Live concert photography of Lauren Lakis, Astronomies and Gossamer Blue playing 2023’s New Colossus Festival Shoegaze Party.
Category: singer/songwriters
Throwback: Happy 89th Birthday, Roy Orbison!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 89th anniversary of Roy Orbison’s birth.
Throwback: Happy 89th Birthday, Glen Campbell!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 89th anniversary of the birth of Glen Campbell.
Throwback: Happy 78th Birthday, Iggy Pop!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Iggy Pop’s 78th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 66th Birthday, Robert Smith!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Robert Smith’s 66th birthday.
Throwback: Happy 74th Birthday, Luther Vandross!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates the 74th anniversary of Luther Vandross’ birth.
New Video: Dominque and the Diamonds Share a Patsy Cline-Styled Ballad
Led by Colombian-American frontwoman Dominque Gomez, Los Angeles-based country band Dominique and the Diamonds can trace their origins to back to last year, when the band came together on a whim after Gomez was asked to perform a country set local summertime series, The Grand Ole Echo.
Friends from cosmic country outfit Caravan 222 and rock band Triptides were asked to perform as a backing band for Gomez and over the course of the year gained buzz locally for a sound that channels Linda Ronstadt, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Townes Van Zandt and the Laurel Canyon sound — but with a contemporary feel.
The Los Angeles-based country outfit’s Glenn Brigman-produced debut EP, For a Fool is slated for a June 13, 2025 release. Recorded using a mix of analog and digital equipment in Brigman’s Crestline, CA-based studio, For a Fool EP channels the golden age of classic country with the material touching upon tried-and-true themes of romance, lonesomeness, revenge, drunken playfulness while anchored around the old school song-as-story. And the material sees the band weaving the experiences of the contemporary world, too.
“I write country music and love to sing country songs, but I’ve always associated myself with the Colombian half of my identity more than the white side. My Dad and his immediate family immigrated to the US from Colombia in 1966 and they’d endured so much struggle in the process,” Dominique and the Diamonds’ Dominque Gomez says. “Then, you have my Mom’s side who were small town farmers in Minnesota and Southern trailer park girls. When you look at me, you see a brown girl, and I fucking love that. And when I was younger, I felt like I was forced to fit into a category, but I was too white to be Latina and too Latina to be white. It’s a beautiful thing to have the wisdom now to embrace both and just be me.”
The EP’s first single, EP title track “For a Fool,” is a Patsy Cline-styled ballad of heartbreak, despair and uneasy acceptance anchored around some gorgeous pedal steel and Gomez’s Linda Ronstadt-like vocal. Inspired by the modern “situationship” phenomenon and Gomez’s experiences dating in Los Angeles, the song describes a bitterly common scenario: dealing with a love interest you really dig, who’s an unserious time waster that’s playing with your heart and emotions. And while the song’s narrator is heartbroken, she clearly recognizes her time and her worth, offering a bit of wisdom for anyone who encounters this sort of lover — leave that fool alone before you get played for a fool.
“I was 28, single, and could finally see through these types of guys so clearly,” Gomez says. “I actually started to feel bad for them at a certain point. You’ve got to be real sad deep down to just use a person to satisfy your own loneliness and boredom.”
Directed by the band’s Hamilton Boyce (bass), the accompanying video for “For a Fool” was shot at Bar Flores, a Latina-owned tequila/mezcal bar in Los Angeles’ Echo Park section, known for having predominantly female bartenders of color behind the bar, including them and’s Gomez. And throughout we see Gomez in a series of flashbacks, presumably falling in love — and then in the present, proudly telling off an off-screen love interest.
New Video: Doechii Shares Surreal and Anxious Visual for “Anxiety”
Last year was a breakthrough year for Doechii: Alligator Bites Never Heal was released to critical praise from NPR, Paste, Consequence, Stereogum and UPROXX while coming in at #1 on Rolling Stone‘s “The 20 Best Hip-Hop Albums of 2024” and in the top 10 of their overall “Best Albums of 2024” list. And unless you were living in a cave or just awoken from a coma, you’d recall that earlier this year, the acclaimed artist won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album.
Adding other a boatload of accolades, Doechii was recently named Woman of the Year at the Billboard Women in Music event and Outstanding Music Artist at the GLAAD Media Awards.
Her latest single “Anxiety,” follows “DENIAL IS A RIVER,” which debuted at # 1 on both the Official Physical Singles and Official Vinyl Singles charts, and was released last month through Top Dawg Entertainment/Capitol Records, and has already amassed over 272 million combined global streams, include 85 million domestic streams and more than 23 billion views across her social media. And if you somehow hadn’t heard the song on the radio or on your DSP of choice, you’d be familiar with the song because it’s gone viral and has become a firmly buried earworm. The song is remarkably catchy but it also continues to showcase one of our moment’s most unique and wildly talented artists — and some of the most inventive production you’ll hear in pop and hip-hop.
Directed by James Mackel, the accompanying video follows the acclaimed artist as she makes her way through an elegant mansion with an overly attentive staff. However, the luxurious setting is fraught with disturbing, deeply surreal, anxiety-inducing and/or terrifying situations, including a raging kitchen fire, an enormous and menacing Doberman, a falling chandelier, a team of black-clad, ninja-like intruders, who break through the windows, two creepy twins, before ending with a collection of “Thriller”-like dancers that turns into a Broadway-styled dance scene. It’s playful yet deeply unsettling.
“Anxiety” is Doechii’s first single to enter Billboard‘s Hot 100’s Top 10. Currently, the track is in the Top 20 of the Top 40 and Urban Radio Charts. And it currently ranks in on the To 10 on the Rhythm radio charts. The track is currently #12 on the Spotify Global Charts and Top 5 on the UK’s Official Singles Charts.
Throwback: Happy 58th Birthday, Liz Phair!
JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Liz Phair’s 58th birthday.
New Video: Tan Cologne Shares Hazy, “A Storm in Heaven”-like “Cloud of Mirrors”
Enigmatic Taos, NM-based duo Tan Cologne — Lauren Green and Marissa Macias — have released work rooted in terrestrial and earthen landscapes: Their debut, 2020’s Cave Vaults on the Moon in New Mexico explored the topography of cultures and subcultures on the surface of New Mexico. Their sophomore album, 2022’s Earth Visions of Water Spaces was inspired by past, present and future water and waterways, embodying the power of water and how it has shaped our planet. 2023’s Pescetrullo (soundscapes) captured a series of on-site instrumental and field recordings made in the remote architectural Pescetrullo in Puglia, Italy, immortalizing the contrasts of ancient buildings, new bold structures, insects, and lapping water of the surrounding environment.
The New Mexico-based duo’s forthcoming third album Unknown Beyond is slated for a June 20, 2025 release through Labrador Records. Unlike their previously released material, Unknown Beyond sees Green and Macias reaching for the heavens and an intangible greater existence; the infinite and unexplainable while embracing the beauty of timeless uncertainty.
Written, performed and recorded entirely by the duo at their Taos, New Mexico-based home, the album found the pair seeking solitude and retreat as they attempted to come to terms with the personal loss of family, friends and childhood homes — within a relatively short period of time. The album’s creative process quickly became a therapeutic outlet for grieving, dealing, changing and understanding new life transitions and ways of being, with each track being a part of the story of the entire album.
The album reportedly sees Green and Macias seeking a more spiritual process. “We looked for signs and signals during the recording process” they say. “If we saw a shooting star, imagined a fire burning on a hill, or remembered an old satellite dish in someone’s yard, we explored that lyrically. Those visual guides became our pathways to the album. They were the signs to move forward.”
Interviewing and layering hypnotic beats, hazy shoegeazer textures, abstract live drum patterns and sounds of searching for signals — of comfort and communication — from the invisible web, Unknown Beyond may arguably be their most immersive and emotive work to date.
Unknown Beyond‘s latest single, the woozy yet meditative “Cloud of Mirrors” features swirling and painterly, shoegazer-like guitar textures and Green’s and Macias’ soaring harmonies ethereally floating over a bed of pulsating, metronomic-like drum machine click. Sonically, “Cloud of Mirrors” marks a sonic and thematic shift for the New Mexico-based outfit as they embrace a richer blend of electronic elements to their sound, all while recalling A Storm in Heaven and Souvlaki-era shoegaze.
“’Cloud of Mirrors’ is about life happening to you and having to deal with whatever is handed to you – a chemtrail above, being ‘over it,’ knowing we are all interconnected and a part of the disaster and the beauty,” the duo explain. “The idea that we are a mirrored image of the sky – manmade or natural, or even simulated. A reflection of everything around you being internally present.”
Fittingly, the accompanying video is a hazy in-studio performance featuring seemingly endless reflections and refractions, as though looking at the duo performing through a mirror.
New Video: Orphan Prodigy Shares Madchester-Inspired Anthem “Get Away”
Ian Keller, is Queens-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and creative mastermind behind the emerging solo recording project Orphan Prodigy. After spending nearly two decades as the frontman of an alternative rock band, Keller decided to branch off and start studying music production and engineering.
As it turns out, it wasn’t very long after he was introduced to digital workstations that the Queens-based artist found his way back to writing songs — and subsequently began working on material that would eventually become his Orphan Prodigy debut album.
With roots in early 90s and 2000s alternative rock and metal, Keller’s Orphan Prodigy sees him writing music digitally and alone, which has allowed him to explore musical horizons organically and outside the confines of a conventional band. Orphan Prodigy sees Keller dabbling with influences in electronic dance music, house and trance.
Keller’s recently Orphan Prodigy debut, Medication For A Modern World sees the Queens-based artist pushing the boundaries of contemporary rock and filling every sonic space possible. Thematically, the album’s material harnesses the anxiety and concerns of our moment — and turns them into a soundtrack for the contemporary era. The album encourages listeners to tackle their mental health head-on, urging listeners to confront their struggles, rather than numb them as modern, late-stage capitalism would want you to do.
Medication For A Modern World‘s lead single “Get Away” manages to recall Electronic and the Madchester sound with the song featuring glistening and arpeggiated bursts of Larry Levan-like keys, skittering, club rocking boom-bap, a supple bass line paired with Keller’s emphatic delivery. “Get Away” showcases an artist who can craft a slickly produced, rousingly anthemic song with some remarkably catchy hooks.
At its core, the song expresses a familiar desire to escape a crazy, overstimulated world, one that’s sliding into fascism in a feverish pace. If you’re not at that point yet, then you’re ignoring reality.
The accompanying video features Keller playing all the song’s instruments in a clean, white studio. And fittingly, it reminds me of several videos from the 80s.