Nashville may rank among the least likely places where you might expect to find one of techno’s rising stars, yet from the town that brought us the Grand Old Opry comes Oliver Dodd. With a music career spanning the better part of a decade, Dodd has established himself as one of America’s hottest producers. His track “Elevators and Escalators,” released on Deitrich Schonemann’s AddOn Records, has been featured on a number of high-profile DJ mixes by such notables as Richie Hawtin and MSTRKRFT. Dodd’s music takes on a decidedly minimal sensibility without the usual pretensions associated with the genre, delving into electro and techno while maintaining dance-floor credibility in a party-rockin’ atmosphere. Dodd performs alongside Chicago mainstay Frankie Vega and Klectic label guru Jason Patrick, a relatively recent techno transplant from Detroit who has continued to build on his reputation as a top quality DJ and producer in his own right. (Andrew Lochhead)
Solo Survivor: James Swanberg Navigates the Live Music Shutdown “The responsibility of having a drummer or a bassist would really stress me out,” says Swanberg. “My stress level compared to a traditional band, is a lot smaller, and I’m fortunate for that.”
Especially For You: A Preview of the Smithereens at the Memorial Opera House Serious music scholars all, the Smithereens distilled their musical loves into something that ultimately sounded like nobody but them. Diken points to Gary Lewis and the Playboys as an influence; it’s worth noting that the studio cats who played on those records—immortal pop tunes like “Count Me In” —included Leon Russell and drummer Hal Blaine.
Do It Again: A Preview of Brian Wilson at Horseshoe Hammond While today former bandmate Mike Love leads a group calling itself the Beach Boys, that band features no Brian Wilson. Wilson’s group, on the other hand, includes original Beach Boys member Al Jardine as well as late-prime-era Beach Boy Blondie Chaplin, and is jaw-droppingly facile at recreating the Beach Boys sound.
