**DYLAN EARL (Album Release Show) with ESTHER ROSE + TEDDY & THE ROUGH RIDERS + THE PINK STONES** **DYLAN EARL** Born in Louisiana and naturalized by the Natural State, Dylan Earl seeks to understand himself by understanding others. His next album, ‘Level-Headed Even Smile’ (2025), offers poignant nostalgia, land history, and a refreshingly progressive approach to country and western music. It is rife with his signature wry wit, irreverence, and an endearing desire to colour outside the lines. Earl is a welcome, original voice in the scene, finding favour in mainstream and alternative spaces alike as a loveable, alt-country hippie. **ESTHER ROSE** Esther Rose was on a long solo drive when she started writing the opening title track of Want, her stunning fifth album. At first, the words seemed almost like a joke, something to keep herself amused as the miles passed. “I want a puppy, but I don't want a mess. I want to know where I’m going without GPS,” she sang from behind the wheel. Soon, the idea snowballed into a list of desires that spanned existential, spiritual, and mundane; romantic to platonic to familial; at once wildly ambitious yet piercingly relatable; all set to a catchy melody that blends her pop instincts with country storytelling and the raw immediacy of a basement punk show. In other words, she was on her way to another classic Esther Rose song. This precise blend has made the Santa Fe-based artist one of her generation’s most beloved songwriters: someone whose live shows are known to conclude in mass tears and group hugs. Still, something was different this time. “For me, these songs felt like revelations,” she explains, comparing the 11-song record to a memoir, alive with kinetic storytelling and personal insight. In its newly direct and stirringly nuanced writing, you’ll hear about rock bottom encounters, shifting relationships with substances, evolving perspectives on adult partnership, and, as evidenced by those early lines in “Want,” a few jokes along the way. Vivid and bracing, Want places you in the passenger seat while each of these feelings arrive. **TEDDY & THE ROUGH RIDERS** Born in Nashville, TN, Teddy and The Rough Riders have created a unique, genre bending version of Country Rock. Songs focus on close-harmony influences, soaring pedal steel, and grooving rhythms, modernizing the sounds of Little Feat, The Band, or Flying Burrito Bros, andalways tending towards Country artists like The Louvin Bros, Buck Owens, and Billy Joe Shaver. Cutting their teeth in the hometown Honky-Tonk scene, as well as the garage/punk rock clubs throughout the South, TRR plays modern country rock that has seen them opening for such bands as Margo Price, Soccer Mommy and Orville Peck. Their self titled album produced by Margo Price came out in 2022, and they have a new album planned. (Sept 2024). **THE PINK STONES** On their intoxicating new album, Thank the Lord...it’s The Pink Stones, Pinkston and his bandmates do precisely that, offering up a joyful, adventurous take on ’60s twang that blurs the lines between cosmic country, folk, bluegrass, soul, and psychedelic rock. Recorded once again with co-producer/engineer Henry Barbe (Drive-By Truckers, Deerhunter) in the band’s hometown of Athens, GA, the collection showcases a more deliberate, mature side of The Pink Stones’ sound, one that reflects all the personal and sonic growth that’s defined the last few years for the hard touring five-piece. The songs on Thank the Lord... are humble and timeless, full of wry, sardonic wit and rich, evocative storytelling, and the performances are easygoing and amiable, with an effortlessly natural feel that belies the masterful craftsmanship behind them. The result is a record that wears its influences proudly on its sleeve, even as it a subverts expectation, a work of poignant longing and playful humor that tips its cap to everyone from Merle Haggard and Earl Scruggs to Don Williams and The Byrds as it looks both forwards and backwards all at once. Presented by Hi-Dive. This is a 21+ event