrifying,” from “Finally Found a Paradise” can be streamed on Sean Thomas Gerard’s Soundcloud or Spotify.

Saint Maybe - She's Alright (Live Solo Acoustic Performance by Oliver Ray)

Watch Oliver Ray of Saint Maybe [FLR009] perform their song "She's Alright" from their 2012 debut album Things As They Are.

Happy Birthday, Wes McCanse of ...music video?

Happy Birthday, Emily Wilder of Wet & Reckless

Saint Maybe "Way With Words" (Solo Acoustic Performance)

Watch Oliver Ray of Saint Maybe (plus Patti Smith) perform the song "Way With Words" from their 2012 debut album Things As They Are live here on YouTube:

Happy Birthday, Steven Patrick Haley

It is no surprise that some of the most beautiful people in the world are born on this day: February 14th, Valentine's Day. One of them happens to be the very reason I even have a career in music, simply by answering "Yes" to the question I asked him nearly 30-years ago when I was first introduced to him at high school in Orange Park, Florida: "Do you want to be in a band?" Happy Birthday to one of the most talented, loving people I know in this world: Steven Patrick Haley! • Photos of our bands Sella + Audio Explorations. ~ James Tritten, Fort Lowell Records