Song of the Day

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March 25, 2025

Julian Neel: “Mermaid of the Rodeo”

By: Taylor Wallace

Austin’s Julian Neel grew-up in Lubbock surrounded at home by the music of artists like Joe Ely and the Flatlanders. Then he spent the last half of the 2010’s on the road with Molly Burch touring the US and Europe. All the while, he was fronting his own band, and he released his debut album Call the Mountain in 2020.

After years of getting his music thirst quenched, Neel filled his cup with the vines of entrepreneurship co-managing the popular Austin wine bar Lolo. But, two cups can be filled at the same time, and Neel has never stopped writing. What musician can?

Neel is back with the heavyweight-studded EP Gallery Show. Members of Chaparelle, Voxtrot and Tele Novella along with members of Weyes Blood, Devandra Banhart, and Tim Heidecker’s bands fill out the record. Neel at the lead takes us through a series of vignettes spanning a motely cast of characters and situations in a small, non-descript Texas town. Each story is given its due time as the EP maintains a leisurely pace, not dallying, but appreciating and exploring.

The characters exist somewhere between the Lynchian and Tarantino spheres, illustrating a place and time that seemingly only perfectly exists within itself, and we’re being treated to a peek inside.


Episodes

June 6, 2025

West of Rome: “Movement In Your Picture”

South Texas rockers West of Rome are here to dislodge the kernel from your craw and even offer you a spittoon so you can get that novel, satisfying “ting.” The band is made-up of childhood friends who, in the absolute tumult leading up to and including the pandemic, decided to finally come together creatively to […]

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June 5, 2025

Magic Rockers of Texas: “Where Did My Life Go?” [Live In Studio 1A]

For about a decade, Austin power pop group Magic Rockers of Texas have been certifiable Austin Music Darlings, going through long periods of performing across town, sometimes as often as three times a week. And that’s just meeting demand. On their new album Gorging On American Fair, Magic Rockers serve-up a more decadent version of […]

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June 4, 2025

Miss Guilty: “Not the One”

Wet Hot Austin Summer is here, baby! And while we’re out all over town putting on free shows like The Drop-In and Music Under the Star, we’re here to splash some new tunes onto your summer playlist. Members of Austin punk band Miss Guilty met in a rockabilly project over a decade ago and in […]

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June 2, 2025

Next of Kin: “Jekyll & Hyde” [Live in Studio 1A]

Our April 2025 Artist of the Month was Next of Kin, the country trio, made up of Lili Hickman, Madison Baker, and Caelin bring a breath of fresh country energy to the Austin music scene they’ve been part of individually for years. In that time, the three fell in love with each other’s music, and […]

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May 30, 2025

JR JR: “Back to the Land”

Like the sun finally coming out from the clouds after five days of relentless summer thunderstorms, comes the new album from Detroit indie pop duo JR JR. On Back to the Land, it’s all in the name. After spending time letting their bubbly, direct indie hooks take side stage for some more experimental endeavors, here, […]

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May 28, 2025

Steel Gemini: “Sound and the Fury”

Today we feature duality. Duality in name, sound, and time. Austin’s Joy Baldwin has been releasing music under the name Steel Gemini for the past several years, an electropop project that grabs your ear with punchy, tinny drumbeats shimmery synths, and pulls you in with Baldwin’s powerful, yet unexpected, jazz-meets-country vocals. On her upcoming debut […]

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May 23, 2025

Jamie Ospina: “The Vessel”

When you’re an Austinite, words like Brownout and Superfónicos paint a very clear, distinct picture. Not only in sound, but in community and philosophy. A distillation of this comes from Superfónicos co-founder Jamie Ospina’s debut solo album The Vessel, a collection of songs of resilience, community, and storytelling blending sonic influences from Africa and Latin […]

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May 22, 2025

Tanika Charles: “Talk to Me Nice”

On Tanika Charles’s new album Reasons To Stay, pain becomes soulful beauty and vulnerability takes center stage. More than five years after her album The Gumption, the Toronto soul singer returns with her most intimate album to date. On Reasons To Stay, she goes deep on her family history in terms of the stages of […]

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