Q

One Liner: More R&B, this time, from a guy with an unsearchable name!

Wikipedia Genre:  No Wikipedia, but this is Alternative R&B and R&B
Home: South Florida

Poster Position: Late Addition
Both Weekends

Friday at 2:30 on the Tito's Stage.

Thoughts:  Oh my gosh.  I am so grateful that this is not the Q Brothers.  I had this deep seated fear that, despite Austin Kiddie Limits being cancelled this year, that I was about to search for this and it was just those Q Brothers dorks dropping off half of their name so that I'd have to listen to their knockoff Hamilton music again.  Whew.

Instead, this is Q Marsden, an R&B guy with an entirely unsearchable nickname.  !!! is probably worse, but just a single letter is very tough.  But, it is apparently his actual government name.  Q Steven Marsden.  Still though, you might try going by Q Mars or something.

Three albums, which is surprising.  2-18's Thoughts, 2019's Forest Green, and 2021's The Shave Experiment.  One of the tracks off of that new album is far and away his hit.  Pretty R&B with reverby guitars, a gentle falsetto, and a plain jane drum track.  This is "Take Me Where Your Heart Is."  20.6 million streams.

I feel like I just watched an R&B guy do a bowling alley for ACL?  All of this alt R&B is bleeding together for me.  Slick move right there, just firing a $20 over the counter to pay for the girl's bowling alley burger.  That'll get you hooked up with quickness.  But wearing those Chucks is going to get you kicked out of the alley with quickness as well.  Where your bowling shoes, bro?

The title for this article about his is "Unsearchable Name, Unforgettable Music."  I gotta disagree.  This sounds like so many other things I've heard recently, I've already forgotten it.  Although the article does give some good background - he's the son of a guy named Steven "Lenky" Marsden, "an influential figure in the dancehall and reggae scene, creator of the legendary “Diwali Riddim,” sampled by the likes of Rihanna (“Pon De Replay”) and Sean Paul (“Get Busy”) for multiple Billboard hits. "  That's pretty cool.

Hell, in that same article, he even admits that his music isn't all that different.  "Forest Green and The Shave Experiment are not really that different. Literally, I use the same drums and guitar. The baselines are all the same. It’s the exact same sounds with a flanger and a chorus. But it just goes to show that when you know how to use things, you can just transform sounds. Really, it's just three instruments and my voice."  Wack-ass headline.

He also notes that he has never performed any of his songs live, ever.  That seems like a really big deal when he is supposed to be here playing his songs live for us.  Weird.  His second most streamed, with 4.3 million, is "Lavender."  This is from the Forest Green disc.

Definitely more of a beat, less of an organic instrumentation than those tracks on the new album, until the guitar ducks in for a sec.  It's fine.  His voice is nice, and there is a good little groove in there, here and there, but then it's also off-kilter.  I don't know man, I just never got into the Frank Ocean thing.  I won't search this one out.