Welcome to Songs that Don't Suck with your host Mark Bradbourne.

What's up friend?

Welcome to songs that don't suck.

My name is Mark.

I'm your host.

And after listening to hours upon hours upon hours of new music translating into hundreds and hundreds of songs, I sit here in front of the microphone to tell you that most of them suck.

But if you are a long time listener, you already know that.

If you're a first time listener, welcome to the party.

Glad you're here.

Yeah, I think we've got a good episode on tap.

But before we get into it, despite my best efforts, concert venues are struggling.

And of course, I have the data.

There is a cost to keeping the lights on.

And it's, it's, it's expensive.

Have you ever walked into a packed club and, like, you know, you're brushing elbows, the band's just kicking ass, the floors vibrating, and you're, you think, damn, I should open a club because these guys are making bank.

But here's the truth.

They're broke as fuck.

They're not struggling.

They are operating at a loss.

And that's The Dirty little secret behind America's independent music venues.

In 2024, indie venues across the US drove $153 billion in economic output and supported over 900,000 jobs.

But here is the twist.

All of those venues, 64% of them, lost money in Ohio.

Since that's where I'm at, it's even bleaker.

Only one in five venues in Ohio is profitable.

And like, these places literally keep the economy moving, but they can't keep their lights on.

And the question is why?

Well, the system's quite frankly rigged, and no one in power is rushing to fix it.

So let's break it down.

Why can't these economic engines pay the rent?

Indie venues are hyper local powerhouses.

In Cleveland alone, there's 22,000 jobs.

That's that's a lot.

That's a lot of jobs, and it's more than tourism like this is to me.

It's cultural infrastructure, if you will.

But the venues are on razor thin margins.

And when folks of a certain age, you know, the Gen.

Xers, like we watch these clubs give birth to bands like nowadays, a lot of it happens online and there's a virility to it.

But these bands, these movements, these scenes like the Seattle scene, Sunset Strip, all that stuff, man, they can't even afford to exist anymore.

So where, where is the money going?

Because year after year you hear about how well the music industry is doing well, ticket resale platforms Jack up prices and they keep the profits.

Ticketmaster and Live Nation rake in fees and indie venues eat the costs.

It's all or nothing.

Tour deals.

They do things called radius clauses, which basically means that some of these clubs that helped break these artists can't book them anymore because it's too close to a certain venue where they're playing.

And the irony of it is, is these venues, like they make 0 from these insane resale markups and the fans blame the venues and then the venues blame the system.

It's like if you were to build a house and someone else rents out the guest room for triple the price and then sues you if you try to open your own Airbnb.

Like it's, it's just fucking asinine.

So let's look at it a little bit differently.

Let's look at it from the corporate privilege side versus the indie reality.

Indie venues don't get tax breaks like giant stadiums and sports franchises.

The big guys play Monopoly and the little guys get evicted.

If you think about the tax revenue that indie venues generated in 2024, which was $19.3 billion in tax revenue, that funds government operations, but almost none of that comes back to actually help venues survive.

So like, if these independent venues were data centers or football stadiums, they'd have state grants and tax breaks and people would be lining up to buy the naming rights by now because that's how much like, revenue they generate.

That's how many people go through the door.

And these venues, right?

You've heard me talk about it.

I always say that live music is my church.

These venues are sanctuaries.

They, they don't just host music, they build culture in those areas.

Live music isn't just entertainment, it's identity.

Like we found ourselves in these dark rooms amongst these loud amplifiers and the sticky, sticky floors.

We were sweaty, we were shoulder to shoulder taking communion from these bands.

And you can't live stream that.

There's a reason why so many of us remember the smell of certain clubs.

Like if you're from Cleveland and you're from a a certain generation, you're going to remember the smell of Peabody's Down Under in the flats and God forbid you had to go into the bathroom.

Today's concert scene, it's dominated a lot by these corporate mega tours, right?

There's this idea of dynamic pricing.

Now people are paying for VIP experiences and they're paying $20.00 for a beer.

Indie venues, it's the opposite.

It's real.

It's unfiltered connection between the artist and the fan.

And that's why I like going to these smaller shows and these independent venues.

But the independent venues are treated like second class citizens in a business that they literally built supporting them.

For us, it's an act of rebellion, not nostalgia.

So for a, you know, an industry and a a niche that returns billions in taxes but is stuck begging for scraps where these venues employ 20 people or fewer but generate millions of jobs through ripple effect.

Think about restaurants and adjacent bars and food trucks and all the shit that happens outside of these venues.

These aren't entertainment luxuries.

These are infrastructure.

Just not the kind that gets the ribbon cutting ceremony.

These venues pave roads to nowhere.

They fund stadiums for billionaires.

But it the government doesn't support the venue where your kids saw their first show.

So the next time you're at your favorite venue, tip big.

Support the staff.

Buy the damn T-shirt that they're selling behind the bar.

If there's a petition on the bar, sign it.

Whatever you have to do to support this venue, do it.

Because this isn't about the music.

It's about memory.

It's about community, whether we want a culture shaped by corporations or crowds.

And if we let these stages disappear, we're not just losing places, we're losing a piece of ourselves.

So take that to heart.

All right, let's get into the new music for this week, shall we?

The first song this week is Cocaine and Lexapro from Spanish Love Songs, featuring Kevin Devine.

I'm really excited to hear new music from Spanish Love Songs.

I featured two or three songs off of their last album, No Joy on the podcast very early on.

I think of Season 1.

And yeah, just super thrilled to see this getting released.

This track, in comparison to that album, I feel like it's a little more mellow, but still, you know, great representation, if you will, of modern day emo.

Fits very nicely with another artist that I've had on the podcast recently, PDUSA.

And like this track just, it has a really nice vibe.

It's different than No Joy where I felt like some of the tracks were just a little more aggressive.

This one just got a chill vibe to it, which is cool.

Musically, it's got a nice build.

If you're a long time listener, you know, I love the use of dynamics.

So.

So yeah, just really happy honestly with this song.

Check it out.

This is a little bit of cocaine and Lexapro from Spanish Love Songs featuring Kevin Devine.

Early dementia, help me get back to sleep.

Your set of problems.

Not a problem till you call it my name.

Pilot still a pilot till it crashes the plane.

Swear I have controls like a human.

The second song this week is Somewhere by Blonde Rose.

Now there have been a lot of bands recently who have come around that have channelled a strong classic rock vibe like Led Zeppelin type sounds and quite frankly I'm for it.

The resurgence of guitar riff rock is what I am here for and I am glad that it is happening now.

What makes Blonde Rose interesting to me is that they didn't however channel Robert Plant style vocals where a lot of these other bands have not at all.

I honestly placed this vocal with more of like the 90s grunge, maybe post grunge tambour that that kind of gravely sound, especially in the chorus.

And then combining these two very distinctive styles makes for a very interesting musical cocktail.

I really like the guitar work in this one.

The riff is really interesting.

I love the kind of the syncopation that happens and it's just, it's very multifaceted to me as I listen to it.

And there's a solo about 3/4 of the way through that made my heart really, really happy.

And then my heart got happier as I was continuing to listen in.

The drummer has some really, really tasty, like really smooth fills that get sprinkled in throughout this track.

And where are these fine gentlemen from?

They're from Scandinavia.

They're from Norway.

Let's go.

Love it.

Check out Blonde Roses latest.

It's called Somewhere.

The third song this week is Part of Me by Joel Tyler King.

This is the first solo single from Joel, who is part of one of my favorite bands, The Wild Feathers.

Now, if you don't know, the Wild Feathers are a combination of singer songwriters who kind of came together in Nashville and formed this.

I think of them as a super group.

But for the longest time, I've always figured that it was only a matter of time before we started to see some solo releases, a single here and there from these guys.

They're extremely talented songwriters, but when you were writing for a group, the group has a sound and anything that you write that fits that sound you're going to use in the band.

But there's other things, those side pieces you want to share those two eventually.

So I'm glad to see some of that stuff coming out now for me, and I had to do some equations, if you will, back of the napkin math around who writes what songs in the Wild Feathers.

And for me, his songwriting style is on full display here.

If my math is correct.

I've always heard a lot of Beatles influence in the songs that he wrote or that I presume that he wrote.

And it's usually the ones where he is the primary vocalist or the person who takes the first verse.

Because one of the things Wild Feathers does that I love so much as they pass the vocal back and forth.

But like stylistically it just feels right.

I think my assumptions are correct.

Hopefully maybe one day they I'll get to talk to the guys and and they can confirm that.

But anyway, super excited to hear this.

I can't wait to hear more.

Really, really like this track.

So check out Joel's new track.

It's called part of me.

The 4th song this week is Bubble by Airflow.

This is one of those songs that I always say that I flirt with.

So I've been flirting with this song for a couple of weeks.

Like I initially on the review, like it, and I'll put it on my review playlist and then it doesn't make the final cut for whatever reason.

And I'm like, I'm going to come back to that one.

So it's been a couple of weeks, but I think it's time to share it.

So airflow for me oddly fits into this Manchester sound that I talk about a lot, but they're not from Manchester.

Manchester's like in Yorkshire, they're from Wales, they're from like Bristol and Newport area.

And it's funny 'cause whenever I talk about the Manchester sound, I always talk about Oasis.

And truth be told, I'm not an Oasis fan.

You'd think I would be.

I know their songs, but I've never owned anything they've released.

But I understand and recognize their impact in music and when you can hear a band continually throughout other artists, you just know and you have to respect how they have influenced these artists.

But I digress.

I hear a little Radiohead as well, like in the guitar tones.

These guys achieve a really full sound in this recording.

Great lead and backing vocals, like a lot of good harmonies, a lot of A&B vocals kind of playing off each other.

And then you couple it all with the musical composition.

It's a real like a Sonic landscape that they have developed here.

This is the second song they have released, slightly mellower than the first, but honestly both tracks are super solid and definitely worth checking out.

So here is a bit of Airflow, their latest single called Bubble.

The 5th song this week is You Can Only Go in Pieces by Shua.

October is a month of concerts for me.

I've got 6 concerts in total, four of them in the span of eight days.

So rather than beat you to death with live shows, I'm trying to like focus on artists that I haven't reviewed before.

I tell you this because Shua was opening for Johnny Swim when I saw them in Columbus recently.

Johnny Swim puts on a fantastic show.

It's like the fourth time that I've seen them, but it's always made better when the opener grabs me.

He comes on stage, he's backlit for most of the sets, he can't really see his face.

So it forces you to focus on the music.

I mean, the lighting was beautiful, but the music was really where the action was.

And he's super personable on stage and like very vulnerable and and just endearing.

There were moments in his performance where he reminded me of another one of my favorite artists, Vince Gilbert, who's a folk singer from Boston.

Very deep, introspective style, really similar vocal delivery.

This track he closed his set with You Can Only Go in Pieces, which is from 2018.

He has a newer music but I really liked this song and I was like, this is I think this is the one I want to share.

He has an absolutely beautiful voice and this track honestly doesn't do it justice based on what I heard him do live.

So definitely go check out his musical catalog.

I really, really dig it.

It's got a really cool feel.

So here's a little taste of Shua and You Can Only Go in Pieces.

Then I hadn't this I couldn't fix all all my own.

And that's when you've heard my car.

It's you.

You've been so kind.

I've been the means be when I I've only time time on earth to be the one you.

Made me.

And that is it for this episode.

Songs That Don't suck.net is the website.

Basically every bit of podcast information you could possibly need is there.

You can get on the mailing list, you can interact with the show, you can send me feedback.

One of the things that I would like you to send me now as we are in the final quarter of Songs That Don't Suck fiscal year is if you've got a favorite song that I have shared this year, let me know what it is.

If you don't know, at the end of every season, I do an award show and I would like to kind of get your input on the songs that have like changed things for you.

If you've got a song that you really have fallen in love with, let me know.

And I'm going to take some of those things into consideration as I am making the selections for the award winners this year.

I'm really excited about it.

It's going to be a lot of fun.

As always, don't forget to like review, subscribe, whatever on the podcast platform that you've listened to me on and tell your friends about the podcast.

It's it's a great way to help support the podcast.

As always, thank you so much for listening.

I really, really do appreciate it.

Go support these venues and as always, go out and support these artists.

Thanks for listening, and until next week, keep searching for and listening to songs that don't suck.