All Roads Trip 2024
Liner notes for our All Roads Music Festival playlist
All Roads Trip 2024
Festival Songs & Memory Lanes in Maine
The All Roads Music Festival started in 2015 as a way to celebrate and connect independent (i.e., non- or anti-corporate) musicians in Maine and from away. The weekend bacchanal happens in Belfast, a creaky and charming seaside town two hours’ drive up the coast from Portland that’s long been a haven for hippies and other radicals — the subversive artist, writer and physicist Bern Porter died there 20 springs ago (I’ve heard Jeff Tweedy’s a big Bern fan). Over 40 acts play various downtown venues on Friday night and Saturday (May 17 and 18 this year) in a wide variety of styles: folk, metal, hip hop, country, jam rock, bluegrass, psychedelic pop.
I grew up, and grew to love music, during the Cassette Renaissance of the 1980s, crafting 45-minute suites of songs on 90-minute tapes for lawnmowing and girlfriends. For all its faults (and they are profound and numberless), Spotify makes making a comp a dream these days. Nearly all the acts playing All Roads this year have at least one track on the platform, so when I thought of engaging ways to share a lot of cool local music with you in anticipation of the festival (which The Bollard is co-sponsoring), it was an easy choice.
Making a coherent mix from nearly 40 very different acts: not so easy. I knew I wanted the theme to be a spring road trip, and for the comp to be long enough to get to Belfast from Portland and back (with a break or two for bodily or other functions, like Wiscasset). So I interspersed songs by people playing this year’s fest with new and favorite music by Maine musicians. This way, if you like a song by an All Roads artist (nearly all of whom are from Maine), you can dive down the rabbit holes on either side for gems of a similar genre by current and former local recording artists.
As often happens when making a mix, unexpected themes emerged.
For example, everyone’s broke (at least “…Till Payday,” as Apollyon observes) and either late on rent, like Dead Gowns’ Geneviève Beaudoin, or skipping out on it entirely, like Alice Limoges. Dan Blakeslee has fled “a room of suits” for the life of a wandering vagabond, but says he’s “got it pretty good here in the ditch.”
Borderlines is shouting about the folks working “a twelve-hour day for six-hour pay,” and technology ain’t helping. Limoges is also trying to escape her own smart phone in “Yellowstone,” Darksoft’s heart has been broken by an algorithmic tart (“Iloveyou”), so he’s also fleeing back to nature, and Lean Meats made an entire EP last year, Crusaders of the Web, about the perils of modern computing.
So roll the windows down, turn it the fuck up, and explore more of our state’s amazing sights and sounds.
LINK TO THE PLAYLIST ON SPOTIFY
*denotes acts playing this year’s festival.
SIDE A
David Mallett: “Garden Song”
The most successful piece of rebel music ever made by a Maine artist, an agrarian-anarchist anthem wrapped in a children’s song so enchanting that John Denver later charted with it, and so righteous that Pete Seeger cut an ever better cover. But David Mallett made this, and so much more we Mainers will always be thankful for.
*Caroline Cotter: “Journey in C”
An a cappella prayer for safe travel by the rightfully acclaimed Maine singer-songwriter, from her 2015 album, Dreaming as I Do.
Phantom Buffalo: “Gilded Gate”
The beguiling introduction to the Portland psych-rock band’s 2012 masterpiece, Tadaloora. Singer-guitarist Jonathan Balzano-Brookes recently released a children’s album, and he and bandmate Tim Burns have been performing and writing of late, so don’t call this ghostly beast extinct yet.
*GoldenOak: “Little Light”
Led by siblings Lena and Zak Kendall, the quartet GoldenOak is making peak modern folk and fast gaining the recognition their stellar songs warrant. This slice of heaven is from their 2021 full-length, Room to Grow.
Dead Gowns: “Renter Not a Buyer”
The Gowns, who played the festival last year, kicked off their 2022 How EP, the strong follow-up to their breakout 2018 debut, New Spine, with this raggedy rocker. “Another fucking cold breeze when you need it least” may as well be Maine’s new motto.
*Dan Blakeslee: “Road Hymns”
Self-recorded live “in the field” all over New England — on beaches, in chapels, beneath fruit trees, on roadsides — Road Hymns, this Maine-again singer-songwriter’s latest release, is irresistible: catchy, smart and heartfelt. The title track here is pure gold.
Wildflower: “Floating Weeds”
The Peaks Island soft psych-rockers released Green World earlier this year, expanding their musical consciousness with dreamy horns, more keys, and longer songs like the gorgeous 10-minute opener, “Seabirds.” This shimmering beauty was made for spring day trips.
*Alice Limoges: “Yellowstone”
This jazzy showstopper closes the Maine artist and educator’s 2021 LP, It Stole Itself From Me, which opens with the startlingly sassy and great “Hungry for a Vice.”
*Dominic Lavoie: “Did You Go Blind?”
This stirring elegy for capitalism appears on Lavoie’s 2022 LP, Flux, which, per usual, has a who’s who of ace local session players on it, like Ryan Zoidis, whose sax break here is the stuff daydreams are made of. Damn, that kid from Madawaska can sing!
Theodore Treehouse: “Big Monsters”
… the dream continues, becoming nightmarish, yet there is resistance. From 2010’s Mercury: Closest to the Sun, this great Portland indie-rock band’s most memorable album.
*Rigometrics: “Not the Day”
This young power-rock trio slayed at last year’s festival during a torrential downpour on the covered deck of Marshall Wharf Brewing. Their un-ironic championing of classic rock values guarantees great live shows, and last summer’s prog-pop No Time to Waste EP showed their wings are growing fast.
*Johnny Cremains: “Buried Alive”
Opening scene of the group’s brilliant 2022 post-modern metal opera, Tragic at Best. Fittingly, Cremains singer and lyricist Sean Libby is presenting a theremin showcase at this year’s fest inside a video store inside a haunted opera house.
When Particles Collide: “Ego”
Singer-guitarist Sasha Alcott and drummer hubby Chris Viner rocked their way van-style from Bangor to the Pacific and back many times last decade. This thunder storm hit in 2013.
*Viqueen: “Gutless”
Yet another reason they’re on this month’s cover.
Apollyon: “Broke Till Payday”
From the Portland death-metal band’s awesome 2022 party album of the same name. Mind the gas pedal.
*Weakened Friends: “95”
From a live 2018 in-studio session for Audiotree, this one kicked off their 2016 EP Crushed and lived up to that record’s title.
Crunchcoat: “Still”
Like Tara Cohen of The RattleSnakes (Bandcamp only, but mandatory listening), singer/bassist Danny Bailey of this punk-pop trio wins you over with the cool exuberance at the core of the best DIY music.
*Adlt Grrrl: “Agoraphobia”
Songs like this got Portland indie-rock fans buzzing about this band a year or so ago. Singer-guitarist Ada Bonnevie’s latest is last fall’s folky dream EP blood moon.
Coke Weed: “Maryanne”
Back to Soft, the 2013 album by the Bar Harbor psych-rock group on which this hazy, Stones-y rocking horse appeared, made waves nationwide. Their entire (modestly sized) catalogue is well worth diving (back) into.
*Little Oso: “Seagull Season”
A dream-pop paean to Maine from the Portland band’s Happy Songs release last summer. “Green Eyes” is another instant charmer from this delightful EP.
Crystal Canyon: “Belt of Orion”
The Portland shoegazers reached a psych-pop zenith on this frictionless track from last year’s impressive Stars and Distant Light.
*Cilla Bonnie: “Rusty”
Hands down the most arrestingly beautiful song on this playlist. Devastating and perfect. From her beguiling and adventurous 2020 six-song release August.
Renée Coolbrith: “Nobody Else”
A Stax-inspired side from the Portland singer’s jaw-dropping 2021 release, A Killer Named Sugar.
Power Child, *Gina Alibrio: “Clarity”
Better known around here for soulfully leading the funky Red Eye Flight Crew, Alibrio’s rock roots shine on this 2022 track with Power Child.
Bait Bag: “It Was Electric”
The feminist punk trio from North Haven rows into more danceable waters earlier explored by No Wave bands like the Bush Tetras on this year’s addictive seven-song release, Electric Splash.
*Felecia Cruz: “Skit,” “Bop”
Longtime Portland hip hop flame-keeper Ill By Instinct — since relocated to the West Coast — has shared the stage with Vietnam-based rapper and DJ Felecia Cruz in several time zones; thus the Bob Marley-style “Skit” that precedes Cruz’s bent-pop dance track “Bop.”
The Asthmatic: “Who Says”
No one out-stranges Maine, birthplace of both Crank Sturgeon and id m theft able. Sigrid Harmon, a.k.a. The Asthmatic, applies her astoundingly dexterous voice to her avant-garde compositions to create utterly original wonders like this one from her 2020 album, Strange Tongues.
*The Button Men: “The Man in the Boat”
Wally Wenzel went from the drum kit behind psych-pop organist Eggbot to co-creating trip-metal provocateurs The Horror, to years playing guitar in The Mallett Brothers Band, and now he’s back making the kind of unexpectedly listenable, oddball stoner keyboard music he dipped into on an early solo album, Pot Pie. This one’s from 2022’s Button Men debut, Launch.
Deep Gnome: “Tales of Old Belfast Harbor”
Fantasy synth by a mysterious Maine woodland wizard called Old Toby, from the 2023 single “The Lady of New England.”
*The World Famous Grassholes: “Watermelon Sugar (C Money Burns Remix)
Longtime Portland electronic music performer and producer Chris “C Money” Burns gives this track from the Maine bluegrass band’s 2023 Gently Used album a trippy new treatment on a single released this year.
Riffindots: “Ladder Earrings”
Maine native Britta Pejic adopted this new moniker after releasing a song by the same name on her outstanding 2020 album, Latitude Bera, and recently released this danceable and demented world-within-a-single among a few others as the EP She Ate My Red Glasses.
*Greasy Grass: “Astral Twin”
Relatively hi-fi hallucinatory pop from the Portland lo-fi psychedelic band’s 2021 EP Abject Luxuria.
Sunset Hearts: “Kagura Beat”
Indie rockers Aaron Hautala and Casey McCurry of Satellite Lot pulled their unabashed love of ’80s electro dance pop fully out of the closet for the band’s second record, Sleepwalk in a Burning Building. But for the next one, 2011’s Inside the Haunted Cloud, recorded as the octet Sunset Hearts, they polished and expanded their sound into unforgettable tracks like this incandescent opener.
*Darksoft: “Iloveyou”
Darksoft and his family moved to Portland from Seattle a few years ago, and the change seems to have slightly brightened the multi-instrumentalist’s mood — if his latest single, the blurry yet upbeat “Endless Day,” is any indication. The track here, from 2018’s Brain, pairs lyrical desolation with an infectiously smooth groove.
Brenda: “I’ll Be Dead”
Final track on this great Portland indie-rock band’s debut album, 2010’s Silver Tower, which earned them a slot at one of Wilco’s big festivals back then. Guitarist Josh Loring’s wry observation in this song returns to mind every time I’m at a big rock show: “People want to push up front so people notice them go.”
*This World Has Bees: “The Thousand Yard Stare”
This Portland post-metal band builds intricate and gigantic sonic structures that often, as here, turn themselves inside out on their way into the next galaxy. This one opens their three-track, nearly half-hour release of 2018, Nearer, and like all their compositions, rewards close and patient listening.
SIDE B
Echo Response: “BIFAR”
Multi-instrumentalist Jason Ingalls (Sunset Hearts, The Baltic Sea, Seekonk, An Evening With, etc.) spent many quality quarantine hours crafting Triangles, an exquisite instrumental album released as Echo Response two years ago. “BIFAR” features far-out wails by his upstairs neighbor, local saxophonist Rexy Dinosaur.
*S.C.O.B.Y., Yoey D: “Rich Kids”
This Maine prog-metal trio occasionally records with rappers, resulting in fun cuts like this from their 2023 LP The Mother, which otherwise rocks quite excellently.
Andrew Luckless: “CrystalFCK”
This is indeed your lucky day, because I’ve found the perfect excuse to hip you to the brilliant Belfast producer and musician Andrew Luckless’ Ween-worthy 2011 album, 2 Ghosts in Gravy. Every track is an odd little bundle of joy — a detour worth taking.
*Myles Bullen: “ice cream (so close)”
The self-described “genre-fluid, art-poet, ukulele-playing punk rapper” from Portland keeps Maine’s ongoing addiction crisis real by penning heartfelt songs like this describing the day-to-day struggles and tiny triumphs of recovery in relatable terms. This exuberant track opens their inventively produced timetokill LP from earlier this year.
Endless Jags: “Boxcutter”
Yeah, Jags singer/guitarist Oscar Romero toured overseas backing alt-hip hop artist Astronautalis, but that’s a thin thread to Bullen’s cut. This is just an ass-kickin’ song I’ve always loved from the local indie supergroup’s 2014 record, Sell the Banquet.
*The Mallett Brothers Band with Kenya Hall: “Low Down”
Maine alt-country stars The Mallett Brothers Band have done a bunch of cool collaborations over the years, like their 2020 single with Spose, “Off-Road,” and their Live at the State Theatre release that same year. They updated this cut from their 2011 debut by inviting soul singer Kenya Hall, who also performs at this year’s Fest, to belt it out of the park at the State and, here, in studio.
The Piners: “Beer Stained Letter”
This trio ruled the Americana roost around here at the turn of the century. Ace string players Haakon “Hawk” Kallweit and Pip Walter, joined by singer Boo Cowie, had it all: the hooks, the looks, the harmonies. Hawk takes lead vocals on this catchy number from their 1999 self-titled debut.
*12/OC: “Better With a Beer”
Another patio-party band of blood brothers from Maine, 12/OC’s got the polish to go places in mainstream county music, as evidenced by this good-time single released earlier this year.
Diesel Doug & The Long Haul Truckers: “My Girlfriend is a Waitress”
Diesel Doug (née Scott Link) and his Truckers, which included tireless Maine roots-music promoter and producer Charlie Gaylord on lead guitar, were basically the house band at the Gritty’s Old Port brewpub back in the day. Songs from their 2005 release Mistakes Were Made like “I’d Like to Quit Drinkin’ (but I live over a bar)” and this rollickin’ honky-tonker show you why they got that gig (and perhaps also why they lost it).
*The High Road: “14k Dream”
Commercial country leaves me cold, but damned if this Maine Americana band didn’t catch my ear and even poke my heart with this exceedingly likeable single released last year.
Darien Brahms: “Cream Machine”
At first I had Darien’s crunchy “Gold to Me” from 2000’s Little Bundle of Sugar in here, mostly for the pun with the preceding track, but that album, recorded in her bathroom on Munjoy Hill with a grand won on a TV game show, didn’t sonically stand up to the tracks on either side. This attitude-drenched basher, which opens 2008’s Number 4, sure’s fuck does.
*Becca Biggs: “Hypermasculinity”
On her confident 2022 solo debut Genie, the Belfast folk-rocker amps up this increasingly timely song originally cut acoustically with her former group, Sugarbush, in 2018.
Sunlight in Architecture: “Over & Under”
Produced by the aforementioned Mr. Luckless, this was a project of Garrett Soucy, the Belfast singer-songwriter whose Christian folk-rock band with wife Siiri, Tree By Leaf, had great success in the early 2000s.
*Electric Bonfire: “Greetings From the Rubbah Room”
The title track of this Midcoast jam band’s early 2021 debut aptly reflects the effects of COVID quarantine on Mainers’ state of mind.
Custardpaws & Mr. Freezy: “Contact Tracer”
Another pandemic ditty, this one a Frank Blackian ripper by local visual and musical artist Jeff Badger (Mr. Freezy) and his old pal Blair Wells. From 2021’s enjoyably stir-crazy Window Weather.
Golden Rules the Thumb: “Restaurant”
Had a late scratch when “Kick Flip,” a fun punk number by Festival act Otis., disappeared from Spotify, so here’s a fave by Golden Rules the Thumb, an indie-rock band led by Tyler Jackson (Foam Castles, Endless Jags), who’s recording really cool synth-pop these days as Upper Narrows. This rocker dropped on the Rules’ 2018 self-titled debut.
*Borderlines: “F.B.T.”
The Maine pop-punkers really lean into this ripper from last year’s Keep Pretending.
Midwestern Medicine: “In Time”
This Portland college-rock trio led by the intriguingly obtuse singer-guitarist Brock Ginther could be the subject of a thesis on post-punk poetics (if someone would just pay me to write it!). This one kicks off their 2022 release The Gold Baton, which, in reference to a theme on this mix, also contains a great broadside against the Web, “Disabled Step.”
*Toby McAllister: “A Tombstone Every Mile”
The Sparks the Rescue frontman has gone country these days with his new band, the Sierra Sounds. This spirited cover of Maine country star Dick Curless’ classic came out as a single last year.
Sun Gods in Exile: “The Gripper”
We’ve tragically lost both guitarists in this old-school Portland rock band, Tony D’Agostino and singer Adam Hitchcock, but nothing short of the end of civilization can destroy the music they made. This smoker’s from their 2009 debut, Black Light White Lines.
*Snake Lips: “Danny”
This pleasingly loose tantrum of a song is from the Portland band’s Dice EP of last year. Undoubtedly based on a true story, if not a verbatim account.
Lunch Cult: “Trust Us (We’re Lunch Cult)”
This band was basically some mischief legendary jazz poet and promoter Paul Lichter’s son Jake got into 10 years or so ago with a couple nerdy jazz-camp pals. Also some of the awesome-ist shit ever put to tape in this state. Trust me (I’m not Lunch Cult).
*Mankala: “FACE IT”
Skull-crushing hardcore from Saco. Released this year, the drums sound like they were recorded in Darien Brahms’ bathroom, but that’s half the, er … charm? of this monster.
Covered in Bees: “I Got a Rockin’ Disease and Rockin’s the Cure”
From 2010’s Portland Steel, this comedy death-punk quartet recently re-swarmed for a show at Sun Tiki — a sure sign spring is here, to be followed by a barbed-wire rainbow. The guy who just ripped your face off is guitarist (and Button Man) Doug Porter.
*Cadaverette: “Against the Wall”
The first time a band genuinely scared me was when I heard the Jesus Lizard 30 years ago. The second time was the first time I heard Cadaverette. Like the Lizard’s David Yow, then-vocalist Reesa Wood (who now performs as psych-folk artist Draudiga) yowls with unhinged abandon while the band brutalizes the air molecules around her. But this Maine band has a raging prog-rock problem too (guitarist and North Shore beef baron Logan Abbey actually likes jam rock) and Wood’s madness is really rebellion. “Maybe you’re right: I am too much,” she spits on this track from 2022’s We Are Everything but … Not Anything. “But I just realized: you’re not enough!” This peerless band’s back in action with new members these days.
Eldemur Krimm: “Elephant Gun”
Send speeding tickets to Krimm frontman Fred Dodge c/o The Kingdom of Rumbling Spires, Sensation Blvd., Portland, ME 04103. They will not be paid, but their sacrifice will please the Rock Gods who must’ve helped make Dirigo, their 2017 stoner-rock classic.
*Dead Tooth: “Liars”
This five-some from Queens can crush (see last year’s “Electric Earth” or ’22’s Pig Pile EP), but a penchant for club grooves keeps leaking in, as on recent single “Cool For the Summer,” their tripped-out cover of “Staying Alive,” and this jam from 2018.
Spouse: “Sonic Camouflage”
Born at Bowdoin College in the ’90s, Spouse made the smartest indie rock around for years before leader José Ayerve turned his attention to the dance floor as solo electro act A Severe Joy and then split for South America. This return to form opened 2018’s Sell the Silver.
*Stephanie Ryann: “In My Bones”
Another mainstream country act with promise, Ryann’s a former volunteer firefighter and model touring out of Nashville.
The McCarthys: “Gonna Die Twice”
This crack Maine roots band flourished during the Great Americana Awakening in Maine at the turn of the century. Tim Emery, usually found manning the counter at Buckdancer’s Choice, sings lead on this barn-burner and rips a guitar solo hot enough to melt some car stereo components. From 2011’s The Way Life Is.
*Courtney Burns: “Cure for the Lonely”
A super-poppy country single by the up-and-coming Maine artist.
The Coming Grass: “So Far Gone”
Led by Nate Schrock and Sara Cox, this alt-country band also thrived during the Great Awakening, and Sara’s still doing solo shows these days. From 2003’s Beauty of a Heart.
*Glassfishes: “Two Fish”
A charmingly oddball ditty from this Portland alternative folk-rock outfit’s In the Waves EP of this year.
Cult Maze: “Dreamstick”
With this band and its successor, Metal Feathers, Jay Lobley set a bar for indie-rock songwriting and execution that’s yet to be touched in Maine. From 2007’s 35, 36, that’s Brenda’s Josh Loring with the mind-erasing solo at the end.
*Lean Meats: “I Understand (And I Wish to Continue)”
Fun-punk from the aforementioned Crusaders of the Web EP by the Portland trio that includes Bollard contributor Jessie Banhazl and her hubby Scott, singing here into the digital void.
Chicky Stoltz: “electric eye”
The Portland drummer, comedy bingo host and former Fine Diner proprietor in Westbrook has since moved to Vermont, where he puts out a collection of entertaining recordings in various uncommercial styles every few years. This irresistible earworm from 2021’s Camp Recording #4: Fantastic does not feature a teenage girl singing with Chicky (that’s Chicky, too, via studio magic). Go ahead and play it again immediately — I sure did.
Lemon Pitch: “Flat Black Sea”
Wake up, we’re almost home! Galen Richmond of Lemon Pitch has been carrying most of Maine’s indie-rock scene on his back for several years now as the Berry Gordy of Repeating Cloud, the cool Portland record label that’s home to several acts on this mix (including Crunchcoat and Snake Lips). This banger’s the title track from their 2020 full-length.
*Roadwaves: “Frog Rock”
A lighthearted funk-pop jam released as a single by the Niagara Falls trio last year.
Big Blood: “Our Love Will Still Be There”
A glorious Troggs cover to end the set by the boundary-less musical couple of artist/vocalist Colleen Kinsella and producer Caleb Mulkerin of Cerberus Shoal fame, plus daughter Quinnisa Rose, who began collaborating on these recordings in 2017, at age 11, when The Daughters Union came out. So yeah, the next generation of Maine musicians is gonna rule, too.
Damn!