Crowe Boys

One Liner: Actual brothers making pretty fun folky rock
Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia, but indie rock, Americana, folk rock
Home: New Orleans (via Baton Rouge)

Poster Position: Third Quarter - Line 15
Day: Friday
Weekend Two Only.

Thoughts: My elementary school principal was named Mrs. Crowe.  She freaking ruled.  Well, you know how memories from childhood persist and morph and settle in, to fit what you think they were, but if my memory is correct, it was Mrs. Crowe who made it so that our hallways were like a miniature zoo full of animals we could look at during the school day.  If I remember correctly, good grades or attendance or something would earn you time with the animals.  I definitely remember the insanely soft, light grey chinchillas.  But my favorite of all of the animals in the school was, in part, because of my favorite place in the school.  The library (who knew, I was a nerd?) was my refuge to go read, and the left side wall of the library had windows looking out into a large aviary that had been built into a nook of the building.  There was a magical little spiral staircase that led up to a similarly small upstairs part of the library, and I would go hole up in that space with a book.  And the soundtrack to that space was the gently soothing cooing of the group of mourning doves that lived in that aviary.  I loved that space.  While in law school, I found that the sketchy bamboo thicket out back of our crappy duplex was the home to a pack of mourning doves, and so when I was stressed out I learned to go sit on the tiny back patio and just listen to them call.

You can see the spiral staircase there, and those windows in the bottom right corner led out to the aviary.  I think I had to spend extra time here after school while my mom did PTA stuff, and so I spent some nice, quiet time in these spaces.

Oh, I am so pleased.  Go to 17:20 in this video and you can see some of what I meant!  At 21:35 you can see the aviary!  I am literally tearing up right now.  God, I hope this band is actually good.  Haha.

Hooray for me!  A nice little Americana/folky sound with great harmonies and some tasty banjo licks.  Their Spotify bio says that they spent their childhood traveling around the American South with their family band until their mother passed away.  So, the boys put down roots in New Orleans as young teenagers and started to gravitate towards folk-influenced artists.  Ocie Crowe on acoustic guitar and Wes Crowe on mandolin.  According to their website bio, they originally tried to break through as an indie punk band, with Ocie on guitar, Wes on bass, and other brother Jacob on drums, but that was apparently a major flop.  "After one night of hustling to fill up a venue, the crowd completely emptied out after the opening act’s set."  That has to be a horrible feeling.  But as they evolved into something else, a friend played their tunes for one of the guys in the Revivalists, who jumped on it and helped the brothers get into the studio and record their sound.

They reluctantly started posting little clips to TikTok, and a rendition of "Where Did I Go Wrong" went viral while the two brothers were at their normal jobs, trying to keep track of it going crazy.  Within hours, several hundred thousand views, and by the next day they snagged more than a million views (with it finally topping out over 13 million streams).  That led to managers and labels and everyone else popping out to snatch them up, and they ended up signing with C3.  That is still their top track, with 6.8 million streams.

Good lyrics about just trying to figure out life as it keeps hurtling by.  No actual album yet, although their last several singles are released with the cover for a future album that will be called Made to Wander.  "Let Me Feel Alone" is the second biggest streamer so far with just over a million streams.

His voice sounds like someone else who I can't quite recall.  But the harmonies and the instruments and the vocals, all just spot on for me.  Good ass hootenanny song to boogie down to in an open field!  "Bootstraps" is also a good tune.  For all the people who wanted to hear Caamp last year, this ought to get them in the mood this time!

Sam Barber (2025)

One Liner: Funny to think that Zach Bryan has been around long enough to have artists following in his footsteps, but this guy is right there.
Wikipedia Genre: country, rock, folk, alternative (err, really tho?)
Home: Southeast Missouri

Poster Position: Second Quarter - Line 7
Day: Friday
Weekend Two Only.

Thoughts: He was at Two Step Inn in 2023, and to be completely honest, I thought I was about to hear Sam Fender.  I am sort of sad that this is not Sam Fender.  I was pumped that he might be trying to come back, since his last attempt to ACL was cancelled.  Alas, a country guy instead.  No offense intended to my man Barbs here, just wanted some of that Hypersonic Missiles action.

Back in 2023, Wikipedia was unhelpful, in that "Sam Barber" there was this: "Samuel Barber (September 17, 1919 – April 18, 1999) was an American baseball pitcher in the Negro leagues. A native of Birmingham, Alabama, Barber played with the Birmingham Black Barons in 1940, and served in the US Army during World War II. He died in Birmingham in 1999 at age 79."

But by now, this Barber has begun to make a name for himself and has an actual Wikipedia entry.  Born in 2003 in Fronha, Missouri, he is just barely old enough to drink.  He was raised on his family's ancestral farm in far eastern Missouri, a population of 254 in the town.  He started learning to play guitar when he was 16 while messing around with his grandfather's guitar, and by 2021 he was enrolled in State Technical College of Missouri and releasing little music videos on TikTok.  He then auditioned for the 20th season of American Idol and received a Golden Ticket to head to Hollywood.  However, he was subsequently eliminated, and his performance did not air.  Booooooooo.

But his rise has been ridiculously fast - he played the Grand Ole Opry just three months after his first official headlining concert at The Basement, in Nashville, in 2023.  His big hit, which has already been certified as Platinum by the RIAA, is "Straight and Narrow", and that remains his top track by a lot.  313.7 million streams.

I love that location - can I please go there right now?  Super simple tune, but a powerful message about overcoming setbacks.  Wild to think he wrote that while still a teenager.  And by the way, in one interview, he admits that he first learned the guitar by playing Zach Bryan covers.  He gives a shout out to Tyler Childers, saying that Bottles and Bibles is his favorite album ever.  He also includes ZB and Stapleton as his other inspirations.  And the comparison to an early Zach Bryan is a quick and easy one to make.  Some of these songs have a touch of production going on, but most of them are super stripped-down tunes with this kid singing over his acoustic, and nothing else going on.  

One EP - 2023's Millon Eyes - and one ridiculously long album - 2024's Restless Mind.  In an interview, he said that his favorite track from the EP is "Save Me," which is funny because it is in the bottom three for streams for the disc.  His second-most streamed tune on the EP is a cover - "Dancing in the Sky," originally by something called Dani & Lizzy.  102.4 million streams.

Definitely the track on here with the most production - he leaves behind the stripped-down sound in favor of drums, bass, organ, etc. and it almost actually sounds like he might be somewhere other than his bedroom.

The new disc is an hour and thirty-four minutes and 28 songs, so he is taking another page out of the Bryan playbook by just shoveling everything into one bag and hoping it holds.  I actually like the direction he is going, with more production and a richer sound.  The top single that isn't a re-released track is "Indigo," featuring Avery Anna.  172 million streams.

Terrible blurry video.  But very nice little tune.  Her voice is leagues better than his, but it still works together.  The playcount on the album is honestly confusing.  I guess some songs have made it onto playlists and others have not, because it is literally like 1.7 million, 14 million, 1.6 million 29 million, 1.7 million 1.5 million, 1.8 million, 172 million.  For an old person trained to listen to entire albums at once, that is jarring to see.

I'd go see him play.  Too bad he is Weekend Two only.

Johnny Stimson

One Liner: What I imagine a Justin Beiber b-side would sound like

Wikipedia Genre: no Wikipedia, indie R&B pop dreck
Home: Maybe Dallas, maybe New York City.  Who really knows.

Poster Position: Third Quarter - Line 19
Day: Friday
Weekend Two Only.

Thoughts:  Oh man, I am in the valley of sonic death right now.  This guy screwed with me, as his Spotify cover picture looks like a young Willie Nelson, black cowboy hat, beard, and braids all included.  And then you click play and this is what I imagine Justin Beiber's b-sides sound like.  Kind of an indie R&B sort of sound, very soft and soulful and boring.

No Wikipedia, but a Reddit thread says that a member of the K-Pop band BTS covered once of his songs in 2019, and it made the song go massively viral in South Korea.  I had to get to the third page of Google results to find any sort of background on the dude - I'm sure its all available on TikTok or something - but it was pretty useless.  "Johnny Stimson captures the full spectrum of human emotion in his music, weaving love and loss, joy and sorrow, nostalgia, and growing up into melodies that transcend borders."  Oh, thanks AI!  That doesn't sound like the background blurb of every artist ever, at alllllll!  According to another blurb, he was born in New York City in 1988 and taught himself to play guitar as a teen.  He collaborated with "the music industry's top artists, including Lennon Stella, Samantha Jade and Bryce Vine."  Yeah, sure.  Those people are definitely bigger than Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and the next 7,278 most popular artists.  Strangely, the tiny little "Overview" on Google says that he is a Dallas-born musician who blends soulful rasp with modern pop to create romantic melodies that spread positivity.  Are there possibly two Johnny Stimsons?

At the end of the day, for me, I do not care where he is from and who he has worked with, because I cannot stand these songs.  Top track is "Flower" with 65.3 million streams, from his 2021 album of the same name.

eeeeyyyahhhhaaaawwwwww, eyyyy eyyyy eyyyyyy.  If you have been reading me for a while, you know that R&B has never been my thing, but this just feels so paper thin and forgettable.  If this guy is still on anyone's radar by this time next year, I will learn how to make a super jenky beat on a computer just like him.  I wondered if maybe his new single would give me something different to go with the Willie look.  Not so much.  This was released 11 days ago and has 68k streams.

I'm just going to have to burn one of the artists on the poster that I already know I like, because I need to get out of this rut.  Blurg.  I will not go see this.

Confidence Man

One Liner: Techno stuff with tons of top end sounds and not enough bass for me

Wikipedia Genre: electropop
Home: Brisbane, Australia

Poster Position: Second Quarter - Line 11
Day: Friday
Both Weekends.

Thoughts:  When the first 30 seconds of the band makes you sigh very loudly at your desk, you know you are in for a real treat.  It is house music, I think.  Never entirely sure how to parse the different genres of EDM, but it is also deeply annoying to me.  This is the kind of techno where it is really fast, like too fast to comfortably dance to it unless you are one of those scary tweakers with the little lights on the ends of your fingers, and a lady sings inane crap over the top the whole time.  I was really hoping this band name was going to lead me to something cool.  Not so much.

I know I should write this stuff myself, but the Wikipedia entry here is really just so weird that I feel like you need it: "The band was formed in 2016. The members had met on the Brisbane music scene, and had been in other bands including: The Belligerents, Moses Gunn Collective and The Jungle Giants, and use pseudonyms ....  They started writing dance songs together, initially as a "kind of joke", but eventually reali[z]ed the material was worth pursuing.  Planet and Bones provide vocals and dancing while Goodchild and McGuffie, who appear as masked figures, play keyboards and drums." Those are some special pseudonyms for sure.

3 albums - 2018's Confident Music for Confident People, 2022's Tilt, and 2024's 3AM (La La La).  Their top streamers are not actually their songs, they are two tracks by DJ Seinfeld with these guys on the track.  But a 2019 single called "Does It Make You Feel Good" is the top streamer that is just them.  And to be honest, it is much better than the first six tracks on their Spotify Popular list.  15.6 million streams.

Not quite as frenetic as more popular tunes, although it still doesn't do much for me.  I think when I want the techno music I want more bass and heft than this more top-end-heavy stuff that sounds like half of it is just high hats.  " I CAN'T LOSE YOU" is from the new disc and has 5.2 million streams.

Naked people in a helicopter is pretty fun.  But man, that song is terrible.  All the worst parts of that Barbie Girl song sped up and repeated over and over.  I don't know if she is Planet or Bones, but she is brave to hang half-way out of that chopper with her boobs flopping around.  "Holiday" has 10.4 million streams.

Oh, a hot air balloon this time.  They need to do that on stage in the Tito's Tent and burn that sucker down.  That song is maybe better than the last one, but still relatively annoying for me.

I will let other folks enjoy the sounds of these weirdos.

Latin Mafia

One Liner: Spanish indie pop, which, I guess I knew had to exist, but somehow didn't expect

Wikipedia Genre: reggaeton, Latin trap, house, Latin R&B, dream pop, indie pop
Home: Mexico City

Poster Position: Second Quarter - Line 8
Day: Saturday
Both Weekends.

Thoughts:  This was one of the bands that was teased with the postcards that went out before the lineup was announced.  I had no idea who they were, and now I know why.  This first song sort of feels like if a K-Pop song was in Spanish.  Which is an ignorant take, since I don't think I know a single K-Pop song, so maybe this is like what I imagine K-Pop would sound like in Spanish.  It is terrible.  Like, crazy generic guitar licks coming in over completely forgettable pop synth garbage.  And a bunch of Spanish words saying lots of things.

This band has two twin brothers doing the vocals, which is kind of fun.  Milton and Emilio de la Rosa, with their older brother Mike doing the production.  It's all in the family!  Wikipedia says they "appeared on the scene" using TikTok during the pandemic.  Not sure which scene, but they did some tracks on video in their bedroom and received a positive response.  By the end of 2022, they sold out the Olympic Velodrome in Mexico City in minutes.  By April 2024, they were at Coachella, and I guess now we get to enjoy this too.  They won the Lo Nuestro Award for Best Latin Fusion Song in 2024.  So, they've got that going for them.  Which is nice.

One album, 2024's TODOS LOS DIAS TODO EL DIA.  Which is weird to type and means Every Day, All Day.  JEAAAAHHHH!!!  But their top song is a 2023 single called "Patadas de Ahogado," which I swear I have ordered in a restaurant before.  What does that mean?  According to the google, it means "Drowning Kicks."  Which is a really weird title.  But I can't understand what they are singing about anyway, so maybe it is all about how a person they were drowning while doing hardcore mafia shit kept kicking them as they drowned?  Dunno.  221.4 million streams.

🎶 "I drowned that dude in the bathtub while he kicked like Pele!"  🎶 Iconic line for sure. Yeah, not really.  That song is not my thing at all.  Even if I could understand it, it sounds super lame.  Second-biggest streamer is "Julieta," which translates to "Julieta."  179.8 million streams.

Bro.  If you can sell out a stadium, you can afford some real Chuck Taylors.  Damn.  Also, that song is very boring as well.  Even if this was in English, I really think I would have felt the same way that these are bad tracks made by Mike in his bedroom when he should have just like, gone to college and become a nurse practitioner or something.  This is not my thing.