Women That Rock is hosting its first-annual Halloween concert event Tuesday October 30th at beloved NY venue Brooklyn Bazaar, 150. This festival-style evening showcase will feature performances by six amazing femme-fronted artists, including Mrs. Smith, Ruby The Hatchet, Fern Mayo, MONTE, Clever Girls and The Values. Tickets are $12 in advance, $15 at the door.

In addition to the incredible artist lineup, guests will enjoy live Halloween tattoos, tarot readings, a Women That Rock Halloween photo booth experience and more spooky surprises! The evening will be MC’ed by popular Brooklyn-based artist Mima Good disguised as a surprise Halloween alter-ego. The event is being sponsored by Austin Eastciders, Fender & Guitar Center.

Women That Rock is a community of music curators and tastemakers dedicated to promoting and supporting the best up-and-coming women and gender-nonconforming artists. In addition to daily artist profiles and regular articles and promotion on their website, Women That Rock hosts 1-3 events a month in New York City, including a special NYC PRIDE event at Coney Island Baby in collaboration with Jess Jouise Dye (lead singer of popular Brooklyn band High Waisted), and a special summer showcase at Brooklyn Bazaar featuring GYMSHORTS, Sharkmuffin, MONTE, Lady Bits & Sister Munch, just to name a few of their previous events.

The first time I heard Mary-Elaine Jenkins was at a Janis Joplin tribute show at The Way Station in Brooklyn. It was a small venue, an intimate atmosphere, and she had come alone with her guitar. When she took the stage, I felt like I knew her somehow, like she had always been a friend. A New Yorker for over five years now, Mary-Elaine is a 13th-generation South Carolinian, so it makes sense that her modest southern charm would so easily make the audience immediately comfortable with her. And then she started singing. 

Jenkins’ voice is a mix of cloves, sage, ash, thorns, and honey. The music sets the mood of a sunrise on a brisk fall morning, wrapping a blanket around yourself in your pajamas and eating biscuits on a wooden rocking chair on a white front porch, only rolling hills in view for miles. Reminiscent of Jolie Holland, Lady Lamb, and yes, a piece of Janis Joplin, her lyrics and vocal style seem timeless and raw. 

Jenkins’ music is the opposite of frenetic. She knows how to sink into a slow blues groove and lives there like it’s the new pace of your life now, an especially powerful feat in our bustling metropolis. And yet it feels easy to sink down with her into a hammock you never want to climb out of. 

Recording at Good Child Music Studios, Jenkins collaborated with producer / engineer Thom Beemer, along with musicians Cat Popper (Ryan Adams), Lawson White (My Brightest Diamond, Tony Trischka), JJ Appleton, and Dave Hassell, to make an album as well traveled as it is rooted in the musical traditions of the Southern east coast.

Singles Fools Don’t Stay and The Rooster release today on Good Child Music and we are proud to premiere them below. They will be included in a debut LP scheduled for later in the year. You can catch Mary-Elaine Jenkins with band live at The Bitter End on Friday, June 22. – Meghan Rose, photo by Paul Storey.

Scheduled for August 4th from 4pm to midnight, the third edition of the Get Carried Away Music Festival this year features ten bands, mostly from the NYC area. On the bill also drinks, food and cool Brooklyn wares, all on board of the historic Timeless yacht during the perfect time of year to enjoy those East River breezes to cool off the hot August nights. The festival features mostly female-fronted groups, which is refreshing and also fair, since women have been producing some of the best indie music in recent times.

There’s still room for five more artists which will be selected through a special Battle of the Bands contest taking place on June 2 at Kingsland Bar in Greenpoint, 6pm-midnight. Band/artist submissions can be emailed to kelly.isaacs@getcarriedawaymusic.com.

The festival is now offering discount tickets at $65 each to the first 100 festival goers. Tickets are available here and on the festival website. Check out a playlist of the local bands playing this event, streaming below! – Meghan Rose

New Jersey quartet The Nectars is opening up a space for the rock of 20 years ago to spill like a smashed Capri Sun back into our consciousness. Their songs are about having fun, being free and in love, and offer a sound appropriately reminiscent of those positively punchy, female fronted, power pop bands of the late ’90s/early aughts like No Doubt and Paramore. Singer Jessica Kenny has the presence and vocal prowess to take this band beyond the local circuit (as a matter fact, they are already touring the UK) and songs like "I Want It" (our favorite) and recently released "We Will Run" (streaming below) have the melodic appeal to win over the new generation of rock seekers.  After a string of singles accompanied by lo-fi-ish videos, the band is set to release debut album Sci-Fi Television on June 1st.

Jessica Kenny describes the band’s new music video for "We Will Run" as “a love letter to simpler times. A tribute to the New Jersey of our youth." Set in a low rent rehearsal space and peppered with shots of the band just hanging out and riding bikes, the video’s mood is set for the juicy nostalgia the band aims to embody while letting us feel it new again. "We are sci-fi television love" Jessica repeats in the bridge. Somehow I’m reminded of Indiana Jones re-runs on TV, when the internet took so long to load that it wasn’t worth it, when having nothing to do on a Saturday was normal and blissfully boring – and getting a new CD was the best treat there ever was… – Meghan Rose