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The 412 District was formed in 2013 from their common love of music and occupation (Education). Kevin Monaghan (Lead Singer and Rhythm Guitar) started the band for an anti-bullying fundraiser. Rob Furman (Drummer) joined him on his first project, Jon Weisbroad (Bass) and Sean Van Eman (Lead Guitar) were soon added. Six years later , the band is rocking venues throughout Pittsburgh, and still consists of all educators (three principals and a coach all from the same school district). To highlight their summer performances, The 412 District was invited to perform at one of the largest educator conventions in Philadelphia as well performing at Vetfest 2019 for the Wounded Warriors Project and at multiple American Cancer Society events. Other highlighted performances include The Hofbrauhaus' Tenth Anniversary Celebration, along with a rockin' holiday party performance the Crafthouse.

Their music is as eclectic as the famous Heinz 57 sauce. Their covers include most genres of music and range from Johnny Cash to Lynyrd Skynyrd, from CCR to Tom Petty, from Green Day to Walk the Moon.

In the past two years the band has moved to writing and recording original music that is clearly a country rock style. Their first single "Stand" which was written as a tribute to our lead singer's father, was recently endorsed by the Wounded Warriors Project and was highlighted at their 2019 Vetfest. Their songs can be found on all the major streaming music services including Spotify, Apple and Amazon.

Based in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, Cynimatics is a Ska/Pop Punk hybrid band incorporating various influences and styles in their music. Established in 2013, the band has released 4 albums and numerous EPs delivering a combination of 3rd Wave Ska, Punk Rock, and contemporary Pop Punk.

In July 2016, Alex Toth was recovering from a broken foot and a broken heart, stuck in his fourth-floor apartment in Brooklyn with cast and crutches. This is where Tōth's "achingly beautiful" debut album, Practice Magic and Seek Professional Help When Necessary, was born.

A few months earlier, Alex and his Rubblebucket cofounder and love of more than eleven years had "consciously uncoupled," after a period of helping each other through devastating challenges. Alex was lightning-struck by sadness. "Almost convalescent" at times, in his words, though rarely still. A jazz trumpeter by training, Alex is always, always writing. And that spring, a new kind of music started to come -- raw, stripped-down songs unfurling without agenda, bent over an acoustic guitar. It never occurred to Alex that he was making an album.

The idea sprouted in songwriting sessions with his friend Kimbra, when she heard this new sound and encouraged Alex to make a record. But it didn't solidify until June 2016, when Alex was onstage with his punk project, Alexander F, and broke his foot. Stuck there in his apartment all summer, Tōth came to life.

Practice Magic and Seek Professional Help When Necessary, due May 2019 from Northern Spy Records (worldwide) and Figureight Records (UK/Europe), is a self-help guide unlike any other -- a breakup album before wholeness, but after anger. The album turns as it goes, through "lush, windswept sonics" (Gorilla Vs. Bear), bebop trumpet solos, and spare guitar, recalling the Beach Boys in one bar and Arthur Russell in the next. It's an album for remembering and letting go -- and discovering what magic remains.

Raucous, rowdy, gentle, sweet, eccentric, quirky, and outright irreverent are all words that fittingly describe Tas Cru's songs and testify to his reputation as a one of the most unique of bluesmen plying his trade today. Cru has received wide praise for his songwriting from critics, industry professionals as well as from his fellow musicians. As Downbeat magazine noted, "His songs are blues poetry - crafted with rare verbal flair and his ability to cast a memorable hook is magical!" Alligator Records president, Bruce Iglauer calls him a rare, real writer and many of the top blues musicians of today are eager to join Cru in the studio and on stage to perform his songs.

With three hot albums in the last five years – You Keep the Money, Simmered & Stewed and Memphis Song – Cru is readying another - Drive On, slated for release this coming late fall 2019. In addition to his best-known albums is Tas' 2009 release, Even Bugs Sing the Blues, an album of original blues music for kids based on book characters from the works of acclaimed author-illustrator, Eric Carle. In 2016 he recorded a blues album for dog lovers called Doggone Blues that is now being turned into a three-book series featuring the dog characters from these songs working together to try to form an all dog blues band. The first of this book series, Bad Dog Bubba will be out in late summer.

As a Blues Foundation, Keeping the Blues Alive award recipient (2014), besides performing, Cru brings his Blues Education programs and workshops to festivals, schools, and hospitals everywhere he travels. In 2019, Tas began his affiliation with United By Music North America; a program serving differently challenged young adult musicians. Thus far, Cru has traveled to the Pacific Northwest and Memphis, TN to mentor participants. Tas says, “Working with UBMNA has brought me back to why I began playing music in the first place – for the pure joy of doing so!”

Tas Cru is based out of upstate New York and performs in multiple formats ranging from solo acoustic to a 7 piece-backing band. He sings and plays a wide variety of guitars - at home on either electric, acoustic, resonator or cigar box. Tas is a Delaney Guitars (Austin TX) endorsed artist and is signed to Subcat Records, Syracuse NY.

In his early bands, Tas was introduced to the great Sun Records sound and the country blues that later served as a counterpoint to the rock-blues he idolized as did so many young aspiring guitar players of his time. Cru grew up in a very musical and generally unquirky family (except for him). Unlike his talented brother and sisters, he did not pursue music in school. A brief attempt to play the trombone abruptly ended after being kicked by his 7th grade music teacher who’s name actually was A (alden) Sharpe! Tas says he deserved it. Instead Cru explored and developed his talent by taking up with a rougher crowd of older, self-taught musicians where he was introduced to the songs of the Sun Records legends. His first foray into the blues came after leaving the US Navy when he was asked to join a band formed by a former shipmate named Delray Streeter, an Arkansas-raised bluesman with boundless bravado and attitude but rather limited singing and even lesser harmonica skills. This partnership, though short-lived, proved to be very influential as Streeter's repertoire tended toward the older, rough-hewn country blues. Cru's schooling in country blues later served him well and is heard in his original songs along with the Sun Records and, of course his rock-blues influences.

His latest album, Memphis Song completed a trifecta of Tas Cru’s creativity that began with his breakthrough effort, You Keep the Money (2014) and followed by the Blues Music Award nominated Simmered and Stewed. Released in June 2018, Memphis Song showcases Cru’s talents as an acclaimed songwriter, guitarist and vocalist. This album, as captured in the title track, pays homage to the great music city for the role it has played in bringing blues, soul and rock ‘n roll to audiences world-wide. Memphis Song can be heard on blues radio across the globe. With over six months of charting prowess, including hitting the #1 slot, the album still spins in regular rotation elevated there by its many shining reviews. Memphis Song also brought Cru his second Syracuse Area Music Award (SAMMY) for best Blues album.

You Keep the Money grabbed the attention of blues radio worldwide, debuting on the prestigious Living Blues Radio Chart at #2 and, quite noteworthy, debuting #1 on the Roots Music Report Blues Radio Chart. Simmered & Stewed also enjoyed wide airplay including being featured as a BB King's Bluesville "Pick to Click" on SiriusXM radio. Likewise it made its way on to the highly regarded Living Blues Chart and resided at or near the top of the Roots Music Report’s Blues Chart for most of 2017. Simmered and Stewed earned Cru the first of his two SAMMYs as well as nominations for several prestigious awards including the International Blues Foundation Blues Music Awards and the Independent Blues Awards. On the strength of these two albums Tas has since performed at several major blues festivals and notable venues bringing music from these great albums and Memphis Song to their stages.

Sawyer Fredericks
Singer-songwriter Sawyer Fredericks, hailing from his family's farm in central New York State, is fast establishing himself as an authentic original, Americana artist with an old soul. His deep, beyond-his-years lyrics and melodies, raw, soulful vocals, and powerful live performances have attracted an ever growing number of devoted fans of all ages, selling out shows throughout the US.

As a folk/blues singer-songwriter, who cut his teeth at local farmers markets, open mics, and iconic New York venues like Caffe Lena, the Towne Crier Cafe, and The Bitter End, Sawyer seemed an unlikely match for reality tv, but quickly won over broad audiences with his genuine delivery and unique arrangements of classic songs, going on to win season 8 of NBC's The Voice.

Fresh from that whirlwind, Sawyer went forward with the release of his major label debut, A Good Storm, with Republic Records, an impressive blend of soulful Folk, blues, and rock, entirely written or cowritten by Sawyer. His 2016 A Good Storm Tour included 62 shows across the US.
For 2018, Sawyer has once again gone independent, the highly-anticipated Hide Your Ghost sheds the high gloss major label treatment, and stays true to Frederick’s honest and elegantly stripped down style, a self-described “free range folk”, incorporating elements of blues, roots rock, and jazz with live instrumental arrangements throughout.

JD Eicher
“The music that I’m writing and releasing is really mirroring who I am and where I am at that time in my life. It’s easy to perform songs when they’re very true.” So says JD Eicher, the Youngstown, OH-area born and bred musician who is set to release The Middle Distance via Rock Ridge Music on May 6, 2016. “I’m really glad that my career has taken the longer, ‘scenic’ route, because the music I’m writing now has a certain truth to it that I’m not sure I would have found otherwise.”

The Middle Distance marks the first album Eicher will issue since sunsetting JD Eicher & the Goodnights, the moniker used on the trilogy of titles, The Shape of Things, Shifting, and Into Place, released previously. So why put The Goodnights to bed? Eicher explains: “The truth of the matter is, not a whole lot has changed. There will still be a band. But the name shift felt natural with the very personal nature of this new music and the very strong desire to simplify.”

Eicher has noted that the common themes running through his previous three releases are “love, hope, and acceptance.” Common sense would call for speculating whether there is a common thread that ties together the ten songs found on The Middle Distance. “Not a premeditated one,” he is quick to clarify. “I really wanted to just sit down and write the best songs I could, saying what I needed to say at the time. It’s more of a journal entry/diary-type approach this time around.”

With that as a forward, the first chapter of Eicher’s aural journal begins with nearly one minute of U2-ish guitar that sets the sonic table for the album opener, “This Heart,” in which he sings, “All my fears, all my worries, are alive and well inside this heart.” Eicher expounds, “This whole record - and definitely that song – is moodier, and there’s a lot of internal struggle, internal processing. When you hear the song title, ‘This Heart,’ it sounds like it’s gonna be a love song, but it’s really more about coping and figuring out how to get past whatever you’re dealing with in that moment.”

Songwriting and superb singing are at the center of each track on The Middle Distance, exemplified by the lyric line “Maybe we’ve been trained to wash, rinse, and then repeat” and the heavenly falsetto vocals found on “Be Well,” a song which sounds like it would fit perfectly into Death Cab For Cutie’s catalog. An audio oasis to the overall “moodier” sound of the record is refreshingly felt when the soundscape lightens up for the bouncy “The Little Bit,” which musically and lyrically has a Jason Mraz vibe to it, most notably on the playful line, “I didn’t write any lyrics for this part of the song… everybody relax.” Eicher’s songwriting gravitas shines in the more serious selections - “Not Everybody Runs,” a sonic commitment to, well, commitment; “Not Afraid,” in which abstract fears about our dreams not coming true, relationships going wrong, internal struggles and pressures, letting your guard down and being hurt, and failure are all tackled; and “Man of Faith,” in which Eicher espouses the somewhat ambiguous supplication: “And I’m pretty sure my heaven’s just the answer to my questions.”

Far less ambiguous is how much Eicher’s Rust Belt upbringing seeps into, or serves as, the foundation of his songwriting. “I think it definitely affects the music,” he affirms without hesitation, “even in the way I approach touring and my overall work ethic with songwriting and recording. There’s a world-wariness that comes out of this area that gets into the songs. I think there’s a realism that comes out of

this part of the country, too, and I think that gets in there as well.” It’s no wonder that Pittsburgh, not far from his hometown of Youngstown, has embraced the performer and his music as their own.

With his band, The Goodnights, Eicher’s soaring and graceful pop-rock songcraft garnered favorable comparisons to Coldplay, Keane, The Script, The Killers, and Death Cab for Cutie. Alternative Addiction named the group one of the top 10 unsigned bands. Virgin America Airlines used one of the band’s songs in the teaser for the airline’s movie, Departure Date. Live, JD Eicher & the Goodnights shared the stage with such diverse and respected artists as the Dave Matthews Band, Coldplay, Train, Maroon 5, Hot Chelle Rae, Pete Yorn, Anberlin, Rod Stewart, Bryan Adams, Kelly Clarkson, Cartel, Sister Hazel, and Matt Nathanson, among many others.

Now facing a new morning with the added weight of offering up The Middle Distance with just his name on the album cover, does Eicher like the way the shape of things have shifted into place (to borrow a phrase from past album titles), both personally and professionally?

“Yeah, definitely. I do feel a lot more firmly-rooted. I feel like there’s a lot less doubt. I know who I am a lot better than I used to, and a lot of my life is starting to make more sense. I’m married now. We’ve got a house. The real world stuff has come together in a really meaningful way. And my musical life mirrors those sentiments as well. This was the first time I felt comfortable producing a record on my own. I knew how I wanted it to feel, start to finish.”

For those reasons and more, it’s fair to say The Middle Distance is destined to take JD Eicher even farther than where he’s at today. That prospect makes it a near certainty that his steady pace to the top will likely result in him experiencing the musician’s equivalent of a long distance runner’s high.

Winners of the Western Pennsylvania Blues Challenge, Matt, Fred, Will and Greg are going to Memphis in January of 2018 to compete in the IBC's

Hailing from Lockport NY, Handsome Jack plays a powerful and emotional fusion of boogie soul rock n roll that has earned the admiration of fellow rock travelers such as Chris Robinson (CRB, Black Crowes),Zachary Gabbard (Buffalo Killers), and Ben McLeod of All Them Witches, who produced their new record.

On "Everything's Gonna Be Alright" the trio digs deeper into its soulful influences, brilliantly bringing back to life the classic sounds of Chicago, Memphis and Muscle Shoals, all rolled into one timeless record of American rock music for a new generation.

Hannah Cohen has arrived home. From the title of her new album to the depth and beauty of the music, the Woodstock, NY-based singer-songwriter's third album for Bella Union, Welcome Home, displays a new level of confidence and comfort with the many creative tools at her disposal. Cohen’s remarkably evocative voice is surrounded by dreamy, swooning incantations, from the rippling 'This Is Your Life' and the slow-burning, forthright statement of 'All I Want,' to the soul swagger of 'Get in Line' and dramatic vocal leaps of 'Wasting My Time.' Produced by Cohen's partner Sam Owens, the producer/writer who performs as Sam Evian, the artist began developing the material that became Welcome Home in 2017. Taking her time with the songs, she wrapped herself in the fulfilling quiet of a new home, and a new creative partnership that supported the clarity in her writing and vocals. Listeners will find echoes of folk and R&B, radiating with vocal-powered pop production, electronic accents, and bursts of pulsing guitar/bass/drums energy. Irresistible echoes of soul enchanters such as Marvin Gaye and Bill Withers and their friend and sometime collaborator Nick Hakim blend with the reflective shadings of singer/writer forebears such as Carole King and Harry Nilsson. As Cohen explains, "A lot of the album is about checking in with reality and taking the wheel, being honest with myself and my intentions. Being transparent as much as possible. They’re about exploring why I’m here. And the songs question love - if it's real or something else, finding love that’s healthy, mature and supportive."

Emma's Lounge has the unique ability to morph from rootsy folk to rollicking rock and powerful soul, to head-turning electronic-tinged psychedelic funkiness. Their strange range of creative influence is united by the band's raw energy and audience inclusiveness.

And word is spreading from the band's Asheville, NC hometown across the East Coast.

Emma's Lounge have performed at SweetWater 420 Fest, Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival, The BIG What?, French Broad River Festival, Front Porch Fest, Xpand Fest, Soulshine, Meeting of the Minds, Mustang Spring Jam, Floyd Yoga Jam, and many more.

Their diverse musical style has opened opportunities for the band to share stages with an equally diverse group of artists including BIG Something, Consider The Source, Zach Deputy, The Fritz, Litz, Dr. Bacon, Dangermuffin, Toubab Krewe, The Southern Belles, The Broadcast, Futurebirds, Holy Ghost Tent Revival, Bella's Bartok, and more.