By: Jackie Lo When I think of Jason Molina, I think about the early days of Bottletree, where he played a month after they opened their doors, again the following year, and then, thankfully, We Have Signal documented Magnolia Electric Co.'s final 2008 Bottletree performance (video below). I remember the first year Substrate Radio launched, talking about Songs: Ohia with Dan from Seasick before Seasick Records opened its doors, too. […]

By: Jackie Lo It’s been a while since a song stopped me in my tracks, and “I Want You” by Beck Zegans did just that. I stopped scrolling through songs immediately and thought: I need to know who Beck Zegans is. I need to know what the rest of this album sounds like. Engraving of Armor released Friday on Exploding in Sound Records, and I’ve been loving this nine-song album, […]

By: Kayleigh Drake  I first heard of TV Star a couple years ago through what is probably my favorite compilation of all time: From Far It All Seems Small: A Compilation From Seattle’s Underground. It was released on KR Records, which is the label that Mark Palm from Supercrush owns and operates, and it consists of 14 songs from bands I was largely unfamiliar with prior to listening. Since Seattle […]

By: Kayleigh Drake  At this point, it should be absolutely no secret that I’m a shoegaze fan. (Please see exhibits A, B, C and D.) So, when I hear about a brand-new shoegaze album being released, I’m drawn to it like a moth to a flame.  Enter Glidewinder, the second full-length album from San Diego’s self-billed “truegaze” band Sparkler. It just dropped on Friday, April 10, and when I say […]

By: Kayleigh Drake  Joder Juan is a band that brings back a really nice memory for me. I first heard them during one of my very first radio shifts at Substrate, back in January of 2025. I was queuing up my playlist for the evening, and in the moments before my show started, their song “Analisis del Desgaste” played in our station rotation. I had never heard of either the […]

By: Jackie Lo Being a teenage girl in the 90s, I had a handful of girl bands that I obsessed over. Hole was one of them. I was 14 when I discovered them and when Kurt Cobain died. I remember my mom taking me to the store and buying me ice cream and picking up a copy of the People magazine with his face on the front of it and […]

By: Jackie Lo I’ve long admired Kim Gordon, from her days of Sonic Youth to Free Kitten, X-Girl, Body/Head, to showing me how you can successfully have a long career of playing music in a band with your partner, to doing your own things without them after they are gone even while your heart is broken and I’ve loved watching her solo career with these last three albums. We share […]

By: Kayleigh Drake Y’all know I love to see a fellow Southern band kicking ass. And that’s one of many reasons why I’m digging the heck out of this new Cashier EP. Cashier being the four-piece band from Lafayette, Louisiana, who just released a six-songer, “The Weight,” on Julia’s War Recordings last week. (As in, the iconic Philly-based label founded by Doug Dulgarian from TAGABOW.) And it has been in […]

By: Kayleigh Drake I’m a simple girl. I like sunsets, long walks and bands with wall-of-sound guitars. So it only makes sense that I’m a Nothing fan.  Nothing, as in the five-piece shoegaze band with a self-professed “un-Googleable name,” based out of Philadelphia, but which features our very own local Birmingham musician, Cam Smith (also of Ladder to God and Cloakroom), on guitar.  They just dropped their fifth studio album, […]

By: Kayleigh Drake  If there’s one thing I love in the vast world of music, it’s shoegaze. Even more so if it’s loud. And that’s exactly why I’m a big fan of Trauma Ray.  Trauma Ray is a five-piece shoegaze band based in Fort Worth, Texas. (Come through, fellow Southerners!) But I wouldn’t say they’re the “ethereal,” UK-in-the-early-90s brand of shoegaze. Rather, they remind me of a cross between Hum […]

By: Kayleigh Drake  Draag is one of those bands that you can’t really pin down to one genre. And that’s what I love about them. Well, that and the fact that every song I’ve ever heard by them is amazing and transcendent and makes me feel like I’m floating through a dreamworld. And their most recent release, a six-song EP called Miracle Drug, is absolutely no exception.  If you’re unfamiliar, […]

By: Jackie Lo The Royal We is a coming-of-age story that drops you headfirst into a life of climbing the Hollywood sign while underage drinking, rummaging through bushes for hookups, starting bands with friends, and coming of age in a San Francisco where punk collided with hippies and HIV and heroin were everywhere. Roddy Bottum, a founding member of Faith No More, Imperial Teen, and Man on Man, looks back […]

  By: Jackie Lo What happens when you fall in love with a boy that has impeccable music taste and your life is filled with music and laughter and love for 24 years and then one day, poof, he’s gone? What happens to the music and to your heart every time a song comes on that makes you think of them? It’s a lump in your throat. It’s the tingling […]

by: Jackie Lo Twenty-five years ago, at a mutual friend's wedding, I was wandering through the venue, looking down and not paying attention, when I walked smack dab into someone's chest - hard. We both stopped, startled by the collision, and immediately launched into a flurry of embarrassed apologies. The 21-year-old version of me couldn't believe it when I looked up and realized I'd just run straight into Evan Dando. I […]

By: Jackie Lo   If you like: Glixen, Land of Talk, Chelsea Wolfe, A Perfect Circle Farmer’s Wife, formerly known as “Sludge”, a “dream grunge band” from Austin, Texas, released their Faint Illusions EP today with 5 new songs of swirly guitars, sludge-y sounds, and whimsical lyrics. Their first EP There’s a Monster released in the fall of 2023 and this sophomore EP is grittier and full of darker fantasies. […]

By: Gareth Jones For fans of Tom Hardy, Gareth Evans, violent action films I have been a fan of Gareth Evans for quite a while, and not just because of his name and nationality, although that is a very valid reason.  I remember watching The Raid when it first came out and being absolutely shaken by the extreme violence, but even more so by the game-changing choreography and editing. I […]

HOLY MONKEY I'M YOUR MAN!

By: Kayleigh Drake I’ve been a Mclusky fan ever since I first heard them on Sirius 26 Left of Center (R.I.P.) way back in high school. For years, their iconic 2002 album “Mclusky Do Dallas” has been one of my go-tos for when I’m craving some Loud Shit™. And in fact, I almost named my Substrate radio show “Collagen Rock” in honor of track three on that very album. (I […]