Tommy Alexander 

" It’s not as if Tommy disrespects genre lines. It’s as if he doesn’t know (or care) that they exist. They’re not pertinent to his survival. He’s a cross between poet, arena rocker, and dive bar star. His voice plunges deeply, then rises high, and the band follows him faithfully through tempo changes, and wall of sound string movements, adding electric guitar and in-pocket backbeat to his work. The songs cruise through switchbacks from earnest folk to early new-age-rock histrionics. Case in point: titular album opener with double time drum beat and mid range electric guitar splashing over the top. Tommy finding a groove between both and singing “you got a notion for truth, a notion for change, a notion for staring too long at the sun”, then diving into the alt-country (?) “Shot Down”.

See also the mid-album turn from “Son Of A Carpenter” to “Time & Time Again” a tear jerking tribute, then a thunderous rhythm section groove under lightning electric, Tommy prowling, barking out “Nothing, she screams, nothing is changing” before delivering prose over an arpeggio etude. Album stunner “Holy Roller” is a fuzzbomb that unleashes a stream of consciousness about –I don’t know what– and I don’t care because the groove is so deep I wanna live in it.”

​- Sean Jewell at American Standard Time

Joe Kaplow

Singer/songwriter Joe Kaplow lives in a four-acre mansion in the hills of Santa Cruz. Of course, he shares the space with a group of hippies, some rats, and some very dilapidated floors and walls... but it does have a swimming pool.

For Kaplow, becoming a full-time musician - and adopting the lifestyle that often accompanies it - didn’t happen by accident. Having moved from farm life and family in New Jersey to the rich Santa Cruz music community, Kaplow has often found himself living paycheck to paycheck as he departs on three-month U.S. solo tours, records music in various bedrooms of the house where he lives, rehearses with his new band and writes constantly, dedicating himself fully and lovingly to the craft of songwriting.

Kaplow’s debut album Time Spent In Between is simultaneously grounded and exploratory; the music is equal parts intimate and expansive. With raw instrumentation and earthy vocal melodies, Time Spent In Between is rich with folk songwriting brilliance.