Brett Barest When I first met Brooks Dixon back in 2015, he was a recent Clemson graduate, young engineer, and singer/songwriter who was honing his skills as a solo artist around the Upstate. He was a seasoned veteran of Clemson’s Moe Joe Coffee and had just played his first...
Brett Barest After spending the last couple of weeks promoting a variety of efforts aimed to support the livelihood of independent music venues during the COVID pandemic, I had all intentions of returning to the “Artists Picking Artists” series this week. The trouble is, due to a couple of...
Brett Barest When we started this series, I imagined that I would reach out to a few musicians I could call friends, get some picks that would give the local scene some love for a few weeks, and then go back to covering live shows in a few weeks...
Brett Barest In last week’s edition of this column I mentioned that Kelly Jo and/or Phat Lip were frequently finding a place on artists’ list, which is part of what prompted me to reach out to her. That sentiment continues this week as Salti Ray the band, and Salti...
Brett Barest I do not know how I got this deep into this series without talking to Kelly Jo but I am going to blame the local music scene for being too darned talented for me to get to everyone in a timely manner. That’s my story and I...
Brett Barest My plan for this past Sunday was to sit in my backyard with a cold beverage and The LOZ Band’s LionzFest streaming on my phone or laptop. Before I could do that, however, Don at Quest Brewing called me up and said he was letting a few...
Brett Barest When we first imagined this series I knew that I would be asking Vilai Harrington for his contribution and, frankly, I am not sure how it took so long to get here. I am not surprised, however, to find that my friend Vilai’s list was worth the...
Brett Barest When this series started six weeks ago I knew I wanted to make sure each week’s featured artist would bring a completely different perspective to the table. For the most part, I feel like we have done just that with Americana, indie rock, metal, hip-hop, and whatever...
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Brett Barest When I started writing this “Artist Picking Artists” series, I knew I would be reaching out to John Durham at some point, for a whole host of reasons. His work with The LOZ Band, April B & the Cool, and The Local Green Family band make...
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] In the first three editions of this series we have covered the local Americana, indie rock, and metal scenes in some detail but have only begun to scratch the surface of what the Upstate has to offer. This brings me to one genre that I admittedly do not...
