Sweet Megg • Sparkle Carcass • Dandy L. Freling • Stoned at the Jukebox DJs
Mon 03/25/24
8:00PM
18+
music
$10
Show Lineup
Sweet Megg
(Nashville, TN)
Genre: Country
Sweet Megg is a local singer down in Nashville, TN originally from New York City. She performs a range of material steeped in the American traditions of jazz, blues, and country. Her vocals reveal a vast variety of influences, ranging from Billie Holiday to Patsy Cline & from Edith Piaf to Karen Dalton. She grew up performing as a songwriter in the East Village and dreaming of being a writer like those of the folk era of the Greenwich Village. After high school she found herself down in North Carolina where she trained as a raft guide and got her first taste of Southern music. The sounds of bluegrass and country intrigued her and she always felt a longing to return once back in the big city. She continued songwriting in college and eventually moved to Paris to study jazz where she began performing around town with local musicians. After college she returned to New York City and fell head first into the early jazz community where she found the excitement of improvisational jazz accompanied by the storytelling of the early blues and country she loved. She flourished in that community and her first formation, Sweet Megg & the Wayfarers, gained popularity and began touring outside of the city. Her tours brought her back to the south where she became more and more curious about country music.
Her first two releases Under the Moonlight (2020 Data Records) & I’m in Love Again (2021 Turtle Bay Records) are steeped in the classic jazz she was playing every night in New York. After I’m in Love Again came out she finally packed up her bags and moved down to Nashville TN. She was able to convince Scott Asen (the chef of Turtle Bay) to do a record that mixed the sound of Nashville with the sound of New York. That was the inspiration behind her next album My Window Faces South (2022 Turtle Bay). She mixed her horn section & piano player from I’m in Love Again with a few of her favorite musicians down in Nashville (Chris Scruggs, Billy Contreras, Chris Gelb, & Dennis Crouch). This set off her vision of what Sweet Megg would sound like going forward. Real Hill Billy Jazz.
Inspired by Bob Wills, she is taking the idea of mixing country and jazz to the next level.
“I’ve been building a sound combining my knowledge and experience in the old-time jazz world of New York with the country music I love and have learned so much about living down in Nashville. Bob Wills loved jazz and I believe his vision was to meld the two genres of his era creating Western swing. I’m just expanding on that idea by not only taking jazz & country ideas from the 30s & 40s but also integrating ideas from the 50s, 60s, 70s, and so on”.
The only missing puzzle piece now is to reintroduce her original music to the mix. Her next album Bluer than Blue is in the works and will be released in the fall of 2023. It includes an original by Megg and moving forward she plans to keep writing tunes that hint at the classic sounds of country music while leaving spaces for the freedom and improvisation of jazz.
Sparkle Carcass
(Chicago, IL)
Genre: Country
Chicago dive bar country meets midwest punk grit meets the energy at a party when someone brings out a box of bottle rockets. That’s Sparkle Carcass.
Formed in 2017 around songwriter Cody Palmer, Sparkle Carcass pulls from all the best music to come out of Texas, California, and the Midwest to give you drinkin’ songs, dancin’ songs, and songs that make you wanna stay a while. Most importantly, each song delivers on the honest storytelling that makes country music worth listening to.
Frontman Cody Palmer is a storyteller through and through, and boy does he have stories. He’s been to nearly every state twice, jumped a car over 12 school buses, and was one sneeze away from losing his legs…though he probably made one of those up.
They don’t make ‘em like Cody outside of Southern Indiana, but with a dozen years steeped in the Chicago music scene, Palmer comes to the stage with an energy that’s a little down home, a little downtown. His songs blend the “don’t bore us, get to the chorus” sensibilities of pop songwriting with traditional country boogie and shake. Whaddya get? Music that tripped and fell somewhere between Garth Brooks and the Space Jam soundtrack.
You’ve seen Palmer’s ostrich cowboy boots stepping onto iconic Chicago stages at Carol’s Pub and The Hideout, and you’ve probably seen him behind the turntables at your favorite mezcal bar. No matter the venue, a Sparkle Carcass show is like a good night out: exciting, surprising, and a damn good time.
Dandy L. Freling
(Milwaukee)
Genre: Americana
A Boot Stompin’ Finger Pickin’ Folkie
A highway-kind traveler combining a touch of the high and lonesome hollers of the Appalachian hill people with the low-down, dusty grooves of the cosmic cowboys, Dandy has created a unique songwriter banquet sure to satisfy the hunger of any weary passerby. A boot stompin’ finger picker with remnant hollers of the greats of our past – Don’t be afraid to stop awhile, and fill up your plate, there’s plenty to go around.