The Dead Milkmen are most widely-known to the public through the success of their 80s hits “Bitchin’ Camaro,” and “Punk Rock Girl,” the latter of which features my all-time favorite guitar solo. The Philly foursome’s brand of punk rock is instantly recognizable and completely inimitable, and evocative of a very particular brand of smart-ass. Think back to high school, and you can picture the guy I mean. He sat in the back of the class, needed a haircut, got a B+ in English but barely passed algebra or physics. This is his soundtrack.

He could have gone somewhere if he’d really applied himself. Or he could have joined The Dead Milkmen. They’re essentially a humble bedroom four-tracker project gone horribly correct, with DIY recordings dating back to 1979—though they didn’t form as a “proper” band until 1981. Their 1985 debut, Big Lizard in my Backyard, eschews the templated, humorless hardcore that was climbing the punk-popularity ladder on the east coast at the time of the band’s formation. Where Minor Threat hit like a neutron bomb, The Dead Milkmen chose to hit more like a pie in the face. 30 years and ten albums later, the decision to err on the funny side of life continues to make TDM’s catalog stand apart. Heavy on polka-pogo rhythms, jangly guitars, and enough non-sequitur lyrical snark to fill about 17 bathtubs. Add a dose of surprisingly pretty surf guitar from time to time, and you still probably won’t get the idea. Just listen.

The Dead Milkmen’s Nimbit Store boasts two full-length albums, The King in Yellow (their first release in 16 years at the time of release) and their latest, Pretty Music for Pretty People, as well as a handful of 7-inch compilations, available as digital downloads or good ol’ vinyl—”in a desperate ploy to appeal to the still stubborn vinyl fetishist,” their profile admits with a knowing sneer.

• Click here to keep up with The Dead Milkmen on Nimbit.
• Interested in Nimbit? Sign up for free here.

Travis Meadows:

In an ecologically conscious 2014, it might be less than PC to acknowledge that demons are the most efficient fuel for a songwriter’s fire. But Travis Meadows, who grew up hard in Jackson, Mississippi, probably isn’t too worried about that. Now hailing from Nashville, Meadows has spent the last couple of  decades grabbing his demons by the neck and throwing them into his personal incinerator. Who ya gonna call?

The result is a school of gritty, haunted country rock that harkens back to a time before mainstream country went paradoxically digital. Travis’ three offerings on Nimbit are more about spit than polish, and in era where “wild” songbirds are getting their chirps Auto-Tuned, a little bit of Meadows straight-shooting is just the rooster-cry CM needs right now. While his repertoire leans heavily on emotive ballads that may belie his 5-o’clock shadow/sunglasses after dark image, there’s also a weighty darkness in creepers like “Good Country People” that offer a stirring window to another side of Travis’ soul. His lyrical content is deeply personal, acknowledging his win over cancer, the loss of his leg, and victories over a few different kinds of bottles. Heartstrings tugged hard enough to snap.

Travis was decorated in 2001 with ASCAP’s Christian Music Award, and has landed eight Top 20 singles in the Contemporary Christian genre. He’s also found success in lending his songs to other performers, including the title track of Dierks Bentley’s latest album, Riser. He’s also a staff writer at Universal. Writing collaborators include Lynard Skynyrd, Lee Ann Womack, and Jake Owen, and Adam Brand. He’s the subject of a recent feature in Rolling Stone as Nashville’s Hottest Songwriter, and is featured in this duet with Jake Owen,”What We Ain’t Got.”

Travis has cherry-picked a fine lineup of session players to round out these records; highlights include some excellent flourishes of organ and pedal steel on “Play with Fire” from My Life 101. Said additions enhance the record in a manner that’s not over-the-top or distracting from what’s important here: the stories. That said, critical listeners will not overlook the caliber of these performances. There’s not really any showboating here, but they’re strong enough to make a listener think “I’ll never be good enough to play that.” Not to say that Travis’ chops as a guitars and vocalist couldn’t carry these records alone—they can—and on more restrained tracks (“Lonely Like This,”) they do. Dusty without the rusty.

My Life 101 concludes with one of the more stirring renditions of “Amazing Grace” that I’ve heard in a long time, a suitable counterpoint to some of the rough-and-tumble ruckus of the previous tracks.

Travis’ Nimbit profile boasts not only three full-length albums and his tour schedule, but also four live performance videos—something that we don’t see enough of on these profiles, so take note!

• Click here to keep up with Travis on Nimbit.
• Interested in Nimbit? Sign up for free here.

Suzy Bogguss:

While a formidable country songwriter and arranger in her own right, Suzy Bogguss’ voice is the centerpiece of her sonic offering. Anyone who’s heard it once will immediately recognize it on a subsequent listen—heartfelt and pitch-perfect, with just a touch of lonesome smoke. Suzy’s been in the game a while, now, having scored a string of top ten singles in the 90s, including “Outbound Plane,” “Drive South,” “Hey Cinderella,” “Letting Go” and, most notably, “Aces,” The title track of her platinum-selling 1991 album. All told, three of her albums have raked in gold album status, and to date she’s moved a total of three million copies and taken home awards from the CMA, ACM, and the Grammys.

She’s not one to hang up her hat on such accomplishments—nowadays, Suzy plays a lot of shows, and somehow finds the time to run her own label, Loyal Dutchess—which has allowed her complete creative freedom and ownership of her material. Her latest full-length, Lucky, illustrates the benefits of having set out on her own. Lucky finds Suzy reinterpreting classics from none other than Merle Haggard. The admittedly sparse, acoustic instrumentation allows Suzy’s aforementioned voice—and the stories it tells—to drive the entire record. And as anyone who’s listened to Merle Haggard knows, the story is what matters most.

Suzy’s Nimbit store is packed with no fewer than nine full-length records, including a Christmas album and a greatest hits compilation. She’s also taking advantage of the platform’s Calendar feature, and from the looks of things she’s pretty booked up through late April. If she rolls through your town, she is not to be missed.

• Click here to keep up with Suzy on Nimbit.
• Interested in Nimbit? Sign up for free here.

Dave Coffin:

Dave Coffin‘s involvement in the music biz started when he was very young, potentially even prenatal—he was born into a supportive family who raised him in an environment rife with classical music, and you know what they say about kids who hear Mozart while in the womb.

As Dave grew up a little, his aptitude for music was clear, and said supportive family encouraged his musical leanings by buying him a strat for his ninth birthday. Despite having been raised on the classics, Dave found himself drawn more toward mohawks than powdered wigs, and wound up cutting his musical teeth on punk rock.

While his parents may not have been able to sway him from Green Day, Dave Matthews (yes, that Dave Matthews) did. After hearing the siren song of DMB, Coffin cashed in the strat and amp for a Martin, and the rest is history. He wrote and recorded acoustically for six years before pulling up stakes from Maine and shipping up to Boston for college, where he majored in Ellis Paul with a minor in Patty Griffin.

Dave’s Nimbit store offers two four-song EPs and the 2010 full-length, The King is Dead. The Dave is alive, fortunately, and so are many of his session-player friends, who joined him in the studio to make their mark on Dead, and it sounds great as a result. Dave’s earnest performance, songs, and sincerity probably helped a lot, too. Give it a close listen, and you may well be able to hear a streak of politically-charged punk rock attitude here—buried quietly somewhere in the songwriter’s heart, and no longer worn on a safety-pinned sleeve.

• Click here to keep up with Dave on Nimbit.
• Interested in Nimbit? Sign up for free here.

In an ecologically conscious 2014, it might be less than PC to acknowledge that demons are the most efficient fuel for a songwriter’s fire. But Travis Meadows, who grew up hard in Jackson, Mississippi, probably isn’t too worried about that. Now hailing from Nashville, Meadows has spent the last couple of  decades grabbing his demons by the neck and throwing them into his personal incinerator. Who ya gonna call?

The result is a school of gritty, haunted country rock that harkens back to a time before mainstream country went paradoxically digital. Travis’ three offerings on Nimbit are more about spit than polish, and in era where “wild” songbirds are getting their chirps Auto-Tuned, a little bit of Meadows straight-shooting is just the rooster-cry CM needs right now. While his repertoire leans heavily on emotive ballads that may belie his 5-o’clock shadow/sunglasses after dark image, there’s also a weighty darkness in creepers like “Good Country People” that offer a stirring window to another side of Travis’ soul. His lyrical content is deeply personal, acknowledging his win over cancer, the loss of his leg, and victories over a few different kinds of bottles. Heartstrings tugged hard enough to snap.

Travis was decorated in 2001 with ASCAP’s Christian Music Award, and has landed eight Top 20 singles in the Contemporary Christian genre. He’s also found success in lending his songs to other performers, including the title track of Dierks Bentley’s latest album, Riser. He’s also a staff writer at Universal. Writing collaborators include Lynard Skynyrd, Lee Ann Womack, and Jake Owen, and Adam Brand. He’s the subject of a recent feature in Rolling Stone as Nashville’s Hottest Songwriter, and is featured in this duet with Jake Owen,”What We Ain’t Got.”

Travis has cherry-picked a fine lineup of session players to round out these records; highlights include some excellent flourishes of organ and pedal steel on “Play with Fire” from My Life 101. Said additions enhance the record in a manner that’s not over-the-top or distracting from what’s important here: the stories. That said, critical listeners will not overlook the caliber of these performances. There’s not really any showboating here, but they’re strong enough to make a listener think “I’ll never be good enough to play that.” Not to say that Travis’ chops as a guitars and vocalist couldn’t carry these records alone—they can—and on more restrained tracks (“Lonely Like This,”) they do. Dusty without the rusty.

My Life 101 concludes with one of the more stirring renditions of “Amazing Grace” that I’ve heard in a long time, a suitable counterpoint to some of the rough-and-tumble ruckus of the previous tracks.

Travis’ Nimbit profile boasts not only three full-length albums and his tour schedule, but also four live performance videos—something that we don’t see enough of on these profiles, so take note!

• Click here to keep up with Travis on Nimbit.
• Interested in Nimbit? Sign up for free here.

Well, Mark Williams is back from Chicago, and is pleased to report that The Cold Waves music festival was a smashing success. The show was attended by nearly 2,000 people, and thousands of dollars were raised for Hope for the Day, a non-profit movement dedicated to utilizing music and the arts as a defense mechanism to suicide.

Mark recorded the entire show via the new StudioLive RM32AI, and the recordings have been mixed and polished by Jason Novak and sound great. They’re now available for purchase on Nimbit! All told, there are 12 full sets to choose from, broken down by artist, and there’s also a compilation CD featuring songs from all involved, and Cold Waves t-shirts up for grabs. You can also click here to get the 4-song Cold Waves sampler promo, absolutely free! Proceeds from the Nimbit sales of the show’s recordings will also be going to benefit Hope for the Day. These are exclusive, can’t-get-’em-anywhere-else-not-even-Bitorrent tracks! You can get any track for $0.99, the price for a band’s entire performance is relative to the length of their set, but is always a better deal than buying each track individually.

The lineup was a great mix of stalwart lifers like Front 242 and Die Krupps, and new blood like the Author and Punisher and Youth Code. The full roster includes:

• Die Krupps
• Front 242
• Surachai
• Caustic
• Author & Punisher
• Cyanotic
• Acumen Nation
• Cocksure
• Youth Coda
• SMP
• Aaimon
• Fear Factory

We’re not done with Cold Waves just yet, by the way. We’re in the process of editing together the whopping 60 gigs of video Mark brought back from Chicago, which includes interviews, live performances, and I imagine a surprise or two. Stay tuned!

• Click here to keep up with Cold Waves on Nimbit.
• Interested in Nimbit? Sign up for free here.

Dave Coffin‘s involvement in the music biz started when he was very young, potentially even prenatal—he was born into a supportive family who raised him in an environment rife with classical music, and you know what they say about kids who hear Mozart while in the womb.

As Dave grew up a little, his aptitude for music was clear, and said supportive family encouraged his musical leanings by buying him a strat for his ninth birthday. Despite having been raised on the classics, Dave found himself drawn more toward mohawks than powdered wigs, and wound up cutting his musical teeth on punk rock.

While his parents may not have been able to sway him from Green Day, Dave Matthews (yes, that Dave Matthews) did. After hearing the siren song of DMB, Coffin cashed in the strat and amp for a Martin, and the rest is history. He wrote and recorded acoustically for six years before pulling up stakes from Maine and shipping up to Boston for college, where he majored in Ellis Paul with a minor in Patty Griffin.

Dave’s Nimbit store offers two four-song EPs and the 2010 full-length, The King is Dead. The Dave is alive, fortunately, and so are many of his session-player friends, who joined him in the studio to make their mark on Dead, and it sounds great as a result. Dave’s earnest performance, songs, and sincerity probably helped a lot, too. Give it a close listen, and you may well be able to hear a streak of politically-charged punk rock attitude here—buried quietly somewhere in the songwriter’s heart, and no longer worn on a safety-pinned sleeve.

• Click here to keep up with Dave on Nimbit.
• Interested in Nimbit? Sign up for free here.

It’s been a good couple years for Boston’s Adam Ezra Group. They’ve successfully engineered a brand of country rock that is simultaneously rootsy and forward-thinking. The formula is paying off, as the band were the worthy recipients of the 2013 New England Music Awards “Band of the year,” and also earned “Album of the Year” and “Song of the Year” from the same committee in 2012.

Ezra and his six-piece Group are the kind of guys who are more than just pro musicians. They’re the sort of rare-blood all-or-nothing types who truly believe in music as a force for change. That’s well in-line with what we’re about here at PreSonus and Nimbit—so, hats off, guys. When not touring and recording, all of the guys are activists and community leaders, whose efforts include volunteering for relief effort in Kosovo and practicing environmental geography in South Africa.

While they’ve demonstrated a reliable and consistent recording output—ten full-length albums since 2000—at the end of the day, Adam Ezra Group is all about the live experience. Their impassioned performances have drawn deserved comparison to guys like Bruce Springsteen, and have found them touring in quite good company: Rusted Root, Jason Mraz, Goo Goo Dolls, Blues Traveler, Los Lobos, and Dwight Yoakam, to name a handful.

AEG is currently touring with a StudioLive 24.4.2 and recording their live shows for release, so when you see them live be sure to scream real loud so that you can hear yourself when the recordings are released!

From a marketing perspective, Adam Ezra Group’s Nimbit store is full of good stuff—their offering includes four full-length releases and a couple singles. But they really shine in the merch department, including nearly a full wardrobe of Ramble-themed apparel. One notable non-wearable offering: custom purple beer coozies! In terms of non-Ramble Adam Ezra merch, there are no fewer than nine custom t-shirt choices available, stickers, and my personal favorite—AEG temporary tattoos! Furthermore, they’ve got their concert calendar kept completely up-to-date, so give it a gander and see when you can catch Adam Ezra Group when they roll through your town—looks like they’ve got a handful of east coast shows booked at the time of this writing.

Keep up with Adam Ezra Group on Nimbit here.
Interested in Nimbit? Sign up for free here.

So, what’s Music Gateway all about? Well, partnering Music Gateway with Nimbit was something of a no-brainer, and here’s why: Like Nimbit, Music Gateway cares about getting musicians paid. 

In short, Music Gateway allows musicians to find work specific to their skill sets. Set up a profile, including your role—you can choose from a long list that includes musicians, producers, songwriters, labels, artist management, and more. Furthermore, Music Gateway makes it easy for employers to find music workers (that’s you) specific to the needs of their project. Click here to get the word on how it works straight from MG themselves.

Interested in getting a yearlong subscription to both Music Gateway and Nimbit for FREE? Of course you are. And you have a chance to do exactly that with what appears to be the easiest-to-enter contest in the history of contests.

Here’s how to enter:

• Set up and complete your profile at Music Gateway.
• Make your pitch at £0.
• You’re in!

Pitches will be reviewed by the fine folks at Music Gateway, and a number of users will be accepted into the workspace area for the next round of judging. You will be asked to upload a couple of tracks at this stage for review. 10 winners will be selected from these entries. Submission deadline is Sept. 8.

What are the prizes?

• 10x yearly Nimbit accounts, worth $2400 in total
• 10x Annual Pro Level Unlimited Music Gateway Accounts, worth $195 each!

Head on over to Music Gateway and get started!

How many people do you think play guitar? Probably too many. So I understand if you don’t get excited when I write “here’s another guitar player.” But hold up.

Fact is, not many of them play guitar like Neil Zaza, a man compelled to broaden the range of the instrument’s expressive power and bring it to the masses. Whenever I find myself starting to get board with the ocean of guitar available in popular music, I throw one of Neil’s tracks on, and I hear a mission statement. He’s like a six-string missionary. Call it Telecastervangelism.

The mission statement, as I hear it through his music, goes something like, “Hey buddy, you thought guitars were boring? Think again, because I just figured out THIS.” And then my mind blows, and I fall in love with the guitar all over again, and then I press “repeat.” The heavy focus on melody and advanced technique, found here, may be enough for the average shredder. Neil’s secret weapon, however, is his genre melting-pot, which brews up such disparaging amalgams as classical and funk.

Makes sense, as the man has educated himself in all of the above. He studied classical guitar at the U of Akron before moving on to teaching, and in 1987 formed the eponymous band Zaza. Zaza’s Zaza toured until 1992, and Neil has been on a steady solo gig ever since, releasing five solo records amidst international touring. He’s also landed signature guitar deals with both Cort and Carvin. With his monster chops and ever-growing list of credentials, we were confident that Neil was the right man for the job when we tasked him with recording the guitar samples that are included in Notion and Progression.

It turns out his solo records are available on his Nimbit store, and if you take a close look at his store, there’s some unorthodox cool stuff going on over there. For one, you can get Zaza T-shirts in every color the rainbow forgot. Furthermore, Neil still teaches, and makes several of his coursework’s backing tracks available, as well as his Live DVD, “Live on Crooked River Groove.”

Not too shabby for a kid from Akron. Keep up with Neil Zaza on Nimbit, and ride his guitar into the future.

Interested in Nimbit? Sign up for free here.

Well, this is a refreshing a change of pace from the typical Artist-of-the-Week. Up this time around is Drum Corp International, AKA DCI to those in-the-know, which now includes you.

Were this the usual singer/songwriter or rock band, this is the part where I would talk about where they are from, or their musical influences, or key band members. But how do I write about an organization made up of multiple bands, comprised of talented folks from all over the world?

I can’t, except to say that contemporary drum corp is the torchbearer for a richly storied tradition with origins in American and Canadian military history that goes back to the first world war, with competitive circuits really coming into their own by the 1960s.

Drum Corps International formed in 1972, and is the non-profit governing body for junior (under-21) drum and bugle corps in the US and Canada.

Over at the DCI Nimbit store, once can download a metric tonne of live competition performances from prestigious venues like the Alamodome and University of Akron’s InfoCision Stadium. Recordings contain championship performances from some of DCIs brightest and boldest. You can also grab a DCI hoodie or a DCI SNOWFLAKE CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT, just in time for… September?

Last but not least, you can get DVD and Blu-ray recordings of the 2013 and 2012 world championships, as well as the cutting-edge DCI Essentials collection, which includes top performances from DCI performances of yesteryear; up-converted to HD with a 5.1 audio mix. DVD is a great way to go, as drum corp is a highly visual medium.

Incidentally, PreSonus is a proud sponsor of DCI wunderkind The Blue Devils, who recently took first place at the DCI annual championship. Not only did they win, but they got the highest score ever in the history of DCI competition—a 99.65. They’ve been using PreSonus StudioLive AI Mixers and Loudspeakers in their performances for a little under a year, now, and we’re proud to have been a part of their prestigious victory. Check out a detailed overview of their set up at: musiced.presonus.com/fieldaudio

Click here to visit DCI’s Nimbit profile and get some epic recordings!

Johnny A. is the torchbearer instrumental guitar rock needs in 2014. One doesn’t have to listen too far into his discography to hear echoes of Duane Eddy and Link Wray alongside his intimidating blues chops—some admittedly big shoes to fill. But with a Blues Artist of the Year Award (2010) and a namesake signature guitar available from some company called “Gibson,” it’s safe to say that Johnny A. is the right guy for the job.

His latest record, the appropriately-titled Driven, might just be the perfect soundtrack for a road trip through the American desert southwest. A solo album in the truest sense, Johnny played all the instruments himself, produced, and mixed! His gritty tones are suitably mixed front-and-center, of course, dialed in with just the right amount of gut and reverb to evoke both danger and beauty in equal measure. Throughout the record, his guitars are balanced with a tastefully diverse array of percussion and horns. And hell, a little pedal steel never hurt anybody.

Johnny’s got one of the slicker Nimbit store designs we’ve featured of late, opting for a more jukeboxy vertical layout instead of the more typical horizontal scroll, wrapped in a palette evocative of Driven‘s cover art. In it, you’ll find no less than five full-length recordings, a handful of singles (including some yuletide classics) T-shirts, autographed posters, and more.

Click here to visit Johnny A’s Nimbit profile and get his latest record, Driven.

Interested in Nimbit? Sign up for free here.