Spencer LaJoye

Credit: Whitney Wilson and Hannah LaJoye photography

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Spencer LaJoye’s music feels like taking a long walk on cracked pavement. Their dynamic acoustic tones and layered vocals are reminiscent of melancholic sixties folk songs - but Spencer’s genre-bending doesn’t end there. Resonant vocal loops spin these classic sounds into delightfully boppy songs that are both mesmerizing and haunting with their detailed, autobiographical lyrics.

Based in Boston, Spencer is a folk/pop singer-songwriter, violinist, and vocal loop artist who has garnered a growing fan base around the world through live performances, live streams, and an ever-increasing loyal Patreon community. Charming, humorous, and acutely self-aware, Spencer’s live performances leave audiences crying, laughing, and wanting more. With a dreadnought as big as they are wrapped around their waist and a voice that can fill a city,

Spencer’s ability to connect with a crowd of friends, family, and strangers is nothing short of remarkable. They grew up as one of eight in a family of musicians in rural Southwest Michigan. At the age of 5, Spencer picked up a violin and pursued classical music until college, when they swapped their bow for a pen. Spencer wrote their first EP as a closeted queer kid in a historically conservative Christian college while pursuing a degree in theology. Spencer’s songwriting and theologizing became tools of self-empowerment amid a culture of shame. Now, an outspoken nonbinary bisexual, Spencer’s goal is to foster a life-affirming community through music and to “bring people to church” at their shows.

Spencer’s first EP We’ve Been That Way Before won the WYCE Jammie Award for Listener’s Choice in Grand Rapids, MI, and most recently, Spencer was chosen as a winner of the 2021 Kerrville New Folk Songwriting Competition.

This fall, they will release Remember the Oxygen, a four-song EP written before, during, and following their coming out as gender nonbinary. “The songs document me becoming myself, a journey which involved just as much looking to the past as it did moving toward the future,” Spencer explains. “As it turns out, I knew who I was from the very beginning. I knew how to breathe all along. To re-become myself, I just had to let some things burn, let some things hurt, and finally...remember my own oxygen.”

Ryanhood

Photo credit: Taylor Noel Photography

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Named ‘Best Group/Duo’ in the 2014 International Acoustic Music Awards, acoustic-duo Ryanhood got their first break more than a decade ago as street-performers at Boston’s Quincy Market. It was there that they were spotted by a college booking agent and thrust into the college touring scene, where Campus Activities Magazine would name them “one of the most requested acts by college buyers all across the country.” They’ve since gone on to perform more than a thousand shows in 45 U.S. states over the past decade, and have shared stages with Jason Mraz, Matt Nathanson, Train, and many more.

And, their star is still on the rise. Ryanhood was recently named the “Discovery of the Year” by John Platt at WFUV in New York City, and was a featured act at Australia’s National Folk Festival in 2018. 

Their latest album Under the Leaves, sees the pair’s lead guitarist Ryan David Green stepping into the role of sole producer, weaving a tapestry of lush strings and rich harmonies. The album, like their shows, is driven by strong acoustic guitar performances and is at turns energetic, hopeful, and quietly moving—a musical invitation to breathe, and to soak in a river of melodies and harmonic hooks.

Cameron Hood, the band’s primary lyricist, has waded into those musical rivers with dream-like verses about seeds and forests, breath and wind, and the cycles and seasons that frame our lives. Throughout the album’s songs, a question is asked: How do we create meaningful and lasting change in a world filled with division and turmoil? The offer on Under the Leaves is to slow down and face the one thing we have the power to change - ourselves - as the duo sings on the album’s second track, “the only revolution is the one within.”

Green and Hood currently reside in their hometown of Tucson, Arizona, where they have won more than a dozen Tucson Music Awards including “Best Folk Band” and “Best Rock Band” (you can decide for yourself which is most accurate).

Glenn Thomas

Photo credit: Deven Bussey

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Glenn Thomas writes songs that cut straight to his truths. By putting his life and the human condition under the microscope, Glenn’s songs articulately observe the big questions with small details. Raised in a small New England town, Glenn writes with careful attention to his understanding of himself and the seasonality of life.

Glenn’s songs have been praised by press and songwriting veterans alike, and has led him to perform across the country with national acts such as Langhorne Slim, The Barr Brothers, Blitzen Trapper, Eve6, Watsky, Rubblebucket, and many others. With the alternative-rock outfit he fronts, Wild Sun, his music has been featured in Rolling Stone, Billboard, Spin, and Entertainment Weekly, as well as a cover of Elliott Smith’s “Easy Way Out” on the nationally acclaimed “Say Yes! A Tribute to Elliott Smith” album featuring J. Mascis, Julien Baker, and Amanda Palmer.

Glenn is currently living in Nashville and finishing his debut solo album with producer Jordan Lehning. It is set to be released in early 2020.