Free Throw and Sloy Joy will be making at stop at The Green Room in Minneapolis on June 12th.
Free Throw:
Two years before emo/indie rock outfit Free Throw formed in Nashville, the Memphis Grizzlies made national headlines for their “grit and grind.” Some not familiar with basketball may assume this was another phrase describing the team’s tireless work ethic. Journalists and analysts claimed this “grit and grind” was their disruptive defense. A ‘free throw’ is usually given to a player disrupted by defense — so while unintentionally borrowing the ethos of their home state’s NBA franchise, Free Throw went on the offensive.
Consider the band’s signature play: a three-guitar attack which stacks raw immediacy with large-scale aspirations. Sometimes this arrangement is abrasive; other times it’s more nuanced. What connects these two different threads is Cory Castro’s frayed vocals, gaining their power from a violent shout and their confessions from a measured whimper.
Combine that range with a set of lyrical themes that play out like an uneasy three-way phone call and what remains fills speakers with a darkness offset by instrumentals which sway and bend with warm nostalgia.
But what fills most of Free Throw’s golden playbook is a commitment to winning their own way. After strings of DIY touring circuits and an intense love affair with their van, it’s clear to see their blooming, road-tested legacy answers to no one but their enthusiastic audiences. With their live sets packing rooms across the country, not without alcohol and crowd sing-alongs in tow, it seems this grind has paid off so far, with the grit packing their songs with not just unrelenting talent, but the forward-thinking energy to match.
Slow Joy:
Slow Joy, the solo project of Dallas based, New Mexican born Chicano artist Esteban Flores, is excited to embark on a North American tour this spring.
News of the Spring tour comes following the announcement of Slow Joy’s new studio EP Mi Amigo Slow Joy. Due out on June 7th, 2024 via Mick Music (pre-order/pre-save HERE), the EP was produced by Mike Sapone (Oso Oso, The Front Bottoms, Grouplove) and follows 2023’s Wildflower EP. Fans got their first taste of what’s to come sonically when Slow Joy dropped new single “Pulling Teeth” – listen HERE and watch HERE. His growth as a songwriter and musician can be heard on the Foo Fighters-meets-Pixies single which features crisper arrangements within the simmering mixes, an accomplishment Flores credits Sapone for helping him to achieve.
Flores first started releasing singles under the moniker Slow Joy in 2020 and by 2022 the project gained momentum via a pair of singles – “Crawling” and “Soft Slam” – that accumulated millions of views on TikTok and secured impressive playlist placements. These early singles featured a sensitive combination of soaring space rock, noisy shoegaze, and dynamic post-rock. In 2023 he released the Wildflower EP, written by Flores in part as a way to help him process the death of his mother as well as exploring the external influences impacting his life. Now in 2024 with Mi Amigo Slow Joy, Flores is turning the lens at himself and what he thinks about the world. In addition to the change of perspective and the sonic growth with the help of Sapone, it was important to Flores that the EP’s visuals and title reflect his Hispanic heritage and culture. “Naming it Mi Amigo Slow Joy is like, ‘Hey, this is rock music. It’s serious, and it’s important, and it’s me.’ And one thing that is me is being a Mexican-American person, and being proud of that culture, and showing it off.”
Kicking the night off will be Heart To Gold so get there early!
Tickets are still available HERE!
