Five must-see bands at this year's Mile of Music
By Scott Peeples
The widely popular Mile of Music Festival happening in Downtown Appleton July 31 through Aug. 3 is a lot to navigate. While there is no wrong way to have fun at the Mile, a heads up on who to see can make it an especially enjoyable experience.
With almost 200 performers and an additional 40 interactive music sessions being presented by the Music Education Team, the time to make a plan is now. Here are five “must see” bands at this year’s festival along with information on the Lawrence University Chamber Festival collaboration and an overview of the Music Education Team offerings.
ADMIRAL RADIO
While picking the most outstanding act at the Mile of Music festival is a precarious precipice to climb, this year Admiral Radio is that must-see band, rising to the top of the mountain from a throng of remarkable acts from regions near and far. Hailing from Columbia, S.C., wife-and-husband duo Becca Smith and Coty Hoover are miles beyond tug. They yank at your heartstrings with impeccable vocal harmonies that celebrate the human spirit. Blended voices soar over acoustic guitar on “Look Back and Learn” from their 2024 album “Good Things Take Time.” Through alternating lead vocals, the duo offers “Love You Somehow,” from the same release, as a love letter written amidst the anguish after a spouse dies. And the perfect all-ages track, “Cotton Candy Sky,” from their brand new release, “Consider Me a Lighthouse” elicits an eager baby smile as easily as it fits on a newly married couple’s mixtape. I want to walk right by your side/ beneath a cotton candy sky/ And if you ask me how I feel I’ll tell the truth/And when you don’t feel like enough/I’m gonna try to fill your cup/I want to do this life with you.
It’s hard to pinpoint what makes their sound so unique. Hoover calls it the honesty of an acoustic guitar, kismet harmonies and palpable emotion in the lyrics. Smith holds up the collision of the couple’s influences, which include the Weepies, Glen Campbell, Townes Van Zandt and the Carter Family. Together, the shared humanity conveyed in their songs evokes the mellifluous beauty of The Civil Wars at their peak. They describe their songwriting as evolving with time, as we do as people. They sing in the sorrow and joys of life. That said, the lyrical steadfastness of an old wooden radio – “I want to do this life with you” – already defines them.
AKI KING
“There are some guitar players that are good. There are some players who are really good and then there is Kaki King.”
That was adulation from none other than rock icon Dave Grohl: Just what Kaki King was hoping for, to be recognized for her technique and tone. Throughout a difficult childhood, Brooklyn’s experimental rock star surrounded herself with music to get through those early years and emerged an impresario. King writes and performs instrumental electronic music, driven by guitar histrionics, fast, frenetic, refracted sounds, at once dimly lit and flashy, one hand over another, slapping, tapping, percussive and acoustic. In some of her shows, she maps her guitar with resplendent images triggered by the volume and tone of the notes she is playing – a miniature laser light show, literally in the hands of a guitarist.
But close your eyes and the music is just as illuminating with soundscapes reminiscent of John Fahey, Steve Howe or “I Robot”-era Alan Parsons Project. She specifically credits slap funk guitarist Preston Reed and new age guitar guru Michael Hedges as her greatest inspirations. For King, 45, it’s been a long career now – almost 20 years since Grohl helped roust her from the shade. “Everybody Loves You” was her debut in 2003 and 2020’s “Modern Yesterdays,” her ninth and most recent studio release.
On “Forms of Light and Death” from that album, King commences with a baleful tone, meandering, sliding between tunings, searching, then drifting, floating inside herself. Punctuated finger flicks, a symphony of calm underscores the dimly lit. Then suddenly the simplicity of the guitar stands alone. An introduction to something bigger, stairway to nirvana, all that glitters is gold, glimmers, floats some more and then fades, as gently as it began.
HAYLEY REARDON
Every year, one singer-songwriter stands above the rest. For Mile of Music 12, that is 28-year old Hayley Reardon. Growing up in the coastal town of Marblehead, Massachusetts, Reardon’s contemplative and curious nature evolved into a heart-strong dedication to music, performance, composition and personal discovery. On her family’s answering machine, 11-year old Hayley’s recorded voice asked callers to reveal their favorite singer, right after their message. Her grandma’s pick, recorded in what she remembers as that “squeaky little grandma voice,” was Patsy Cline (a later inspiration for Reardon’s song, “200 Years.”) Her grandma became just one of Reardon’s muses in her musical journey. These days her concerts, replete with emotive storytelling, feature her resolutely melodic voice and complementary acoustic guitar.
Reardon’s raison d’etre is carved from a decade of performing and recording in Nashville and all over Europe, unearthing the many facets of herself, the liveliness of flamenco guitar and Catalan, the historically rich music linked to the Spanish region of Catalonia. Her 2023 EP, “Changes,” features the title track duet with famed Catalan singer Judit Nedderman. In an era of bitter polarization, hearing verses sung in alternating languages is a rainbow of hope in a brooding sky.
On four albums, four EPs and over 85 original songs, Reardon’s lyrics invariably delve deep to the depths of the soul. From “The Longest Year: Clearest water, brightest day/ I can't take back anything I say/ So I don't/ Patience, everybody's yelling your name/Gracious, can't you feel them coming like rain. And to end the song: It should feel good to be no, no, nobody. On her latest single, “After Everything,” Reardon admits her coming of age journey, reflecting back to that squeaky little grandma voice, is an ongoing mystery . . . “in the blurriness of later.”
McKINLEY JAMES
McKinley James is a good-mood, smooth-rhythm 1954 Stratocaster, Ford Thunderbird, Howlin' Wolf, slicked back, rockabilly baby swaddled in blues guitar without a whiff of maybe. James, playing as a duo with his dad, drummer Jason Smay, is a sure thing, the perfect complement to the Americana, indie-rock vibe that dominates the Mile of Music. While their Booker-T/Stevie Ray-Vaughan-blues-inspired sound is undeniably retro, James’ authentic energy reminds us that great beats never fade if they keep getting played. James’ 2024 debut studio album, “Working Class Blues,” is the synthesis of immersive study of the masters and his dedication to the Nashville dive bar scene. He sings and plays guitar with his father working the drum kit. Having played with JD McPherson and Los Straightjackets (that instrumental band whose members famously wear Mexican wrestling masks), dad’s been honing, inspiring and teaching his progeny since the preteen years. Nowadays, Smay adeptly keeps time without shifting attention from James. Taken by the groove, we’ll all just be closing our eyes and smiling anyway. *DEBUT
JORDAN SMART
While there are dozens of fine singer songwriters at Mile of Music 12, it’s irresponsible to pass over a folk artist with songs like “Who Would Jesus Bomb” or “The Pickle Song,” a humorous indictment of prejudice and border walls. Born and raised in Ohio, 31 year-old Jordan Smart is the genial antidote to the make-hate-great-again epoch created by Trump. While Smart's faster acoustic guitar-driven songs are affecting, his slower message songs are equally impactful. “Heart of It All,” from his 2017 debut, is an everyman’s lament that Neil Young or John Prine would love to claim. The guitar line is as heart-rending as the lyrics.
In addition to Prine, for whom he wrote a song (“Song For Prine”) and Young, another apparent Smart influence is the fingerstyle guitar playing of John Fahey. With an occasional squealing of the brakes vocal, there are also shades of Mile of Music veterans Chicago Farmer, Langhorn Slim and Austin Lucas in his work.
But the “Pickle Song” is Smart’s smarts. Cuz them no good lousy pickles they just sit there and ferment/they're worse than couch potatoes and my taxes pay their rent/see the problem with this picture is that pickles got it good/I say we drive them pickles out of our nice neighborhoods/you know they don't speak English/can't speak at all/think I might just build myself a stupid anti-pickle wall. And as a final poke at Trump, Jordan Smart would make ‘em pay for it.
LAWRENCE CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL, featuring Whitney Monge, PEGASIS, Natural Satellite and BODHI
Many of Mile of Music’s most memorable moments have been at the Lawrence Memorial Chapel, one of countless examples of how Lawrence University and the Mile of Music have been inextricably connected since the festival debuted in Appleton in 2013. In recent years, the Lawrence Chamber Music Festival within the Mile festival has solidified that partnership.
While Americana is still the preeminent genre of the Mile, morning chamber music shows from Lawrence Chamber Music Festival musicians have been an ultra-cool way for Mile of Music fans to kick off the day before the rock and roll begins. Lawrence students and faculty, international touring guest artists and pre-professional music students from around the world take part in a two-week chamber program that starts July 21 and continues through the Mile. Instrumental selections, featuring both classical and current composers, are both exhilarating and meditative.
Michael Mizrahi, director of Lawrence Summer Music Programs, keeps finding ways to bring classical or chamber style music to new audiences. At the Mile, the cross-genre collaborations with Mile of Music artists are always highly anticipated. For Mile 12, the Lawrence Chamber Music Festival will once again be teaming with Mile artist Pegasis. Formed by sisters Rissel, Yaina and Marvelis Peguero Almonte and deft guitarist Matt Hillman in 2016, the roots of Pegasis date back to three sisters’ musical ministry with their parents in the Dominican Republic, where they were born. Matt and Rissel became musical partners (and eventually life partners) when they met in the UW-Green Bay music program in 2014. And they eventually found their way back to the family band.
While Marvelis has since moved to Europe, Rissel and Yaina provide the vocal harmonies and emotional spirit of Pegasis. As genre-less as they are jazzy, their cross-cultural musicality draws influences from jazz, funk, bachata, classical, and various corners of world music. The band, which now includes bassist Tony Pesvento and drummer Jeremy Seelig, has become a Mile of Music stalwart. Their musical vision is to accept each other as part of the global collective they call humanity.
Also teaming up with the chamber festival will be Menasha’s Natural Satellite, the husband and wife duo of Karli Reisdorf (cello and vocals) and Jason Reisdorf (saxophone); BODHI, aka Bodhi Kitt, a 23-year old folk/hip hop artist from Bridgeport, Connecticut who rejoices in a Joy Oladokun/Hozier sound; and Whitney Monge, veteran Americana soul singer songwriter from Seattle. There will be five chamber music festival concerts, Thursday through Saturday, beginning with an 11 a.m. concert at the Lawrence Memorial Chapel on day one. In addition to their Lawrence Chamber Music Festival collaborations, Pegasis, the Reisdorfs, BODHI and Monge all perform multiple times at Mile 12.
MUSIC EDUCATION TEAM
Music is a birthright. Leila Ramagopal Pertl’s trademark expression is as indelible to the Mile of Music as Houdini Plaza, listening rooms and Americana itself. When Lawrence University bid a heartfelt farewell to Pertl at the end of the school year, the community also lost the heart and curator behind the Mile of Music’s Music Education Team. Each year these musical educators expand the festival from mere performance to immersive experience.
While Pertl and her husband, former Lawrence dean Brian Pertl, are embarking on new adventures in Denver, they’re back for Mile of Music 12. The team is dozens of eager educators encouraging children and adults alike to sing, play instruments, dance and become song writers at any of 40 interactive workshops. Beginning Friday (August 1) at 9:30 a.m. and running through Sunday at 3 p.m., Mile-goers can try their hand at guitar, fiddle, ukelele, harmonica, drums, gongs, pBone (a brightly colored “brass” instrument), metallophones and the didgeridoo and experience cultural music and dance from the Dominican Republic, Ireland, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil, Ghana and Australia.
There are workshops on songwriting, inclusive music-making, an introduction to music for small children and on a final positive note, the On a Positive Note Choir comprised of folks with memory and cognitive challenges. From uke strums to sambas to didgeridoo, music is a birthright. These songs are for you.
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While the Mile of Music is a free festival, you can support the festival and ensure its future sustainability by donating to the non-profit organization Appleton Community Music https://www.appletoncommunitymusic.org/
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