Tag: Rock

Those Pretty Wrongs

Those Pretty Wrongs
Crosstown Arts present Those PRetty Wrongs in The Green Room
The Green Room at Crosstown Arts
Friday, JUNE 27, 2025
Doors open at 7 pm | Show begins at 7:30 pm
Tickets: $25 In advance (plus fees) | $30 at the door
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE
Those Pretty Wrongs celebrated their tenth year as a band with a tour across the U.S., UK, and Australia, promoting their best-reviewed album, Holiday Camp. Mojo described it as “irresistible” due to its “celestial harmonies” and “wrangled emotions,” while Uncut praised its “dreamily autumnal mastery” of power pop.
The partnership between Jody Stephens and Luther Russell began in 1992 but only blossomed into music collaboration a decade ago during the making of the documentary Nothing Can Hurt Me, which focused on the legendary Memphis band Big Star. Their self-titled debut album, released in 2016, garnered acclaim, leading to worldwide tours and the creation of their second album, Zed For Zulu (2019), an earthy exploration of human interaction.
Luther resides in Los Angeles while Jody remains in Memphis, and their collaboration emphasizes a spontaneous approach to music-making. Luther reflects on their journey, stating, “The first record was sort of a little miracle…. But here we are with our third LP out.” Jody’s influence on pop includes his work with Big Star and Golden Smog, while Luther has a storied career as a solo artist and producer, recently recognized in the Oregon Music Hall of Fame. Their harmonious partnership continues to thrive, with plans for a UK tour this September, celebrating a decade of music. Jody emphasizes the rewarding nature of their shared creative experience, involving all who support them.

Yubu and the Ancient Youth featuring a special Stax Tribute

Doors open at 7pm | Show starts at 7:30pm

Tickets: $15 advance | $20 at the door

Purchase tickets here

Yubu and the Ancient Youth is a unique assortment of musicians with experience in different music genres and cultures in America, East Africa, West Africa and Europe. This has molded them to have a unique perspective on the global music scene. The band has found a home in Memphis Tennessee, the home of the blues, where they develop, create and perform a tasteful spin of blues music.

Yubu’s style can be defined as fresh, nostalgic and electrifying — fusing bluesrock, funk, afrobeat, and reggae, into an ear friendly listening experience. The energy and passion which resonates from Yubu’s songs is sure to be felt by a global audience. From the strum of the guitar and the conviction of his vocals, the catchy-nostalgic melodies, to the thought provoking lyrics, Yubu aims to create an unforgettable live music experience for music lovers everywhere.

Circuit des Yeux with Optic Sink

Crosstown Arts presents Circuit des Yeux with Optic Sink in The Green Room.

TICKETS: $20 advance | $25 at the door
Doors at 7 pm | Show at 7:30 pm

Purchase Tickets Here

“-io is brilliantly extravagant”

– NPR, 50 Best Albums of 2021

“Fohr explores every nuance in her voice, soaring and diving to unplumbed depths”

– The Washington Post

“A stirring reflection on grief, oblivion and acceptance, the album sounds like a fearless free fall into the void.”

– New York Times

Circuit des Yeux’s 2021 album -io was ranked on NPR’s 50 Best Albums of 2021, Pitchfork’s 100 Best Songs of 2021, and The Wire’s Top 50 Releases of 2021, among other best of 2021 year-end lists.

Haley Fohr is a vocalist, composer and singer-songwriter based in Chicago, Illinois. Her musical endeavors focus around our human condition, and her 10-year career as Circuit des Yeux has grown into one of America’s most successful efforts to connect the personal to the universal.

She is most distinctly identified by her 4-octave voice and unique style of 12-string guitar. Her mysterious “Jackie Lynn” project landed her on the cover of Wire Magazine in August of 2016. Her recent works include an Original Soundtrack for Charles Bryant’s silent film Salomé (1923), commissioned by Opera North, and a critically acclaimed 2017 album Reaching For Indigo, released on Drag City Records.

Circuit des Yeux’s first studio album since 2017, -io, is her first for Matador Records. The sky over -io is Florida’s strange, radiant orange. It’s a built environment, unnatural, made from concrete and glass, with skyscrapers that stretch to the vanishing point as you gaze up at them.

It’s crumbling and suffocating, a city perpetually on the brink of collapse, where tension never topples over into catharsis, where the heat never breaks.

Inside this world and its closed loop of time, Fohr found herself able to begin moving again. “I was haunted by memories in the pandemic,” she says. “As someone with PTSD, memories are all twisted up inside of me in a way that doesn’t help my higher self. Making this album was once again an exercise of trying to relieve myself of some of that darkness in a way that music has always done for me.”

 

Anika

Crosstown Arts presents Anika, the project of Berlin-based musician Annika Henderson, in The Green Room.

TICKETS: $15 in advance | $20 day of show

Doors at 7 pm | Show at 7:30 pm

Anika — the project of Berlin-based musician Annika Henderson, who is also a founding member of Exploded View — announces Change, her first new album in over a decade. Her video for “Change” was directed by Sven Gutjahr, who also directed the video for her recent single, “Finger Pies.” The follow-up to cult favorite Anika (2010), Change is beautifully fraught. The intimacy of its creation and a palpable sense of global anxiety are seemingly baked into the album’s DNA. Spread across nine tracks, the central feeling of the record is one of heightened frustration buoyed by guarded optimism. The songs offer skittering, austere electronic backdrops reminiscent of classic Broadcast records or Hi Scores-era Boards of Canada, playing them against Anika’s remarkable voice — Nico-esque, beautifully plaintive, and — in regard to the record’s subject matter — totally resolute.

Having worked collaboratively in the past with the likes of BEAK> and Exploded View, Change was ultimately the product of necessity. After recording the initial ideas by herself at Berlin’s Klangbild Studios, Anika was joined by Exploded View’s Martin Thulin, who co-produced the album and played some live drums and bass. “This album had been planned for a little while, and the circumstances of its inception were quite different to what had been expected,” says Anika. “This colored the album quite significantly. The lyrics were all written there on the spot. It’s a vomit of emotions, anxieties, empowerment, and of thoughts like — How can this go on? How can we go on?”

Recorded at a time when literally everyone in the world was being forced to take stock, rethink, and reimagine their own place in the cosmos of things, Anika provides the wisened perspective of an outsider. It’s a perspective that is not lost on the British ex- pat and former political journalist, and despite the subject matter and the circumstances around its creation, Change itself is ultimately a treatise on optimism. The title track presents the album’s message writ large: “I think we can change. We all have things to learn, about ourselves and about each other.” To end the record on such a sanguine note might be one of Change’s most revolutionary gestures.

“There’s a lot of stuff I want to change,” says Anika. “Some things I sat down and decided last year, I had to change about myself and my life. Sometimes it feels helpless, because the things we want to change are so huge and out of our control. Starting with yourself is always a good place. I think we can change.”