Music & Culture Writing

Sea of Clouds: Q&A with Deer Tick

Nick Brothers, Hill Country News November 2017

After a four year break of band members getting their lives together and starting families, Deer Tick has returned with a double album.

For about a solid seven years, the Providence, R.I.-based rock band put out stellar records just about every trip around the sun. With relentless touring and a strong back-catalog, the group has built up an underground following who find singer John McCauley’s nasally vocals and Americana tales endearing and the band’s greasy rock n’ roll sensibility to be righteous.

SHOW REVIEW: Kevin Morby croons and moves at Mohawk

Nick Brothers, Hill Country News September 2017

It was a packed, hot Saturday night at Mohawk in downtown Austin when Kevin Morby — with his long curly hair and an eccentric suit adorned with musical notes — took to the venue’s outdoor stage. His band followed, and Morby strapped on his candy apple red Fender Jaguar guitar and held his head to the ground as playback of a spoken word passage from a Flannery O'Connor poem began to play...

...And just as the passage ended on “city lights,” the band rolled into “City Music,” exactly as Morby’s latest, stellar record does. The slow burning song’s dual chiming guitar melodies offered their prelude, and by the end of seven minutes the band was moving the entire crowd along into its awesome, rolling conclusion.

The Free Weekly’s Favorite Albums from 2016

Nick Brothers, The Free Weekly December 2016

What may have been one of the craziest years of the 21st century in America, 2016 also brought about numerous emerging artists and album releases that not only reflected the times, but pushed into exciting new territory.

While this list lacks the critic favorites from Béyonce, Solange, A Tribe Called Quest, Frank Ocean or Radiohead, us music nerds at The Free Weekly decided to compile our own personal favorites from 2016. The albums mentioned here were on heavy rotation and continuously echoed around in our own head space for the majority of the year.

Q&A: Scott McMicken of Dr. Dog

Nick Brothers, The Free Weekly March 2016

Fayetteville will soon be host to one of the best psych-rock bands out there in the biz.

I’m talking about the Philadelphia-based band Dr. Dog, who have been making their way through Fayetteville since they first started touring back in the early 2000s. You may have heard their cover of Architecture in Helsinki’s “Heart It Races,” or their underground hits “Shadow People,” “Lonesome” or “Truth.” Maybe not, but you should.

Check out our interview with McMicken about their new album “Psychedelic Swamp” and the secrets to longevity in the music industry:

Fayetteville Roots Festival Elevates Ozark Culture

Nick Brothers, The Free Weekly September 2016

While watching band after band come on stage, sing praises of our little town and knock their sets out of the park, I came to realize just how special Roots Fest is. It elevates everything that’s good and pure about our region, from the music and culture we enjoy to the food we eat and farm.

The festival plucks the smoky, dusty, likely under-appreciated folk singers who are typically stuck in dark bar circuits, feeds them the most organic, delicious food possible and places them in the spotlight of a room of adoring fans who eagerly wait in silence to hear what the artists have to say and sing about. There’s a magic to roots music that hits you at your core, and every act on the main stage got their moment.

Review: “Rapture, Blister, Burn” At TheatreSquared

Nick Brothers, The Free Weekly April 2016

TheatreSquared’s newest play to debut, “Rapture, Blister, Burn,” by Gina Gionfriddo takes on a generational perspective of feminist values and viewpoints with the characters’ lives acting as the vehicle. The play pokes at theories about a woman’s role in society, marriage and career and challenges these issues head-on while presenting them in an educational, relatable and entertaining way.

The play centers around Catherine “Cathy” Croll (Amy Herzberg), a popular feminist academic whose books about women working in the sex industry have landed her talk show punditry and a successful, independent lifestyle in New York City. However, after her aging mother, Alice (wonderfully played by Joan Porter) narrowly survives a heart attack, this incites Cathy to move back in with her mother in small-town New England.

The Weekly Lowdown: Whataburger Opens, People Whatalose Their Damn Minds

Nick Brothers, The Free Weekly July 2015

Y’all saw it. People — let’s just go ahead and presume mostly ex-Texans — were waiting for upwards of two hours (during lunch) for fast food cheeseburgers Monday when Whataburger opened on Martin Luther King Boulevard. While it varied in length throughout the day, the line stayed pretty constant well into the night. On Tuesday, the line was still going strong past the Burger King.

To handle the onslaught of cheeseburger thrill-seekers, three off-duty police officers were on site to handle traffic, complete with orange cone lanes to divide the traffic. Luckily, those officers were paid by Whataburger, not our tax dollars.