Shortly after boarding the high-ceilinged cargo van, otherwise known as The Rap Van, Tom Johnson, impresario and driver, introduced the night’s featured artist. “Let’s welcome Jae motherfuckin’ Tilt!”

Jae Tilt took to the mic and before launching into his first song, like all good hosts, he graciously offered the audience─packed 18 deep in the cargo area of the Dodge Sprinter─a plate of brownies. The plate full of tasty snacks went ‘round, just like first class service by an airline flight attendant, before departing the R Bar on an exhilarating 20-minute death ride through the streets and byways of downtown Tucson, this past Sunday night.

Drawing inspiration from the storybook of his own life, Tilt released Product of 93 in March of 2016 (available at iTunes, CD Baby etc.). “It’s the past; the stages of my life. I felt like when I dropped it, I wanted it to be like the beginning, when it all started ... that was in ’93. So, that’s where the title came from.”

Yes, Tilt touches raps of sex and bravado with aplomb, and there’s notable realness to his words, rife with hardship and pain, he pulls no punches in his confessionals. Lyrics speak freely of gritty realities, like seeing dad cooking crack when he was three years old. There’s a discernible message of positivity too, and so we asked him about that.

“Everybody has to struggle,” Tilt says. “But that no matter where you come from you can prevail and you can get out of that situation. Everything that you go through makes you ... and builds your character.”

What’s next for Jae Tilt?

“Years Later, that’s the LP dropping May 19th.” You have a label or self releasing? “Yeah, I’m on a label, Golden Artists.”

In a Tucson Weekly interview from last year, Johnson said, "The basis of hip-hop music is a community thing—to bring together people, to push away the bad stuff.” He proved the concept on this balmy Sunday night.


Everything was bouncing in this mobile hip-hop venue ... bodies slammed together with every bump and turn in the road, pale and sweaty knuckles gripped tightly to safety cords dangling from the ceiling, loudspeakers thumped and shook the van with percussive beats, in-the-mood lights glowed, people danced and shouted out with Tilt and his dreadlocked lil’ brother Buddha who back up on the mic. It was hot and sweaty in there, for sure. In short, the intimate ride in The Rap Van with Mr. Jae Tilt was utter chaos; precisely why it kicked serious ass.

"Raptoberfest." A Sunday series featuring hip-hop and rap artists continues through May 7th at R Bar, 350 E Congress Street.

Noise? Its origins rise from the futurist art movement of the early 20th century. It kicked on speed, technology, youth and violence, and was implicit in the development of noise as an aesthetic. Jefim Golyscheff’s “Antisymphony,” a 1919 concert performed in Berlin, is a key example of music embracing a kind of anti-instrumentation, lots repetition and atonality, and it blew minds and subverted conventions.

Machine sounds, noise, static, ear-splitting feedback, distortion, atonality, droning modulations echoed off the walls at the repurposed warehouse-cum-performance space at 191 Toole last week as a small but earnest crowd gathered for the Tucson Noise Symposium. An event co-presented by To Stretch Yr Ears, Sound+Noise, Bank Notes, Detritus.net, Pushing Buttons, Mullarky, and Exploded View; with support from University of Arizona: English Dept, School of Information Science, LGBT Institute. Heavy hitters to be sure.


ijustsawyoudie
Nodding to the lit works of J.G. Ballard, William S. Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft as well as controversial journalist/editor/publisher Adam Parfrey, the artist performing under the moniker ijustswyoudie describes his music as blackened ambient meets synth-wave and darkwave. “It’s a combination of electronically composed music and random noise that I derive from expression pedals, distortion as well as samples.”


Vicki Brown
Purposefully trying to avoid melody, Vicki Brown, a classically trained violinist, has an ambient project incorporating her virtuosic violin stroking, electronic bits and loops that she builds and layers to weave a tapestry. She says, “I don’t have any parameters in front of me, other than time. This is music for floating.”


Need
“I took my obsession with ambient noise, mixed it with tracks, live electronic drums and field recordings," says the artist known as Need about tools he uses to create.

FLORENCE—If you’ve been to Country Thunder in Arizona at least once over the past decade, chances are good you’ve seen this year’s closing headliner, Blake Shelton, perform.

He seems to be at the top of the list of performers every two or three years, and clearly loves the heck out of coming to the Arizona desert and showing off his stuff for 20,000 or so of his closest drunk buddies.

What made this year special, however, wasn’t the act leading up to him (Tyler Farr, who despite his reputation as bro country’s mainstay, actually put on a terrific show). It was that, for the first time in the nearly 30-year history of the Arizona event, country music Hall of Famers The Oak Ridge Boys were on the main stage.

They played before Farr, showing that despite their age (three members of the group are in their 70s, and the youngest, Joe Bonsall, is 68), they can still really sing and put on an upbeat performance that delighted old and young alike.

“We’ve played the other three Country Thunder’s many other times,” Bonsall said. “It finally worked out this time for us,” to play the one in Arizona.

Part of the tie-in was the ORB sang on Shleton’s latest album, If I’m Honest, on the catchy track “Doin’ It To Country Songs.”


Though it would be easy to taking their tours as something of a victory lap these days, that sort of attitude can’t be found among any of the ORB members—two of which started with the group more than 50 years ago.

They’re still playing more than 150 dates a year—festivals, stadiums, theaters and everything in between. They’ve got a new album set to be cut this summer and have plans in the works for the group’s 28th Christmas tour that will kick off right after Thanksgiving.

“If you can still sing, why not sing?” Bonsall said.

Bass singer Richard Sterban said so much of it has to do with the passion each man still has.
“When you enjoy doing what you do, you don’t get tired of doing it,” Sterban said. “Even after all these years, we’re just having too much fun.”

They’ve walked on at the Grand Ole’ Opry with Little Big Town when they closed their show with the one Oak Ridge Boys song known better than any other—"Elvira"—but it wasn’t “ an ego thing. It’s an appreciation thing,” Bonsall said.

That much is clear in how they talk about the artists of today. At an awards show a few years back, Bonsall saw Eric Church backstage and had to compliment him on his music.

FLORENCE—Having lived in Tucson for most of his life and having played nearly every bar, club festival and bar mitzvah within 50 miles of the city, Drew Cooper is the embodiment of the Old Pueblo.

In fact, given his no frills tour bus, his willingness to play nearly anytime, anywhere, and his passion for what he does, he might well take the name of Eegee’s most popular sub: The Grinder.

Cooper opened Country Thunder in Florence this year and then played the Dierks Bentley Whiskey Row stage immediately following the end of event headliner Blake Shelton’s Sunday night show as part of the closeout to the four-day festival.

It was the fifth year in a row you could find Cooper in Florence in early April, and he said he hadn't tired of it in the least.

“I got lucky enough to do the main stage a couple years back (in 2015),” he said. “This year, the idea of playing that first set was pretty daunting—you set the tone.”

Cooper said he was pleasantly surprised by the crowd size for the first sow of the event as many folks often skip out on the early performers on Day 1.

He’s been playing music essentially full time for the past seven years—a former University of Arizona cheerleader, Cooper loves his hometown and says one of the things he appreciates the most is it honesty.

“The best part about Tucson is how hard they are on live music,” he said. “Down there, I don’t think we’ve recovered fully from the Recession, at least not as well as other places, so people are careful with the dollar they spend.

“They’re loyal, though. When they decide they like you, they back you the whole time.”

1. LANco
These five guys have a smooth sound, a pair of well-rounded singles, including their latest – the chart-climbing “Greatest Love Story”—and the kind of live show energy that is going to build their fan base in a hurry.

Headed by frontman Brandon Lancaster, LANco—which is short for Lancaster and Company—has a four-song EP available now for fans but is working with super-producer Jay Joyce to get a full-length album out later this year.

“We want to give a fuller picture of our music,” Lancaster said. “We want to be relatable—we’re not going for shock value. We want to be the anthem of people’s lives.”

They are already seeing that with “Greatest Love Story,” which is getting airplay on satellite radio and elsewhere, and is drawing in fans from across the globe. The song was actually titled “American Love Story,” before its official release, but some fan input convinced the band of the need for a name tweak.

“We’ve had people messaging us internationally—from Ireland and England, all over the place—telling us about how this has become their song,” Lancaster said. “You have these things in your life that are special to you … and you hope other people can relate to.”

Keyboardist Jared Hampton credits Joyce for “drawing our sound out of us.”

The band’s first single, “Long Live Tonight” went Top 40 and sounds like a much more seasoned group, and the first song on their self-titled EP, “Troublemaker,” is a rollicking ball of fun.

It’s a sound that if you haven’t heard it, you’d better.


2. Runaway June
This trio has drawn comparisons to the Dixie Chicks, and while they obviously have a long way to go before they could come close to that level of success, they’ve got the right ingredients.

Lead singer Naomi Cooke is a star waiting to explode. She’s got the correct amount of rock-star sass on stage and pipes to match.

Doesn’t hurt she’s a knockout with a laid-back fashion sense (while Hannah Mulholland and Jennifer Wayne carry an elegant beauty often missed these days by female artists who go the route of simply showing as much skin as possible). Even better, all three are genuine, snarky-yet-sweet and the kind of people you’d want to just hang out with.

Wayne (the granddaughter of legendary actor John Wayne) was part of Stealing Angels before partnering up with Cooke and Mulholland, and said the group is enjoying its ride so far.

“We all kind of want to say the same thing,” in our music, she said. “When people started singing our song back to us, that was so cool.”

That song, “Lipstick,” debuted last year and made it into the Top 40 on country music charts. Even more, Cooke said, the trio has been amazed by devoted fans watching YouTube videos of previous performances and learning the words to original songs not yet released (though likely in album form later this year).

“That was a ‘holy shit,’ moment,” she said.

As much as Nashville has gone girl-crazy in recent months with the success of Kelsea Ballerini, Maren Morris and more, expect a quick rise for this supergroup-in-waiting.

FLORENCE—It was a country music lovers dream Saturday, with longtime and well-respected road warriors Randy Rogers Band setting the table for Frankie Ballard, Joe Nichols and the industry’s potentially hottest act—Thomas Rhett.

Rogers was brutally honest with the crowd—unsurprising as he’s made a career out of not being fuzzy on his feelings about good music.
“Everybody up here is actually playing the music you hear,” Rogers said, taking a crack a festival musicians who rely on pre-recorded vocals or instrumentation.

Nichols, who fired up the crowd with a slew of his past chart-toppers and a taste of some new music from his long-awaited ninth album, said pre-show that his latest work follows that line of playing music that’s true to yourself.

“We had a lot of success with the more progressive country,” Nichols said before the show, highlighting No. 1s “Sunny and 75” and “Yeah,” as key indicators. “But this next album … will be more earthy, more traditional country.”

It harkens back, he said, to his very first full-length album from 15 years ago, Man With A Memory. And it won’t come from a rehearsed, well-calculated place, as Nichols described his writing process as “like an ADD 2nd grader’s math homework.”

“The thought we all had then was ‘let’s make something great we would want to buy—that we would go into a record store and buy ourselves,’” he said.

But playing Country Thunder—one Nichols described only somewhat tongue-in-cheek as “like a ballgame that allows nudity”—is as much about playing the stuff that made you big as it is delving into new material.

For five-man band, Dorado, their 30-minute set on the main stage got things started with a nice blend of country, southern rock and folk music—getting their modest but enthusiastic early afternoon crowd fired up with their closing number—“Pull Your Hair Back.”

“it’s the song we’ve probably played the longest together as a group,” band member Forest Miller said.

Fellow band member Jimmy James Hunter said the group's sound can be described best as “acid country—it’s a bit out there.”

They didn’t go the route of adding in covers, choosing to play their own music exclusively—showing off their unique approach of using four of the five band members on a rotation of lead vocals.

“No song we’ve written is as good as when we play it together,” vocalist and guitar player Landon Parker said. “We all bring in our different flavors.”

While the group was formed in Nashville, the band members come from disparate parts of the country—North Carolina, California, Nashville and more—which if you map it out, the band members say, looks like the inverted shape of the constellation for which their new name is drawn (they started out as Chasin’ Crazy).

The band is still trying to nail down a release strategy for their music—they already have nine tracks recorded, said member Creigh Riepe—but plans to keep touring and playing all across the country in 2017.

FLORENCE—Artists playing Country Thunder nearly 15 years after their first performance are often in the latter stages of their careers.

For Arizona-native Austin Burke, he’s just getting started.

The babyfaced, early 20’s country singer is just getting his career off the ground, with his first single—"Sleepin’ Around"—already topping one million spins on Spotify (more on that in a bit).

The last time he was here, the festival was in Queen Creek and the year was 1998. Lonestar was the big headliner and Burke was getting set for his big show – by taking a nap.

He’d been doing national anthems at sporting events across the Phoenix area since he was 3 years old and had made a pair of appearances on the Rosie O’Donnell Show, singing first a Garth Brooks song and later an Alabama cover.

So there he was, playing a miniature set—band and all—in the lead up to one of country music’s biggest acts. He hasn’t been back since. And, in fact, since leaving behind college baseball in California to move to Nashville more than three years ago, he hadn’t been back to his home state before today.

“This is a big homecoming celebration for me,” he said. “It’s really a full-circle story for me. I’ve dreamed of coming back here.”

Despite the enormity of the moment, Burke says he was too young to remember his performance, and now returns, with his first song hitting it big with plays on satellite radio as well, ready to get his career as an adult fired up.

“My heroes are Garth Brooks and Johnny Cash,” he said, “but I also like the new songs and blending them with some of the older lyricism.”

Back to the name of the single: On first blush, the title makes Burke sound like he’s taking a crack at being the newest entry to the douche-laden bro country genre.

Just the opposite.

With two younger sisters and a strong moral upbringing, Burke’s song is actually a criticism of the very genre some might confuse him for.

“The song has a provocative title, but it’s a wholesome song,” he said. “I’m big on uplifting women.”

He hits on his message on the chorus: “I want a girl worth waking up to.”

For those that wet their whistle with Sleepin' Around, more music from Burke is on the way in the form of an EP, set to be released next month. 

FLORENCE —Day two at Country Thunder is when crowds really packed it in and the artists on both stages did not disappoint.

Headliner Dierks Bentley’s shows are known for being can’t miss and he didn’t disappoint, though he led off with a song that many may not have expected—the title track from “Up on the Ridge,” from his less-popular, though critically-acclaimed bluegrass album he released in 2010.

He saved plenty of fan favorites, including some of his newer work from “Black,” getting the crowd revved up with beach balls and traditional country music “Raise ‘em up” toasts.

The crowd, which swelled to near capacity, was already riled up by strong performances from ACM New Male Vocalist of the Year Jon Pardi and ACM Duo of the Year nominees Maddie and Tae.


Even the earlier acts during the day, such as indie star Aaron Watson and up-and-coming female trio Runaway June, hit the right notes.

The trio, made up of Californians Hannah Mulholland and Jennifer Wayne and Floridian and lead singer Naomi Cooke.

Cooke, however, has an Arizona connection—she lived in the desert wide spot in the road of Quartzite with her family for about six months when she was 10.

“So there’s where I got my start—playing guitar on the street corner in Quartzite,” she said.
Cooke said their expectations for playing the event for the first time were “far exceeded.”
“Everybody really talks about this one,” she said of Country Thunder.

The trio has a single, “Lipstick” that they ended their two sets with and has the capability to have the same sort of catchy tune like a Kelsea Ballerini hit.

Mulholland said the smiles from their fans are huge while Wayne says the emotions they feel when fans sing their songs back—particularly ones they haven’t even released yet but have only been posted from other shows on YouTube—provide a certain emotional high that drives them.

Cooke isn’t shy when saying she’d like to see the group have a Grammy award within the next decade, she admits it’s “intimidating” to hear the comparisons of their group to one of their idols—the Dixie Chicks.

“Those are some big ole’ shoes to fill,” Cooke said.

The trio said they don’t want to get too far in front of themselves though, clearly enjoying this early sprint to the spotlight.

“Right now, we hope to keep making music that we are proud of and that people want to sing and dance to,” Mulholland said.


To that end, the group has carved out studio time this summer with the aim of finishing and then releasing a full-length album, complete with many of the songs they’ve already been playing on the road. For what potential fans can expect? Wayne says it’ll be a “western, romantic” sort of sound.

Psych and ambient-noise devotees gathered at The Flycatcher last Saturday night. The psych/space noisniks Cobra Family Picnic kicked things off.


Frontman Randall Dempsey might have the dedication to craft as The Lizard King—even left the stage when the booze ran out to fetch a beer from the bar. Rock ’n’ roll!

We talked to lanky bassist Boyd Peterson who, along with his wife, keyboardist Lesli Wood, founded Cobra.

When did Cobra Family Picnic come together?
“A couple of years ago. With my wife Leslie and I wanting to do music that we like. We are from Los Angeles. We like old school ’70s, Hawkwind and Can [from Germany]. That’s what we do.”

How would you describe the sound of Cobra Family Picnic?
“Very organic and retro.”

Who is in the band?
“Lesli Wood, myself, Boyd Peterson, Conor Gallaher [on electric guitar], Randall Dempsey on vocals—Randall also has his own band named Desert Beats which is supercool '60s garage band—and the drummer is Daniel Thomas.”

So, you have an album coming out?
“Yes. Magnetic Anomaly, coming out in May on Cardinal Fuzz a UK, super psych, underground awesome label. It will be released on CD, tape and vinyl.”

What is next for the band?
“We are going to do an album release, probably, in late May. We are going to do something with The Myrrors. Supercool. They are labelmates.”



Trees Speak
While some in the audience sat and stared intently into the hallucinogen flashback inducing lights—designed by gifted artist/designer Gregory James Houston —others lost themselves in the near constant billows of fog that spewed forth from the stage.

Trees Speak is an experimental rock band that transcend mainstream pop influences by incorporating elements of avant-garde, shoegaze, Krautrock, art and electronic—along with violin-bowed guitar, theremin and a glut of effects pedals, and it’s an ear-bending rush of lush soundscape.

At the set's conclusion the band strolled from stage to a programmed loop. We had a chance to chat with Diaz and guitarist Lex Elias.

When did Trees Speak form?
Diaz: “About 5 years ago.”

What aesthetic influences the project?
Diaz: “Minimalism.”

What bands do you draw inspiration from?
Diaz: “Tangerine Dream. Their early work from the 1960s. Beak [English electronic band.]”

Who is in the band?
Diaz: “Julius Schlosburg on drums, Lex Elias on guitar, Jamie Laboz on bass and myself on keyboards, guitar and theremin.”

Do you have any recordings?
Diaz: “We do. We have a record that is going to come out on an Italian label, Cinedelic. They are going to release a double album at the end of the year. Cinedelic releases a lot of Italian soundtracks from the ’60s and ’70s.”

What is next for Trees Speak?
Diaz: “We are performing at Hullabaloo Festival in Flagstaff June 3-4. We are going to be doing a two-hour set in the forest. It is going to be at night and the forest is going to be lit up with LED lighting.”

You perform behind a scrim with intense backlighting. What gives?
Diaz: “The whole concept is experiential. We don’t want to be just about music. It’s a sensory experience. Sound, sight, smell, touch.”

Incense?
Diaz: “Nag champa.”

What is your role in the band?
Elias: “I love pedals. I love sound. I just kind of bounce around. .. whatever comes at the moment.”

Do you rehearse this material? I sense that there is an improvisational aspect to the music. Care to expand?
Elias: “The sound goes wherever it takes us. We have an idea of what we are trying to achieve with sound, texture and swells. But, there is no goal. There is no set start nor an end. We just trigger off of each other. Speaking with other people, some say that the music is lullaby-ish. Some say it is nightmare-ish.”

Over the course of the night, repetitive blasts of light, streams of guitar feedback and ambient noise jetted, rising then cascading down on the trance-inducing grooves, taking the audience, perhaps, into that murky place where the subconscious and dreams and nightmares battle.

FLORENCE –– If country music was represented by the 2016 Republican presidential contenders, then it was Jeb Bush on stage Thursday night at Country Thunder in the form of the eminently forgettable Chris Young.

Please clap.

He seems like a swell guy, and as he meandered his way through his low-energy set of country radio staples, it was easy to go “Oh, I’ve heard that before,” or “Oh, I recognize that.”

He got a good reception from the crowd during his second song, his first No. 1 hit “Gettin’ You Home.” It’s a solid song, and Young performs it well, but that was the highlight of his set.
Part of the issue is too many of his songs sit in the same key and don’t really carve out a niche for him – he sounds like he could be one of a half-dozen different country singers, and didn't bring anything particularly special to a headlining performance that historically has the thousands packing the main stage here in full throat.

Much like Bush, Young’s set didn’t leave anyone feeling anything on either side of things—he isn’t disagreeable nor is he someone a country fan would despise. He’s just, well, there.

There were others, like Jared and The Mill, Terri Clark and Brandon Ray, who brought significantly more energy to the main stage and Dierks Bentley Whiskey Row side stage for much smaller crowds, proving once again the real music lovers are wise to hold off on some of the event’s day drinking and discover some of these lesser-known jewels.

Even the main stage lead act to Young, LOCASH, were only so-so in their performance. They played last year with a little more energy and passion, though after a KMLE Country-sponsored campsite concert earlier in the day and recovery from last weekend’s ACM’s may well have left them a bit sapped.

Young was in an unenviable position—the Thursday headliner position draws the smallest crowds of the four days, typically, and particularly with this year’s lineup—Dierks Bentley, Thomas Rhett and Blake Shelton—the other headliners are all top-shelf showmen whose shows promise not to be missed. Young’s set was more easy listening for a Sunday afternoon drive by comparison.
There was perhaps no better example of this than when Young came back out for a two-song encore that wasn’t really needed, sleepwalking into a cover of Eric Clapton’s “Change The World” that was somehow slower and even more mellow than the original.

Today promises to serve up perhaps one of the most complete lineups of the four days on the main stage, with the aforementioned home state heartthrob Bentley getting warmed up by ACM new Male Vocalist of the Year Jon Pardi, along with new female group Runaway June and dynamic duo Maddie & Tae getting main stage time as well.