We’re not sure how it happened, but I Saw A Galloping Horse Cover No Ground was included in The Best Country Music on Bandcamp for November 2025! I was personally very happy to see it listed next to a release by Eiderdown Records, who put out really wonderful stuff, including a new favorite On A Moonlit Hill In Slovenia by Lori Goldston. We’re feeling very grateful and excited for upcoming things, including a brief New England tour in early March.
Ugly Hug Premiere of “A Dozen Beers.”
We were fortunate to get a song premier at The Ugly Hug, a Chicago-based music journal started by Shea Roney. Since that publication, I’ve paid attention to the blog and they are hustling! It’s exciting to see new ground-up journalism show its face in the era of social media and press consolidation. They’re doing small festivals, riding along documenting tours, lots. I really respect what they’re doing.
This is another Chicago-based blog, running through Substack. Josh Terry is from Michigan 🙌. Beautiful writing and a project I want to connect with more intimately. I wonder if Terry brushed shoulders with any of the Michigan bands I came-of-age with. I like this, about the album: “it’s the platonic ideal of No Expectations-core: clever, freewheelin,’ and a little drunk.” More about platonic ideals please…
The Bollard Bulletin for Nov. 3, 2025
This was by far the most astute reading of Joe’s songwriting—and personal-public world—also, by far the most entertaining writing. The Bollard is Portland’s progressive alt-weekly, run by Chris Busby, and Busby either did great research or just very much vibes with what Joe puts down. I’ve known Joe for 11 or 12 years and I haven’t caught the cultural references, hidden meanings, or even explicit meanings that Busby caught. If there’s one album review to read, it’s this one—which is cool, because it’s also from the source closest to home in Maine.
Estrenamos el nuevo disco de Chico States
Spain?! This is fun! Joe speaks Spanish but this came by way of the Butte, MT label that put out the record, Anything Bagel. It’s a small label doing very handmade work (see the beautiful tapes they screen-printed for us), but they’ve really done a ton to promote our band. Feeling very very grateful for that too. Like The Ugly Hug, they’re another example of this generation’s music-loving people working hard to steer us from an empty culture of irreverent consumption—toward one where music is exciting and really matters to you through time.
Rosy Overdrive – New Playlist: November 2025
We were really happy to be the first song! on Rosy Overdrive’s November 2025 playlist, with Doda. Not only were we included, we had a nice write-up that connected us to some other artists Rosy Overdrive elevates. I was happy to see the second song was Idle Ray, a project of Fred Thomas’ that goes back to a summer I lived in Michigan. Maggie and Luke and I spent a lot of that 2018 summer together (we three were Raw Honey then) and Maggie was recording Riverbed with Fred as an engineer. We practiced all the time and did a few very interesting shows near Ann Arbor. The most special to me was playing with Idle Ray and Simon Joyner at Ziggy’s in Ypsilanti. At that show, Idle Ray was just a tape player with pre-recorded material and an unmic’d classical guitar. The sound, to me, fit the conditions of the room so much better than a PA could. I wish I could see that format again.
