“Like the best classic albums, its
pleasures run deep.” - Pop Matters
“Like a cocaine-fuelled jam
between David Bowie, John Lennon and Leon Russell, the Louisiana-bred,
Portland-based rocker would’ve played Max’s Kansas City” [8/10] - Uncut
Kyle Craft & Showboat Honey’s new full-length Showboat Honey is out today July 12th,
2019 worldwide from Sub Pop. The album, which features the singles &
official videos for “Broken Mirror Pose,”“2 Ugly 4 NY,” and “Deathwish Blue,” was recorded and produced by Kyle
Craft, Kevin Clark, and Billy Slater at their own Moonbase Studios in Portland
over 2018. The album was mixed by Trevor Spencer and mastered by April Golden
at Golden Mastering. Stream it now on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Music.
Showboat Honey is available through Sub Pop Mega Mart. Purchases of the LP through
megamart.subpop.com and select independent
retailers in North America, the UK and Europe will receive the limited Loser edition on a clear
blue translucent mix with spots red hi-melt (while supplies last). There is also a new T-shirt design
available.
Kyle Craft and Showboat Honey Tour Dates + Ticket Links
Kyle Craft & Showboat Honey’s previously
announced headlining dates for 2019 in support of the album resume tonight,
July 12th in Seattle with an in-store at Easy Street Records, and currently end
on August 24th in San Francisco at Cafe Du Nord.
Jul. 12 - Seattle, WA - Easy Street Records instore Jul. 13 - Seattle, WA - Ballard Seafood Fest Jul. 14 - Spokane, WA - The Bartlett Jul. 15 - Billings, MT - Pub Station Taproom Jul. 17 - St. Paul, MN - Turf Club Jul. 18 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle Jul. 19 - Louisville, KY - Jimmy Can’t Dance Jul. 20 - Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop Jul. 22 - Toronto, ON - Horseshoe Tavern Jul. 23 - Northampton, MA - Iron Horse Jul. 24 - Allston, MA - Great Scott Jul. 26 - Newport, RI - Newport Folk (Museum Stage) Jul. 30 - Woodstock, NY - Colony Aug. 01 - Brooklyn, NY - Baby’s All Right Aug. 02 - Philadelphia, PA - Boot & Saddle Aug. 04 - Washington, DC - Pearl Street Warehouse Aug. 05 - Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle Aug. 06 - Athens, GA - Georgia Theater Rooftop Aug. 07 - Atlanta, GA - The Earl Aug. 08 - Birmingham, AL - Saturn Aug. 09 - Nashville, TN - The Basement Aug. 10 - Oxford, MS - Proud Larry’s Aug. 11 - New Orleans, LA - One-Eyed Jacks Aug. 14 - Shreveport, LA - Minicine Aug. 15 - Dallas, TX - Three Links Aug. 16 - Austin, TX - The Mohawk Aug. 18 - Phoenix, AZ - The Valley Bar Aug. 19 - Tucson, AZ - 191 Toole Aug. 22 - San Diego, CA - Soda Bar Aug. 23 - Los Angeles, CA - The Moroccan Aug. 24 - San Francisco, CA - Cafe Du Nord
What “The People” are saying about Kyle
Craft & Showboat Honey:
“Kyle
Craft and his backing band Showboat Honey provide a glam-tastic Bowie-esque
joyride, full of meaty Stones riffs and sprinkled with caustic soda lyrics that
a true Dylan devotee has processed and posted from the heart.” [4/5]- NARC
“The
result is a cohesive set of tracks centered around a rough patch that hit at
the same time as Craft was falling in love…Fans of his glam rock-influenced
sound will find plenty to latch onto.” - Billboard
“Having
been the darling of the moment when his solo debut was first released, Craft
clearly shows that he has more to offer than just being that guy with wild hair
that sounds like someone else. He has a range and depth that is showcased
beautifully on this new album, his third on Sub Pop, and first as Kyle Craft
& Showboat Honey. “ - Eleven PDX
“On
the track, his typically wailing voice is stunted by almost spoken-word verses
that ride along with a slow-rolling piano progression. It’s a suspense-building
element that pays off when the song eventually crashes into a wave of horns,
electric guitars and sheer swagger.” [“Broken Mirror Pose”/ Heavy Rotation] - World
Cafe
“A
glammy, ’70s style anthem with a soaring chorus.” [“Broken Mirror Pose”] - Brooklyn Vegan
“Craft,
whose lyrics and electric guitar hooks have drawn comparisons to Bob Dylan and
The Rolling Stones, is no stranger to vintage sounds.” [“Broken Mirror
Pose”] - PASTE
“Craft
has brought his signature twang into a more Raconteurs-esque world with his
latest release.” [2 Ugly 4 NY] - Alt Citizen
Craft had this to say of the visual, “I can’t dance and my fiancée Lydia isn’t the biggest fan of it either…we’d actually never danced together before the shoot. We wanted to have fun and aim for a Pulp Fiction vibe. So, I just slicked back the mop, cranked Spirit in the Sky over the bar speakers, and we went for it.”
Kyle Craft and Showboat Honey Tour Dates + Ticket Links
Kyle Craft & Showboat Honey’s previously announced headlining dates for 2019 in support of the album begin July 11th in Portland at Mississippi Studios and currently end on August 24th in San Francisco at Cafe Du Nord.
Jul. 11 - Portland, OR - Mississippi Studios Jul. 13 - Seattle, WA - Ballard Seafood Fest Jul. 14 - Spokane, WA - The Bartlett Jul. 15 - Billings, MT - Pub Station Taproom Jul. 17 - St. Paul, MN - Turf Club Jul. 18 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle Jul. 19 - Louisville, KY - Jimmy Can’t Dance Jul. 20 - Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop Jul. 22 - Toronto, ON - Horseshoe Tavern Jul. 23 - Northampton, MA - Iron Horse Jul. 24 - Allston, MA - Great Scott Jul. 26 - Newport, RI - Newport Folk (Museum Stage) Jul. 30 - Woodstock, NY - Colony Aug. 01 - Brooklyn, NY - Baby’s All Right Aug. 02 - Philadelphia, PA - Boot & Saddle Aug. 04 - Washington, DC - Pearl Street Warehouse Aug. 05 - Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle Aug. 06 - Athens, GA - Georgia Theater Rooftop Aug. 07 - Atlanta, GA - The Earl Aug. 08 - Birmingham, AL - Saturn Aug. 09 - Nashville, TN - The Basement Aug. 10 - Oxford, MS - Proud Larry’s Aug. 11 - New Orleans, LA - One Eyed Jacks Aug. 14 - Shreveport, LA - Minicine Aug. 15 - Dallas, TX - Three Links Aug. 16 - Austin, TX - The Mohawk Aug. 18 - Phoenix, AZ - The Valley Bar Aug. 19 - Tucson, AZ - 191 Toole Aug. 22 - San Diego, CA - Soda Bar Aug. 23 - Los Angeles, CA - The Moroccan Aug. 24 - San Francisco, CA - Cafe Du Nord
Showboat Honey was recorded and produced by Kyle Craft, Kevin Clark, and Billy Slater at their own Moonbase Studios in Portland over 2018. The album was mixed by Trevor Spencer and mastered by April Golden at Golden Mastering.
Showboat Honey is now available for preorder through Sub Pop Mega Mart. Preorders of the LP through megamart.subpop.com and select independent retailers in North America, the UK and Europe will receive the limited Loser edition on a clear blue translucent mix with spots red hi-melt (while supplies last). There will also be a new T-shirt design available.
‘Showboat Honey’ out July 12th worldwide on Sub Pop
Kyle Craft & Showboat Honey have delivered an official video for “Broken Mirror Pose,” a highlight from Showboat Honey, the group’s forthcoming album, out July 12th worldwide from Sub Pop. The performance-based visual was directed by the band.
Craft had this to say of the visual, “We shot “Broken Mirror Pose” at Moonbase Studios, which is where we tracked the entire record ourselves! This one was 95% DIY, much like the album. I built out a room inside of the main studio room and my pal, Bryson Cone, showed me how to edit afterward, letting me take the wheel once I had a little know how.”
Kyle Craft & Showboat Honey Tour Dates
Kyle Craft & Showboat Honey are also announcing new headlining dates for 2019 in support of the album, which begin July 11th in Portland at Mississippi Studios and currently end on August 24th in San Francisco at Cafe Du Nord.
Jul. 11 - Portland, OR - Mississippi Studios Jul. 13 - Seattle, WA - Ballard Seafood Fest Jul. 14 - Spokane, WA - The Bartlett Jul. 15 - Billings, MT - Pub Station Taproom Jul. 17 - St. Paul, MN - Turf Club Jul. 18 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle Jul. 19 - Louisville, KY - Jimmy Can’t Dance Jul. 20 - Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop Jul. 22 - Toronto, ON - Horseshoe Tavern Jul. 23 - Northampton, MA - Iron Horse Jul. 24 - Allston, MA - Great Scott Jul. 30 - Woodstock, NY - Colony Aug. 01 - Brooklyn, NY - Baby’s All Right Aug. 02 - Philadelphia, PA - Boot & Saddle Aug. 04 - Washington, DC - Pearl Street Warehouse Aug. 05 - Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle Aug. 06 - Athens, GA - Georgia Theater Rooftop Aug. 07 - Atlanta, GA - The Earl Aug. 08 - Birmingham, AL - Saturn Aug. 09 - Nashville, TN - The Basement Aug. 10 - Oxford, MS - Proud Larry’s Aug. 11 - New Orleans, LA - One Eyed Jacks Aug. 14 - Shreveport, LA - Minicine Aug. 15 - Dallas, TX - Three Links Aug. 16 - Austin, TX - The Mohawk Aug. 18 - Phoenix, AZ - The Valley Bar Aug. 19 - Tucson, AZ - 191 Toole Aug. 22 - San Diego, CA - Soda Bar Aug. 23 - Los Angeles, CA - The Moroccan Aug. 24 - San Francisco, CA - Cafe Du Nord
Showboat Honey was recorded and produced by Kyle Craft, Kevin Clark, and Billy Slater at their own Moonbase Studios in Portland over 2018. The album was mixed by Trevor Spencer and mastered by April Golden at Golden Mastering.
Showboat Honey is now available for preorder through Sub Pop Mega Mart. Preorders of the LP through megamart.subpop.com and select independent retailers in North America, the UK and Europe will receive the limited Loser edition on a clear blue translucent mix with spots red hi-melt (while supplies last). There will also be a new T-shirt design available.
Watch Kyle Craft & Showboat Honey’s official video for lead single “2 Ugly 4 NY” from Showboat Honey, their forthcoming new album, available worldwide July 12th, 2019 from Sub Pop. The video is directed by Eleanor Petry, and stars bandleader Craft as Hobo Grimm, a skeleton-faced busker. He says of the video, “Eleanor and I were aiming to snag that “day in the life” feel, following old Hobo Grim around downtown tryin’ to make the illusive busker’s dollar and then heading off into the night to blow it.”
Showboat Honey was recorded and produced by Kyle Craft, Kevin Clark, and Billy Slater at their own Moonbase Studios in Portland over 2018. The album was mixed by Trevor Spencer (Father John Misty) and mastered by April Golden at Golden Mastering.
Showboat Honey is now available for preorder through Sub Pop Mega Mart. Preorders of the LP through megamart.subpop.com and select independent retailers in North America, the UK and Europe will receive the limited Loser edition on a clear blue translucent mix with spots red hi-melt (while supplies last). There will also be a new T-shirt design available.
Showboat Honey Tracklisting:
1. Broken Mirror Pose 2. O! Lucky Hand 3. 2 Ugly 4 NY 4. Blackhole/Joyride 5. Bed of Needles #2 6. Deathwish Blue 7. Blood in the Water 8. Buzzkill Caterwaul 9. Sunday Driver 10. Johnny (Free & Easy) 11. She’s Lily Riptide
[Photo Credit: Peter Karaviaw]
About Showboat Honey: There is this curious equilibrium to existence: In order to create balance, the universe must giveth, and the universe must taketh. Kyle Craft, along with his now solidified backing band dubbed Showboat Honey, know this all too well. And this is why their self-titled album, the contemplative yet restless Showboat Honey (Sub Pop Records, July 12th, 2019) reflects that sturm und drang. “This is basically an album centered around bad luck and good fortune hitting at the same time,” Craft explains “Then, out of nowhere, I find love. Everything went to shit except that. I guess that’s how life works.”
No track better captures this duality than the sweeping “Sunday Driver,” about sticking to your guns, despite a universe of blowback. “At this point, you get baptized by certain fires and start to walk with the dead a little bit, like nothing can harm you anymore,” says the Portland-based musician. “That’s what self-love sounds like to me, as aggressive as that sounds.”
The sticky-sweet title of the album is lifted from the brightly choral “Buzzkill Caterwaul” (“Once you were the showboat honey/ But your ship sailed out”). “I wanted to make something that sounded like a raucous collision of Leon Russell and Patti Smith,” he says, “But ‘Buzzkill Caterwaul’ was the only tune that ended up showcasing that vision.”
Though aesthetics veer from song to song, Showboat Honey’s steadfast formula remains the same. Drummer Haven Mutlz holds down the machine with a ’60s/’70s fast-molasses groove that locks in with the slinky rolling bass of Billy Slater. When Kevin Clark isn’t bouncing across the piano, his mellotron strings swell in and out of frame. Jack of all trades Ben Steinmetz’s organ parts well up from the deep of the songs, while lead guitarist Jeremy Kale’s solos rip through them like electricity. On top of it all, sits the tongue-in-cheek phantasmagoria created by Craft’s lyrics.
Lyrically, perspectives shift to imbue life into a cast of intriguing, mysterious characters, à la Bob Dylan. (“There is not a single thing in my life that has affected me more than the first time I heard Dylan,” says Craft. “It immediately changed my life.”) “Johnny (Free & Easy)” is seemingly about a date gone awry at a swinger’s party in the Hollywood Hills. And the twangy pop of “O! Lucky Hand” appears to shadow a poor sod desperate to elude a hex. Its antidote is the stunning, cinematic “Deathwish Blue,” which sounds like a deep cut from the book of John Lennon, about the lovesick salvation found in his bride to be, Lydia.
If that’s not head-trippy enough, the carefree sing-along “2 Ugly 4 NY” features a lyrical reference to a previous incarnation of Craft. Its lyrics—“Don’t wanna see Death strum for cash downtown/ Or the look on his face when the change hits the case on the ground”—call out his early days in Portland when he went by the moniker of Hobo Grim. Busking downtown, he’d cover country tunes while dressed as the Grim Reaper so as to conceal his true identity.
Craft started writing about as soon as he could play the guitar at the age of 15. He grew up in the isolated Mississippi River town of Vidalia, Louisiana where his chops weren’t honed in a woodshed, but rather an old, dingy meat freezer that was out of commission. When asked about the first song he’d ever written, he laughs, saying it was an “angsty-rock tune” and “a rare bird of how bad a song could be.”
After years of touring, two LPs with Sub Pop Records, and solidifying the band, he’s since grown into a prodigious songwriter, to say the least. The band recorded Showboat Honey—co-produced by Craft, Clark, and Slater—at their own Moonbase Studios in Portland over 2018. “We approached this record differently for sure,” Craft says. “I’d make a demo, and after putting the songs together, shoot it to the band for ideas.” Tracks such as “Broken Mirror Pose” ended up being highly collaborative, while others settled into Craft’s original vision. “Deathwish Blue,” for instance, was tracked in a similar fashion to his solo debut, Dolls of Highland, with Craft tracking every instrument by himself.
Kyle and the members of Showboat Honey worked at such a feverish wine-fueled pace that they actually ended up with two completely different albums. But at the end of the day, they decided to combine the two into what is now Showboat Honey,a moonstruck rock ’n’ roll record teeming with reckless abandon.
“We thought we had the album done at one point. But at the last minute, I was like, ‘Shit, this isn’t the album. This isn’t it,’” Kyle says. “It was just a gut feeling. I’m glad for that because I feel like I ended up writing some of the best songs I’ve ever written.”
In lieu of a proper showcase this year, Sub Pop and Hardly Art artists Bully, Kyle Craft, La Luz, METZ, Moaning and Dick Stusso will be performing in Austin, Texas next week. Below you will find a detailed schedule of our artists shows, as well as sampling of their music. See ya down there!
“When Kyle Craft’s heart breaks, it shoots glitter and confetti—by the time he hits the chorus, the song has erupted into a tempest of sassy brass, swirling organs, and hip-swiveling boogie.” [“Heartbreak Junky”] - Pitchfork
Full Circle Nightmare is earning Craft some of the best reviews of his career. “Unabashed odes to courtship, confusion and the timeless power of storytelling in song,” says NPR Music. And Pop Matters raves, “It blows away a debut album that was already damn near flawless.”
Kyle Craft’s previously announced 2018 tour schedule in support of Full Circle Nightmare spans March 5th in San Francisco at Cafe Du Nord through April 20th in Charlottesville at Jefferson Theatre. Highlights include a full headlining tour (March 5th-April 4th), appearances at SXSW (March 12th-16th) and a direct support slot opening for Dr. Dog (April 6th-20th).
Preceding the spring dates, Craft continues his Pacific Northwest week-of-release run with his sold-out show tonight at Portland’s Doug Fir (Feb. 2nd).
Feb. 02 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir [Sold Out]
Mar. 05 - San Francisco, CA - Cafe Du Nord
Mar. 07 - Los Angeles, CA - The Morroccan Lounge
Mar. 08 - San Diego, CA - The Casbah
Mar. 12 - Austin, TX - SXSW
Mar. 13 - Austin, TX - SXSW
Mar. 14 - Austin, TX - SXSW
Mar. 15 - Austin, TX - SXSW
Mar. 16 - Austin, TX - SXSW
Mar. 17 - Shreveport, LA - Red River District
Mar. 21 - Nashville, TN - The Basement
Mar. 22 - Atlanta, GA - The Earl
Mar. 23 - Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle
Mar. 24 - Washington, DC - Pearl Street Warehouse
Mar. 26 - Philadelphia, PA - Boot & Saddle
Mar. 27 - Brooklyn, NY - Baby’s All Right
Mar. 28 - Allston, MA - Great Scott
Mar. 30 - South Burlington, VT - Higher Ground Showcase Lounge
Apr. 02 - Toronto, ON - Smiling Buddha
Apr. 03 - Columbus, OH - The Basement
Apr. 04 - Chicago, IL - Schubas
Apr 06 - Louisville, KY - Mercury Ballroom*
Apr 08 - Columbia, MO - Blue Note*
Apr 09 - Fayetteville, AR - George’s Majestic Lounge*
