In her short career, Grace Pettis has built a reputation as a respected songwriter among artists, industry, and fans. The winner of NPR's Mountain Stage NewSong Contest and Kerrville Folk Festival's New Folk Contest, Grace has amassed an impressive collection of awards, accolades, and glowing reviews.

Grace partnered for a second time with producer Billy Crockett and Blue Rock Studio to make her critically acclaimed "TWO BIRDS" album (2012). Maverick Magazine featured a FIVE STAR review, touting "If you purchase only one album this year, TWO BIRDS is it!"  

For Grace, the album was a success long before its release.  Loyal fans contributed roughly $32,000 to its making.  TWO BIRDS marks the culmination of years of writing, touring and surviving as an independent artist.

Photo by Heba Salem, (c) 2015

Indie rock-ish. 

Bad Vacation (Arts and Crafts, 2020)
Fine But Dying (Arts and Crafts, 2018)
TWO (Independently, 2015) 
The Colder Months (Independently, 2014)

With their new song "Cheerleader," singer-songwriter Liza Anne redefines themselves with a queer anthem for the ages, accompanied by an epic music video starring comedian/actor Eva Victor that shatters old tropes of high school popularity and spotlights queer culture and anyone who has been othered.

On the track, Liza said, "With Cheerleader, it was so important to me to create a space of healing in a physical place where before, I wasn’t fully free. To return to an actual high school gymnasium with a queer cast feeling euphoric and fully celebrated felt so important - we were all physically in a place that smelled like being bullied and reminded me of stuffing who I was so far down I could hardly reach them. To return joyful and fully ourselves was powerful. It went beyond a visual or an aesthetic or a creative choice and became a therapeutic catharsis for all of us - I don’t even think I knew how much lighter I was going to feel. Being gay is a fucking miracle and I feel so surrounded by love and support right now, it’s almost overwhelming. Queerness is so beautiful, I feel like I am home. I am so happy to be here."

 This is Liza Anne’s first single since coming out as gay and non-binary, proof that embracing oneself magnificently yields creative magic. Liza Anne, who previously made their artistic home in Nashville, moved to New York and found their truest self in a city that embraces all people.

The second full-length from Emily Wolfe, Outlier, released June 25th, 2021 on Crows Feet Records, is an album built on exquisite tension: an endless push-and-pull between desire and resistance, determination and self-sabotage, the instinctive need to belong and the urge to strike out on your own. For help in channeling that complexity of feeling, the Austin-based singer/songwriter/guitarist explored and obliterated the boundaries of rock-and-roll and modern pop, mining equal inspiration from the likes of Judas Priest and Ariana Grande in her bold but masterful genre-bending. Produced by Michael Shuman of Queens of the Stone Age and Mini Mansions, the resulting body of work finds Wolfe upending the conventions of each genre, ultimately arriving at a guitar-drenched sound that’s wildly unpredictable and immediately magnetic.

I'm a radio host, author of "Unoffendable" and "Blessed are the Misfits" and I pack an accordion. Also: Puppets. I get to help heal kids through CURE International. How cool is that?

Jeff Toronjo is following