Discover Salt Lake magazine’s music section. Here you’ll find previews and reviews of upcoming local concerts and performances in Salt Lake City, along the Wasatch Front and Back, and around Utah to help you discover great live music and events.
Lord Huron played on Tuesday (10/21/2025) at the UCCU Center in Orem. This is 100% conjecture, but it was a switch likely made to accommodate even more adoring fans—originally they were set to perform at Salt Lake City’s Union Events Center, but likely sold out far too fast—and nobody seemed displeased with the change. It’s a rare treat when Utah County somehow snags a performer that may almost feel out of place at first, only to have it feel exactly right and comfortable and necessary by the time the show rolls to its end.
Without delving too deeply into describing all that transpired—yes, the band is a gaggle of professionals and they proved that truth over and over throughout—it’s amazing to witness how far they’ve grown in a short amount of time. Years ago, shortly after their debut dropped, I saw them play at a tiny music festival on the side of the Hillsborough River in Tampa (Florida) and they had plenty of loud, eager fans. But to see them now, to witness how far they’ve come and how much they’ve grown, they’re ready for the arena treatment. Their stage alone ought to act as another entity wholly necessary to their output. Smoke machines that never stop. Big screen cameras connected to an old payphone that also cleverly acts as a microphone. A backdrop that includes depictions of shooting stars. The once small indie band out of Los Angeles has matured, gained new tricks, and is eager to show them all … in addition to a discography that begs closer observation. This tour’s akin to a Broadway production that deserves its own applause. If welcome surprises are what you enjoy, go see ’em this time around before they sell out in your town.
ALSO: It sure helps when an already great group taps an opener that attracts plenty of fans all on its own. Kevin Morby started things off, on this stop and others, and Feist is attached to a smattering of future dates. It’s been a few years since Morby released new material—2022s This Is A Photograph was the only album of his being hawked by the merch crew—but there are online inklings of new music on its way. Still, even with nothing brand new to promote, getting the chance to see him and his band bounce around for a solid 40 minutes or so was an excellent way to ease into all that came next, a better-than-excellent precursor. Maybe he’ll bring his own dog and pony show here real soon. 2026, if we’re lucky. It’s up to the Fates to decide, of course, but the Fates’d be doing us a solid if so.
Photo gallery by Justin Hackworth on Instagram @justinhackworth.
Lord Huron performed in Orem (UCCU Center) on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025. Photos by Justin Hackworth.
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Black Joe Lewis and The Honeybears played last Wednesday (10/15/2025) at The State Room. To jog your collective memories, it was a very cold and rainy Wednesday. Lewis and the rest of the band had far less to say than they had to play, thundering through their catalog as hard and loud and fast as the band felt we could handle. Sometimes that meant unleashing an extra-long caterwaul of a scream in the middle of “I’m Broke,” it felt personal. Sometimes it meant giving his fingers a rest and creating guitar licks using his actual tongue.
Having seen the band a few times (and in a few states), and largely to sold-out, jam-packed venues, the thought kept surfacing last week that the band somehow deserved a better reception than they got. It didn’t feel like enough. Those that did turn up were a happy lot—myself included, sharing one long uninterrupted smile, start to finish—and Lewis’ band still gave us an electric performance, but the crowd could’ve been bigger…maybe? Something. Again, it was a wet Wednesday. And temperature dips scare folks away sometimes.
It did make it real easy to amble up close to the stage and witness how fast Lewis is on his guitar. And how damn good he is at playing, too. He thundered through all of the favorites, including “Sugarfoot,” “Bitch I Love You,” and “Booty City,” and plenty of others. It was urgently performed. We tried matching the energy Lewis and his Honeybears provided. We failed, I think, but there were attempts. Lots.
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Lakecia Benjamin isn’t only a five-time Grammy-nominated musician and saxophonist—she’s far more. She’s often an explosion of joy, and eager to share about what she’s learning along the way. When she plays here next week, it’ll be just a couple days after her birthday, too. Go ahead and consider the performance a belated celebration of sorts.
I was lucky to catch up with her when she was at home in New York City recently. She’d just played the Newport Jazz Festival when we spoke, among other industry heavy hitters like Jacob Collier, Christian McBride, Esperanza Spalding, and Marcus Gilmore.
Q:Do you ever get wowed by the other incredible people you play on the same bill or collaborate with on your albums?
Benjamin: I try to take everything as a blessing, and see the positive in everything. Any moment I get to collaborate with those I’ve looked up to — hearing their music, respecting their art, being in the same facility — seeing how they’ve come through by setting their own terms — a lot of people long for and wish for that. I’m grateful for those moments.
Q:I know you’re a fan of Maceo Parker. Have you played together?
Benjamin: I never played with him, but I’ve met him several times.
Maceo’s famous slogan is that he’s 99% funk and 1% jazz. I don’t know any saxophone player who doesn’t look up to Maceo and what he’s done for the instrument. He’s impeccable. Timing is impeccable. The sense of groove is impeccable. Bringing instrumental music to the forefront. What he’s done for the saxophone and giving it the front light: you can’t negate that. He’s done it with James Brown. He’s done it with Prince. He’s a staple in the cosmic scene. And despite what he says, he does have some jazz chops, and he shows them off well. The last time I saw him, he was in his late 60s. To see somebody up there still going and giving everything they got is an inspiration for me. We do share that: we give it all. If I’m funking, I’m funking. If I’m jazzing, I’m jazzing. Whatever it is, I’m doing it to the best of my ability.
Q:Tell me about your start in Latin dance music and merengue. How did that start?
Benjamin: It was a gift of proximity. I’m from Washington Heights, New York, a little bit above Harlem. The neighborhood is predominantly Latino. A lot of Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, a few Cubans. Merengue is the music I woke up to in the morning. That’s what was blasting. And the saxophone happens to be the lead instrument in that music.
So, when I started with music in school and we were learning how to play, we learned some classical music. Our teachers were trying to get us to play for their parents at barbecues and block parties as well. My entry point to getting into the music was keeping these guys on the dance floor as long as possible, and keeping them eating and drinking all night long. Culturally, it’s what they do.
I was lucky to come into the music with joy. It wasn’t, ‘Learn your scales. This is Bach. Be quiet and put on a nice evening gown.’ I was in the middle of the street with everyone partying their minds away.
Q:Joy’s an interesting word. Your 2020 Coltrane-inspired album sounds like a joy explosion, start to finish.
Benjamin: That’s how I felt. I was getting a little bored with the dance floor vibes. I wanted to get back to my roots. And if you want to jazz, you might as well just shred jazz. It’s rare that you find people in music that are not only amazing musicians, but amazing people. Their whole mantra in life is playing for and healing the people, seeing cultures around the world, infusing music and trying to be one. If you could sum up my life so far, that’s what I’m trying to do, too. It felt joyous to do an album with that in mind and know that I was going to get these 40 legends to drop on it, just to see what the world would say. They may say, oh, she’s a funk girl. We don’t have to listen to her. But you’re going to listen [to the album] when 40 legends are on it.
Photo courtesy of UtahPresents.
Q:Would you say that was a turning point for what you were doing musically?
Benjamin: Absolutely. I changed the direction I was going in. Before that, I was more underground. Some people knew about me, but they weren’t writing any reviews. They weren’t giving me awards. They weren’t putting me on any polls. Because the culture has garnered so much respect, and because of some of the musicians I chose to collaborate with, people had a chance to listen with fresh ears. From that moment on, it probably put me on the map. People started taking a second listen. And the second time, they were like, yeah, this stuff is genius.
Q:And when you put out Phoenix in 2023, the Grammy nominations started.
Benjamin: Yeah, that’s when it started.
Q:Did that do anything to you? Did it change how you approached your art?
Benjamin: It did change things. First, it let me know that I could be authentic and not gimmicky, that being myself is enough. People are starting to see me, so I’m going down the right path. But I had a choice to make. Would I continue to go down the path of wherever the genre took me or would I try to keep doing what I was doing to keep garnering success and maybe win one of these awards? It made me start to question things. You spend your whole life trying to be seen and when you’re seen, you wonder, is that what it’s all about? It does a number on you.
Q:You like being seen and you wonder if that matters, and it does.
Benjamin: It matters. If you’re not seen, you’re in a world of trouble. I wouldn’t be coming to Utah, I’ll tell you that. (laughs) But every artist has that. As you get older, you start to question what you’re doing and why you’re doing it? You recalibrate. I needed a moment to remember it’s not all about that.
I started doing music before I did Pursuance: The Coltranes. It was just me then and I hired a publicist for the first time. More than five years later and past Phoenix Reimagined, now it’s the publicist, the manager, the booking agents, the publishing people. A whole group of people. Everybody has an idea of what we need to be doing, how to do it, and why. I try to remember that it’s me and my love for the audience that got us here. We want to keep getting nominated and pull a win, but not at the expense of the fans who have been here. Whether they’ve been around since day one or now, they’re still in the seats. Let’s not forget them.
Q:Do you maintain creative control over where you want to go with your music?
Benjamin: So far, nobody has been like, ‘You’re gonna be a smooth jazz girl.’ I don’t have any contract where I’ve given up my control. Before, I could just say I’m dropping an album tomorrow. Now, we have a timeline. Whenever you start doing well, the positive expectations are there. Every amazing thing you put out, the question becomes, what’s next? I’m almost like Michael Jordan, trying to come up with next plays, while watching my peers do amazing stuff. Luckily, I like healthy competition. That feels good to me.
Photo courtesy of UtahPresents
Q:On your last album, you had that element of spoken word on there too, with Sonia Sanchez? Are you going to do any more of that in your future?
Benjamin: That’s definitely staying. I find that sometimes with the saxophone, it’s almost like another language. When they hear the music, they might think, oh my god, this is so peaceful. And I’m thinking Rage Against The Machine, right? But they’re still enjoying it. I found having spoken words helps articulate your story, who you are. It helps make it clear. Even if you just say one paragraph, it helps people understand and puts them in context as to who you are and why you’re doing it. It gives them a little break from a sax in their face.
Q:And the saxophone is your instrument. You play others, but that’s what you love.
Benjamin: Sax for sure. It’s the closest to my speaking voice when I’m expressing it. If somebody told me to play something right now on any instrument to show who I really am, that’s what I would pick up. I have the most dedication to it. I have the most passion for it. In a next life, maybe I’ll come back with a bass, but it’s who I am right now. It allows me to be as free as I want to be.
Q:How often do you play on your own?
Benjamin: When I’m at home, all the time. I’m writing a new album right now, so I try to get at least four hours on saxophone, then move on to writing. If there were no restrictions, and the album was finished, I’d spend at least six hours with it a day. After almost every show, even though I’m signing merch and talking to people, I can hear in my head all the places I couldn’t get to. It’s so clear. It’s like I was trying to go down a street and there was a roadblock. My teachers say to try to practice immediately after a show to break down those walls. I will try to write it down. I record voice memos. Two years from now, I don’t want to be playing the exact same way. My goal is to go as far as I can go with it with the time I have. That’s my number one priority.
Q:And time is precious.
Benjamin: It is. Look at the way things are today with artists. You’ll see them play and, the next day, they’re gone. I don’t like to put things off. My goal is to get as much work out, hit as many audiences as possible, and ravage their cities, hitting all speeds and meeting everybody. From New York to California to Utah to Paris, each place is completely different. I’m trying to see everything so I can make music that is reflective of what I’m seeing. If I don’t see them and I don’t go out there, you can argue I shouldn’t be talking.
Q:‘Noble Rise’ is the new single. Is that connected to the album you’re writing?
Benjamin: In terms of ‘Let me put this album out!’ it’s connected. (laughs) I needed something. WIth Phoenix, we couldn’t even just go to a brand new album right away, because people were stuck on it. They don’t even call me Lekecia: it’s Phoenix girl. That’s how they see me. We had to do Phoenix Reimagined (Live), because I wanted to flip it a bit and add new stuff. With ‘Noble Rise,’ I’m attempting to give them a nice little usher. Listen, we’re moving forward.
Q:Basically saying ‘this is the new direction,’ yeah?
Benjamin: Yeah. Please let it go. We’re still going to perform any song at any time. But that song was to clean the slate. This was moving forward to what’s going on now. It’s not a part of me anymore. All those records and albums, they stay with you. I’m not changing into some kind of butterfly, I’m just telling the story. I’m asking for permission to turn the page and go to the new chapter. And it’s going to get better. Don’t be worried.
Q:Can you say anything about the new album?
Benjamin: The last three albums have been — except for little twerks here and there and some funky moments — they’re pretty straight-ahead, hard-hitting jazz. I think now I’m looking to find a nice, even medium between all the sides of me.
We’re going to fuse genres. It’s going to be Latin funk. Let’s find a way that this show can be embraced by everyone. Most of the time it is, but I want to make it more obvious and transparent and feature people that I feel that in their day to day life, that’s what they’ve done for the music. They are people who have helped make our genre last longer.
Q:This sounds more political than I mean it but: bringing people together, erasing lines, not saying you need to play one certain way, that’s all so important.
Benjamin: Totally. Making it one big audience. Yeah, the world’s a little divided right now, and it’s going to be divided for a while, so I have to embrace that and try and figure it out. I don’t anticipate that in the next three months, it’s just going to be Kumbaya, either. It’s definitely going down first.
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Murder By Death are playing what may well be their last show in Salt Lake City this Sunday (10/19/2025) at The Depot. Doors are at 6 p.m.
After 25 years of building and regularly tending to their cult-like following nationwide, the Indiana six piece is set to largely call it quits. The farewell tour they’re on currently is one long goodbye they get to say in a lot of places to a lot of fans.
When I asked lead singer Adam Turla about how everyone’s reacting on the road, he said it’s been a celebration more than anything else. Not only that — this tour is one of the most successful string of dates they’ve ever had.
Q: Since you announced your farewell tour, what’s the response been?
Turla: Better than expected. As far as I knew, a lot of people cared about this band, and I felt a lot of people would show up and support it. My wife Sarah (Balliet), our cellist, put it well when she said, ‘When you do a farewell tour, you’re kind of asking if what we did mattered.’ Well, we’ve got the validation we needed and then some. It’s been an overwhelming success, and an emotionally fulfilling one, too. Part of the goal was to put the cards on the table and tell people we didn’t want to tour anymore. We don’t want to be part of the machine of needing to put an album out every two years. There’s never any rest when you’re planning the next tour from the one you’re on. We realized that’s not a good lifestyle for us anymore.
Q: You’re not hanging it up entirely. The band just won’t tour anymore, is that right?
Turla: It’s what we’ve tried to communicate, the best I could come up with. We have these cave shows we do every year, so we’re going to meet up for a weekend each year to do a series of shows. That’s the plan for next year and maybe the one after it. And what if something that sounds really incredible comes up? We’ll never be as active performing as we have been after this last tour, but I don’t want to pretend there won’t be possibilities that surface in the future.
You never know — it could be we play a couple years of these cave shows and then it’s just done, but you don’t get to plan your whole life out, right?
Q: It does seem like bands that “retire” or stop touring or quit making music will take a rest and return after a few years. It ought to be required to take a pause of some kind.
Turla: I can’t tell you how many bands that have reached out to me saying they wished they could do what we’re doing. They have sought my take and wanted to know more about the plan, and assistance on how they might do it. The industry is in such a state right now. Spotify royalties are a disaster. The touring market has been saturated after COVID. There’s feast and famine in this industry, but the peaks and valleys are even more dramatic. It’s a tough time to be a musician in a lot of ways, and everybody’s always hoping their ship comes in. It’s tricky to navigate, and we feel fortunate we’ve had a little more control over our career for a while. The fact we’re allowed to exit on our own terms and positively, I’m grateful for that.
Q: Was the uncertainty of the industry part of what caused you to make this decision?
Turla: No. Once you’ve been in the industry for a certain amount of time, even if things are better after a while, you still have some of the baggage of having had to do it the hard way year after year. Touring gets harder as you grow older. It’s harder to stand up and perform for a couple hours every night. You don’t have the same motivation you once did. And everybody gets sick every tour; you don’t want to go out and have to perform with a cold anymore. For me personally, I’ve been so hands-on with this band, doing everything from the logistics of touring to album releases to writing, and there’s so much to handle. Maybe I’m overly optimistic and maybe I’ll be bored when I quit touring, but I am curious enough to try it.
Q: When you take a long look at Murder By Death, what are you most proud of accomplishing?
Turla: I like that question. I’m most proud when the music feels useful. I get messages from people who talk about songs of ours about loss or death or grieving. They say they listened to a certain song over and over, and it helped them feel hope and process. That feels practical. Somebody was struggling, I made something, and it helped. That makes me feel like the job is worth doing. And that can keep happening after we stop touring. The music will still exist. There will still be a function to the effort we put in over all these years. Hopefully people will keep sending messages after we stop playing.
We weren’t trying to write a catchy tune or look cool on stage. That was not part of our equation. As a writer, I wanted to move people, to make them think about their lives, to have a positive effect on difficult times. I’ve been able to assist with the human journey.
We live in a time where there’s so much content. Some are entertaining. Some are empowering. There are many ways to use media to affect people or change the way they think. With Murder By Death, I wanted to create something that mattered. We weren’t trying to be the biggest band in the world — I lack that kind of ambition — but I’m glad to have helped at all.
Q: So that was always your goal, to make music that mattered?
Turla: I think so. Early on, we were trying to make art. I wanted to live as an artist who made choices and art that mattered to us, that we thought were necessary, important or powerful. Those were our motivations, and it was important to me to never lose that thread.
We have a couple of jokes in the band. One is, whenever we’re writing a new album, if somebody thinks that one of the songs is getting too catchy — if it sounds pretty good and it’s a real earworm — others will say ‘No hits allowed!’ It’s a joke because we’ve never had any kind of hit, not one notable radio song, and we managed to have a good career without it. We’ll twist songs a bit to remove the normalcy of it and add an edge. It’s our strategy for keeping things interesting for us, to make sure we’re always doing this for the right reasons.
Q:Talk to me about the shows you do in the Caverns. Is it a magical place?
Turla: We’ve done that for eight years now, playing the Caverns in Pelham, Tennessee. You walk into the mouth of the cave, and it’s suddenly 58 degrees. We spend multiple nights there a year. It’s really vibey and has the most incredible sound. It’s a tradition, one we want to keep pursuing as we proceed to wrap up.
We were doing the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park shows for 12 years, the hotel from The Shining. While it was really exciting, it got harder to do each year. We went to the Rocky Mountain National Park in January, driving through ice and snow. Everybody’s sick at that time of year, and at 9000 feet of elevation, you’re super dehydrated, and it’s hard to perform and yet, we did 47 sold out shows there. It was a great tradition, but it was time to call it good.
Q:And you said the tour you’re on now is the most successful tour you’ve ever had?
Turla: Yeah, both bigger and better than any tours we’ve opened. Just a fantastic run.
Q:Does that change your mind at all about what you’ve already decided to do?
Turla: No, because it’s an illusion. If we had announced the same exact tour without the caveat of saying, hey, we’re getting off the road, it wouldn’t have done as well. That’s how this industry works. You have big moments followed by quiet periods, and that’s OK. I’m very used to the ups and downs. We’ve never taken a break from touring. Most coming to see our show have seen it before. So we wanted to give the regulars who come see us several times a year a heads up, and let them figure out how they want to engage with us this year.
Q:Besides, it’s better to go out with a bang than with a whimper.
Turla: That was the idea: Let’s go out having fun, a positive experience. I’m calling it a joyful wake.
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Hell’s Belles plays this Friday (10/10/2025) at The State Room in Salt Lake City. The band is thankfully no strangers to our city, and it’s great to have them back. I was able to catch lead guitarist Adrian Conner at her home in San Antonio last week, and she was an open book, sharing what playing in the band for over two decades has meant, why she won’t go see other AC/DC tribute bands play, and how performing as Angus Young night after night has been empowering for her. (And if you haven’t seen them play yet, just know you need to.)
Are you part of Hell’s Belles’ origin story?
I didn’t start it. I tried out and didn’t get in the band, not at first. It was the summer of 1999, and I didn’t know what a tribute band was. I knew they existed, but I didn’t know that we were going to be the people. I thought, ‘Oh, we’re gonna be in a dark bar playing covers.’
So I showed up knowing some solos, and that wasn’t the right move. When I started playing in the band in 2000, though, the first show was a huge deal, right away.
I was able to grow and really ham it up, not be so self-conscious. It really brought me out of my shell. I was an extremely shy person with low self-esteem, and this path has taken me to a place where I’ve been empowered. And it’s not just because I’m stepping on stage as Angus. I’ve been changed by the whole journey of trying to have a musical career as my main source of income, working with people, and having to wear different hats.
Has it helped you become a better musician?
Oh my God, yeah. It taught me that simplicity is better in songwriting. I have an album that I wrote and put out before I was in Hell’s Belles, and the music is so complicated. By learning about what’s so fascinating about AC/DC to so many people, I started to understand that mystery and then applied that to my songwriting.
Were you already an AC/DC fan coming into this, or did that come later?
I only knew “You Shook Me All Night Long” and “Back in Black,” just the popular ones. I listened to the classic rock station. As a budding young guitarist, after the whole grunge thing moved on, that music is really what got me. When I discovered it, I fell out of liking anything that was popular, because I loved these songs. I could learn how to play guitar because I fell in love with Led Zeppelin, and then AC/DC was there, too, playing on the radio. I started teaching myself guitar chords from Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, even Stevie Ray Vaughn.
When you learn how to play songs, you realize the genius of them in a whole different way than just liking them because they’re playing on the radio. It touches you and allows you to grow as a fan.
Tell me more about how this experience has helped empower you.
The act we do requires me to be outgoing. There are points of the show that AC/DC has created, like with the strip and the duck walk and just how active a guitarist that Angus is, always facing and going out into the crowd.
And I’ve worn a lot of hats, sometimes doing the booking. Our old booking agent/manager trained me on that back in 2011. Every once in a while, something will go wrong, and we’ll switch. I’ll have to start booking. That’s a big thing to deal with.
When you’re in a band this long, people come and go. When they leave, about 90% of the time, they aren’t doing so in good spirits. Running a band and being the one in charge means endless challenges, trying to learn how to cooperate, but having boundaries.
Have you lasted longer than anyone else in the band?
I’m the longest. When the pandemic happened, everything just broke. My business partner said this was going to be their last year just before that happened. When the pandemic hit, the band completely disintegrated. And I was not ready to end it. I wanted to see if I could find some other people to play with. I did, and here we are.
Did you stop playing as a band during the pandemic, then?
Oh, we played. It was rough. It’s the least amount of shows we’ve ever played. At the same time, the whole world was shutting down, and I was on my way to Salt Lake City to do a show. Venues were still deciding if we were doing this or not. And the day before our Salt Lake City show, everything closed.
That’s a nice memory to have as a city: You were here the day the music died. What’s kept you going longer than all the others?
The need to perform. I’ve been doing this for so long, and I’ve had so many successful shows, that it feels really good. I feel free in a way I don’t when I’m doing my own music. Those shows are really stressful, because I’m trying to win people over. Being with Hell’s Belles is more like a party. It’s carefree. I play in this band, Fea, a punk band, and I’m not the star, so I want to be really careful and stay within some limits. I don’t want to outshine anybody. But if the crowd’s not pumping, sometimes I just want to jump out into the crowd.
How many songs are you up to now in AC/DC’s catalog?
I don’t know. They have so many damn songs, and they keep coming out with albums! They’re still going. There are about five songs in the set that we can change, but the rest of them, we gotta play. There are about 14 songs we absolutely have to play, no matter what.
Do you ever go out and see other tribute bands?
Not AC/DC tribute bands. It would feel like work for me. That doesn’t sound fun. If somebody took me to one, it’d be a little uncomfortable.
Like they’re up there doing what you should be doing.
I’d be taking notes the whole time rather than letting loose.
Ever had any contact with AC/DC?
I met Angus, Malcolm and Brian on the Black Ice tour in 2009 and they were really nice. We had more contact with them in the earlier years. We had a fan named Roger, and he somehow got Brian Johnson to call Mandy (my business partner) on her birthday. I still don’t know how that happened.
What’s the future look like for the band?
You never know when it’s all gonna be over. You might want to buy a ticket to make sure you see it if you haven’t yet. But we have a good team. We have a good thing going. Let’s cross our fingers that it’s not as ephemeral as some bands can be.
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What: Jazz starts in the afternoon and leads directly to an afterparty at Drift Lounge next door in the evening. There will be good food and plenty of Fisher Beer. When I spoke with Nathan Royal, Hot House West executive producer AND organizer of this first-of-a-kind event, he said plenty, this included: “We just want to have a great party around music (specifically, swinging jazz music) and not take ourselves too seriously. Music is so good at creating that vibe. It loosens people up, almost like alcohol.”
What: It wasn’t DJ Ebay Jamil Hamilton on The Afternoon Show (KRCL) who put Durand Jones on my radar, but he’s directly responsible for keeping the singer and his band stuck there. I wasn’t exactly certain I liked the new album Flowers — the band’s very reason for their current tour — but I heard enough tracks off their most recent album playing on the radio waves that I changed my tune. It’s hard to argue with a sound that hearkens to another time completely.
What: This’ll be a special night. Caldiero has been performing Alex Ginsberg’s “Howl” every five years since 1995, often with local band Theta Naught. This year marks the 70th anniversary since the first public reading of the poem, and Caldiero says it’ll be the last time he recites the poem. It’s free and open to the public, but RSVPs are required, as space is limited. See you there?
What: This is the honest truth: anytime Melissa Chilinski does anything, it’s a knockout performance. It is an extra special treat when she flexes her country twang, however, and includes other Salt Lake heavy hitters like Daniel Young and Dylan Schorer in the mix as her backing band. It’s just that much easier to buy tickets. Mark my words: there will be square dancing in the aisles.
What: Somewhere between out loud manifesting and having some very active melatonin-fueled dreams, I saw myself singing backup for Black Joe Lewis somehow. I was a backup singer, owning up to a soultastic voice that knew how to blend with its eyes closed. Dreams don’t always come true, but Lewis comes around every now and again, and it’s worth seeing what he has in store. His BITCH I LOVE YOU sticker is stuck on The State Room’s wall, and is always good for a surprise smile each time the wandering eyes find it.
What: It’s both a beautiful and sad thing to see a popular band decide it wants to move on to its next chapter. Their final album’s been released. This tour’s been hailed as the band’s very last. They’re having their most successful tour ever and yet? They’re excited to see what comes next. I spoke with frontman Adam Turla about his decision. Watch for his insights later this month.
What: The UtahPresents series snagged a winner when they managed to get Lakecia Benjamin to visit us this month. She was here a couple of years back as part of a larger collective but now we’ve the chance to experience all she can do given the entirety of the spotlight. The 5X Grammy-nominated saxophonist is very much a moving target, playing all over the world at any given festival at any time of the year, but I did have a chance to chat with her during some rare downtime and spoiler alert? It was every bit as delightful as I expected it’d be. Watch for that interview in the next couple of weeks.
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It was the Jazz Mentors Foundation’s first concert of their season, featuring Goldings on organ, Stewart on sticks and Bernstein on guitar, three musicians who have learned how to intertwine their talents very well over the past 30+ years. The playful talent they exude ran rampant throughout their hour-and-a-half long performance.
Clinics happened earlier in the day, as the focus for the organization’s performances surround education. Students and educators are invited to attend for free, and that’s key. Students being properly exposed to honed musicians like this trio so early in their lives is a rare gift. They get the long chance to forget distractions and learn what a good beat feels like. They discover musicians that can swing hard (gloriously so). And they get to witness what it’s like when a drummer like Stewart is allowed to break away into a solo and share exactly what he can do without his counterparts, an example to be inspired by, and one to aspire to.
Photo courtesy of Brad Montgomery
It’s important to remember that not all concerts take place in bars and local watering holes. Sometimes it’s far less about scenery than it is about substance. Does sitting on cushioned seats in a high school auditorium detract from the concert experience? Hardly. If anything, it means a greater focus on what’s transpiring.
For a trio that stays relatively still — each player never leaving his respective place on the stage — it’s alarmingly refreshing to witness how many places they take their crowd. From their takes on Thelonius Monk’s “Light Blue” and Irving Berlin’s “They Say It’s Wonderful” to offering originals like “Little Green Men” (a nod to the great Grant Green) and “Hesitation Blues,” they performed so smoothly, it was almost like they were dancing. Smooth, but not effortless (sweat rags were used). And witnessing how the trio rarely knew what song to do next, they seemed to casually surprise themselves forward, choosing songs along their way.
By the time the encore ended — one of the greatest takes on Don Redman’s 1929 standard “Gee Baby Ain’t I Good To You” these ears have ever heard — the trio had won its second immediate standing ovation, and each was so well deserved.
The Jazz Mentors Foundation brings world class jazz artists to Salt Lake City for clinics and concerts primarily for educational purposes, as stated earlier. The public’s invited to share the experience by paying admission. And with wellknowns like Preservation Hall Legacy Band and Veronica Swift planned in the coming months, chances are interest will run sky high, both with free ticket getters and ticket buyers alike.
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The inaugural Hot House West Jazz Fest is this Sunday, Oct. 5, at Woodbine Food Hall. Music starts at 1pm. I caught up with Hot House West Executive Director Nathan Royal earlier this week about how it came together, his vision for the festival’s future and why jazz ought to be synonymous with dancing.
Is there a backstory behind this festival happening a few days from now?
Nathan: With my nonprofit Hot House West, we like bringing people together and getting them excited about swinging jazz, making it part of the community. We’ve done smaller events — like last year’s Swing Renaissance, which we did several times — and we wanted to pull together more of the jazz community, musicians we’ve been working with, and have a big celebration.
After talking with my partner about doing a jazz festival, we decided that maybe we could do it at Woodbine. Then the Woodbine folks came to me and said, ‘Have you guys ever thought about doing a jazz festival, and would you want to do it here?’ We decided the time was right. It feels like we are putting this together at the last minute for what it is, but the goal is to get it going and create a yearly jazz event.
And everyone playing is local, correct? Tell me about who’s involved?
Nathan: Closing out the festival is our organization’s band, Hot House West Swing Orchestra. We’ve got The Corey Christiansen Trio with Jake Saslow. Corey runs the jazz program at Utah State University and is well known outside of Utah as a guitar player. Jake was the tenor player for Michael Buble’s band for a long time and lives in Utah now. We’ve got Corner Pocket, a big band that does a Count Basie thing. We’ve also got Mina Thomas Brett, an incredible singer who moved to town last year. The State Street Stompers are playing, a group that was formed through our organization. There’s also a group calling themselves Doctors Without Medical Degrees, a hilarious name, and it’s run by the guy who runs the jazz program at the University of Utah, along with the guy who runs the jazz program at BYU. The Hearfolk featuring Melissa Chilinski will play, and my trio (The Nathan Royal Trio) will play the afterparty at Drift Lounge.
Stages will be set up outside. Food and workshops will happen inside the food hall. The goal is to get the community together, get them excited about jazz, and have a fun Sunday.
Where do you think we’re at, locally and collectively, as far as being a good audience for the growing talent here in Utah?
Nathan: I think it’s come a long way. A big part of why we set out to do this was we felt it had a long way to go, that there weren’t many cooperative things happening in the jazz community. There wasn’t a lot of cooperation toward building the audience and community and culture for it here. Nobody thinks of jazz when they think of Utah, but there are a lot of great players and organizations here. We wanted to pull together the swing dancers and universities, and overall excellence in the community.
When we played Kingsbury Hall earlier this year, we sold 1500 tickets. To me, that’s a good mark of increased interest. We used to have the Salt Lake Jazz Festival, and it disappeared even before COVID happened. We’re trying to bring a new, youthful, collaborative spirit to the music and get that happening again here.
As far as festivals go, this one seems pretty affordable.
Nathan: You know, we do a lot of house concerts as an organization. Because this is the first one — and because we’re doing it in a shorter stretch of time — it’s also important for Woodbine to get people in there and eat, so we’re doing a suggested donation of $25.
What does success look like to you for this festival?
Nathan: Capacity for Woodbine is 550, but I’d love to see anywhere from 500 to 1000 over the course of the day. Those are high numbers, though.
Even breaking even would be great. We want to take the energy and the joy and the camaraderie from this festival and apply for grants, so we’re able to have a much bigger runway into our second one, even connecting nearby venues like Templin Family Brewing and Granary Live and Fisher Brewing Company, with bands possibly doing parades from one venue to the next.
I could see it growing bigger in that way, with the collective vision being to make a creative, fun, multi-venue festival over the years, primarily focused on swinging jazz.
And why jazz? What’s the draw for you?
Nathan: I like music where there’s a common language. If I learn 10 jazz standards, I can go anywhere in the world and play them with anybody who will likely know those same songs. You don’t have to sit in a room together with four bandmates and write songs that you can only play with four people. I like to improvise, too; it has a form, but it’s different every time. And I really like the swing rhythm. That 1930s thing is always fun for me, to take that and modernize it in different ways, reconnecting the music with dance.
You have a broad knowledge of playing this music, but do you see people experiencing it for the first time? Do you get to see the lights come on for them?
Nathan: Absolutely. Most people have heard jazz, and many think they don’t like it because it’s run this really long gamut of over 100 years. It’s prospered in universities where they overcomplicate or overintellectualize it. They think of jazz as elevator music or this stuff that’s hard to understand. One of my favorite things to do in the world is to take somebody who has heard it in that way and has negative connotations, then show them that, no, it’s dance music. It’s joyful and energetic and fun. I get the chance to change their perspective.
What’s your personal jazz story? How did you get into it?
Nathan: I was playing rock guitar in high school, and I joined the jazz band in high school and didn’t know anything. I don’t know how well I was taught, either. When I went to a jam in Colorado and was told to practice for six months before coming back, I didn’t. But jazz stuck with me, and I was interested in the music. I wanted to play professionally, and felt like I needed to get a degree. When I decided to go to music school, the only available program was in jazz. I was playing a lot of bluegrass at the time, but always studying jazz.
Frank Vignola came to town through the Jazz SLC series in 2010 and did his tribute to Django Reinhardt. He was playing all these Django songs with two guitars, a bass, and a violin. I got seats right up front and was blown away. It’s exactly what I wanted to do. The music is acoustic. It’s improvisational. High energy. Joyful. The day after that concert, I started the band that became Hot House West, which then became the nonprofit Hot House West.
This festival sounds like you’re taking the intimacy and camaraderie of a house concert and making it happen in a bigger house, with more bands and lots more friends.
Nathan: It’s not a big thing. We haven’t had a lot of time to really advertise it. We don’t necessarily want 2000 people showing up. Then we’re in trouble. But if we get some people down there, have a bunch of great musicians, friends, good food, and Fisher beer …
… then what else could you possibly need, right?
Nathan: We’ll have new problems to face. If it’s a really good vibe and sponsors get excited and want to throw down money for next year, we’ll have a year to solve those problems. We just want to have a great party around music and not take ourselves too seriously. Music is so good at creating that vibe. It loosens people up, almost like alcohol.
The Bones of J.R. Jones is the creation of New Yorker Jonathan Linaberry, and I learned more than I ever knew about his musical journey when we talked a couple weeks ago. Just before he left on his tour of the western United States, we got to speak about Alan Lomax, field recordings, the search for honesty in songs, and when to call it a night after the show’s over.
Q:Tell me this: Is anyone confused when they hear your band name? Do they demand to know who this J.R. Jones is?
Linaberry: Yeah, and often. The J.R. side of is John Robert, my first and middle names. I do have a little buyer’s remorse, though. I’ve been doing this long enough, I never thought I’d be stuck with this name as long as I have. It was a way of creating a little ambiguity initially, so it wasn’t personally tied to me. Thirteen years later, I’m stuck with it.
Q:And you got your start in punk music, correct?
Linaberry: I grew up in central New York, outside Syracuse, and the outlet for my angst was punk rock. As a teenager I was playing in punk and hardcore bands, doing shows at the local community center every weekend. They were my family. When I went to college, I stopped playing music altogether. It wasn’t until I was a sophomore or junior that I took it up again.
I was in a friend’s dorm, and they were playing a guy named Brian Lemon Jefferson, this old Texas bluesman from the late 20s. I was familiar with the blues, but my exposure was pretty limited to the music that came out much later, like Stevie Ray Vaughn. It was a raw, ugly, emotive recording of this guy playing a guitar and just screaming. It was far more punk rock than anything I ever listened to previously, and I felt it deeply.
That opened the door to these field recordings of Alan Lomax, and I went down the rabbit hole of Howlin’ Wolf and the Carter family. Americana and folk, blues and gospel. It reignited that flame for me in terms of creating music.
Q:Incredible. I discovered Lomax working at my local library, where it felt like we had everything he ever recorded, songs captured on porches, inside churches, chants. Some of it felt like it shouldn’t have been recorded. It had that level of intimacy.
Linaberry: I know what you mean. There’s a lot of mixed feelings about what he was doing and whether it was exploitive. But without him documenting it, a lot of the stuff would have been lost. It is pretty incredible when you think about it. I heard stories about him wandering around and asking “Who’s the local guy that everybody wants to go see sing?” Being able to do that and to do these recordings, it was incredibly personal.
Q:Do you consider what you do folk music?
Linaberry: I struggle with that. There are a lot of different genres I’ve been attached to since doing this. On a personal level, I definitely lean more towards an Americana or folk realm these days, or even Americana garage. I don’t even know what to call it.
Q:Maybe it doesn’t matter. It’s just good music, right?
Linaberry: Exactly. And maybe this is me getting myself a Get Out of Jail Free card. I struggle with the idea of people feeling beholden to a genre, right? With any sort of creative act, you should push yourself and explore other spots. Otherwise, it’s derivative and redundant. It may be bad and it may be ugly, but at least it’s a stepping stone to get you to the next spot. That’s how I approach my songwriting anyway, by constantly trying to grow.
Q:And who needs to be just one sound or genre? Some of your older recordings do feel bluesy on some levels, but the newest album, Radio Waves — comparison is what it is, but it seems like it falls into Nebraska Bruce Springsteen territory.
Linaberry: For sure. I can see that, and I’m a big fan of that record. And going back to finding that nugget of honesty that I discovered in the Blind Lemon Jefferson recordings and Alan Lomax, Nebraska has that same feel. That definitely rings true decades later. It’s a special record.
Q:Tell me what you like about touring. You’ve got a lot of dates coming up.
Linaberry: It’s rare that I get to tour a part of the country during the time of year I want to be there. It’s always off-season. I’m excited to be going through Seattle and Idaho and Utah in September and October. I think it’s going to be beautiful. For me, those are the highlights of touring, being able to explore the country. I never get to stay as long as I want to.
To keep it efficient and economical, my bandmates and I all pile into a truck or a van and carry on. The good news is that we all get along. We’ll see how long it lasts.
Q:Yeah, talk to you after a couple months of touring, right?
Linaberry: Happily, we’re all pretty easygoing, which is good. I’ve never toured with anybody unpleasant, but some personalities mesh well. When you’re in and out of the same small car for three weeks at a time, you can get on each other’s nerves.
Q:You’ve had success getting your music into a lot of TV shows.
Linaberry: I’ve been lucky and fortunate for that. Early on, I made a friend, this wonderful young woman named Jackie, who had taken a job at a licensing agency out of L.A. I was the first person she signed. We started working together, I met the owners of this company, and I’ve been with them ever since. They’ve been incredible and supportive partners, and I’ve been able to maintain being an independent musician throughout that. It’s good and bad. It’s a lot of work, but we’re making it happen and getting my music into commercials, TV shows, and movies.
Q:What do you most like about doing what you do?
Linaberry: If I’m being completely honest, the highlight is writing the songs. That moment of creation. Taking it into a studio and seeing it realized. Sometimes it’s the most heartbreaking part of it, because you can obsess about a song for two years, finally get into the studio, and it never clicks. It never vibrates on the frequency you wanted it to vibrate at.
Still, it’s the most exciting part about what I do. Touring is the hardest part. A lot of performers and musicians feed off of playing shows every night. Not me. I take an exhausting eight hour drive to hang out in a club for five hours, just to do it all over again the next day. It’s not my idea of fun, but it’s a job, and I’m lucky to do it.
Q:There’s probably a certain amount of psyching yourself out. If you’re creative, you’re likely more intuitive, maybe more introverted. Those aren’t easy to balance.
Linaberry: I absolutely agree. Look, I do think I am introverted, but I’m also a social person. I like meeting new people, but I get burned out quickly. My shelf life is short at a show, and I’m trying to be better about that. I used to overextend myself to the point I’d become miserable. But I’m getting better at creating fences for myself and recognizing when I need to call it a night.
Q:Who are you listening to?
Linaberry: Today, I was listening to the new Tyler Childers record, Snipe Hunter. I’m a fan of his. I don’t know his catalog extensively, but I wanted to hear the new one. The buzz around it is he’s taking some chances and Rick Rubin produced it, and there were all of these talking points. I got six songs in before I got to where I was going and turned off the car. I try to actively absorb and listen, even if I’m not doing it for pleasure. I’m educating myself.
On the pleasure side, a lot of great music has been coming out of the New Orleans scene. The Deslondes, Sabine McCalla, this guy in L.A. I’ve liked named Reverend Baron, lo-fi indie players with roots in folk and Americana, but doing it their own way.
Q:Safe travels on your way here, okay?
Linaberry: I’m excited to get back to Salt Lake City. It should be a lot of fun playing as a full band. A little louder. A little rowdier. It’s gonna be a good time.
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Whatever band first decided to tour on the anniversary of an album started a hell of a trend.
When Black Rebel Motorcycle Club plays The Depot on Saturday (9/27/2025), it’ll be the first tour they’ve ever celebrated a full album in their discography front to back. The band released Howl two decades ago, and this tour allows them and everyone else a long look back.
I caught up with the California band’s Robert Levon Been just weeks before their tour started and the band was in the middle of practicing when I called.
Q: When Howl came out, it was kind of a change in your sound, right?
Been: Yeah, it took some people a little while to catch up to it. We were in a chasm between the embrace of the rock and roll scene and whatever the hell we were into when we made this album. It didn’t really have a place yet, and it was really difficult to play it live. It was easier to turn up that distortion pedal and attitude and fake it.
Q: Did the songs on that album have much to do with Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl,” which you named the album after?
Been:Howl felt like an amalgamation of different influences that were far older than we were. We were giving a nod to the things we loved. It was a love letter to Neil Young and the Beat Poets, Dylan and The Beach Boys. It was all over the map, so we hid behind Ginsberg’s name and stature, and it worked. He was the strange umbrella over it all, and it felt right.
Q: I can hardly believe it’s been 20 years since Howl was released. Since it borrowed from a lot of prior sounds and influences, does it feel even older than that for you?
Been: Yeah. The artists and songs we were using as a blueprint were bulletproof, both artists. They resonate with us after all this time because they’re fucking great. They’ve crafted these songs with more intent and time served. Some of the greatest music ever made has lyrics like “Gabba Gabba Hey” and you can’t top that. But if you want to fuck around with the ghosts of the past, be respectful. We learned not to phone it in, to create songs that could fit in that same world. There are techniques that are cleaner to use then what they did then, all trickery and modern effects, and it affects the outcome. We used similar old school techniques, but we weren’t purists. Sometimes we cheated with more modern methods, but rarely. Still, when we did that, it felt honest. We didn’t entirely know what we were doing.
Q: Are you doing the whole album each date of the anniversary tour?
Been: We’re still trying to learn it all, so we can have that option. I’m about to head out the door to go practice some more. The great irony with this record is that we have yet to learn how to play the whole thing. Maybe we’ll polish a few of the edges and get it down in the next few days. It was really liberating recording it because we felt like no one would buy it, and that they wouldn’t want to hear it live. We made it for us, because we loved it.
When the record did well enough for us to tour on it, it was scary trying to learn how to pull these songs off. The hope is we’ll play the whole album in some iteration, then have a smoke break and follow it with a bunch of loud shit to get the scream out of us.
Q: And I guess the beauty of doing it live is you don’t have to be too exact.
Been: We’re cheating it a bit. Some songs, like “Still Suspicion Holds You Tight,” we’ve only played once. And we never wanted to do it again. It’s like revisiting a past trauma. We’ve hidden it in between other songs that might be faster and more energetic so we don’t lose the crowd. You start losing your nerve when you play a few slow songs in a row, and the entertainer side of you starts to think, “Oh, I’m losing the audience.” It’s about keeping a steady hand at that point.
Q: I like that both the band and audience get to go back in time 20 years when you do this.
Been: I’m a sucker for challenges, to a really dangerous degree. I’ve got into just as much trouble as good fortune for that. It’s like the Back To The Future Marty McFly “Don’t call me chicken” thing. I’m very much like that. Someone said, “I bet you can’t do this,” and now we are.
Q: How’s the rest of the band feeling about it?
Been: They’re not as crazy as me. They’re more practical. And recording the Howl record was very much the same way, where people had doubts about us pulling it off, going from the rock world to doing this. I knew how good the songs were, though. If all we did was put out an acoustic record with those songs and nothing more, it’d have been enough.
I knew it was really dangerous to do Howl from a career standpoint. We’d lost our drummer. We’d lost our label. The spirit of it all was one big Hail Mary. It may be that I’m used to being that guy who always gets adrenalized from the fear or imminent danger of doing anything, but still: that’s the whole reason this album even exists.
Q: So it was your idea to tackle this in the first place?
Been: Fans over the years suggested it. I thought it sounded like a cool experiment.
Q: And why not do it, right?
Been: Before it happens, before you have to hear how it sounds, yeah, it is a really good idea. The first couple weeks of the tour will be interesting. The Salt Lake City show happens about a week after we start, so you guys might end up with a slightly more fleshed out form. Straight out of the gate, it’s going to be a bit rough around the edges.
Q: That said, I think it’ll be a good show.
Been: I’m a little spooked, I’ll confess, but that always happens before a tour. Doing this was a good idea. As far as what the outcome of it will be, we’ll see.
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