Zig At The Gig podcast

Nikki O’Neill

Nikki O’Neill, an R&B/Americana singer-songwriter and guitarist based in Chicago, is releasing
her third solo album, Stories I Only Tell My Friends. It’s being issued on Blackbird Record Label
on March 14, 2025 on 12” LP vinyl, CD, digital download and streaming.

This interweaving of Soul, Americana, Rock, Gospel and Blues is an integral part of O’Neill’s
sound, and likely due to her upbringing. “I was born in L.A., but grew up mostly in Stockholm,
Sweden with a Russian grandmother and Polish mother,” she says. “Both of them, and also my
father, grew up with war and had a history of constantly moving from one country and one
apartment to another. My mom was young when she had me, and music seemed to be her
source of joy. She loved listening to all kinds of artists, from Al Green to Santana, Dinah
Washington, Stevie Wonder, John Lennon, and the Traveling Wilbury’s. I soaked it all up like a
sponge. I started making up songs when I was twelve, and first picked up a guitar when I was
16. I loved going to record stores, and when Prince’s Purple Rain album came out, I bought it
immediately and listened to it religiously. Then a friend and drummer in my first band
introduced me to Sly Stone. The way Prince and Sly fused soul and rock, and were leaders of
multi-racial bands with male and female musicians was tremendously influential.”
O’Neill moved from Stockholm to New York City where she mostly played guitar in other bands.
She relocated to Los Angeles after meeting Rich Lackowski at a music trade show. O’Neill
became a solo artist, and the couple (now married) eventually became members of L.A.’s small,
but supportive Americana artist community. After self-releasing her 2017 solo EP, Love Will
Lead You Home (with songs co-written by lyricist Paul Menser), she regularly performed around
L.A. with Lackowski in their 4-piece band, and was signed to Blackbird Record Label in August,
2020. In October that same year, she released World is Waiting, her second solo album and
label debut. With touring opportunities erased by the pandemic and California becoming
unaffordable, they packed up their instruments into her little red Honda Fit and drove to
Lackowski’s hometown of Chicago. “It took me a while to get rooted in Chicago, meet musicians
and start writing again, but I also didn’t want my songs to sound like leftovers from the last
album,” O’Neill says. “I wanted to find out how Chicago would inspire me.”
Stories I Only Tell My Friends is eloquent testimony to the inspiration she found.

 

Nikki's Info : 

https://nikkioneill.com

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5FA6InY3pide4vE_YFEmYw/featured?view_as=public

http://www.instagram.com/nikkioneillguitar

http://www.facebook.com/nikkioneillmusic

https://nikkioneill.bandcamp.com

https://music.apple.com/us/artist/nikki-oneill/274063501

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6AJzwE3ASiLk4z10P3245T?si=KJZg1M00TA-DdVhRCXcr-
gSiLk4z10P3245T

https://www.bandsintown.com/a/7592729

https://bsky.app/profile/nikkioneill.bsky.social

 

Kevin Shields Of Detention

Interview with Kevin Shields Of Detention.

Detention was one of the first and best bands of the ‘80s New Jersey hardcore punk explosion. Their wonderfully tasteless “Dead Rock ’n Rollers” single became the college radio cult classic of 1983. The song’s 97 seconds of primal Ramones-style speed-punk mocked the demise of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, John Lennon, Keith Moon, Elvis Presley, Jim Morrison, Sid Vicious, John Belushi, and John Bonham — who “played the drug game and couldn’t maintain.” They even foretold the drug-related heart attack of Jim Carroll, famous for “All The People Who Died,” screaming, “What are you waiting for? Do it!” Saving the best for last, “Dead Rock ’n Rollers” raised the obvious question: “Why couldn’t it be Barry Manilow?” The Detention story goes back to Central Jersey, to the Shields family home in Hillsborough Township, about 20 minutes from the “culture capital” of New Brunswick. Kevin Shields, the fourth of five sons, grew up listening to his older brothers’ sophisticated record collection of hippie music that ranged from Blue Cheer to King Crimson. Kevin recalls: “Early on, I knew that rock ‘n roll was something special. I was fascinated.”  “I enlisted in the Coast Guard when I was 17. I was out on my own. I was always a music guy and realized music was getting stale with Genesis and whatnot. I read all the magazines, and the ads in the back, so I sent money to these labels, and came home with albums like Never Mind the Bollocks and Rocket to Russia, and singles by the Slickee Boys and MX-80 Sound. But the coup d’grace was when we stationed in Alameda and I went wild in San Francisco. I went to the Mabuhay Gardens like three nights a week, seeing all the legendary West Coast bands: DKs, DOA, Black Flag. I got thrashed on the education of seeing live bands.”   When Kevin returned home in 1981, he was inspired to make music. “Detention came about because I decided to be a player not a spectator,” he explains. “The easiest way was to recruit my family, so I turned to my brothers. I bought a bass, but I didn’t know how to play it. My brother Paul suggested I get in touch with this guitarist Rodney Matejek. He showed me how to play simply, and within months we started coming up with riffs, and what would become songs came very quickly.”  The band — Kevin, Rodney, frontman Paul Shields, and drummer Daniel Shields — played their first show at Raritan Manor on the Somerville Circle, hosted by a young Matt Pinfield in his first radio DJ gig at WRSU (Rutgers). It was a noisy and chaotic affair, with people rolling on the floor — until police arrived and stopped the mayhem. “We were given 100 bucks, and we promised never to play there again,” Kevin says with a grin.  Kevin offers some backstory: “Rob Roth, god bless his pointed head, he had a vision. He got us into the studio in Roselle Park, and he paid for it. All we had to do was get good recordings of the two songs, including the B-side “El Salvador.” It came out great. My brother Paul certainly had the lungs for the job! Those 500 copies got us gigs and got us a lot of notice.” In 1985, Detention released a self-produced self-titled album before disbanding.

Kevin's Info

https://www.leftfordeadrecords.com

dead-rock-n-rollers

 

 

Alexander Hacke and Danielle de Picciotto of Hackedepicciotto Part 4

Interview with Alexander Hacke and Danielle de Picciotto ! Part 4 

hackedepicciotto are Alexander Hacke and Danielle de Picciotto. Both are legends of their own making: Danielle de Picciotto moved to Berlin in 1987, to become the lead singer of the band „Space Cowboys“, the co-initiator of the Love Parade, a collaborator of the Ocean Club with Gudrun Gut, and Alexander’s partner in crime. Alexander Hacke is founding member and bass player of Einstürzende Neubauten. The artist couple, romantically married in 2006, has creatively interacted with countless international projects for almost 2 decades now besides regularly releasing their own compositions. Their live shows are, to put it mildly, intense. Danielle specializes in unusual instruments such as the Hurdy Gurdy, the auto harp and the cemence besides playing the violin and piano; Alexander is master of the bass, guitar and drums. Together they create beautiful, existentialistic, acoustic soundscapes, which roar and vibrate simultaneously leaving their audiences shaken but overjoyed. Danielle, author of two books, writes most of their lyrics, be it the poetic spoken word moments or the momentous choirs they compose together. Alexander Hacke, an excellent throat singer and vocalist, growls his grnarly, rumbling cries that float eerily over their nomadic desert drones, with screeching birds, bees or wild wind accompanying slow, heavy riffs that start as a whisper and end in a volcanic, rolling wave of apocalyptic frenzy. The collage of this mixed with melancholic, translucent harmonies, very heavy & low bass chords, and electronics are a mesmerizing universe of sound and emotion which has generated an ever growing group of enthusiastic listeners. The Best of hackedepicciotto (Live in Napoli) showcases live interpretations of music from across their career. The album includes reinterpretations of tracks from all of their studio albums: Keepsakes (2023), a tender exploration of friendship and loss, The Silver Threshold (2021), their defiant reaction to the pandemic, Perseverantia (2016), which dealt with the artists nomadic lifestyle, Menetekel (2017), which embodies their collective despair at the state of the world, and powerful energy of The Current (2020), recorded by the Irish Sea.

Hackedepicciotto's Info

https://www.hackedepicciotto.de/

Hear The Current here https://hackedepicciotto.bandcamp.com/

 

Innocence Mission

Interview with Karen and Don Peris of Innocence Mission.

 

The first studio album from the innocence mission in four years, Midwinter Swimmers sounds
immediately like an old friend. At the same time, it’s a new kind of adventure for the beloved
Pennsylvania band of high school friends Karen Peris, Don Peris, and Mike Bitts, having both an
expansive, cinematic quality and the strange, lo-fi beauty of a newly discovered vintage folk/pop
album, brimming with melody. Midwinter Swimmers is being released November 29 by Therese
Records in North America, Bella Union in the U.K. and PVine in Japan.
“It’s like it was recorded at Western Electric in the 60’s, and makes me think of Vashti Bunyan
or Sibylle Baier, but also has these emotional bursts of orchestration and drums and harmony
coming in - the sound of the innocence mission never stops getting richer”, writes one early
listener and friend. Lead single and album opening song ‘This Thread Is a Green Street’ is a perfect entrance into the innocence mission’s sound and sensibility. Karen Peris describes it as “a sort of envisioning the
landscape as a world of doorways, that might allow us to locate memory or to be nearer in some way to people we miss. And the transportive quality of scenes we might come upon in the natural world, or even in everyday objects- a sewing thread when I’m mending something could remind me of a street map. One of the things about recording it was, how to find this feeling inside the sound, and how to find the half-remembered beauty of sing-alongs of our 1970’s childhoods. There’s a search in recording that goes on being elusive, in a good way.”
‘This Thread...’ is the first of a trio of songs on the new album (the second being the title song)
about missing a loved one who is away, and of how love can transcend distance, Karen says.
Piano melodies and high electric with strummed nylon string guitars make a glimmery
soundtrack for ‘Midwinter Swimmers’, a happy-sad song of hopefulness about seeing an absent
loved one soon. It takes place during an instant when swimmers seen at a distance through tears are refracted and appear as something beautiful and moving. Something of this feeling is echoed in the recording, made with a spontaneity and a sense of trying to capture a single moment and
hold it up to the light.
This attentiveness to small detail typifies the way the innocence mission’s songs look closely at
everyday moments as miraculous worlds of their own. Karen’s words stand on their own as
poetry, with a particular sense of place and color, of the visual, that communicate universal
experiences of change and loss, and of love, hope, and gratitude.

Walking is a recurrent happening in Peris’ songs, as she finds herself taking walks on most days
of the year, and looking up into trees, which continue to be another feature of her lyrics. In one
verse of closing song ‘A Different Day’, she relates a favorite sycamore tree to an imaginary
appaloosa horse that she might ride to visit a friend, underlining her hope that she could be made into a stronger, more courageous person who is without anxiety.
This same hope of personal transformation is present in ‘Orange of the Westering Sun’, which
recalls being in California to record the innocence mission’s first two albums. “This was at Joni
Mitchell’s house, and the air always smelled like lilies so it became Easter-like, which may have
been one of the reasons that there was the feeling of being at the start of something”, Karen

remembers. (In a full-circle experience, Karen, whose first favorite song at five years old was
‘Both Sides Now’ was invited by Joni to sing on her album Night Ride Home, an honor she
treasures.)
On the opposite US coast, a favorite place visited by the Peris family called Two Lights in Cape
Elizabeth is the setting of the dynamic and ambient ‘The Camera Divides the Coast of Maine’.
Karen explains the song is “thinking about the nature of place in regard to time - when we think
of going back, is it as if to visit an earlier time in our lives? I often think of the Ivan Lalic poem
that says something like: Is this a street or years?”
Here, and throughout the album, there is a palpable emotion inherent in Karen’s voice, and in the
distinctive combination of Don’s luminous, high electric guitar lines with Karen’s low (baritone
and nylon string), rhythmic guitar and piano playing. Their longtime friend Mike Bitts adds a
further dimension of upright and electric bass. ‘There is a companionship about Karen’s voice,’
Don Peris says, ‘and a realistic joy and gratitude, in the midst of life’s difficulties, that she is
expressing here on songs like ‘Sisters and Brothers’. I feel bolstered and comforted by them’.

Innocence Mission Info

theinnocencemission.com 

www.facebook.com/innocence-mission-111422858887453/timeline/https://www.instagram.com/theinnocencemission/

 

Ollee Owens

Interview with Ollee Owens.

 

Canadian soul/blues powerhouse singer Ollee Owens announces the release of her new album, Nowhere to Hide, on October 25th through her Ollee Owens Music label imprint. The first single from Nowhere to Hide, “Some Days,” was released on August 30. Produced by Bobby Blazier, the music on Nowhere to Hide is also graced by the presence of Muscle Shoals all-star guitarist Will McFarlane on eight of the album’s eleven tracks. “The writing of ‘Some Days’ came out of a desire to acknowledge the ups and downs of our day-to-day experiences and at the same time call out the resilience of the human spirit no matter what we come up against,” Owens says. “Sonically, we imagined it as a blues-infused song that leaves the listener feeling happy. It was recorded in Nashville with some of the best session musicians in Music City: Chris Rodriguez, Craig Young, Bobby Blazier, and DeMarco Johnson. The energy in the room that day was palpable as the song began to take shape, capturing exactly what I heard in my head when we wrote the song, resulting in a soulful and hope-filled anthem.” After returning to music a decade ago and releasing 2022's Cannot Be Unheard, the Calgary-based blues/rock singer is better than ever with her latest dazzling, down-to-earth studio album Nowhere to Hide. It's one teeming with stylish, sophisticated jewels mined from blues, rock, and soul. Nowhere to Hide features eight co-writing credits by Owens and a few covers, including Bob Dylan's "Lord Protect My Child." Whether it's Owens' confident delivery fueling the driving title track, the infectious "Some Days," or the deliciously well-crafted "Shivers and Butterflies," Owens is as dynamic as the eleven-track album is flawless. "I learned so much," Owens says of the creative process, "especially, vocally, as there was real opportunity to dig deeper and embody the lyrics." Nowhere to Hide, recorded at Nashville's Sweetbriar Studio and Gnome Studios, shines with help from a who's who of acclaimed Nashville session musicians Blazier brought to the album. "Bobby has an incredible ability to bring people together," Owens says of Blazier. "We all got in the studio together, gave it everything we got, and made some great music." That great music derives from Owens' backstory in the farming community of New Bothwell, Manitoba. As a teen, she gravitated toward Dylan, Delta Blues, The Staple Singers, and Etta James. "When I came back to creating music, I really realized the depth and influence that particular style of music had on me," Owens says of her early listening habits. Owens and her husband started their family early and had three daughters, one of whom has a cognitive disability. After some soul-searching, and realizing her daughter had exceptional needs, she took a hiatus from music. "I focused on being present and engaged for my daughters," she says. As a result, "Lord Protect My Child" strikes an emotional chord as Owens pours her soul into it. "That song has really become close to my heart," she says. "My daughter is twenty-three now, but there's still a lot of vulnerability there. The desire for protecting and taking care of her will never go away." Owens will be playing a Canadian concert in October celebrating the release of Nowhere to Hide and has plans for further touring in the spring. She's also performed at the Roots Blues and BBQ Festival in Drumheller, Alberta, and Calgary's National Music Centre, among several other venues. Now with Nowhere to Hide, Owens will have a larger fan base thanks to an amazing album you would be wise to experience wherever you get your music. 

 

Ollee's Info

/https://olleeowens.com/

 

Robert Kidney of The Numbers Band 15-60-75 : Part 2

Robert Kidney of The Numbers Band 15-60-75 : Part 2 on Zig At The Gig.

Robert Kidney founding member, singer songwriter, composer, and guitarist for the Number band. The Numbers Band (a.k.a. 15-60-75) are an American blues rock[1] and experimental rock band formed in Kent, Ohio, United States in 1969. They are part of the 'Akron Sound' that sprang forth from their home state. The original personnel were Robert Kidney (guitar, lead vocals), the Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde's brother Terry Hynde (saxophone), Hank Smith (guitar, keyboards), Greg Colbert (bass) and Tim Hudson (drums). Chris Butler, from Tin Huey and The Waitresses, also played in the band for a stint as a bassist. They premiered as a live act at the local nightspot The Kove in July 1970. Later, they incorporated jazzy influences as well and they have stuck with their sound ever since. By 1972, Gerald Casale, future co-founder of Devo (bass), and David Robinson were added to the lineup. Casale was thrown out after wearing a monkey mask onstage. Due to interior pressures, Kidney terminated the project by year's end and joined his brother Jack's band, King of Hearts. However, King of Hearts reformed as a new Numbers Band a few weeks later with a retooled lineup that consisted of the Kidney brothers, Hynde, Drake Gleason (bass) and Jay Brown (drums). After two years of playing gigs, Brown left the band and Robinson came back. Michael Stacey (guitar), was added prior to the cutting of their 1976 live album Jimmy Bell's Still in Town. The following year, Gleason was replaced by Bart Johnson (bass).

The Numbers Band, like most of the other Ohioans, never became renowned nationally and were not signed by the major labels. ENDURE: Outliers on Water Street out now! https://www.numbersband.com/shop

Robert's info https://www.numbersband.com/

http://www.robertkidney.com/

 

Maura Pond of Luna Honey

Interview with Maura Pond of Luna Honey

Luna Honey was originally formed in 2017 in Washington, DC by Maura Pond and Levi Flack who had informally begun playing together in Flack’s basement and set a goal to write an album’s worth of music. The pair met Benjamin Schurr (Ruah, Br’er, Nyxy Nyx), founder of BLIGHT.records, when his band Br’er opened a show for Arto Lindsay at the Black Cat and he soon after agreed to record and produce them. When they’d finished recording their debut album, Peace Will Grind You Down, Ben insisted that the pair begin performing live, agreed to fill in temporarily, then became a permanent member along with baritone sax player Madeline Billhimer. The four-piece line-up recorded Peace Lives, a live recording of songs mostly from their first album. Billhimer left the band during the recording of their next full-length album, Ballast. Schurr, who was born in Philadelphia, moved back to his home city in 2019 with Flack following shortly after. Christmas Eve of 2019, Pond’s aunt shared she had months to live and asked her to write her some music to help accept her transition, asking that it could be released after her death. Still living in DC, Pond recruited Ben to come down to her house in Anacostia and record an intense week of highly improvised sessions. The two worked around the clock on what would become the fourth album Luna Honey, Branches. After the pandemic hit in 2020, Pond moved back to her hometown of Richmond, VA to be closer to her parents and Schurr followed. All three band members commuted back and forth between Richmond and Philadelphia continuing to write songs. Parables was written during the period of geographic separation across DC, Philadelphia, and Richmond. Three months after moving to Richmond, Pond’s mother passed after an over a decade long fight with cancer. In the wake of her mother’s passing, Pond had found comfort in the solo work of longtime Swans guitarist Norman Westberg and ended up striking up a long-distance collaboration. Aftermath resulted, a meditation on grief and what is left behind. In 2022, Pond and Schurr moved to Philadelphia, finally reuniting the band within the same city. Re-energized after living through the difficulties during COVID and the past several years, the three began recording a new crop of songs that would make up the majority of Bound, with the goal of capturing the raw, powerful energy of their live shows. Luna Honey’s art emerges from the creative tension between the death of the ego and the exploration of the subconscious with the pragmatism and discipline of punching the clock and getting the work done.

http://www.lunahoney.com

http://facebook.com/lunahoneymusic

http://www.instagram.com/lunahoneymusic

linktr.ee/lunahoneymusic

https://open.spotify.com/artist/3kz45E0sd0kFgZIfQNwm2F

https://lunahoney.bandcamp.com/album/bound

 

Kerry Jones Of Death Doula

Interview with Kerry Jones Of Death Doula.

Death Doula's new album Love Spells available on all streaming platforms.

 

Love Spells is the debut album from Death Doula, a dusky Art-Rock band hailing from Portland, Oregon. The new album was recorded at Jackpot Studios by Adam Lee (Built to Spill, Sleater- Kinney) and mixed by Bob Cheek, (Deftones, Band of Horses). It’s being released as a digital download and via streaming platforms by Death Doula Records on October 11. Kerry Jones had a crush on his best friend. Kyle List didn’t mind, he asked her to come collaborate at his tiny home studio anyway. By the end of the night, they were in love and had created a demo of “Disembark”, which would be lead single from Love Spells. Three weeks later, he moved to Portland to live with her, with no plan beyond an intuition that the music would take them somewhere. Fast forwarding two years later, they recruited the veteran rhythm section of Keith Vidal on bass (Marjorie Faire, Nyles Lannon) and Adam Kozie on drums (Pollens, Crystal Beth) and adopted the name “Death Doula.” The music they’ve created shows their shared love of artists like Can, Television, Jeff Buckley, The Cranberries, Deerhunter, Kate Bush, The Sundays and Deftones, while remaining altogether sonically new. After having their lives dramatically reshaped during the pandemic, the members of Death Doula approach music with an intensity that can only come from having spent a lifetime wanting it. Kerry and Kyle have an 11 year age difference. Keith and Kyle have a 22 year age difference. Each member pours their lifetime of experience into performances that place emotion and groove first.“In a world so algorithmized it’s numb,” says Kerry “we just want to make people feel something again.” https://deathdoula.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/deathdoulaband/?img_index=1

 

Rust County Revival

Interview with Rust County Revival

About Rust County Revival ":Somewhere between the former stomping grounds of blues legend Robert Lockwood Jr. and the modern-day, blues-inspired rockers The Black Keys comes an original Rock ‘N’ Roll experience, which attempts to blend elements of both the old and the new and feels authentic as well. Bob (guitar/vocals), Russ (drums), Stu (guitar/vocals), and Tim (bass) strive to deliver a unique blend of Rock and Blues soaked in gasoline for your eardrums. Formed in the post-pandemic world on the mean streets of Seven Hills, four musicians set out to deliver freakish blues and familiar grooves to your soul. RCR brings a multitude of expressions and influences to the stage. From hard-hitting Rock and Grunge to old-school Blues with a modern spin. Mainly we just enjoy writing and playing music inspired by artists we admire."

 

UPCOMING SHOWS

• Dec. 19 – Emerging Sounds Showcase @ Rialto Theatre (Akron, OH) – Doors: 7 p.m.
• Jan. 17 – Front St. Social (Berea, OH) – Doors: 6:30 p.m.

https://rustcountyrevival.com

/ https://www.facebook.com/RustCountyRevival

https://www.instagram.com/rustcountyrevival

 

Cailyn Maeve of Final Passion

Final Passion is the solo project of Cailyn Maeve, an independent artist making music from her tiny bedroom in Cleveland, OH.

Originally from Houston, TX, Cailyn fronted the punk band Fail Mary for several years before relocating to Cleveland in the midst of her transition, where she began work on the project.

Final Passion’s first self-produced solo single, “Perpetual Motion” released October 2023, and was followed up by the EP “we will figure it out” in September 2024.

 

https://www.finalpassion.net